EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (207 page)

Jade realized that it perfectly matched the description of a monster Halfax spoke of in his nightly story, a beast he called a dragoyle. As it drew closer, Jade could see that it bore a passenger, a black-cloaked figure. Before she could make out any more details, beast and rider dipped down below the treetops, striking the ground hard enough for the frightened girl to feel it even at the top of the tower.

Halfax stalked low to the ground, keeping a dense stand of trees between himself and the intruder. He’d never faced a dragoyle before, but he’d learned much from his mother. Most of what he’d learned told him that he did not want to tangle with the beast if he didn’t have to. At the moment, it had not yet noticed him, so it was of little concern. The dragon focused on the rider. Its scent was unfamiliar, a human woman. She seemed unsteady on the dragoyle’s back, one hand held in a white-knuckled grip upon the edge of an ancient-looking saddle. The other hand was held low, gripping something hidden from view. He felt something about her. It was not something that he could see or smell or hear. It was a sensation deeper than that. Something powerful, ominous.

He kept pace as beast and rider crept forward, moving in a meandering path among the trees. They moved erratically, as though the rider was not fully in control of her mount. Under her inexpert guidance the beast stumbled and pitched, taking sudden steps and then overcompensating in the other direction. Cursing under her breath, the woman nearly lost her balance as the dragoyle shuffled into a tree. In raising her other hand to keep from falling, she revealed an ornately carved staff.

The sight sparked a memory deep in the dragon’s mind. He knew that sensation, the force growing stronger in waves. It was magic. She was a sorceress, and for him to feel the pressure of her will at this distance, she was a powerful one. Whether the power was her own or flowing from her weapon didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he had no defense against magic. His thick hide could turn away arrows and swords, searing fire and icy water. His claws could cleave the thickest armor, but fighting magic was like fighting the wind. There was simply nothing for him to sink his teeth into. His only hope was to get his claws into the mystic before she could bring her strength to bear. If he could reach her before she could gather a spell, she was flesh and blood just like anyone else. She would fall.

Halfax thundered forward with a speed that would be startling even for a creature half his size. The spellcaster’s head snapped toward him, genuine terror in her eyes. A panicked word, unmistakably arcane, sputtered from her lips. The dragon’s eyes narrowed, his muscles tensing in preparation for an attack, but her staff remained dim. Instead, the sluggish, unguided creature she rode suddenly seemed to come alive. At the sound of what must have been a command, the monster pivoted to face the thundering dragon and opened its black maw.

A dragoyle was not born; it was constructed. A living weapon designed to utterly destroy all that it faced. As such, it was not fire that the beast breathed. That would be too clean, too brief. Instead, the creature exhaled a wretched black cloud that curled forth, sizzling and corroding everything it touched. It was nasty stuff, but slower than fire. Halfax dove aside without missing a step, drawing in breath for his own attack.

“Protect me, you blasted thing!” cried Damona desperately.

A lance of fire erupted from Halfax’s mouth, but the black beast reared and the flames splashed uselessly against its stony hide. The two beasts clashed. Massive swipes of stout, vicious claws revealed that the dragoyle was stronger by far than a mere difference in size could explain. Stone shattered to pebbles and trees splintered under the force of the blows--but such power came at the cost of agility. Halfax leaped and rolled, keeping himself a hairsbreadth from being torn apart. Every spare instant was spent attempting to pull the sorceress from its back. She had yet to put her staff to use, maddened eyes locked on the dragon and petrified limbs frozen in a death grip upon her steed’s harness.

Finally one of Halfax’s claws came near enough to tear at her cloak. It was enough to pull her from her shocked state and push her to action.

“In the air! In the air, dammit! Get me above this thing so I can rain hell on it!” Damona ordered.

The beast did not heed until she managed to string together a sequence of awkward syllables that must have been another command. Then it extended its wings and lurched skyward, shearing the branches from the nearest trees. Rhythmic thrusts of the powerful wings filled the forest with gale-force bursts as it slowly hauled itself into the air.

Halfax dashed into the shelter of a nearby stand of trees as another dose of miasma burst from the monster’s mouth and swirled chaotically in the whistling wind. A smile came to the face of the sorceress.

“Yes! Yes, run! Run!” she cried madly, raising her staff high.

In her voice, Halfax could hear a thrill, a confidence filling her to overflowing, a mad blood lust. She behaved as though she was invincible--but power wasn’t everything. Experience was the difference between a deadly wizard and a dead one, and to his trained eye, Damona’s inexperience was painfully clear. Her beast was strong, but it was slow and clumsy, even on the ground. Once in the air, it was all the monster could do to stay there. And she had raised her staff, the focus of her power, high into the air, making it a glaring and vulnerable target. The wings of her creature churned the air with an almost deafening roar, slicing sky and drowning out the beat of smaller wings. She began to stir the air with her weapon, voice forming twisted and otherworldly hexes. All the while, her eyes were trained at the ground, scanning the icy land below for Halfax, but he was not so foolish. He worked his wings, climbing as silently as he could until he was above her. Below, runes carved into the surface of her staff darkened. He began to dive, but a breath of wind from his wings betrayed him.

In more a panicked reflex than a mindful maneuver, Damona turned and spat a word of magic. A moment later and his jaws would have been about her. Instead, a wave of darkness launched from the staff, forcing Halfax to dive to avoid it. The more nimble dragon cut expertly through the air, evading sweeping tail, slashing claw, and crackling spell. A ball of destructive black magic wove drunkenly through the sky, arcing downward. Where the bolts of energy struck the ground, stone was shattered and trees were pulverized. A single stray attack might level the tower with Jade inside. This needed to end--now.

The noble beast grew more bold, and the wizard more desperate. Magic was taking its toll, though, and had she the mind to spare, Damona might have noticed that each blast leeched more color from her skin. Blackness was gathering around her eyes, and her nails were darkening as well. The spells were twisting her soul, draining her strength--but, as they did, her desire to strike down the dragon grew ever more intense. Fear turned to anger. How dare this beast presume to evade her? How dare it stand against her!? Her emotions were fanning the very flames that were consuming her.

“You will fall, beast! If you are too much of a coward to hold still, then I shall turn the very skies against you!”

A sequence of placeless, unnatural words began to flow from her mouth. They were no longer unsteady or clumsily phrased. Instead, they seemed to craft themselves, as though she were merely the vessel that gave them form. The incantation went to work, thickening and darkening the gray clouds above into an angry black sky. Wind whistled and howled, catching the dragon’s wings awkwardly and forcing him to struggle to keep his course. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed. A rain, heavy and constant, began to hammer down from a sky that had delivered naught but snow for years.

The frigid water soaked the sorceress to the bone, but she took no notice, eyes locked on the dragon struggling fruitlessly against the hostile wind. Damona guided the gale, hauling the dragon backward. Halfax trimmed his wings and pointed his nose into it, attempting to dive through the storm and back to the ground, but the force was too much, keeping him aloft despite his best efforts. The carefully crafted air current split to avoid the dragoyle, providing the mystic with a stationary target. A fresh bolt of black magic began to form.

The dragon looked back. He was making no progress, he couldn’t escape, and in moments she would release an attack easily twice the size of those that had made short work of trees moments earlier. Already he could feel the crackling power of it reaching toward him, like a ravenous attack dog straining at its leash. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to act now.

He flicked his wings backward, shifting them from a streamlined posture to great billowing sails. They caught the wind that had held him back, dragging him with it and launching him at the sorceress. A deft pivot brought his teeth and claws to bear an instant before he collided with his enemy with enough force to stagger even the massive dragoyle. His attack dug deep into the stony hide of the dragoyle and shattered the concentration that held both the wind and the bolt of magic in under Damona’s control. The wave of blackness splashed against dragon and dragoyle alike, sizzling each. Halfax shrugged off the furious burning and clamped his jaws on the monster’s wing.

Now caught in her own storm and entwined with a raging dragon, Damona’s monstrous mount began to plummet earthward.

Fear finally cutting through her damaged confidence, the sorceress turned her maddened eyes to the rapidly approaching ground. In stirring up the skies and hurling her attacks, she had guided the dragoyle high into the sky. If she didn’t stop her fall before the ground did, there was no way that she would survive. But panic was the enemy of precision, and as she fumbled through her mind for something that might be of some use, she instead settled on the one spell she could recall that she might be able to cast quickly enough to fell the dragon. She wrenched her staff free from the tangle, pointed it to the sky, and spoke the words of the spell.

Some distance away, Jade watched in terror as the spectacle high above the forest unfolded. In the darkness of the storm, she could not tell where Halfax ended and the dragoyle began, but they were both falling. She spoke a silent prayer and strained to see. Something was happening. The air around her felt tingly, and her hair was standing on end. Suddenly, the world went white. A brilliant flash of lightning split the sky, shaking the earth with the force of its thunder. The searing light burned a silhouette of the scene into her eyes. A streak of intensity traced a jagged path from clouds to forest, and passed through the distant, agonized form of her friend and protector. Tears in her eyes and anger in her heart, Jade rushed to the stairs.

A smoldering figure crashed to the earth below, tearing branches from trees. A moment later, the lurching form of the dragoyle followed suit, its rider shrieking a terrified and tortured attempt at a half a dozen different spells. She had not known that lightning was not a precise weapon, and Halfax had still been wrapped about the black beast when the bolt had struck. Charred, broken wings did little to slow the dragoyle’s fall, and it struck a stand of trees with force enough to level them and turn the monster to rubble.

For a time, all was still. No longer fueled by dark will, the storm subsided, rain pattering to a stop. Smoke rose slowly from the mound of broken wood that had once been a dense patch of forest. Then came a voice, quiet and hoarse, filtering through the debris. A hand, skin white as milk and nails black as night, thrust from the pile. The fingers were clinging to the impossibly intact staff. Tendrils of energy writhed across its surface, worming along the arm and into the rubble. Fragments began to drift into the air. First one by one, then by the dozen.

A pit was excavated, and from within rose Damona--or what was left of her. Burns covered her body. Bones were shattered, limbs twisted at grotesque angles. She croaked a few more words, each accompanied by coughs and sprays of blackened blood, and the magic went to work. Bones clicked and shifted back into place. Gashes closed, burns cleared, and her voice grew stronger. In seconds, she appeared whole once more . . . but much the worse for wear. Her features were sunken and drawn, skin almost translucent, showing black veins beneath. Her vision was an indistinct mass of blue and purple blotches, and her hearing was little more than a dull whistle, lingering effects from the bolt of lightning that she had no spell to heal. She wiped blood from the corner of her mouth, turning her gaze to the broken trees and the broken dragon that lay among them.

She raised her left hand high above her head, grip tight about the staff. Arcane words began to slip from her lips, conjuring forth a swirling darkness above her raised fingers. The gleam in her eye was maniacal. Each syllable caused the churning, crackling ball of black energy to swell. The dragon was already a motionless wreck, but she would leave nothing to chance. She would leave nothing at all.

When she was satisfied with its intensity, Damona made ready to release the vicious mass of magic. Suddenly, a hissing sound cut the air, an arrow slicing across the wizard’s arm. The pain was sudden and sharp enough to pull her mind from its task. Without concentration to maintain it, the spell scattered and dissipated, trailing long ebony streamers that withered and blackened all that they touched.

The injured spellcaster turned, fury in her eyes, to see Jade run desperately for the shelter of a nearby tree. Damona waved the staff over the wound. In seconds, it boiled away until only a thin black line remained. The grin on her face widened.

“I’m glad you left the tower, child. I was afraid I might damage it while looking for you. Now come here. This will be easier for you if you cooperate.”

Jade stepped from behind the tree and released another arrow. Damona spat a syllable and thrust the staff aside. A wave of force swept through the forest, deflecting the arrow, knocking Jade to the ground, and snapping away the smallest branches of a dozen trees.

“I won’t tell you again. Hold still and I’ll be gentle and quick. Do something stupid like run or fire another arrow and you’ll twist and burn.”