Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (69 page)

When the flames stopped roaring, leaving a path of burning roof in its wake, Tyndal poked his head around the ruined gable.  Azar was striding resolutely across the roof, his massive two-handed mageblade held at the ready.

“That
fucking idiot!”
Terleman swore.

“He’s going to get himself killed!” Rondal screamed.

“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” Tyndal said, in a quiet voice.  Azar was acting as if this was just another beast, another fight to win.  Even though the creature was a hundred times his mass.

“Get ready to come up on his left flank,” Terleman ordered, preparing another spell with his staff.  “If you hear the thing take a deep breath, and then smell gas, drop and cover!” he reminded them.

Tyndal nodded and frantically looked for another spell.  Something he knew would at least give the massive wyrm something to consider.  He had to be careful, though, he realized as he tried to pick out a route across the blazing rooftop.  One misstep, and he could find himself falling into the servant’s quarters of the Minister of Lands and Estates and not found until they cleaned up the ashes.

“CHARGE!” Terleman said, in that special commander’s voice that layered equal parts insistence and anticipation.  Tyndal’s feet were moving before his brain realized it, and in desperation he grabbed at the first high-potency spell he could think of and hung it.

Azar was within fifty feet of the dragon, picking his way through the wreckage around him, as if he were strolling through a garden with a hoe in his hand, not a six-foot long greatsword.  There was a shimmering field hovering around him like a curtain, protecting him from the heat and the fire.  His eyes blazed with an intensity that rivalled the inferno of the dragon as he took his opponent’s measure.

With a roar he clasped both hands on the hilt of his blade and sent a sheet of blinding white light from the tip.  It seemed to burn the very air as it flashed in a double pulse that hammered at the head of the beast.  Whatever the spell was, the dragon was knocked back on its mighty haunches, its legs digging deeper into the bowels of the western wing of the palace.

Rondal threw another, smaller cloud of blackfire at its face, while Terleman changed his tactics and attacked its sail-like right wing with a beam of green energy that at least scarred the beast where it touched it.

Tyndal took a deep breath and found the hook, around the neck, before he let the spell unfold.  With a powerful surge of energy he directed with his mageblade, a flare the size of a keg of wine shot upward and into the dragon’s chin with a spectacular explosion. 

The combined attacks were maddening, causing the beast a lot of pain – but they did not seem to be wounding it in any significant way.  When the dragon lashed out a moment later, it succeeded in burying itself into the lower reaches of the palace in a smoking, flaming crater of destruction.  He saw a statue he’d wandered by a few times get wedged between the long, powerful toes of the beast, providing a sense of scale.  The dragon was larger than the ones they’d faced in Anthatiel, he realized. 

Then he heard screams from below through the broken tile and rafters, over the sounds of fire and destruction.  Tyndal knew there were likely still people down there, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

Azar did not let up his attack for a moment.  He followed his blast with a slashing attack that sent a sheet of yellow force down at the beast.  Once again he got a powerful emotional response, but the only damage it seemed to be doing was to the palace around it.

Terleman looked up, suddenly.  “Help is inbound!” he shouted. 

“Who?” Rondal asked.  “Master Mi

“Skyriders!”
Terleman replied.  As if he’d summoned them himself, three giant hawks sailed through the swirling smoke above the palace, toward the dragon.  Tyndal recognized Frightful, Dara’s majestic bird, in the lead, in full battle gear.  Behind it flew Faithful and the slightly smaller, darker bird he recalled was named Fancy.  Each bird bore a rider in its harness, and each rider began flinging missiles at the dragon below.

“With skybolts!” Rondal agreed, as three of the steel javelins Dara had developed for the corps flew from the Skyriders’ hands with magical force. 

“
Dragon
bolts, Min says,” corrected Terleman, after some mind-to-mind discussion.  “They’ve been anticipating this situation.  We’re seeing a field test.”

As each of the lances struck the beast, it blossomed with a flash of arcane power as a spell manifested.  One appeared to do nothing, but the other two enraged the beast tremendously.  The final one to hit even penetrated deeply enough so that the dragon left a broad smear of blood behind it when it moved.

Unfortunately, in order to get away from the offending lances, the beast decided to burrow itself through the central corridor of the palace . . .
under their feet.

With horror they watched the century-old beams of solid redwood that supported the heavy tile roof buckle in a wave as the worm burrowed through the structure.  The noise was tremendous, and the cloud of dust and smoke that arose choked both vision and breath. 

Tyndal felt the roof give way under his feet, and then he was flailing around amidst a whirlwind of bricks and beams and tiles and molten lead from the super heated drainage system. 

He was glad of his protections against common fires and excess heat, but he was even more appreciative of the dragon scale covering the inside of his hauberk, when a glob of molten lead landed in the center of his chest, but could not penetrate the hide.  He watched it burn itself out in a daze as he finally came to a stop, face up, one leg twisted under him.  There were at least two beams pinning him there.

Haystack, are you all right?
Rondal asked.

That . . . hurt,
Tyndal offered.

Are you hale?
demanded his partner, insistently.

I’m . . . give me a moment . . . I’m pinned, but not perforated.  I don’t think I broke anything.  You?

My arm is trapped between two big bricks, but I think I can slide it out of my shield.  I’ll update Terleman.  You try to get yourself free.

Tyndal shook off his lethargy and attempted to do just that.  Though he couldn’t move his torso, neither of his arms were free.  He laid his hand on the closest beam, the one snaring his chest, and turned it into toothpicks.  That let him sit up and reduce the second the same way.  It took a moment to locate his sword and baculus in the cloud of dust and smoke, but when he did it took only a quick tug on their respective knot coral nodes to bring them to his hand.  After that, freeing his leg was elementary.

Terleman is fine,
Rondal reported, a moment later
.  The thing has taken up a position in the Great Hall – probably the largest space it could find. 

Damn it!  I was hoping to stop by there after the fight for dinner!
he quipped. 

Just get there, however you can.  I’m on the third floor, now, but I’m knocking a hole through to the second.

Tyndal looked around.  He was on the lowest level
.  I’m on the ground floor, near the office of . . . looks like it used to be ecclesiastic alms,
he reported.

I know where that is.  Just head down the main corridor toward that ugly fountain with the Sea Folk statues, and you’ll see everyone.

If I can get there,
Tyndal replied, realizing that there was considerable rubble obscuring that route.

Terleman, what happened with your spell?
Tyndal asked, as he used his baculus to push as much of the debris out of the way as he could.

It worked, the warmage
replied
.  It worked great.  Stopped up that thing’s airway completely, for a moment.  But there’s too much resistance, even with that snowstone bauble around its neck,
he admitted.
It choked, but I couldn’t maintain the spell long enough to do more than that. I’ll have to find another way.

There was something itching the back of Tyndal’s mind, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.  And then a moment later he was distracted by screams as he came to an arched doorway that the collapsing ceiling had sealed shut.

Cursing at the delay, he shattered the door with another kindling spell and helped the grateful family through the wreckage toward what he hoped was an exit.  Whomever the courtier was, his daughter looked at Tyndal with profound gratitude.

“You should be safe, if you go through there,” he said, pointing towards a distant hole in the wall, where he could see the gardens and the distant palace wall. 

“What is it?” asked the courtier, anxiously.  “Did the goblins attack?”

“Is it more . . . more
undead?
” shuddered his wife, pulling her nightshirt around her like a mantle.

“Goblins?” Tyndal snorted.  “Undead?  If only the gods had been that kind! 
Go!”
he ordered, forcefully, as a few more survivors were trying to pull themselves through the rubble.  “Now!  I’ve got to go, and I can’t take you!”

“Where are you going?” demanded the wife, who clearly wanted more protection on this horrible night than her aging, pot-bellied husband was able to provide. 

“We want to come with you!” insisted the girl, pulling on his arm.

“You go that way,” he repeated, patiently but insistently.  “I go
this
way,” he said, pointing with his blade.  “
Toward
the dragon.”

“DRAGON?” the courtier squealed, scurrying through the wreckage toward safety, grabbing his wife’s hand as he went.  The wife quickly grabbed the daughter’s hand, who looked as if she would still rather be following Tyndal.

He didn’t have time for this, he realized.  Otherwise a lot more people would need rescuing.

He plunged into the dark and chaotic scene in the dragon’s wake, where doors and screens had been ripped off and great pieces of the roof had caved in where it had traveled.  It was difficult to navigate, but with magesight and Grapple’s assistance he was able to pick his way through.  A hundred yards into the wrecked palace he caught up with Rondal, who had to jump down from the second floor when it more or less stop being a floor.

“I was wondering where you went,” his friend said, heaving for breath with the effort.

“There was a girl,” Tyndal dismissed.

“In the middle of a battle with a dragon?” Rondal said, shaking his head.  Tyndal ignored it.  The path they needed to follow was clear.  “That’s it, up there: in the Great Hall.  They’re trying to pin it down, there.”

“What an excellent plan,” Tyndal said, with no trace of enthusiasm in his voice.  Without further comment, the two of them continued to follow the gaping hole in the palace until the found the gaping hole in the wall to the great chamber.

“This is it,” Rondal said, unnecessarily.

“Any ideas?” Tyndal heaved.  The dust was thick in the air now, and the smoke from the burning roof was starting to coat everything.

“Well, we hit it a lot,” reasoned Rondal, “and we drove it in here.  Hitting it a lot seems to have an effect.  Therefore, we hit it even more.”

“You reason like a scholar,” Tyndal said, shaking some debris out of his helmet.  He pulled three spells he thought would be helpful from Grapple’s suggestions and hung them.

“I guess we know what Anguin is spending his windfall on, now,” Rondal chuckled with dark humor, as another section of the palace roof collapsed behind them.  The noise apparently startled the dragon, who whirled and sent a small gout of flame into the corridor as a warning.  Both knights narrowly missed the column of raw fire.

Tyndal waited for the flame to die away before he sprung into the breech and sent a blast of penetrating concussive force – the drawbridge-breaking spell – into the face of the beast.  Then he leapt away again as a second blast of flame chased him down the corridor.

As soon as it died, it was Rondal’s turn.  Instead of blackfire it was a blue lance of power that split the air and filled it with the smell of ozone that flew from his blade. 

“Nothing!” he spat, as he rolled out of the way. 

“Our turn!” Terleman said, from behind them, as he and Azar jogged up through the ruined, burning corridor.  “All four of us, let’s clobber it at once!”

“The head is pointing this way,” Rondal advised.

“That’s the vulnerable part,” Azar remarked.

“That’s the part with the teeth and the flamethrower,” Tyndal corrected.

“If we wish to slay the thing, it won’t be through the tail,” Terleman insisted.  “The head is our best opportunity.”

“Have we
really
determined that?” complained Tyndal, in a scholarly tone, “or are we just making an assumption?”

“Now!” Terleman said, lobbing a spell at the beast that was so powerful it singed Tyndal’s eyelashes as it stabbed through air.  A moment later Azar was throwing more bolts from his own blade.  Tyndal and Rondal both joined in, with Tyndal selecting the second of his hung spells.  It sent a wave of tuned power rolling across the floor at knee level, rising in a growing crest as it approached the beast.  Along the way it ensnared part of Rondal’s spell – a rolling green wheel of power – and propelled it with powerful force against the dragon’s face.