The half-elf hit it several times before it managed to get its claws over the stone and come forward once more, and by then, the creature’s mouth was hanging open, nose split, jaw shattered. Still, it came on, and Bryan had to be agile indeed, climbing continually backward, up the next step, and several more after that, to avoid the slashing claws. He continued to score hits on the creature’s face, tearing out one eye.
But then, as the half-elf backed up yet another step, this one open on his left flank, another lizard came rushing at him. Bryan saw it at the last second and whipped his sword about powerfully. The weapon caught on a foreleg, digging a vicious wound, but the lizard continued forward, its maw rushing for scrambling Bryan. He tried to twist, tried to dart ahead, but the first lizard blocked his way, and the second, coming in like an elvish arrow, clamped its jaws about the half-elf’s side.
Bryan beat it again about the head, swinging with all his strength, crying in desperation.
The jaws tightened; the half-elf felt the sharp teeth crunching through his elven-forged chain mail. The enchanted armor held strong-if it had not, Bryan would have been bitten in half-but even still, the lizard’s jaws crunched on him so tightly that his hip cracked apart under the sheer pressure.
Bryan screamed out in agony and hit the beast again, but that only sent it into a frenzy, whipping its head back and forth, battering Bryan against the stone riser and putting him in line with the other beast’s slashing claws. One got him across the face, digging deep lines, and then, suddenly, Bryan was free, flying through the air to crash hard against the stone. He saw the second lizard amble by him, locking together with the first, all thrashing and biting. Together, they rolled away, bouncing down the steps.
Bryan realized that this would be his only chance for escape, but he could not take advantage of it, could not possibly stand, or even crawl. He tried once, then slumped, clutching at his mortal wounds, and then all was blackness.
He felt the hard stone, but the pressure was gone. The pain remained, however, searing lines of fire across his face and neck. Bryan’s hip felt as if a dozen spearmen had embedded their weapons there and were slowly turning them all about. He bit hard on his lower lip so that he would not cry out, and he managed to bring his arm up enough to wipe the blood from his eye.
He saw no sign of the lizard, saw no sign of anything really, for he was surprised to discover that he was no longer on the steps, but lying underneath a mound of twigs and branches set between several huge boulders.
The lizard had dragged him to a secret place, that it might feast upon him later, he knew. With great effort, Bryan turned his head, and saw the glimmer of his sword-that, too, had been collected by the beast. It was out of Bryan’s reach, though, and there was no way he could squirm through the pile to get near to it. It rang as the ultimate frustration to the young warrior-his sword in plain sight, yet beyond his grasp-that he could not die fighting.
His thoughts did not stay on his own desperate situation, though, but went back to Rhiannon, always to Rhiannon.
“I have failed,” the half-elf whispered. He brought Brielle’s amulet up to his lips. “Forgive me, Brielle. I was not strong enough.”
And then Bryan kissed the emerald in the amulet’s center and passed out once more, settling down under the branch blanket, knowing in his heart that he had indeed failed his love, that the horrible lizard would return and devour him before he ever wakened.
In Avalon, hundreds of miles away, Bryan’s desperate lament rang clear and strong. Brielle rushed to a tree stump, wherein lay a pool of still water. Pouring in some oils, the witch began to sing softly, and soon the pool clouded over, and then cleared again in its middle.
Brielle saw the twigs and branches, saw the half-elf’s torn side. She was looking out the amulet, as clearly as if her own eye were set in it. Her heart skipped a few beats as she sent more of herself through the pool to Bryan, to try and discern if he was even still alive.
He was, but wouldn’t be for long, she realized.
Brielle saw no options. Bryan was near to Rhiannon-she could tell by the terrain about him that he was somewhere in Kored-dul-and if he could not get to her girl, then Rhiannon’s chances diminished by far. Since the last great battle, Brielle had avoided any great usage of magic, but not now. She fell into the amulet, heart and soul, threw her energy into the connection, and gave to Bryan a considerable amount of her own life force.
“Bryan! Bryan!” The call was from far away, but the half-elf heard it. He opened his bleary eyes to find that he was still in the twig pile, still buried. The sun was low in the west, the shadows long and dark. One form came clear to Bryan, though, large and reptilian; the great, hungry lizard.
Bryan was amazed to be alive, to be conscious, and to find such strength as this! Without taking the time to consider his miraculous recovery, he tucked his legs under him and shoved out in the direction of his sword. The lizard was digging furiously at the branch pile by the time he got his hand on its hilt, the snapping, toothy maw barely inches from his leg.
Hope quickly reverted to despair as Bryan considered that he would soon be right back where he had started. Defiantly, he pulled free his sword and turned it at his foe, just as the lizard cleared enough of a path to bite at him.
“No!” Bryan cried, knowing that he could not possibly kill the armored creature with one strike. His sword flashed by, the blade engulfed by blue arcs of lightning. It hit the lizard squarely in the open mouth, bashing through teeth and bone and scales as easily as if they were a pile of soft snow, driving through the creature’s brain.
Arcs of blue lightning flashed about the lizard’s head, sizzling and crackling. The lizard fell away, convulsing, scales smoking, and then it tumbled and lay very still.
Bryan fell back against the ground, stunned, confused. He looked at his sword, a normal-looking elvish blade once more, and thanked the Colonnae.
Brielle sat down hard. All the world was spinning. She wondered if she might die from exhaustion at that moment, her energy totally spent. She wondered if she had gone too far in grasping so strongly at the torn realm of magic, in forcing the strength into her body and through her reflecting pool to Bryan, both healing power and lightning magic.
Perhaps she had given him, and his sword, too much of herself.
She rolled to her side and let sleep take her.
He could walk with little pain, just discomfort in the recently crushed hip. As he continued on his way to the north, Bryan replayed the scenes after the lizard attack, searching for some clue. Again and again, his thoughts were drawn to the amulet, and he came to believe that his gratitude, his prayer to the Colonnae, had been misplaced. Bryan understood then that Brielle was with him, that he did not walk alone, and so he was bolstered, striding more boldly as night descended.
Soon after, he came over a stony ridge and lost his breath, for there, right before him, loomed the great castle of Morgan Thalasi. Huge black walls and sky-reaching towers seemed to mock the young half-elf and his desperate mission, and a sense of the deepest hopelessness he had ever known weakened his knees and nearly overwhelmed him. What could he accomplish against the tremendous power standing dark and ageless before him? What could he, a mere mortal, do against the likes of the godlike being who had built this bastion?
Bryan gritted his teeth and determinedly shook the thoughts away. He could do little, he honestly believed, perhaps nothing at all. But he had to try. Above all else, he had to make the attempt, even at the likely price of his life. For Bryan knew the alternative. To walk away when Rhiannon needed him, no matter the odds, would leave him forever in grief and shame, would break him more completely than Morgan Thalasi ever could.