Thunder tossed back his head and ripped the centaur in half. Blood sprayed across the sand. He swallowed, snatched up the horse half, and gulped that down too. Only then did he turn his head around to see the bronze behind him.
Linsha had only a glimpse of the blue crouched on the torn and bloody mound. She saw the blood on his muzzle and the mess on his chest that was egg albumen mixed with shards of egg, sand, and the bloody gore that was once a dragon embryo. She screamed once in fury and protest, then tightened her muscles and clamped the black lance in place as Crucible sprang on the blue. They drove the rust-red tip into the dragon’s back just below the base of his neck.
Thunder bellowed in agony. No one had ever inflicted such pain on him before. He twisted away and whipped his blunt tail around to slam the bronze to the ground.
Linsha, still clinging to the lance, was pulled out of the saddle. To her horror, she found herself dangling from the barbed shaft buried in the Thunder’s back. The blow had been a serious one, but it obviously hadn’t killed him, and now she was swinging from the back of an infuriated dragon.
“Crucible!” she screamed. She flung up her legs and wrapped them around the shaft, so she wasn’t just hanging.
Thunder heard her, peered around, and recognized the curly-haired human who had flown with Iyesta. The air hissed from his nostrils, yet he did not dare use his lightning weapon. The blue’s lightning was more random, and he did not want to use it so close to his own back. He tried to reach around with a taloned forefoot to snatch her off, but the lance swung out of his reach and the pain from the barbed head buried between his shoulders was agony. He flapped his wings and roared in fury.
Another pain seared across his left haunch and lower wing as Crucible ducked in close and shot a beam low against Thunder’s body.
In that frantic moment after the Abyssal Lance pierced the blue’s tough scales, the dark spells incorporated in the wood and steel reacted with the dragon’s blood and began to work their evil purpose. It did not matter that the dragon afflicted was an evil dragon himself. Good or Evil, the lance was made to kill.
Linsha felt the change first. The wood became hot beneath her fingers and legs-so hot she could barely tolerate the pain of the heat burning into her skin. She shot a look at the sandy floor, figured her chances of surviving a fall and Thunder’s attack, and decided they weren’t much worse than clinging to a burning lance stuck in an enraged dragon’s back.
Thunder screeched in fearful pain. Within his neck and shoulders a terrific heat spread from the barbs of the lance. He shook himself fiercely, but with every move of his muscles the barbs slid deeper and deeper past his spinal chord and into his chest. Insane with pain, he lunged at Crucible, intending to crush the smaller dragon beneath his greater weight.
For Varia, the sight of the Brute warriors slaughtering the mercenary guards in the palace courtyard was enough to drive out all thoughts of sending the escaped prisoners and slaves into the throne room for a look. She would be sending them to their deaths. Instead she swooped close to Leonidas.
“Leave!” she shouted over the fighting. “Go north! Find the militia! The Brutes are attacking the palace!”
He shot her a look of bitter anger and sadness, but he nodded his understanding.
Most of the guards were dead by that time, so it took only a matter of minutes for the captives to complete their small victory, gather their mixed company, and follow Leonidas out of the ruined palace grounds toward the Artisan’s District.
Varia watched them long enough to see them on their way before she flew toward the throne room. If she couldn’t bring human hands and centaur muscles to help find the eggs, at least she could bring owl eyes to look for them. On noiseless wings, she swept down through the shattered roof and found a perch in a shadowy niche where several chunks of stone had fallen from the roof. She settled into her hiding place just as the Tarmak general strode into the throne room.
A few mercenaries, furious at the violent intrusion, fired arrows and crossbow bolts from behind a pile of rubble, but the Brutes swiftly dealt with them and dragged their bodies out to join their comrades in a pile by the door.
“Clear it out!” the general told his men.
The Brutes spread out into the remains of the throne room and down into the lower chamber.
“The eggs are down here,” another voice called from the stairs leading down to the treasure chamber. Varia’s pointed ear feathers popped up with excitement. She couldn’t see into the lower chamber from where she stood, so she slowly sidled across a beam and floated down to a lower perch. From there she could dip her head down and peer down the scorched stairway into the depths of the treasure chamber. Her eyes widened. What arrogance! Did they believe Thunder was dead?
The Brutes were hard at work shoveling Iyesta’s accumulated treasure into crates. Apparently they decided to help themselves rather than wait for the mercenaries to share. Other Brutes carried pickaxes and sledge hammers down the stairs. Varia wondered what they were going to do with those until she leaned a little further down and saw the edge of the dragon skull totem. The first Brute to the neatly stacked pile raised his sledge hammer and brought it down hard on the dragon skull at his feet. The bone shattered and flew in all directions.
“The eggs!” Varia cried softly. “Don’t smash the eggs!”
More skulls cracked and smashed under the impact of those relentless axes. The totem began to sway; skulls toppled down with hard, cracking sounds and exploded as sledge hammers came down on the brittle bone.
Varia could only stare in astonishment. Weren’t these Brutes supposed to be Thunder’s allies?
“General! There’s that owl!”
Varia started at the words. She hadn’t realized that in her agitation, she’d crept out of her hiding place and was visible to the men in the throne room.
The Brute general stared up at her through his golden mask then said, “Kill it.”
Varia did not wait to see if these soldiers would obey this order. She dove off her ledge in a hunting dive and arrowed out the wide doors before the Brutes could get an aim on her. She did not hesitate or pause to see what they would do next, but flew out of their sight as quickly as her wings could carry her.
Linsha tried to wait for the right moment to let go of the lance. She wanted to be able to control her descent, but the heat in the shaft and Thunder’s frenzied movements were more than she could handle. Her hands slipped and for just a heartbeat she hung upside down by her ankles. One more strong shake of the dragon’s back loosened her hold, and she broke free and fell head down along the dragon’s side to the ground.
“Linsha!” Crucible sprang to meet Thunder head to head.
The huge blue felt the weight slip from the lance, but he was already moving too fast to change his intentions. He met Crucible with a thunderous clash of teeth, claws, scales and wings that smashed them both into the nesting mound and bore the smaller dragon deep into the crumbling sand. The bronze snarled with pain as his injured foreleg and wing were pressed under Thunder’s greater mass. The blue snapped and tore at Crucible’s head, trying to get a grip on the bronze’s throat, ignoring the ferocious agony in his back.
It was the sand that saved Linsha’s life. Instead of crashing headfirst into the ground, she tumbled off Thunder into a pile of sand beside his thrashing body.