The elf ignored him at first, watching the black dragon and trying to make sense of his peculiar fighting technique. Deathwing utilized tail, wings, and other limbs, everything but the left forepaw. Now and then he moved it enough to reveal its obvious health, but always it returned to the nearness of his body.
“Why?” she murmured. “Why do that?”
Falstad thought that she spoke with him. “Because we gain nothing here but the possibility of death, and while Falstad never fears death, he prefers it on his own terms, not those of that armored abomination!”
At that moment, Deathwing, even with one paw incapacitated, caught hold of his adversary. The vast wings hemmed in the smaller red dragon, and the lengthy tail wrapped around the lower limbs. With his remaining three paws, the black leviathan tore a series of bloody gaps across the torso of his foe, including one set near the base of the throat.
“Up, blast you!” Falstad demanded of his flagging gryphon. “You’ll have to wait a little longer to rest! Get us out of here first!”
As the furred beast pushed skyward as best it could, Vereesa watched as Deathwing cut yet another deep series of wounds across his counterpart’s chest. A tiny rain began underneath the crimson dragon, the monster’s life fluids showering the sea beneath.
With tremendous effort, the lesser beast managed to free himself. Tottering, he pushed off from Deathwing, then hesitated, as if distracted by something else.
To Vereesa’s surprise, the red dragon suddenly turned and flew, in rather haphazard fashion, in the direction of Khaz Modan.
The battle had not lasted more than a minute, perhaps two, but in that short space of time Deathwing had nearly slaughtered his foe.
Curiously, the gargantuan black did not pursue. Instead, he peered at the paw held close to his chest, as if looking over something within the folded digits.
Something . . . or someone?
What had Rhonin told Duncan and her about his astonishing rescue from the crumbling tower? I don’t know what it was, but it took me up as if I was a toy and whisked me away from the devastation. What other creature could so easily take a full grown man and carry him off as if he were no more than a toy? Only the fact that such an astounding act had been unheard of until this time had kept the ranger from seeing the obvious. A dragon had carried the wizard off to safety!
But . . . Deathwing?
The black dragon suddenly flew toward Khaz Modan, but not quite in the direction his crimson counterpart had fled. As he headed away from them, Vereesa noted that he continued to keep the one palm close, as if doing what he could to protect a precious cargo.
“Falstad! We need to follow him!”
The dwarf glanced at her as if she had just asked him to ride into the very maw of the behemoth. “I’m the bravest of warriors, my elven lady, but your suggestion hints at madness!”
“Deathwing has Rhonin! Rhonin is the reason that the dragon did not use his one forepaw!”
“Then clearly the wizard is as good as dead, for what would the dark one want with him other than as a snack?”
“If that was the case, Deathwing would have eaten him before. No. He clearly has some need of Rhonin.”
Falstad grimaced. “You ask much! The gryphon’s weary and will need to land soon!”
“Please! Just as far as you can! I cannot leave him like this! I have sworn an oath!”
“No oath would take you this far,” the gryphon rider muttered, but he nonetheless steered his mount back toward Khaz Modan. The animal made noises of protest, but obeyed.
Vereesa said nothing more, knowing that Falstad had the right of it. Yet, for reasons unclear to her, she could not even now abandon Rhonin to what seemed an obvious fate.
Rather than try to fathom her own mind, the ranger pondered the dwindling form of Deathwing. He had to have Rhonin. It made too much sense in her mind.
But what would Deathwing—who hated all other creatures, who sought the destruction of orc, elf, dwarf, and human—possibly want with the mage?
She remembered Duncan Senturus’s opinion of wizards, one shared not only by the other members of the Knights of the Silver Hand, but most other folk as well. A damned soul, Duncan had called him. Someone who would just as readily turn to evil as good. Someone who might—make a pact with the most sinister of all creatures?
Had the paladin spoken greater truth than even he had realized? Could Vereesa now be attempting to rescue a man who had, in actuality, sold his soul to Deathwing?
“What does he want of you, Rhonin?” she murmured. “What does he want of you?”
Krasus’s bones still ached and pain occasionally shot through his system, but he had at least managed to heal himself sufficiently to return to the troubles at hand. However, he dared not tell the rest of the council what had occurred, even though the information would have been relevant to their own tasks. For now, among the Kirin Tor, the knowledge of Deathwing’s human guise had to be his and his alone. The success of Krasus’s other plans quite possibly depended on it.
The dragon sought to be king of Alterac! On the surface, an absurd, impossible notion; but what Krasus knew of the black dragon indicated that Deathwing had something more complex, more cunning, in mind. Lord Prestor might be pushing to create peace among the members of the Alliance, but Deathwing desired only blood and chaos . . . and that meant that this peace created by his ascension to that minor throne would only be the first step toward formulating even worse disharmony later on. Yes, peace today would mean war tomorrow.
If he could not tell the Kirin Tor, there were others to whom Krasus could speak. He had been rejected by them over and over, but perhaps this time one would listen. Perhaps the wizard’s mistake had been asking their agents to come to him. Perhaps they would listen if he brought the terror to their very sanctums.
Yes . . . then they might listen.
Standing in the midst of his dark sanctum, his hood pulled forward to the point where his face completely vanished within, Krasus uttered the words to take him to one of those whose aid he most sought. The ill-lit chamber grew hazy, faded. . . .
And suddenly the mage stood in a cavern of ice and snow.
Krasus gazed around him, overawed by the sight despite previous visits here long, long ago. He knew in whose domain he now stood, and knew that of all those whose aid he sought this one might take the greatest umbrage at such a brazen intrusion. Even Deathwing respected the master of this chilling cavern. Few ever came to this sanctum in the heart of cold, inhospitable Northrend, and fewer still departed from it alive.
Great spires that almost appeared to be made of pure crystal hung from the icy ceiling, some twice, even three times, the height of the wizard. Other, rockier formations jutted up through the thick snow that not only blanketed much of the cavern floor, but the walls as well. From some inner passage light entered the chamber, casting glittering ghosts all about. Rainbows danced with each brush of the spires by a slight wind that somehow had managed to find its way inside from the cold, bleak land above this magical place.
Yet, behind the beauty of this winter spectacle lay other, more macabre sights. Within the enchanting blanket of snow, Krasus made out frozen shapes, even the occasional limb. Many, he knew, belonged to the few great animals who thrived in the region, while a couple, especially one marked by a hand curled in grisly death, revealed the fate of those who had dared to trespass.
More unnerving evidence of the finality of any intruder’s fate could even be found in the wondrous ice formations, for in several dangled the frozen corpses of past uninvited visitors. Krasus marked among the most common a number of ice trolls—massive, barbaric creatures of pale skin and more than twice the girth of their southern counterparts. Death had not come kind to them, each bearing expressions of agony.