She lowered her chin and stared intently at the dragon.
“Necromancer,” she said. The word started small, a whisper, but swelled as it crossed the field of battle, building until it crashed into the dragon’s side like a wave breaking against a rocky shore. “It is I, Sheyndust. I have come to claim your life.”
The dragon’s head swiveled toward her on its long neck and gouts of smoke belched from its nostrils as though it scoffed at her words. Its massive tail slammed the ground, shaking the earth with its impact, then it reared back on its haunches, wings spread threateningly, and filled its lungs.
For an instant, the Archon saw a tiny flame flicker at the back of the dragon’s throat. She planted her feet and braced herself, leaning forward slightly on the staff as the dragon came back down on all fours with a shuddering thump and extended its neck, jaws agape.
She watched the fire swirl toward her. It seemed to move slowly, the orange and yellow and red of it churning and slithering as if possessed of life of its own. She felt as though she could have avoided it if she desired. She didn’t.
The conflagration engulfed her; she threw her head back and closed her eyes, drinking it in as she felt its heat on every inch of her flesh, felt it penetrate her and touch her soul. She smiled. She laughed. When the dragon’s breath ended, she still stood in the same place, staff in hand, her clothes burned off her. Smoke rose from her pale, naked, unburned flesh and the earth around her scorched dry. She opened her eyes, lowered her head, and looked into the eyes of the dragon.
“Is that all you have, Darestat?”
Her laughter echoed across the battle field, and the living men-Erechanian and Kanosee both-stopped to look at her. She felt their eyes on her naked flesh, felt the lust flowing out of them, feeding her.
The dragon’s roar filled the air with acrid smoke and unbridled hatred; it took a lumbering, ground-shaking step toward the woman. She pulled the staff out of the mud and held it out in front of her with both hands, the glowing knobbed end pointed at the dragon. Her lips moved shaping ancient words in a language dead practically before the world began, words she and the Necromancer could speak and no one else, and her only because she’d stolen them from him.
Sheyndust slammed the staff down onto the ground, and green lighting jumped out of it, conducted from corpse to corpse as it followed a jagged path to its target. It hit the last fallen man closest to the beast, then leaped the distance to the dragon, slamming into its chest and making the great creature stumble. The dragon threw its head back and howled as the green light gathered in its translucent ruby chest, swirling into a ball that expanded and grew. Roiling, collecting, killing.
The green light swelled until it filled the dragon’s chest, spilled down its legs, along its tail, into its wings. The beast roared in rage-filled pain and drew a breath deep into its lungs. Its neck extended, but instead of breathing deadly fire, the green death inside it exploded outward, shattering the dragon.
The Archon threw her head back and laughed in triumph as shards of ruby rained down around her.
***
Khirro panted and blinked sweat from his stinging eyes.
The world flickered and danced, yellow and orange light shifting and shimmering across his vision. He hardly saw the men falling before his flaming claws anymore; his parched mouth had grown used to the taste of their blood on his tongue. At first, it made him gag, but now the physical and emotional exhaustion of killing had drained him to the point he’d become only an observer of his acts, uninvolved and barely aware.
Another undead soldier fell before his onslaught, head torn from body, then he took a living Kanosee soldier’s life. Khirro watched the man’s body crumple and fall and took no joy in it, nor did he feel regret anymore. It distressed him to find he felt no more emotion about cutting this man down than he might have felt about taking his scythe to a field of wheat.
What’s happened to me? Is this what it’s like to be a real warrior? A killer?
He thought of his life on the farm as his claws tore through the chest of another man. He thought about how he killed chickens and pigs and cows without remorse, to feed his family and ensure their survival.
As this has to be done so the kingdom will survive.
He felt a sword slash his side and the flaming tyger wrapped around him let out a roar that reverberated through his chest, flared pain down his raw throat. But the sword caused no wound, drew no blood. The flames protected him from harm.
He wrenched his attacker’s arm from his body with the swipe of one paw, then bit through his skull, spilling him to the ground for his brain to ooze onto the trampled grass. He paused to retch and clear his throat before continuing on to take the life of his next enemy.
Ahead, he saw the dragon, the battlefield around it clear of men as they retreated from its swinging tail and deadly breath; the beast’s heat melted the snow that might have collected on the plain before if could settle. Months before, the dragon had been his adversary, and in a way partly responsible for the melding of the king’s spirit with his own. Now, an unexplainable feeling pushed him toward the dragon to fight by its side.
The flaming tyger took one step, then stopped as Khirro spied a solitary figure standing in front of the dragon. He couldn’t see her face, but the cloak and blond hair tossed about her by the cold wind told him all he needed to know. He’d never seen the Archon in person before-only in dreams-but he’d know her anywhere. A growl rumbled deep in Khirro’s chest, echoing and multiplying until it became the tyger’s. Here stood the cause of all that had happened to Khirro: all the death, all the loss, all the destruction. Here stood the murderer of the king.
Here was his chance to end it.
He took a step forward, the tyger’s flaming paw squelching in a patch of bloody mud, then another. He moved slowly, using the big cat’s natural ability to stalk toward the woman, but stopped when he saw the dragon rear back. The woman spread her arms as though to embrace death, and Khirro felt a smile cross his face.
This was a death he would enjoy.
The dragon’s head shot forward to breathe a swirling maelstrom of flame at the woman. It overtook her, surrounded her, engulfed her, and she didn’t move. The fire blocked Khirro’s view of her, but he knew that, when it relented, she would be nothing but charred flesh and smoking bones. He crouched to watch feeling vaguely guilty about the pleasure he’d receive from her death.
The gout of flame continued for fifteen seconds before the dragon’s jaws finally snapped shut cutting it off. Khirro’s gaze flickered to the beast, then across the field to where he expected to see the woman’s burnt form curled up on the ground.
Instead of a steaming corpse, the woman stood her ground, arms spread, clothing burned from her. Smoke rose from her limbs and the staff she held; flames flickered in her hair and went out, leaving her blond locks untouched by their heat.
Her laughter rolled across the battlefield to Khirro’s ears.
He watched in disbelief as the dragon moved toward her and she brought the staff to bear on the beast, its tip glowing a bright and sickly green.
No!
Khirro’s heart jumped and the flaming tyger took over, galloping across the muddy, beaten grass, melting paw prints in the snow as it leaped over corpses and flashed past living men. His graceful stride ate up yards, carrying him toward the woman. If he could get to her, he could end this.
She’s been touched by the dragon’s breath.