Kaz’s huge, clawed hand pulled the elf off his feet and brought him to a minotaur’s eye level. “You sound much better, magic thief!”
“Remember your friends!” Wild-eyed, Argaen Ravenshadow tore himself from Kaz’s grasp and fell to the ground. He looked up at the minotaur and smiled broadly. “Especially your talkative little lockpicker!”
A huge section of the ceiling collapsed, sending tons of earth falling around the shadow box but strangely leaving it untouched and accessible. Kaz was caught between his hatred for the elf and his desire to leave before the rest of the ceiling and the earth above came crashing down around him.
“I should let the animate kill you all, though I fear that my playacting was not far from the actual truth, minotaur! Elves are a bit stronger than you think, but there are limits.” Argaen stared past Kaz at the stone dragon, which still paused by the vault entrance. The creature suddenly spread its wings as best it could in the cramped space and turned, shrieking silently, toward the two. The mighty jaws opened wide, and the stone beast began to move slowly in their direction. Its movements were graceful, and Kaz could almost imagine its stone muscles rippling. The tail lashed out and struck one of the walls, sending large pieces of the wall flying and raising a cloud of dust.
Kaz stepped back swiftly as the monster, ignoring the destruction raining down, stopped just before its master. The dark elf laughed at Kaz. “I would not recommend remaining down here, minotaur! If you leave now, you might just make it before everything crumbles!”
“You can’t be serious!”
Argaen’s unliving pet, its eyes focused on Kaz, lowered itself to the ground so that the elf could climb aboard. “I am so very serious!”
A Knight of Solamnia might have stayed and fought. Most minotaurs might have stayed and fought. Kaz knew better. He started running.
A small figure chose that moment to come crawling over the wreckage of the vault doorway. It was Delbin. Behind the kender, Kaz could see Lord Oswal. He cursed, knowing Darius and Tesela could not be far behind them. So much for his vague hope that they would do the intelligent thing and flee while they could. The Grand Master, haggard, spotted the minotaur first and started to speak.
Kaz waved them back. “Run!”
The elder knight took one look and, sizing up the situation, obeyed reluctantly, but Delbin, caught up in typical kender curiosity, remained where he was, trying to see what was going on beyond the minotaur. Snarling, Kaz tucked his battle-axe under one arm and, with the other, scooped up the small figure. Behind them, Argaen shouted something incomprehensible.
Lord Oswal and Tesela were already helping Darius up the steps. No one paused or even looked back. The walls and the steps vibrated as the party ascended. Kaz, in the rear, felt the step beneath his feet begin to give way. He said nothing, knowing that the others were moving as fast as they could. Tesela hadn’t had time to do anything for Darius’s sprain.
When the steps finally ended, the party’s relief at reaching the surface died quickly. The exit was barely passable; there was extensive damage.
“We must go outside,” the Grand Master decided for them. “We may have to abandon Vingaard entirely until the danger is over.”
Lord Oswal led them through crumbling halls. Darius was in definite pain but said nothing. Kaz, in his excitement, had forgotten to put Delbin down, likely a good idea, in retrospect. There was no way of telling whether the kender would stick by them or wander into further danger somehow.
The darkness of night welcomed them once more. Kaz, with a start, realized that only a short period of time had passed since he and the two humans had gone in search of Delbin and the elf. His encounter with Argaen Ravenshadow had seemed to last an eternity.
A few bewildered figures darted out of the darkness, the knights who were standing guard around the Grand Master’s stronghold. It was a bit of a surprise to discover that those knights were indeed real and not illusions. By now it wouldn’t surprise Kaz to discover that Oswal had been alone all this time.
The Grand Master instantly took charge of his meager force. As much as he admired the human, Kaz knew that Lord Oswal was weak and faltering. With each passing second, the moment drew nearer when he would collapse-this time for good. For now, though, he was still the one who must be obeyed, and for those who served him, only just emerging from the madness they had lived with for these past few years, he was a beacon of trust.
“Everyone out of the keep! Everyone out!”
The citadel of the Grand Master began to collapse. Columns cracked and tumbled down the steps. The outer walls of the building caved in. The roof, unsupported, came crashing down on the rest. In mere seconds, the stronghold was in ruins. Yet parts of the structure continued to shift, and those who had been in the vault knew that something massive was digging its way out.
Lord Oswal glanced at his men and noted their consternation. “We can do nothing at the moment I It’s nothing we can fight for now! When our strength is greater, then we shall hunt it down, but not before! No questions now! To the gatesl Go!”
The shattered roof of the Grand Master’s devastated citadel shifted position and slid determinedly into the side of another building, caving in the wall.
“Kaz,” a muffled voice peeped. “I promise I’ll stay with you if you just let me down, even though it’s fun, but it’s kind of hard to breathe like this, and I know you must be tired.”
“All right, Delbin, but if you run off, you’ll wish you’d stayed down in the vaults!”
“Actually, they might still be kind of interesting, if they haven’t caved in com-”
“Come on!”
From the ruins of the collapsed building, a huge form arose. Some of the knights glanced back, then froze and stared in dismay. Worn to the point of breaking, a few even fell to their knees in resignation. The Grand Master paused in his own flight and returned to them.
“What are you doing?” he shouted in his most commanding voice. It was a strain to continue on as he did, but Lord Oswal refused to give in. He waved a fist at them. “Get up now! Whatever destruction that beast causes, it cannot destroy the knighthood so long as one of us believes! Do you understand?”
Chagrined, they began to move again. The light of the one moon visible was suddenly augmented by an unholy glow. Now it was Kaz who paused and gazed back at the center of the keep and the leviathan that was lit up by that horrible glow. The outline of the huge, winged form couldn’t be missed. Beneath the dragon, held tightly in its forepaws, was the shadow box containing the malevolent power of the emerald sphere.
Riding on the back of the stone creature, Argaen Ravenshadow laughed insanely. The elf’s unliving servant spread its wings. Kaz began to move again, but ponderously, his attention fixed with fascination on the great monster as it rose into the air. He marveled that such a creature, even magical, could lift its stone weight into the air.
The stone dragon lurched as its wings beat, causing it to lose altitude and crash into the roof of yet another building. The weight was too much. The roof caved in, and then the floor below it. The beast didn’t struggle, but instead seemed confused. Kaz wondered if Argaen Ravenshadow had lost control.
‘The libraries,” Lord Oswal muttered. Kaz nearly stumbled, not realizing that the Grand Master had come up behind him. “It’s destroyed the libraries as well. We will have much rebuilding to do. Come, Kaz. Odd as it sounds, we have to abandon the keep for the safety of the wastelands of Solamnia.”
The Grand Master had as yet truly not seen what lay outside, and Kaz hoped his mind would be able to stand the shock. The elder knight was a veteran campaigner who had faced some of the deadliest threats the Dragon-queen’s warlord had sent against him, but he was older now, and the past few years had taken an exceptional toll on him.