“Buck up,” Yzil snapped. “You drew the desirable chore. Some of us are venturing onward to kill the big dragon.”
“It’s just a little farther,” Anton said.
But up ahead, in the lamp-lit darkness, the passage forked, and dragonkin abruptly shambled out of the right-hand branch. The caves were so noisy now, the stone bouncing echoes to and fro, that he hadn’t heard them coming.
The ogre-sized reptiles gawked at the humans. They were rushing to fight invaders, not slaves who’d escaped their confinement, and the unexpected sight made them hesitate.
It gave Anton time to rattle off an incantation and brandish the three gray pebbles he’d found and painstakingly polished after Tu’ala’keth took his original set of talismans away from him. Power whined, and vapor billowed into being around the dragonkin. They staggered, retching.
The fumes faded as quickly as they’d appeared. “Get the bastards!” Anton cried. “Now! While they’re off balance!”
Some screaming with fury, fear, or a mixture of the two, his fellow captives charged. He jabbered the charm that made his hand into a blade then sprinted after them.
Jamark rammed his knife into a dragonkin’s groin, and the creature’s knees buckled.
Stabbing madly, two humans swarmed on a second reptile and drove it reeling backward.
But otherwise, the enemy quickly took back the advantage. A dragonkin aimed and braced its spear. An onrushing captive failed to react quickly enough to evade the threat. The point punched all the way through his body and, covered in gore, popped out his back. Unwilling to take the time to pull the corpse from the end of the weapon, the reptile simply dropped it and shredded another victim with its claws. Meanwhile, hissing and snarling, its comrades speared and slashed the puny creatures who’d dared to challenge them.
Anton wondered grimly if he and his allies could possibly prevail. Then he spied the dragonkin leader, and the long, straight sword it was just starting to draw from its scabbard. Shadow swirled inside the forte of the blade.
Unfortunately, the reptile stood toward the rear of its squad. Anton veered away from the warrior he’d intended to attack and plunged into the mass of frenzied combatants.
Some of the dragonkin struck at him as he raced by, and he dodged as best he could without slowing down. Another inch of dark blade cleared the sheath, and eager to start killing, the sword itself jumped, assisting the process and emerging fast.
Anton dived under a jabbing spear then leaped into the air. His first blow had to kill. Otherwise, the greatsword’s fury was likely to prop up the leader long enough for it to retaliate, and to say the least, he doubted his ability to withstand the assault.
The dragonkin saw him coming, and took a hasty retreat that didn’t quite carry it out of reach. It lifted the sword and scabbard to block but not quickly enough. He chopped at its neck with all his strength.
Blood gushed, and partially severed, its head flopped. It toppled backward.
He dropped to the floor, scrambled forward, and finished drawing the greatsword. No doubt the weapon had been eager to butcher him only a moment before, but now it welcomed him with a thrill of delight. For one set of hands on the hilt was as good as another.
As before, he loathed the touch of its mind, its bloodlust and gloating cruelty oozing in to contaminate his own thoughts. But he opened himself up to them anyway, and the sword rewarded him. It washed aches, weakness, and fatigue away, as if his hours on the rack and all the subsequent abuse had never happened.
Grinning, he pivoted and hacked a dragonkin’s legs out from under it then split its skull as it went down. He turned again and buried the greatsword in a reptile’s spine.
At that point, the other dragonkin realized a significant threat had materialized behind them. Several moved to encircle him.
Even with the greatsword, he might not have withstood that tactic for any length of time. But by riveting the reptiles’ attention on himself, he’d taken the pressure off his surviving comrades. They seized the opportunity to snatch the spears of fallen enemies from the floor and, adequately armed for the first time, assailed the dragonkin once more.
Somehow, it proved enough. The last dragonkin fell, and the greatsword jerked Anton around toward Stedd. “No!” he told it, just as Shandri had, silently adding, be patient. I have plenty of foes left to kill.
The blade quieted, humoring his quaint, irrational notion that some people ought not to be slaughtered.
Oblivious to his argument with the weapon, Jamark shot him a grin. “Nice sword,” the scarred man said.
So it was, in its repellent way. Anton had assumed it lay amid Eshcaz’s hoard but now reckoned he understood why it didn’t. Tu’ala’keth hadn’t presented the weapon to the red with the rest of her tribute, and lacking gems in the hilt or similar ornamentation, it looked like just an ordinary if well-made greatsword until someone pulled it from the scabbard. Eshcaz hadn’t deigned to take any notice of it where it lay on the floor, enabling a dragonkin to claim it for itself.
Still it was remarkable luck that it had returned to Anton just when he needed it most. Tu’ala’keth, in her daft and arbitrary way, had decided the sword bore Umberlee’s blessing, and if she were here, she’d doubtless tell him to thank the goddess or prattle of divine will manifesting itself in pattern and coincidence. He mulled such notions over for an instant then put them from his mind. He had more urgent things to think about.
“You were right,” Stedd panted, blood seeping from a graze on his shoulder, “this is worth doing. Let’s raid that armory then kill some more of them.”
As Wraxzala wheeled about the sky, casting her few remaining spells, shouting orders to the slaves in a voice worn hoarse and raw, she marveled at how quickly an army’s fortunes could shift.
She and her comrades had sneaked up the mountainside, to guard outposts, and small fields and gardens tucked away in pockets in the escarpment. They’d slaughtered dragonkin, cultists, and penned slaves who might otherwise raise a commotion sufficient to rouse the rest of the enclavewherever they found them. As long as the ixitxachitls had numbers and surprise on their side, it was relatively easy.
But at some point, one of the enemy, a dragonkin on the wing, perhaps, or a mage shifting himself instantly through space, had evidently escaped to raise the alarm. For in time, wyrms and a horde of their minions exploded from rifts in the rock.
The minions, though they made a reasonable effort to kill invaders, were virtually superfluous. It was the dragons who immediately started slaying their foes by the dozens, like the limitless might and malice of the Demon Ray himself embodied in gigantic snapping wings, roaring jaws, and slashing talons.
The largest wyrm wheeled, vomited flames, and burned ixitxachitls to drifting sparks and wisps of ash. A second dragon, its countenance studded with hornlets, spewed fumes, and a squad of locathahs dropped, skin dissolving, fins riddled with sizzling holes. A third conjured a glowing orb that hurtled down like a crossbow quarrel then exploded into leaping, dazzling arcs of lightning when it hit the ground. Transfixed by one or another of the radiating flares of power, koalinths danced spastically and withered to smoking husks. Perhaps lacking breath weapons and wizardry, the smallest drakeswhich were still far bigger than the largest of their foesravaged them with fang and claw. Some were content to smash down into a mass of opponents, crushing some in the process, and fight on the ground until they wiped that cluster out. Others swooped, seized an opponent, carried it aloft to tear apart or simply drop from on high, and dived to catch another.
Wraxzala had participated in savage battles before and watched significant numbers of her allies perish. The difference this time was that they scarcely seemed to be inflicting any damage in return. Most of the drakes had crossbow bolts jutting from their scaly hides. Some bore puncture wounds from the slaves’ spears and tridents. Now and again, one even faltered or convulsed when a vampire ‘chitl swooped in and bit it, or an attack spell pierced its mystical defenses.