"Debts are owed, shade, your kind to mine," the dragon said. "You are the first to pay, but not the last."
Rivalen swallowed blood, fought through the haze of pain, and snarled an answer. "This debt is between only us, dragon. And you now owe me."
The dragon growled and squeezed him harder. Bones splintered and Rivalen screamed with agony. He gripped his consciousness with both hands, forced himself to concentrate, and spat the single word of a spell that would teleport him from the dragon's grasp. His pain-clouded brain imagined no end point for the spell except away from the dragon, and he appeared in open air three bowshots away.
The dragon roared at his escape, turned its head on its long neck to scan the sky. It spotted him and started to turn. Its awkwardness in flight gave Rivalen some time, a thirtycount perhaps.
The dragon's breath finally flowed off his skin and dissipated, though it had left his flesh raw, ragged, and slicked with blood. He held his holy symbol in sticky fingers and incanted the words to the most powerful healing spell he knew. The energy flooded him, healing most of the injuries wrought by the dragon. He winced as his bones and organs squirmed back into their proper positions and reknit.
The dragon roared again as it continued its turn. Rivalen presumed the reptile would renew the power of its spell-turning as it came, and he knew his options were limited. More than half his spells would be useless. He would have to disjoin the turning magic with one of his most powerful abjurations, or face the dragon with only indirect spells and his sword.
He would prepare for either option. The disjunction was uncertain and sometimes failed.
Speaking quickly, he incanted a series of spells that doubled his size and that of his sword, increased his strength, his endurance, and gave him supernatural speed. He hefted his enlarged blade in his hand. It did not seem an adequate weapon.
He attuned his communication ring to Brennus.
Where are Yder and Sakkors?
The answer came immediately.
Close.
Rivalen searched the sky in the direction of Selgaunt Bay but saw nothing other than smoke from the burning buildings in the city and rock dust from the walls.
Tamlin materialized with Variance on the avenue behind the Khyber Gate. The gate rattled on its hinges under an elemental's onslaught. The walls to the right and left of the gate cracked and shook under the fists of the huge creatures.
"Get me back up to the walls!" he said to Variance.
"That is no place for you," she answered.
Men dashed all around him, screaming, shouting. Several had dropped to one knee and fired their crossbows rapidly at the exposed heads of the elementals, which rose above the height of the wall. More of the men from the reserve units ran up to the walls, firing crossbows, shouting, adding to the chaos.
Tamlin heard Onthul's voice from somewhere above him on the walls, shouting orders. Lightning bolts and streaks of energy dotted the air as Selgaunt's mages unleashed spells on the elementals. Soldiers atop the walls shot crossbows and swung swords at any part of the elementals within reach.
The creatures shrugged them off and battered the walls, sometimes crushing a man. Bloody spatters stained the walls. Dozens of pulped corpses littered the ground. Cracks ran the length of the walls from top to bottom. Shards of stone rained down.
The elementals' assault on the walls and gate rang in Tamlin's ears. Boom after boom shook the walls, the earth.
"Counterspells only!" Variance shouted. "Cast!"
The priestess held her Sharran holy symbol and intoned the words to a counterspell. Tamlin interlaced his fingers and did the same.
Variance completed her spell. The elemental pounding on the Khyber Gate, fist raised for another blow, bellowed and dissolved into a pile of rock and dirt that showered the ground. Tamlin targeted another elemental and his magic again failed. He was no match for the summoner of the elementals.
"Dark!" he cursed.
Another elemental dissolved under the force of a counterspell. Another. A third, a fourth. Some of the soldiers near him, and those still on the walls, cheered. Tamlin did not know if the Sharrans were countering them or his own mages, and he did not care. From the other side of the wall, he heard Saerloonian horns. They sounded close.
"We need to-"
The ground before him erupted in a rain of cobblestones and dirt, knocking him and Variance to the ground. An elemental rose out of the earth, its body coated in the cobblestones of Selgaunt's own streets, and blotted out the sun. It had dug under the wall.
Men screamed, shouted, ran. Others fired crossbows and charged with their swords. Variance pulled Tamlin to his feet.
Tamlin, unwilling to waste time on another counterspell, incanted the words to the first spell that came to mind. He pointed his hand and discharged a sizzling lightning bolt into the creature. The spell tore a divot in the creature's body, spraying rock and dirt. The elemental took no notice. Variance pulled Tamlin backward, away from the elemental, while she intoned another counterspell.
The elemental bellowed, lowered its shoulder, and charged the wall from the inside. Men scrambled out of its way as best they could. Several moved too slowly and the elemental crushed them underfoot in a spray of gore.
It hit the wall with a sound like thunder. The cracked wall surrendered at last and crumbled under the impact. The creature's momentum carried it through the breached wall. It stumbled on the rubble, bellowed, fell.
Variance completed her counterspell and the elemental crumbled into mud among the rubble of the wall. At almost the same moment, counterspells destroyed the remaining two earth elementals.
But it was all too late. The wall was breached.
Horns sounded from the field outside. The Saerloonians had an open road into the city.
"They are coming!" someone shouted.
Onthul's voice boomed over the burgeoning chaos. He stood his ground near the breach in the wall. "Gather here, before the breach! Tight formation! Hold here!"
Horns blared. Men ran through the dust-choked air. The cries of the wounded and dying sounded from all around. Tamlin had no idea how many men he still had under his command.
The Saerloonian horns blew another blast.
They were coming.
Abelar returned to consciousness, slouched over Firstlight's saddle. His head ached but it paled beside the ache in his soul. Regg gripped him tightly and prevented him from falling off the horse.
Swiftdawn trotted beside him, riderless. She saw his open eyes and whinnied a greeting. Abelar did not respond. The rest of his company thundered around him. He felt no anger. Regg had done the right thing. He felt only loss.
"You are awake?" Regg said tentatively.
Abelar nodded once.
"I am sorry, Abelar. I hope you know that."
Abelar nodded again and watched the grass streak by, and watered it with his tears.
His god had failed him.
And Abelar had failed his son.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
30 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
The dragon completed its turn, beat its wings, and flew toward Rivalen. Twin streams of green smoke leaked from its nostrils. It roared, shouted an arcane word, and a coin-sized glowing orange sphere flew from its mouth, sped toward Rivalen, and blossomed into a cloud of flame and heat.
Rivalen's wards and the shadowstuff of his flesh allowed him to stand in the inferno unharmed. Flying backward as the dragon bore down on him, Rivalen answered the dragon's spell of fire with one of his own. He pointed his finger and summoned a curtain of violet flame directly in the dragons path. The dragon, a clumsy flyer, could not avoid it and crashed right through it. It emerged trailing flames and smoke, roaring with pain and anger.