Now its time was over.
He felt the dragon gathering its strength. He held his breath, bracing himself for the first blazing rush of heat.
Then he blinked. His mouth fell open and he moaned in disbelieving horror.
The gap in the palace wall behind the Sister was filling with oily blackness. He could actually see more of the liquid evil oozing from between the fallen stones inside the cavity, and joining the black mass in the gap. The two-faced beast had not been destroyed! It was forming again as he watched.
The black mass bulged outward, spilled onto the earth. The beast rose, vast and glistening in the sunlight, stingers budding in their hundreds from its shapeless body. Horribly, its two faces began to form—the dog face snapping and foaming, the red eyes of the bird face burning with hatred.
But even as the faces were still writhing into being, the beast was charging, stingers whipping the air.
Lief rolled desperately aside as, with a roar, the dragon half-spread its wings and rose on its hind legs to meet its foe. Flame gushed from the dragon’s jaws and the rippling flesh of the two-faced beast sizzled, quivered and shrank beneath the searing blast.
The beast howled, but this time it did not retreat. It lunged forward again, stingers slashing at the soft, pale underside of the dragon’s neck till the scales were crisscrossed with streaming lines of blood.
The dragon bared its shining, needle-sharp fangs, preparing to strike.
No! Do not bite! Lief thought frantically, struggling to reach his sword. That is what it wants you to do. It will fill your throat, stop your breath. Do not—
The dragon faltered, its spiked tail lashing uselessly against the earth walls of the pit. Then it drew back and again it roared, breathing a jet of fire. Again there was a hideous sizzling sound. The dog face howled ferociously as dozens of stingers withered and fell to dust and the flesh beneath them stiffened and burned.
Then without warning, the beast sprang. It surged forward like a great black wave, wrapping itself around the dragon’s neck. The dragon tried to free itself, clawing at its clinging attacker, cutting through stingers by the dozen. But the deep channels its talons carved in the oily, rippling flesh closed instantly, and for every stinger that fell, another grew, to join the others coiled around the dragon’s neck, cutting and tightening.
The dragon bellowed in agony. Its forelegs crashed to the ground. Still struggling, it rolled heavily onto its side.
‘No!’ Lief shrieked. At last he managed to grasp his sword, pull it free. Sweat pouring from his brow he staggered to his feet, and threw himself at the beast, slashing at it wildly.
The beast’s neck swivelled. The mad eyes of the dog face blazed at Lief. Foam sprayed from its snarling, snapping jaws. And at the same moment, the bird face gave a blood-curdling screech of triumph, and its cruel, hooked beak began to tear at the dragon’s throat.
14 - The Battle of the Pit
There was a bellowing roar from above, and the pit was suddenly flooded with blazing yellow light. The head of the beast jerked upward, the beak of the bird face dripping with blood.
Lief heard Jasmine’s scream of warning, heard something huge crashing down into the pit behind him. Before he could think, before he could move, a giant, clawed hand had sent him flying.
He landed heavily halfway up the sloping wall of the pit. Dazed, he looked down.
A golden giant with a wild mane of dark brown hair was attacking the beast, slashing its stingers with claws as sharp as knives, tearing its quivering flesh apart.
‘Nevets!’ Lief gasped.
Through a haze he saw Steven stumbling down the hill of earth, following the deep track carved by his savage brother.
Perhaps Nevets was not affected by the Sister of the South, but Steven clearly was. Yet, sword in his hand, he staggered on, his eyes fixed on his brother.
Nevets and I can not be long apart. We fight together or not at all.
Weak tears sprang into Lief’s eyes. So Steven and Nevets of the Plains would die fighting. Well, better that, than …
He felt a hand on his arm and looked up to see Jasmine crouched beside him.
‘You must get away—to the top,’ she gasped. ‘Make haste—’
He could see in her haggard face what it had cost her to reach him, but he shook his head.
‘I must stay with the dragon,’ he muttered. ‘For as long as I can, until the plague—’
Jasmine’s fingers tightened on his arm. ‘There is no plague,’ she said. ‘Lief, you were right all along. It was poison.’
Lief gaped at her. ‘But—but Zeean! My mother—’ he began.
‘There was poison in Sharn’s lip cream,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘Poison taken in through the skin. It was discovered only moments ago.’
Lief’s head was spinning. He could not quite take in what he had heard. It was amazing. It was wonderful. It changed everything.
But in one way, it changed nothing.
‘Nevets cannot defeat the beast,’ he said thickly. ‘Whatever he does to it, it will grow again. It will kill him, it will kill Steven, and then it will turn to the dragon. If the dragon has me—has the topaz—there is still a chance it can survive, to destroy the Sister.’
Jasmine held his gaze for a moment. Then she nodded and took his hand. ‘Filli is with Barda,’ she said.
And Lief understood that this meant she intended to stay with him—indeed, that she had always thought it would come to this.
We fight together or not at all.
He did not argue. He simply gripped her hand, and together they slid back into the pit.
The dragon was still lying on its side, its eyes closed. Its golden scales had faded to a dull, sick yellow. With Jasmine’s hand in his, Lief struggled to the massive head, and kneeled beside it.
The dragon’s eyes opened at his touch. Lief felt himself lost, drowning in deep, golden wastes of time and space. He heard the dragon’s voice, whispering in his mind.
You have returned to me, king of Deltora.
Yes, Lief answered.
You have brought the female with you, the one with the beautiful hair that is the colour of the night.
‘Yes,’ Lief said aloud. His hand tightened on Jasmine’s.
Almost, the dragon seemed to smile.
Do not fear. I am no threat to her in my present state. Nest-making is far from my mind. Who is the golden giant who fights with dragon claws?
‘He and his brother come from the Plains, in the territory of the Opal,’ Lief said, using words he felt would be understood.
The dragon sighed.
Ah, yes. The territory of the Opal breeds strange beings, so it is said.
The golden eyes closed again.
Strange beings …
And suddenly Lief remembered Ava, the blind teller of fortunes, speaking of her brothers, Laughing Jack and Tom the shopkeeper.
As children at home on the Plains we were very alike to look upon, it is said, and our minds could link as though we were three parts of a whole …
Another strange family of the Plains. Was this simply chance? Or—?
‘Lief!’ Jasmine whispered urgently. ‘Lief—look!’
Lief turned his head and his heart leaped.
Nevets was still ripping and tearing at the two-faced beast. The golden fur covering his massive body was matted with foam, black streaks and blood. The ground at his feet was littered with twitching stingers and chunks of oily flesh.
Steven was fighting on the other side of the beast, slashing stingers where he could, warding off the screeching bird face as it struck at him again and again.