Quickly shaking off the horror of the attack, Sabira leveled her borrowed crossbow and squeezed the trigger, letting the enchanted quarrel fly. Bolts and spells flew at the dragon from the gnomes’ wagon and from the schooner on the far side of it, but the mundane missiles clattered off the reptilian creature’s tough scales and the spells fizzled and popped in one of the magic-warping zones Brannan had warned of. Only Sabira’s bolt struck home, slamming into the dragon’s neck and sinking deep.
With a roar, the dragon tossed its head, trying to dislodge the quarrel and the pain it brought. The movement tore the camel’s corpse from its harness and overturned the gnomes’ wagon, sending it tumbling toward the one Sabira rode in. Only some quick maneuvering on Xujil’s part saved them from a similar fate. The drow pulled on two levers while simultaneous kicking a third forward with his left foot, and the mechanical wagon scuttled sideways and forward, just ahead of where the wreckage of the other wagon landed in a cloud of sand and splintered wood.
Sabira had been reaching for a second green-fletched bolt, but the unexpected movement knocked the quarrels from her lap as she struggled to maintain her seat. Two landed in the sand outside the wagon and one fell to the bottom of the driver’s platform, got wedged between control levers, and was promptly bent when Xujil forced those levers in opposite directions. That left one on the seat between her and the drow. As she snatched it up and began to fit it into the groove, Xujil shoved her aside, just as the dragon’s tail went whizzing over the platform where her head had been a half a heartbeat ago.
The drow’s touch was oddly cool, and she couldn’t stop herself from shrugging it off as quickly as possible. She tempered the action with a muttered “thanks”-the elf had probably just saved her life, after all-then sat back up, aiming and letting her last quarrel fly. It skimmed off the scales on the dragon’s left hind leg just as the creature disappeared in a crater of sand that quickly closed over the burrowing reptile again and then lay ominously still.
“ Damn it!”
“Not your fault.”
Sabira looked up in surprise to see Skraad perched atop the wagon’s front opening. The orc must have climbed out of the back of the wagon and made his way across the ribbed canvas to get in on the action. She caught a flash of green from the hand crossbow he carried-apparently Brannan had found a few more enchanted bolts. A good thing, considering she’d lost or wasted most of hers.
“Should have hit it; your aim was perfect. Must be more of that mixed-up magic the Wayfinder was talking about. Looks like it doesn’t just affect spells, but spelled items too.”
The orc’s hair was billowing about his face in the wind, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she knew he wasn’t trying to placate her-that would imply a concern for her ego she was quite sure the orc didn’t feel. Still, it was good to know the failure hadn’t been hers.
Not that it changed the outcome any. The dragon was still out there, and it hadn’t had a chance to finish feeding. It would be back.
She’d barely finished forming the thought when the ground directly in front of their wagon exploded, showering them with sand and warm chunks of what she realized belatedly were masticated camel and gnome flesh.
Out of ammunition, she tossed the crossbow aside and reached back to remove her shard axe from its quick-release harness. She leaped off the driver’s seat just as Xujil brought one of the wagon’s mechanical legs down on the dragon’s neck, trying to pin it to the ground and keep it from burrowing back into the sand or flying away. The dragon turned its head so the metal limb slid off its scales, ripping through the membranes of its left wing on the way down. With a roar of pain and anger, the dragon drew its head back and slammed forward, knocking the wagon off its legs as easily as Sabira would swat a spider. Skraad leaped free, but Sabira couldn’t see what happened to any of the others inside. And she didn’t have time to worry about it, because the dragon had finally noticed her scrambling to her feet on the ground in front of it.
With a snort of recognition, the dragon opened its great maw and inhaled, as if trying to suck her into its lungs. She stood fast as her copper hair streamed out in thick ribbons around her head, knowing what was coming. And knowing that she’d have mere seconds to dive out of the way once the dragon let loose with its deadly breath.
But the dragon was a step ahead of her. It brought its tail around behind her, forming a spiked and scaled barricade, blocking her retreat. Then her hair fell limp as the dragon stopped drawing air in and closed its mouth. Its intelligent amber eyes locked with hers for a long moment as the dragon held its breath. It cocked its reptilian head to one side, as if considering.
Then, the dragon opened its massive jaws and began to blow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mol, Barrakas 9, 998 YK
The Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.
And then Guisarme was in front of her, his backplates to that gaping maw as he shielded her from the great wind that emanated from the dragon’s throat like a shrapnel-filled gale. As she crouched in front of the warforged, she could see bits of metal and wood sliced off his body as if by a multitude of invisible and impossibly sharp knives. Then the force of the dragon’s breath toppled him on top of her, and they went down, the warforged curling around her like a mother protecting a newborn.
“Flaywind,” the warforged said, his voice reverberating in her ear but unable to drown out the cries as others without the benefit of a construct shield succumbed to the fury of the dragon’s breath, the flesh scoured from their bones in a matter of endless, agonizing moments.
After an eternity, the screams and the wind stopped and an eerie silence reigned. Just as Guisarme was peeling himself off of her, another sound cut through the stillness.
“Everybody off the sand! Now!”
Guisarme stood and pulled her up with one arm, strips of shredded wooden tendons hanging down from it like fringe. As she regained her feet, she saw Brannan standing on the overturned wagon, brandishing a glass globe. Red and yellow flames raged within.
The dragon’s tail was disappearing into the sand as she and the warforged raced for the wagon. Skraad and Greddark were helping Jester aboard, and from the strips of missing metal and wood on the red-armored warforged’s backside, she could see he’d tried to protect the orc in much the same way Guisarme had shielded her. Unfortunately, the bard wasn’t as big as Skraad, and blood oozed down the orc’s arms from a dozen long gashes as he strained to lift the warforged off the sand.
As she ran, Sabira almost tripped over a small skeleton. As she sidestepped the glistening bones, she saw a dragonshard-tipped staff still clutched in an ivory fist. Apparently the gnome’s magic hadn’t worked any better than her last crossbow bolt had.
Which made her question why Brannan thought his ball of fire was going to do any good. Spells clearly weren’t working correctly in this area, and a part of her wondered if the dragon had somehow known that and that’s why it had herded them here.
Jester was up on the wagon now, turning to help her and Guisarme as they made it to the tattered canvas. She quickly harnessed her urgrosh and grabbed the bard’s outstretched hands, using him as a counterweight to keep her boots from slipping as she clambered up an exposed steel rib. Xujil appeared next to Skraad and reached down to help him and Greddark hoist the larger warforged up. As Guisarme’s feet left the sand, the drow shouted, “Clear!”