“Am I? Then why are you readying your weapon?”
“Oh, I’ll play the Storm Dragon’s part, for now. You’re right-someone has to stop the Soul Reaver, and no one here is going to do it but me.” The branch he had pulled from the ash tree seemed made to fit the Eye of Siberys. He jabbed the ground a few times to make sure the dragonshard was securely affixed.
Satisfied, he pulled his adamantine box out of another pouch and sprang it open. The nightshard inside seemed to spring to life at the proximity of the Eye of Siberys. “The Time of the Dragon Above draws to a close,” he said, not really addressing Cart. “The Time of the Dragon Below approaches. The Eye of Siberys and the Heart of Khyber are united, just as the Crystal Spire links the Dragon Above and the Dragon Below.”
“I agree with Darraun,” Cart said. “The Prophecy makes my head spin.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Gaven lifted the nightshard and tossed it gently away from him. It seemed to float along that path for a moment, then it circled back, drawing a ring of lightning behind it. Like the whirlwind that had borne him aloft, it swirled around him, tracing its path in crackling light.
“Are you coming with me?” he asked the warforged.
Cart nodded.
“Let’s go, then.” Gaven strode over to the base of the Crystal Spire, to a ledge overlooking the chasm that rent the plain. He tried to peer down into it, but the light blinded him. “The Soul Reaver awaits.” Without a backward glance, he stepped off the ledge and fell.
CHAPTER 49
I‘ve got to get her back on the ground.” Darraun’s face was deathly pale, and his hands gripped the spokes of the wheel. Speaking seemed like an enormous effort.
“Keep going south,” Rienne said. “Behind the Thrane forces. We’ll be off the plain in no time.” She tried to sound more optimistic than she felt. But she had just watched Gaven fall down into the depths of Khyber, and dread had a chill grip on her heart.
Darraun fixed his eyes just to the port side of the prow as he steered the airship in that direction. His every movement was stiff and clipped, as if moving too fast would break his mind’s hold on the elemental bound in the ship. His apparently fragile state did nothing to ease Rienne’s apprehension. She leaned on the port bulwark, watching as the chasm grew smaller in the distance behind them, until it was swallowed up in the rain and hail, and she could barely even make out the Crystal Spire.
“See anything?” Darraun grunted.
Rienne shifted her gaze to examine the plain below them. The Soul Reaver’s hosts rampaged across the battlefield. She saw Thrane banners cast down in the mud and trampled, though clusters of knights still held their ground against the tide of horrors. I see the world sinking into chaos, she thought.
“The Thranes are still fighting the creatures from the chasm,” she said. “Do you suppose Thrane will blame Aundair for that?”
Darraun nodded, and Rienne had to agree in her heart. The situation was grim in any event: If the Thrane army were completely destroyed, the Cardinals would assume that Aundair’s attack had been successful. If there were survivors-there had to be survivors! — they would describe how Aundair’s forces opened a crack in the earth and brought the monsters forth, and trafficking with the Dragon Below would be added to Aundair’s list of real and imagined crimes. It seemed the storm of war had broken again and nothing could stop it.
She leaned against the railing and stared down at the carnage below. Something had to stop it-something or someone. Gaven’s talk of being a hero, of choosing his own destiny and writing his own part in the play, stirred in her memory. “Darraun,” she said, whirling to face the changeling at the helm, “turn us around, take us north!”
His eyes were wide. “Back into the storm?” Yes, but not that storm, she thought. “Circle it. We need to get to Haldren.”
Darraun nodded and turned the wheel.
“Why should I be content to be a minor player in this drama?” Rienne mused aloud.
A smile quirked at the corner of Darraun’s mouth.
Haldren stared through the spyglass at the dragon’s crumpled body. Vaskar did not stir. He had watched Vaskar’s defeat with satisfaction diluted by growing rage. Vaskar had brought his plans to ruin, so it pleased him to see the dragon’s ambitions quashed as well. At the same time, Vaskar’s defeat left room for Gaven to seize what Vaskar had sought. Gaven-the pathetic madman that had started all this, without having the slightest idea what he was doing. Gaven was supposed to be a tool, a pawn Haldren could use to manipulate Vaskar and to facilitate his own rise to power. Instead, the bastard had stolen Senya, thwarted Vaskar, and appeared out of nowhere to take part in the ruin of Haldren’s plans.
“If I achieve nothing else in this lifetime,” he whispered, “I will destroy him.”
“You aim to destroy a god?” Senya said.
“He’s not a god.”
“Not yet. But his power is already greater than yours.”
“What did he do to you, Senya? How did he bend you so completely to him?”
“He didn’t bend me to his will. That’s how you work with your magic and your oratory. You taught me to work that way as well, using my body. And oh, you taught me well-well enough that the disciple became the master. I had you wrapped around my finger. But Gaven-he didn’t bend me. He straightened me out.”
Senya’s words stabbed Haldren’s heart and poured ice into his gut. “You… used me?” he whispered, quivering with rage.
“Of course.” Her voice was not cruel or bitter, just… dismissive. Utterly calm and cold. How could he have been such a fool?
He turned away from her and urged his horse forward a few steps. “Do you see the warforged?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as hers.
“I saw him last on the east side of the field, riding hard.”
“Has he gone mad? What is he doing?”
“Cart was never good at standing by and watching a battle unfold. He was made for war, as he said, built by Cannith to be a soldier.”
“No,” Haldren breathed. He had put the spyglass back to his eye, and finally found Cart near the middle of the field. “He was evidently made for treachery. He’s talking to Gaven.”
“Don’t be absurd, Haldren. No one is more loyal to you than Cart.”
“If he treats with my enemy, he is my enemy.”
“I wonder if you have any friends left.”
Haldren surveyed the battlefield again. Ir’Fann’s infantry was gone, wiped from the field, leaving a strange calm on the eastern side. No wonder Cart had ridden that way. Kadra’s knights had fallen as well, which meant that if she hadn’t been dead when he saw her before, she certainly was now. The knight phantoms he’d seen earlier had actually rallied ir’Cashan’s troops on the west side, but there was no sign of ir’Cashan herself. Her death had probably caused her soldiers’ initial rout. He hadn’t seen Rennic Arak or his troops since the crevice opened-they had been at the vanguard, and were probably the first to fall. General Yeven, at least, was still alive: he had taken his command staff and retreated back up Bramblescar Gorge at about the same time as Cart had ridden off.
Haldren returned his gaze to Senya. “No,” he said, “none are left.”
As he spoke, something in the air caught his eye. A bright flash-lightning, perhaps? He almost dismissed it as yet another effect of the storm, but then he saw it again. An airship, a small one, and she was soaring closer to them through the storm.
“That’s Gaven’s ship,” Senya said.
“He’s not aboard, though.”
“You just saw him talking to Cart.”