She lost her grip on her mate. Unable to keep aloft any longer, Sunfire spiraled westward toward the open sea. He continued to flap one wing, trying to slow his deadly descent.
An anguished cry tore Tyros’s gaze from the male. Glisten, somehow still aloft after such terrible wounds, forced herself toward Atriun.
“She can barely fly!” Serene called. “Why doesn’t she turn?”
“She means to take the citadel with her,” Tyros replied soberly. Glisten wouldn’t survive her deadly wounds.
Even that heroic effort was denied the brave dragon, for again a rapid succession of bolts caught Glisten. The gold leviathan’s form radiated as energy from the sorcerous lightning consumed her.
Glisten let loose with one last pathetic roar … and burned away without a trace.
Serene clutched Tyros tightly. “By the Bard King, no! It can’t be!”
But it was. Not a trace remained of the valiant creature.
Tearing his gaze away from Glisten’s fate, Tyros searched for her mate. Unfortunately no sign could be seen of Sunfire save for a vast ripple just offshore. Tyros thought of the eggs, now left to the elements. There would be no new golden dragons born in the mountains near Gwynned.
Overwhelmed by the likely loss of both dragons, the pair failed to notice the return of the gargoyles. Only when their griffon emitted a leonine roar did Tyros and Serene realize the imminent danger.
The animal swatted at the nearest of the leathery monsters, ripping it open. This sent the gargoyles backing off, which gave the mage a moment to think.
Tyros looked at the central tower. “Get me there, to the tower! It controls the flight of the citadel!”
Charging past several startled gargoyles, the griffon maneuvered close to the windows of the tower. The robed figure within, surely the pilot, paid no mind to their nearby presence.
Unwilling to question such luck, the desperate wizard whispered a spell. Suddenly he began to rise from the griffon’s back.
“Tyros! What’s happening to you?”
“I’ve cast a spell! Our only chance is to get inside the tower, but I can only do one person! As soon as I get inside, I’ll bring you with a different spell!”
She said something, but the griffon’s call drowned out her words. Tyros floated free just as a gargoyle made a grab for his robe. The monster went flying past.
For a few moments, the red-robed wizard flew. His only weapon other than the dagger in his belt remained the small staff, but although he still should have been enough of a threat for the hooded figure to take notice of, the latter did not turn from his duties. Even when Tyros took hold of the edge of the open window and pulled himself half inside, the pilot did not look.
For the first time, Tyros saw the Wind Captain’s Chair … but not exactly as he had always imagined it. The rune-etched pedestals were there, and so were the circles of dark ebony crystal upon which the feet were placed, but the spheres atop the pedestals were a blinding gold, not black like the circles. They had always been of the same stone in the past. The golden spheres were not only half again as big as their dark predecessors, but even from where he was the mage could sense the tremendous power radiating from them.
Then the shadowy figure shifted, gazing at the intruder from within the folds of his robe, and Tyros realized with horror the reason why the pilot had made no move toward him.
He was part of the mechanism.
The hands and feet melded into the spheres and circles, so that one could not tell where the man ended and the arcane device began. Even had the shrouded figure desired to defend the chamber, he would have been unable to do so. Tyros tried to imagine the sort of mage who would cast such a spell, even among the followers of Nuitari.
The pilot made an adjustment, and as he did, his hood fell back slightly, revealing a more terrible horror. The pale visage, the eyes all white, the ghostly blur of the body shook the desperate mage to the core. What flew the citadel not only did not live, but what life had once been there had been ripped away in some monstrous manner.
Frozen by the dreadful tableau, Tyros stared at that face. He knew it, knew it from Gwynned.
“Kendilious …” he whispered in abject fear.
Clawed hands seized Tyros from behind, tearing him free of the tower. His shock at seeing the old Red Robe from Gwynned had cost him precious moments. He tried to struggle, but now two gargoyles had hold of him. Tyros heard Serene scream but could not even turn his head to see what fate befell her.
The sinister pair held the captive wizard tight as a third, larger gargoyle approached him. Three savage horns topped the newcomer’s nightmarish head. The leathery beast opened wide his jaws, then raised one hand high with the obvious intent of tearing the human’s chest open.
A slightly smaller gargoyle suddenly appeared from above and seized the upraised hand. He and the larger gargoyle glared at one another, nearly coming to blows.
“Master wants!” the latest growled. “Must be taken to Master!”
With a snarl, the three-horned gargoyle pulled free his hand. He glared at Tyros, then reluctantly rumbled, “Take to Maaaster!”
The pair holding Tyros whipped the stunned wizard away, descending toward the main entrance of the castle. Tyros stared in the direction of the tower for as long as possible, but his thoughts were not on the ill-fated Kendilious, nor even Serene. Instead, they focused on the gargoyle who had saved him from immediate death but who might have condemned him to the same terrible fate as the old mage had suffered.
Whose side was Stone truly on?
Chapter 10
Prisoners of the Citadel
Bakal had expected to die in battle, but with both feet planted firmly on the ground, not every limb flailing wildly as he dropped to his death. He would have preferred the bolt that had struck Sunfire to have burned him to ash.
He braced himself, hoping that perhaps his heart, much too strong for his own good now, would stop from fright before he hit the earth.
“Aaaah!” Suddenly he flew up again, both shoulders stinging with pain. It took Bakal a moment to regain his senses, but when he had, the veteran immediately recognized the source of his miraculous ascent.
“Don’t you worry, Captain Bakal! Taggi’s got a good grip on you, and when he grabs his prey, it never escapes.”
Despite the kender’s discouraging words of encouragement, Bakal managed to calm himself enough to reassess his situation. It did nothing to assuage his worries, for everywhere he looked he saw only despair. At least one of the griffons had perished, the riders along with the beast. Two more held only one man. He had expected some loss, but not so quickly. Worse, the supposedly defenseless citadel had proven far otherwise.
The captain knew that the lightning strike had been no fluke; some evil spell had sent it soaring directly at Sunfire. Now, at last, Bakal understood what had happened to the other flying castle. For reasons beyond his comprehension, the invaders had chosen to sacrifice the older fortress by destroying it above Norwych. Only that could explain the tremendous devastation.
At that moment, the new citadel struck out at the two golden dragons with a fury that made past assaults appear tame. Glisten tried to aid her stricken mate, only to be assaulted herself. The lightning struck with such force that it momentarily blinded the officer, and when his eyesight cleared, it revealed Glisten’s fiery death and Sunfire, now too weak to fly, dropping into the sea.
To Bakal’s relief, Sunfire’s head burst out of the water a moment later. However, the dragon didn’t try to return to the battle. Instead, he swam away, heading in the direction of Gwynned. Captain Bakal knew Sunfire was no coward. The man had been there when Glisten had made her mate swear what had turned out to be a prophetic oath. If one of them perished, the other had to make certain that the eggs survived. Sunfire surely hadn’t expected it to fall to him, however. The male would have gladly sacrificed himself for his mate. Now, though, the future of their children rested on him alone.