But the shape that emerged was not one of the demons that had gone in. It twitched to the side with unlikely speed and Albanon’s bolt flickered harmlessly past Vestagix’s skull.
The narrow muzzle twisted in a sharp-toothed grin. “Vestagix claims you.”
Albanon froze, a rabbit before a coiled serpent. Suddenly, he was back among the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls, a captive of Vestapalk as the Voidharrow-transformed dragon inspected him, stroking a claw like smoky red glass across his belly. His death hung over him. Vestapalk had spared him with the intent of infecting him with the Voidharrow. Vestagix seemed to have no such intention. For a moment, everything seemed to slow. A perfect image burned itself into Albanon’s mind of Vestagix as the strange creature-both dragon and plague demon and yet more than either-raised his great talon.
A talon that, Albanon saw, was identical to the one that had stroked his belly. A talon that seemed older, more nicked and worn, than the rest of Vestagix’s bright-scaled body, almost as if that body had been grown from the talon rather than the other way around. A fragment of a long-ago lesson with Moorin rose in Albanon’s mind: the Draconic word for “claw” was gix.
Then the moment shattered as something swept past him and darted straight at Vestagix. Shrieking like a boiling kettle, Splendid swirled around the creature. Vestagix stabbed at her, but the pseudodragon was an agile flyer. “Master, run!” she spat, then dived past Vestagix’s talon. Her tail lashed out and the stinger on its tip sank into his flesh. Vestagix howled, probably more with shock than actual pain. He grabbed for Splendid again, but once more she slipped away from his grasp. She stung him a second time, then beat her wings and climbed away from his claws.
But not from his tail. It snapped up in a blur almost faster than Albanon could follow. Suddenly Splendid was tumbling down, stunned. Vestagix snatched her out of the air. He looked at Albanon and his eyes narrowed.
Then he snapped Splendid’s neck.
He might as well have snapped Albanon’s. The wizard watched Splendid’s broken body slip to the ground. He felt paralyzed, his thoughts and emotions tumbling too fast to make sense. Vestagix coiled to spring. The great talon reached out for Albanon.
Brilliant white light erupted behind him as the horde of demons parted like storm clouds before the sun. Vestagix half-turned to face this new threat-and a glowing shield emblazoned with the crest of Bahamut slammed him to the ground.
Roghar stood over his fallen foe, shining like the Platinum Dragon incarnate. He gave Vestagix no more chance to recover than the demon had given Splendid. Wrenching his shield off his arm, the paladin raised it in both hands.
“Your existence,” he growled, “offends the gods.” The white glow shifted to the shield’s rim as Roghar drove it down across Vestagix’s throat. The shield bit through flesh like the edge of a sword blade. Vestagix’s head rolled away, his eyes wide in surprise.
On the periphery of his attention, Albanon saw a change come over the horde with the loss of their leader. Their charge into Winterhaven seemed to fall apart. Whatever control Vestagix had over the plague demons gave way to sheer blood lust. The demons’ attention flitted from one target to the next. They started fighting each other as much as the defenders of the village. The battle didn’t get any easier for the Winterhaveners, but the tide had turned. The tall juggernaut came sprawling down, hamstrung by a squad of defenders led by Padraig and Belen. Uldane went dancing among the demons, crippling any he could, killing any that fell wounded.
The only thing on Albanon’s mind, though, was Splendid. He went over to where Splendid lay by Vestagix’s outstretched hand. The light that shone around Roghar had faded. The dragonborn jerked his shield out of the ground-there was little blood from Vestagix’s corpse, as if the holy light had seared the stump of his neck. “I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker,” Roghar said. “The demons swarmed over me, but they didn’t even try to attack, even when I fought free of them. It was as if I was just in their way.”
Albanon felt nothing at Roghar’s strange escape. He kneeled and gently picked up Splendid’s body. Her bright eyes were dim. Her delicate wings hung limp. The scales on her chest were torn where Vestagix’s lashing tail had struck.
“She called me ‘master,’ ” he said.
“Bahamut will welcome her spirit,” said Roghar.
The fury that Albanon felt when he thought Roghar was dead reignited inside him, even hotter than before. He dropped his staff so he could cradle Splendid in one arm and still have a hand free. “Step back, Roghar.”
“What?” The paladin looked startled.
“Step back!” The spell was already in Albanon’s mind. As Roghar moved away from him, he let it flow onto his tongue and into his fingers. Lightning chased his gestures. The jagged lines formed a glowing image in the air: a small, sleeping serpent, no bigger than Splendid. Albanon ground his teeth. When the serpent woke, it would strike, but no more than once. That was no aid to the defense of Winterhaven. That was no tribute to Immeral or Splendid.
The solution rose out of the darkness of his anger and grief. You know the way. Kri showed you.
He’d controlled himself, and for what? Splendid and Immeral were dead. Vestapalk’s plague demons might still overrun the rest of them. There was nothing fair or heroic in that. Why control himself any longer?
Madness received him with an embrace both warm and terrifying. The eye of Tharizdun gazed upon him.
The world opened into flows of magic and numbers, the promise of unlimited power if only Albanon could expand his mind to encompass it. The power to burn all of Winterhaven if that was what he desired.
It wasn’t. He pulled back. Fire would grow to fill any volume he permitted, but lightning was different. It needed focus. Squeezing his eyes shut, he twisted the numbers in his mind. He forced himself to conceive of the magic as growing not by squares or cubes, but in linear progression.
Glowing lines and crackling angles sprang to life in his imagination, as if a whole plane of magic had lain dormant there, just waiting for him to discover it. He could have reached across the world. He could have touched the Astral Sea and the domains of the gods! If his manipulation of fire spells showed the power of a spell expanded, this spell showed the power of a spell grown and focused. Albanon’s body trembled with it.
His ears itched at some sensation he couldn’t immediately identify. The sound of fighting had stopped, he realized, though something new had taken its place. Something that wasn’t quite a noise and wasn’t quite a touch, but that licked along his skin like a cat’s tongue. He opened his eyes.
The sound and sensation he’d felt was the crackling play of little arcs of lightning across his body. The serpent of his spell had grown. It surrounded him, towering over the entire village of awed people and staring plague demons. It had sprouted more heads, too, making it more hydra than serpent-and each head looked like Splendid. Harsh laughter, half-strangled by tears, bubbled up from Albanon’s throat. He twitched the fingers of his free hand, plucking at the flows of power. The hydra woke.
And struck.
It was as if a thunderstorm had erupted within Winterhaven’s walls. Bolts of lightning smashed down into the horde, scattering the demons and leaving bright lines seared across Albanon’s vision. Thunder shook the ground. Albanon could hear nothing else, not even the sound of his own voice as he screamed his rage. The lightning fell again and again, reducing some demons to smoking cinders and knocking others back. One bolt, as thick as his thigh, fell on Vestagix’s decapitated body. It clung to the corpse as if it had been hooked into the flesh, making the dead limbs twitch and dance.