Sallah let her momentum roll her off the dragon’s tail and somersaulted to her feet. She stood there, her broken sword in hand, still defiantly blazing away, and shouted out a prayer.
“Silver Flame, guide my way!” she cried as the dragon turned to face her.
The dragon queen’s head spun about on her sinuous neck first, her gaze darting back and forth until it landed on Sallah and her sword-shard. The creature’s eyes narrowed, the reptilian slits in the great yellow orbs constricting until they seemed like vertical lines.
The dragon’s tail cocked back, and Sallah tensed, ready to move. When the tail whipped around, she leaped into the air. The dragon queen, though, had anticipated this, and the tail came up and knocked the woman’s legs from beneath her.
The blow sent Sallah clanging to the floor. Despite that, she kept her grip on her sword.
By the time Sallah had scrambled back to her feet, the dragon queen had spun her entire body around, bringing the whole of her fearsome visage to bear on the knight.
Sallah felt a tremor pass through her body, but she suppressed it. If these were to be her last moments in this world, she refused to spend them afraid. She held her broken sword before her, interposing its silvery light between herself and the dragon.
The flickering blaze echoed in Sallah’s own soul and set it afire. She felt the heat of it burn in her eyes in her determination to deport herself as she had always been meant to be: a Knight of the Silver Flame.
“Come, queen of dragons,” Sallah said. “Let us bring this to an end.”
The monstrous creature peered down at the knight as if she’d come across some curious insect crawling across her path, something that bore closer inspection before she crushed it. A low growl escaped from her mouth. It sounded like rolling thunder.
Sallah assumed a warrior’s stance. From here, she could not reach the dragon’s snout or neck. The creature had been hurt once already, and the wound had made it cautious.
Sallah considered charging the beast, her sword held high. One look at the dragon’s maw told her all she needed to know about how well that would succeed. The creature could swallow her whole then use her blade to pick her teeth.
“Wait!” a voice said behind her.
Sallah snapped her head around to see Esprë walking up behind her, an unfamiliar look painted on her face.
The moment Sallah took her eyes from the dragon queen’s, she knew she had made a mistake. She heard the rush of air as the creature’s head darted forward. She had time to say a single word before the slab-like snout smashed into her in an attempt to snuff out her light forever.
“Run!” Sallah said to Esprë.
The instant before the dragon’s attack knocked her senseless, though, she recognized the look in the young elf’s eyes. She would do anything but run.
59
Kandler hadn’t felt so helpless since the Day of Mourning. Trapped in a dragon’s clutches as the silver creature took to the air with both him and Burch in its clutches, he knew he had no power at all.
He lived and breathed only at Greffykor’s whim. If the dragon wished, it could crush him between its talons before he could scream for it to stop. Kandler told himself not to do anything to make the dragon angry.
The worst part, though, was knowing that he would probably have to do just that. If Greffykor insisted on keeping the justicar from saving Esprë, then he would have no choice.
Kandler wished that the dragon hadn’t made him give up his sword. Trying to kill a dragon—or even hurt it—with his bare hands would be like trying to cart away a mountain without even a shovel. The fangblade could cut through dragon scales the way nothing else would, but now it lay on a floor at least twenty yards below, although it might as well have been a world away.
When Kandler reached the upper floor, he scanned the room for Esprë. He found her—in the worst possible situation.
Against the far wall, the dragon queen had trapped a terrified Xalt. The only reason the dragon hadn’t yet turned the warforged into a pile of ash was because Sallah stood on her tail, wrenching the remnants of her broken blade out of the creature’s tail. Esprë came stalking up behind the lady knight, getting closer to the dragon queen with every step.
Kandler tried to shout out a warning to her, but Greffykor squeezed his chest hard the moment he took a large breath. His yell came out only as the barest wheeze.
“We will watch this happen,” the silver dragon said. “We will not interfere.”
Kandler looked to Burch and saw the shifter struggling against the dragon’s grip too. He had as much success as the justicar did at prying loose those silvery talons: none. They seemed to be made of polished steel rather than flesh, and they gave not one inch despite Kandler’s most desperate efforts to make them move.
The dragon queen knocked Sallah flat, and Kandler tried to shout again, this time in dismay. Greffykor stifled him once more.
“If you do not cease your struggles, I will kill you,” Greffykor said. “This is far too important for you to disrupt.”
Esprë stood over Sallah’s fallen form, between the lady knight and the dragon. “Leaver her alone!” she shouted. “I’m the one you want! ”
The dragon queen paused and considered the young elf’s words. Then she opened her mouth and arched her neck back as she prepared to strike.
“Wait!” Esprë said. “I wish to make a bargain with you.”
The dragon ignored her. Kandler could see that the creature would just slay the girl on the spot.
“I am the one with the dragonmark!” Esprë shouted. “I bear the Mark of Death!”
The dragon queen’s eyes flew wide, and her mouth snapped shut. She regarded the girl in suspicion. She turned one eye toward Esprë and squinted at her as if she were an unusual—rare, even—cut of meat.
The dragon queen snarled something at the girl. Her voice was low and calm, despite the way her nostrils flared and tossed off rising plumes of smoke.
“She requires proof,” Greffykor said, translating for everyone else in the room.
Esprë spun about and spied Kandler and Burch in the silver dragon’s clutches. As she did, the creature relaxed his grip on them. Kandler still had no hope of breaking free, but at least now he could breathe freely.
“Esprë!” Kandler said. “Get out of here!”
The girl lowered her head and shook it. Kandler couldn’t remember seeing her so serious, so sad, since word of her mother’s death.
“Good-bye, Father,” she said to him. Then she turned her back on him and Burch and faced the dragon.
“I will surrender to you,” Esprë said, “if you swear to leave here afterward and let Greffykor and his other guests be.”
The dragon made a halting, coughing sound that Kandler could only guess was meant to be a laugh. Then it snarled at the girl.
As the dragon spoke, Kandler spotted Xalt creeping around behind the dragon. The warforged seemed to be looking for a means of attacking the dragon or—barring that—charging out and running off with Esprë.
Before he could make a move, though, the dragon queen’s tail lashed out and caught him in the chest, knocking him flat against the tower’s far wall. It stayed there then, pinning Xalt against the wall. The cut Sallah had made in the dragon’s tail started to bleed once again, and some of the crimson liquid trickled over Xalt’s legs, but the dragon queen ignored it.
“Frekkainta is curious to know why she shouldn’t just kill you all,” Greffykor said. “Permit me to answer that.”
The silver dragon held up Kandler and Burch to illustrate the point he planned to make. “These people are my guests, and they have no means of harming you. If you insist upon trying to jail me and kill them, I will fight you tooth and claw. You may defeat me, but I will make you pay for your victory.”