But it didn’t. The quicksilver dragon jerked and snarled, and Medrash finally managed to scramble clear. He looked across the ledge. Khouryn had made it to the top and buried his battle-axe in the creature’s haunch.
Together they started to work the dragon in much the same way that the dwarf had taught the vanquisher’s troops to fight the giants and other enormous denizens of Black Ash Plain. When the wyrm’s attention was on one warrior, he concentrated on defense. When its attention shifted to his comrade, he switched to offense.
The tactic by no means guaranteed victory when it was just the two of them fighting in what amounted to a maelstrom of snapping fangs, slashing claws, pounding wings, and a whirling, battering tail. But it took enough of the pressure off Medrash that occasionally, just for an instant, he had room in his head for a flicker of something besides the need to strike the next blow or keep his adversary from scoring on him. And at those moments, he hated the filthy dragon.
That was no surprise. His clan elders had raised him to hate dragons, and Skuthosin and the lesser wyrms who’d served him had done nothing to soften that animosity. But the loathing he was feeling had a different edge to it, and eventually he realized why.
Though he despised dragons of flesh and blood, he couldn’t deny that Bahamut had aided him repeatedly. And by rights, the metallic dragon in front of him ought to worship the Lord of the North Wind and uphold the principles he embodied. It offended Medrash that the creature manifestly didn’t.
As though in response to that realization, he felt another pulse of vileness throbbing from his foe like a demon’s heartbeat. Then he saw a chance to drive his blade into its flank, and the urgency of that swept all other thoughts away.
He landed the cut, but it didn’t slow the dragon down. Both spattered with the blood still streaming from the creature’s neck wound, both panting, he and Khouryn fought on until the tip of the wyrm’s whipping tail swatted the dwarf and bounced him off the cavern wall like a ball.
Medrash caught his breath. But demonstrating the hardiness of his people, Khouryn rolled to his feet, sidestepped the tail when it pounded down in a follow-up attack, and chopped it with his axe.
Still, when he spoke, his voice grated with pain. “Whatever magic you’ve got. Now.”
Medrash realized the sellsword was right. They couldn’t win with steel alone. Maybe if he’d had his shield, and Khouryn his mail, but they didn’t. It was a marvel they’d lasted as long as they had.
But Medrash had been using his gifts. He’d struck with supernatural strength and floated runes of light, symbols to ward a paladin and his allies and hinder any enemy, in the air. What was left to try?
He felt another throb of nauseating wrongness, almost like a nudge. The nudge reminded him of the palpable taint that had clung to Skuthosin and, even more important, to the members of the Cadre.
“I have an idea!” he gasped. “Keep the wyrm busy!”
Khouryn instantly rushed in and attacked. Despite its hugeness and all its other advantages, the startled dragon flinched back from the almost demented assault.
That gave Medrash a chance to back away from the fight. He hated leaving Khouryn to fight alone, but it was necessary.
He focused his resolve and drew down all the power he could hold. What he was about to attempt would exhaust his mystical gifts. If it didn’t work, he and Khouryn would indeed be left to battle without so much as a glimmer of magic to help them.
He shifted his sword to his off hand, raised his gauntleted fist high, and whispered a prayer very much like the one he’d improvised on the drill field outside of Djerad Thymar, on the day the warriors of the Cadre came to ask his help.
The cleansing power of the exorcism locked on to something inside the quicksilver dragon, enabling Medrash to perceive it more clearly. That made his muscles bunch with revulsion, but it also revealed beyond question that the quicksilver wyrm bore Tiamat’s stain. It wasn’t exactly like the possession that had corrupted the dragonborn cultists, but it was close enough to bolster his confidence that he could drag it out.
He willed it forth, and slowly, twisting this way and that, five columns of vapor, each a different color but all noxious and filthy looking, boiled up out of the dragon’s body. The creature didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps Khouryn did, but if so, he was too busy fighting to comment.
The tops of the pillars of mist formed themselves into vague shapes like crested, wedge-shaped heads. As one, they swiveled in Medrash’s direction. Two points of light flowered inside each.
Meanwhile, the quicksilver dragon struck like a snake. Khouryn tried to meet the attack with a chop, but the wyrm stopped short. Its action had been a feint intended to draw just such a response, and it stretched its neck again and seized the axe in its fangs. Khouryn bellowed and somehow managed to rip the weapon free, though the effort sent him staggering off balance.
The smoky heads on their long necks arced over both their host body and Khouryn to strike at Medrash. He didn’t know exactly what would happen if one of them succeeded in touching him, but he assumed it would spoil the exorcism at the very least. Refusing to allow the threat to disrupt his soft, measured recitation, he sidestepped a surge of blue vapor, ducked the green, and retreated from the white. The white head splashed to shapelessness when it struck the surface of the ledge but reformed as the misty neck raised itself once more.
The quicksilver dragon leaped backward, unfortunately without stretching the smoky extrusions past the breaking point. Perhaps the move caught Khouryn by surprise, or maybe he was just too winded to chase the creature. He faltered for the first time, while the wyrm inhaled deeply and cocked its head back. Its breath weapon had renewed itself, and it was about to give the dwarf another blast.
“Torm says, get out!” Medrash bellowed. And one by one, writhing like parasites that a healer and his forceps were plucking from under a patient’s skin, the roots of the misty columns floated free of the quicksilver dragon’s scales.
The uprooting made the smoke-things attack more furiously than ever, and as Medrash ducked, dodged, and shifted his sword back into his dominant hand, he suspected he might pay for his success with his life. But as he cut at the black head, it and its counterparts burst into formlessness, then vanished entirely.
Perhaps unable to swallow its venom back down, the quicksilver wyrm twisted its head and spat it over the drop. That left it vulnerable, or vulnerable for a dragon, anyway. Khouryn charged with his axe raised high.
Medrash detested wyrms, but he still yelled, “Stop!”
Aoth had found a spot where the stony ground rose before dropping away in another cliff. If a fellow crawled up to the edge on his belly, as he, Mardiz-sul, and several other genasi had done, he had cover. He could look out and survey the Old Man’s Head-which did indeed vaguely resemble a head with a smear of white and gray cloud at the top to represent the hair-without too much concern that a sentry would spot him spying.
Mardiz-sul took a long breath then said, “Well, it doesn’t look too bad.”
Aoth smiled. “That’s the spirit. But actually, it’s even worse than it looks. There’s an earthmote floating near the summit. It has the clouds and some sort of enchantment to hide it, so you can’t see it, but I can.”
The resolution in the firesoul’s face twisted into dismay. “And that’s where Vairshekellabex has his lair?”
“There’s some kind of bridge connecting the mote and the mountain, so I assume that at least some of the wyrmkeepers are over there too.”