He started to run after Alasklerbanbastos then realized he’d never catch him. He pointed his spear and shouted a word of power.
A spark leaped from the point of the weapon, hurtled through the dark, struck the top of the dracolich’s tail, and exploded into a booming burst of flame. Alasklerbanbastos jerked and stumbled but then ran on.
Aoth spun his spear over his head and called floating, spinning blades of amber light into being, right in front of the undead wyrm. Alasklerbanbastos couldn’t stop or turn in time to avoid them, and they sheared chunks of rotting flesh away.
“Turn and fight me!” Aoth shouted. “Otherwise I’ll tear you apart!”
Alasklerbanbastos kept charging toward Cera. He was already close enough to attack her with his breath or a spell but apparently wanted to use fang and claw instead. Another bound or two would close the distance.
The bridge linking the earthmote to the mountaintop was a slender, arching, granite span seemingly extruded from the bedrock. It had low, rudimentary parapets and, as far as Gaedynn could tell, no tangible understructure to keep it from collapsing under its own weight. Magic had made it and sustained it.
One of the earthmote’s two sentries had stood watch on that end of the bridge. His corpse lay facedown with Son-liin’s arrow sticking out of its spine. Gaedynn took another look around, making sure nothing was happening that required his attention, then squatted and started rummaging through the wyrmkeeper’s possessions.
One of the windsouls made a little spitting sound.
“What?” Gaedynn asked, whispering. “We have time and if I find anything, I’ll share.”
“We’re not doing this for loot,” the firestormer said.
“That doesn’t mean you have to shrink from it in horror,” Gaedynn replied.
Son-liin chuckled and a thunderclap split the night. Somewhere behind them, something flashed.
His eyes wide, blue gleams flowing rapidly through the lines that etched his skin, the windsoul who’d taken exception to Gaedynn’s sellsword ways looked as if he’d forgotten all about them. “It’s too soon!” he said. “We aren’t all on the earthmote yet. We can’t be. There hasn’t been time!”
“That’s war for you,” said Gaedynn, rising and reaching for an arrow. “Nothing-” A burst of fire flared in the dark. Specifically, the dark off to the left, near the edge of the floating island. He felt a jolt of alarm.
Vairshekellabex’s cave was in the center of the earthmote. If he’d come out sooner than expected, but Aoth and Alasklerbanbastos had met him with blasts of battle magic and dragon breath, that wouldn’t have been too bad. But the flashes and noise were coming from the wrong spot for that to be the case.
It was just a guess, but Gaedynn suspected Alasklerbanbastos had devised another ploy to steal back his freedom, and Aoth and Cera were trying to subdue him. If so, then there was no one in position to deal with Vairshekellabex when he emerged as, roused by all the commotion, he surely would.
“Hold the bridge,” Gaedynn said. “Make sure no enemy sneaks up behind you. I have to go.”
He stalked toward the heart of the earthmote. Spinning lengths of yellow light appeared on the left. Aoth’s magic, most likely. Gaedynn had seen him use the spell before.
He heard a scuffing footstep and spun around, drawing his bow as he did. Son-liin was trotting to catch up with him.
“I told you to defend the bridge,” he said.
“There!” she said. She showed him where she meant by pivoting and loosing an arrow of her own.
He turned. Flaring into existence when he hadn’t been ready, the various lights had robbed him of some of his night vision. But he could still see a wyrmkeeper folding up around the shaft Son-liin had driven into his guts. Plainly Aoth and Alasklerbanbastos hadn’t disposed of all the wretches before the plan started falling apart.
Two more figures rushed out of the murk, one human, the other not. When Gaedynn saw its leathery wings and lashing tail, he cursed. Aoth had scouted the earthmote from afar but hadn’t noticed any abishais. Either the devil hadn’t been out in the open then, or one of the dragon priests had just conjured it out of Tiamat’s infernal domain.
Gaedynn shot an arrow into its chest. The attack would have dropped any man, but the creature kept coming. The tail lifted, ready to sting, and the abishai spit a misty spray that was all but invisible in the dark.
Gaedynn sprang to the side. At the same moment, red light flared at the edge of his vision, and white shone and crackled in answer. He surmised that the wyrmkeeper had struck at Son-liin with a spell, and she’d retaliated with her stormsoul abilities. But he couldn’t tell to what effect and didn’t dare look away from his own opponent to find out.
The spray spattered down beside him, sizzling on stone and earth. Though it had missed, the fumes that suffused the air stung his exposed skin and, more seriously, his eyes. Tears welled up and blurred his vision.
Then he realized he didn’t see the abishai anymore. Either he’d simply lost it in the haze and the dark or it was using a supernatural ability to befuddle him. He thought of the stinger reared to stab into his body and pump it full of vitriol.
Nocking another arrow, he backed up and looked for the creature. For a moment, he still couldn’t find the abishai. Then something, a footfall so soft or a scent so faint he wasn’t even conscious of it, or maybe just pure instinct told him his foe was still in front of him and somewhat to the right.
He pivoted, drew, and seemed to be aiming straight at Son-liin. If the abishai wasn’t really between them, or if he simply missed the creature, he stood an excellent chance of killing the genasi girl instead.
He told himself he neither jumped at shadows nor did he miss. He shot, the arrow thumped home, and the abishai became visible in mid-pounce. It convulsed and Gaedynn had little difficulty sidestepping it and avoiding the scrabbling claws and whipping sting. For after all, they were no longer targeting him. The abishai was fighting the one truly invincible foe. Its spasms subsided and it lay motionless.
Gaedynn spun toward the other fight. Except it wasn’t a fight anymore. The dragon priest was down. With a grunt of effort, one foot planted on the body, Son-liin pulled her long hunter’s knife from between the wyrmkeeper’s ribs.
“I was going to say,” the genasi panted, “that I’m not under an enchantment this time. I can help you with Vairshekellabex.”
Gaedynn grinned. “Not that I’m admitting I need help, but pick up your bow and hurry if you’re coming.”
They trotted onward, slowing down and skulking when they neared the cave. No one and nothing else accosted them, so maybe Aoth and Alasklerbanbastos had killed most of the wyrmkeepers. But they didn’t encounter any other genasi either.
Are the other firestormers still coming, Gaedynn wondered, or did the lights and sounds on the earthmote spook them? By the Hells, just getting on a griffon’s back was a daunting prospect all by itself if you’d never done it before. But if the firestormers were balking, maybe Jet could bully them into following through.
The black mouth of the cave yawned in the eastern face of a big, granite knob. Peering around a smaller outcropping, Gaedynn barely had time to look at it before a deafening roar echoed from within. Then the same deep, sibilant voice chanted rhyming couplets in what he assumed to be the draconic tongue. Blue sparks fell from the air. For a moment the darkness was something he felt rather than saw, like cool silk sliding on his skin, and the cries and other muddled sounds of combat coming from behind him were a metallic taste in his tongue.