“Oh, good,” he said as the synesthesia faded. “Vairshekellabex is a sorcerer.”
A huge head at the end of a serpentine neck came twisting out of the cave to peer about. Its jaws seemed disproportionately large in relation to the rest of the skull, and yet the rows of crooked, protruding fangs likewise appeared grotesquely oversized in relation to the mouth. Spiky growths dangled under the lower jaw to make a kind of beard.
“He’s big too,” Son-liin whispered. Despite her attempt at bravado, she wasn’t quite able to keep a tremor out of her voice, and Gaedynn didn’t blame her. Judging from the head, Vairshekellabex was twice as big as Yemere had been and likely twice as old and powerful too.
Gaedynn’s first impulse was to try to sink an arrow into Vairshekellabex’s eye. But that one attack probably wouldn’t kill him. No single wound ever seemed to stop a wyrm. Yet his first effort, whatever it was, would give away his location.
He drew one of the two remaining enchanted arrows from his quiver and laid it on his bow. Then he stepped into the open, drew, and loosed.
As he intended, the shaft flew over Vairshekellabex’s head, then vanished in a flash and a howl. A section of the cavern ceiling cracked apart, and banging and rumbling, the pieces rained down on top of the wyrm.
In fact, they drove his head and neck-which were still the only parts Gaedynn could see-to the floor and buried them. But the granite shards began to shift immediately. Plainly Vairshekellabex was still conscious and trying to drag himself free.
Gaedynn cursed and shot the last of the magic arrows. It, too, exploded into light and noise, and it brought more chunks of granite raining down to add to the pile. But afterward the mound continued to shift. Pieces spilled off the top and clattered down the sides.
Son-liin drew an arrow of her own. “Grumbar,” she said, “please help me.” She kissed the broad-head point of the shaft, and a glimmer flowed through the golden lines in her skin.
Then she shot the arrow into the pile, and golden light rippled through it as well. Grinding and crunching, the chunks of stone bunched more tightly together. Some hissed as one fused to another.
“Nice work,” Gaedynn said.
“It still won’t hold him for long,” Son-liin replied. “I’m much more of a stormsoul than an earthsoul. I did what I could, but…”
Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she pitched forward. Gaedynn caught her and laid her on the ground.
Up ahead, with Alasklerbanbastos rapidly closing on her, Cera jammed the shadow stone back into the purse on her belt. Her hand twitched toward the gilded mace hanging on her other hip, but then didn’t grab it. She evidently realized there wasn’t time. Instead, she simply raised her arm high and swept it in an arc from east to west. “Keeper!” she cried.
Golden light blazed around her, and finally Alasklerbanbastos balked and recoiled from the sun god’s holy power. So did a thing like an empty, flopping sack sewn in the shape of a dragon.
Aoth had been so intent on the dracolich that, his fire-kissed eyes notwithstanding, he hadn’t noticed the other threat until that moment. It reminded him of the skin kites he’d fought in Thay and was certainly a product of necromancy, specifically of Alasklerbanbastos’s necromancy. The undead creature had apparently flayed his own rotting hide to make himself a servant.
Aoth ran around Alasklerbanbastos and put himself between the dracolich and Cera. The sheer drop at the edge of the earthmote was just a stone’s throw behind him, limiting his ability to maneuver.
“Use the phylactery!” he yelled.
“He can use the link to hurt me too,” Cera panted. “But if I concentrate-”
With a snap like a sail catching the wind, the empty dragon rushed into the light. Aoth started to pivot in that direction, but then Alasklerbanbastos surged forward too.
Aoth jerked back around and stepped to meet the dracolich. He thrust with his spear and released much of the power stored within it, to infuse the thrust with destructive force and anchor himself to the ground, so his foe’s momentum wouldn’t fling him backward or bowl him over.
The spear stabbed deep into the wyrm’s lower jaw. A white burst of power banged and flung scraps of decayed flesh, bone, and broken teeth through the air. Alasklerbanbastos stumbled to a halt but instantly raised a forefoot.
Aoth scrambled right to keep the undead dragon from clawing him, then sensed motion on his left. He glanced in that direction. Alasklerbanbastos’s head had looped around toward him.
The dragon’s gaze made his own head spin. Suddenly it was as though the floating island had flipped on its side, and he was falling into his adversary’s eyes.
He focused his will on one of the tattoos on his chest and activated its magic. A surge of clarity and vigor washed his vertigo away, and he wrenched his eyes away from the wyrm’s. It was only then that he could see his foe’s jaws opening and the glow at the back of the mouth.
He dived forward. Lightning flared behind him, the flash illuminating the raw, reeking putridity of Alasklerbanbastos’s body in all its ugliness.
Aoth landed on his knees. Alasklerbanbastos lifted a foot to stamp. His neck kept twisting to put Aoth in front of his jaws and eyes again.
Aoth scrambled underneath the dragon. At that moment it was the safest place. Bellowing, he thrust the spear up between the massive ribs. When he jerked the weapon out, black sludge spattered down from the puncture.
Alasklerbanbastos’s legs flexed. Aoth realized his foe was about to take flight, and once that happened it would be impossible to keep the creature from turning his attention back on Cera. He rattled off words of power and swept the spear in an arc.
Tentacles of inky shadow burst out of the ground. They wrapped around Alasklerbanbastos’s hind feet and tail. While he had the creature immobilized, Aoth repeatedly drove the spear into his chest.
The dracolich snarled a rhyme in Draconic. Magic whined through the air and for a moment turned everything a sickly phosphorescent green. The black tentacles melted, and the steaming residue flowed down his limbs like oil.
Aoth ran toward one of Alasklerbanbastos’s forefeet. Maybe he could nail the creature to the ground with his spear. But before he could reach the extremity, the dragon jumped away.
To Aoth’s relief, though, Alasklerbanbastos didn’t take to the air. The wyrm just sprang away across the ground, uncovering him. Then he could see why. Jet and Eider had returned and were swooping and wheeling over the lich, crowding him, denying him the room he needed to take off.
Each griffon was carrying a pair of firestormers. The genasi were hanging on desperately, plainly too terrified to do anything more. One of them was screaming.
Aoth didn’t blame the fellow. Alasklerbanbastos’s wings were sweeping up and down. His tail swirled through the air. He struck like a serpent, his fangs clashing shut. It must have seemed impossible to their passengers that the griffons could dodge every attack.
It was certainly impossible that they could do it for very long, not unless somebody gave Alasklerbanbastos something else to think about. Aoth called fire from his spear and slashed it down the dragon’s flank like a sword.
Just die! he thought. I killed you before, when you were in a much stronger body than this. But then he’d had Tchazzar, Jaxanaedegor, and several other dragons fighting on his side.
As he dashed to interpose himself between the dracolich and Cera once more, it seemed to him that the phylactery was still the key. Cera could subdue their foe if she could only take the time to reassert her mastery of the stone. But the hollow wyrm was still pressing her relentlessly, pushing her back parallel to the edge of the cliff. The unnatural thing lunged, then snapped and raked with fangs and claws of hardened hide, and she hit back with the mace of amber glow she’d floated in the air between them.