Mardiz-sul froze in place like a statue. His red-bronze skin turned gray.
Meanwhile, Vairshekellabex cocked his head back, snapped it forward, and opened his jaws wide. Gray spew blasted out, and Aoth and Gaedynn threw themselves out of the way.
The caustic spray hammered the ground but didn’t splash like water. By the time it hit, it was already congealing, and it ended up as a freestanding web of interconnected globs, loops, and tendrils. Imagining the steaming, sizzling goo eating into his flesh and sticking to it at the same time, Aoth winced and roused the protective magic of another tattoo.
Then, spinning his spear through the necessary figure, he created a second such weapon made of rippling, multicolored light. It hefted itself as though an invisible warrior were holding it, threw itself at Vairshekellabex’s head, and guided by its creator’s will, started jabbing.
Gaedynn shot a second arrow into the dragon’s neck just as the first one fell out, the end of it charred away. If it meant the shaft had gone in deep enough to come into contact with Vairshekellabex’s caustic spew, Aoth supposed that was a good thing. Although so far, it didn’t seem to be slowing the gray down any.
Meanwhile, braving the lashing tail, stamping hind foot, and pounding wing that could have swatted him like a fly, an earthsoul scuttled forward to Mardiz-sul. He gripped the Bright Sword by the shoulder and jabbered something Aoth had no hope of hearing, not with Vairshekellabex snarling, Firetormers screaming war cries and warnings, and all the rest of the cacophony. But maybe it was a charm or a prayer meant to help the earthsoul exploit his affinity with stone, because the red and gold washed back into Mardiz-sul’s face, and freed from the bonds of petrifaction, he staggered backward with his comrade.
Vairshekellabex’s forefoot snatched for Aoth. He sidestepped and tried to jab it but was too slow. The gray started to claw again, and another arrow appeared in his neck right beside the last one and the gory hole left by the one before that. He hissed and his talons fell short of the mark.
Aoth made the rainbow spear stab for the throat as well. Vairshekellabex snarled a monosyllabic word of command in one of the Abyssal or Infernal tongues that filled a man with instinctive loathing even if he didn’t understand them. The spear blinked out of existence.
Then the dragon’s head jerked to the right. He opened his jaws and spewed his breath weapon. But the acidic slime arced high over the heads of any of the genasi on that flank and spattered the ground well behind him.
Aoth felt a vicarious surge of Jet’s derision: You missed us, wyrm! Then the griffon focused his thoughts on his master. We’re back. Do you want us to keep ferrying genasi across or start fighting the dragon?
Get the firestormers off your backs and get Gaedynn and me on, Aoth replied. There was no point in sending the griffons for any more reinforcements. One way or another, the fight would be over before they could arrive.
The flying steeds swooped to land beside the same mass of granite that was protecting Son-liin. As Aoth created a shower of fist-sized hailstones to batter Vairshekellabex, Gaedynn turned and sprinted toward the outcropping. Aoth thought the archer was breaking away too soon, then noticed his quiver was empty. He couldn’t have attacked again even if he’d stayed put.
Fortunately it was then that the windsouls came flying in from the east, and if any of them hesitated before actually joining the fight, it was only for a moment. In a sense, their advent made up for Gaedynn’s departure. They filled the gap in the rudimentary three-sided formation that was penning the dragon in.
But Aoth was still going to need someone on the same patch of ground that he was currently occupying, someone to brave the very worst Vairshekellabex could do and very possibly die as a result. And it was Mardiz-sul’s bad luck to be the best hand-to-hand combatant among the firestormers.
“Bright Sword!” Aoth bellowed. “Come here!”
Mardiz-sul sprinted toward him immediately, circling wide enough that Vairshekellabex was unlikely to kill him before he arrived. The same earthsoul who’d turned him from stone back into flesh and blood followed along a stride behind him. Eyes wide and body trembling, the watersoul in the vomit-spattered brigandine edged forward to join Aoth as well.
Maybe several warriors, standing together with Cera’s magic supporting them, had a chance of surviving. Aoth could only hope so because he needed them there whatever it cost them.
“Hold this ground!” he said, and Vairshekellabex’s head hurtled down at them. Everyone tried to leap out of the way, but the earthsoul was too slow. The gray’s crooked fangs snapped shut on him, and when the gigantic jaws lifted away, nothing remained but hands, feet, and blood.
Jet bounded into the open. The genasi that he and Eider had just carried to the earthmote followed him.
Aoth swung himself into the griffon’s saddle. Responding to his will, his safety straps started buckling themselves to secure him in place. But Jet didn’t wait on that. He lashed his wings and took to the air instantly.
On their way up, Aoth spotted Gaedynn and Eider above them. The skirmisher’s mount carried additional arrows, and he was shooting them at the dragon’s neck as rapidly as he could, making it look like a pincushion. But he wasn’t keeping his distance while he did it. Eider was diving and tearing at Vairshekellabex, flying on by, wheeling, and diving again.
That, Aoth decided, was the way to do it. He and Gaedynn needed to employ both their own best weapons and those of their steeds if they hoped to kill the seemingly unstoppable horror below them.
I like that plan, said Jet, sensing his intent. The familiar screeched, plunged at one of the gray’s sweeping, leathery wings, and ripped gashes in it as he hurtled past.
As he wheeled, Aoth had time to cast darts of azure light. Then Jet furled his wings and swooped. Aoth charged his spear with chaotic force and struck when his mount did. A century of practice allowed him to thrust safely past Jet’s body and pierce the dragon’s back instead. Power flared and blasted the wound bigger.
Then Jet wrenched himself sideways. Vairshekellabex’s gigantic teeth clashed shut just a finger’s length beyond the tip of his left wing.
Aoth immediately sensed another threat, although he didn’t know exactly what or where. Watch out! he said.
Prompted by either his rider’s intuition or his own, Jet plunged lower. Vairshekellabex’s tail whipped over their heads.
Wings beating, the griffon climbed, seeking to regain the high air. He turned for another pass.
Vairshekellabex snarled words in the same grating, repulsive demonic language he’d used before. The griffon’s black feathers and fur turned gray, and his body froze into immobility.
Jet spun end over end as he fell. Aoth closed his eyes to keep the whirling from impairing his concentration, rested his hand on the hard, ridged stone of his familiar’s neck, and rattled off the words of a counterspell.
Countermagic wasn’t a part of the comprehensive system of battle wizardry he’d studied in his younger years in Thay. It was just an extra trick he’d picked up along the way, and at that moment, he was grimly aware that he wasn’t nearly as good at it. But apparently he was good enough because Jet abruptly exploded into motion once again. Beating his wings, straining with every bit of his strength, the familiar pulled out of his fall.
Afterward his muscles shuddered and twitched. The residual pain of the two transformations and the extreme effort that followed bled across the psychic link and jabbed up and down Aoth’s body. For a moment he felt as though he had wings growing out of his own back, cramping, throbbing wings.