To the Abyss with it. It was as reckless as anything Aoth had ever done in Thay, madder than anything he’d ever wanted to do again. But he aimed his spear and sent Jet swooping at the dracolich.
Skuthosiin spewed vapor. Balasar held his breath and squinched his eyes shut. His exposed skin stung even so, but his precautions-or the protective amulet Biri, the pretty young white-scaled mage, had for some reason given him-kept the vapor from rotting his lungs or blinding him.
His poor horse wasn’t as lucky. He felt the animal toppling beneath him. He opened his eyes, dropped his lance, dived out of the saddle, and rolled to his feet. At once he had to jump to keep his mount’s spasmodic legs from kicking him. To either side, other horses lay or rolled convulsing. As did some of their riders. Other dragonborn coughed and retched or swiped tears from their streaming eyes.
Balasar realized he needed to keep Skuthosiin’s attention fixed on him until his fellow survivors recovered the capacity to defend themselves. “I’m still here!” he called to the hideous creature. “You just can’t do anything right, can you?”
Skuthosiin snarled and clawed. Balasar dodged left and then, as the dragon’s foot smashed down and jolted the earth, glimpsed motion at the edge of his vision. He pivoted to find Skuthosiin’s tail whipping at him. By avoiding what amounted to a feint, he’d stepped right into the true attack.
He leaped and folded his legs underneath him. He felt the breeze as the tail whipped by. The blow slammed into his still-thrashing horse, smashing it into shapelessness and smearing parts of it across the ground.
As the tail completed its arc, Khouryn was there to intercept it. Bellowing, he jammed his spear straight down through the tip, nailing it to the ground.
Skuthosiin jerked his extremity free, snapping the point off the weapon in the process. The shaft remained in the wound and wobbled as the tail swirled around.
Many wearing the badges and colors of the Platinum Cadre, other spearmen scrambled after the dwarf. They formed up to attack and fall back as he and the Beast had taught them.
Balasar felt a surge of pride. Skuthosiin was deadly, slaughtering an opponent with almost every moment that passed, but his comrades kept attacking anyway. They came from a race of dragon-killers and were proving themselves worthy descendants of their forebears.
Unfortunately, valor alone didn’t guarantee a victory. Their chances would have been better if Medrash were still in the fight, but something-Balasar hadn’t seen what-had struck his clan brother down an instant after they charged.
Hoping Medrash was still alive, Balasar drew his sword, lifted his battered targe into a high guard, and advanced on Skuthosiin.
Aoth rattled off words of power. A shaft of sunlight that would have done Cera proud shot from the head of his spear. It slashed across Alasklerbanbastos’s skull and stabbed into his eye sockets.
It was powerful magic. Yet the dracolich didn’t even look up, any more than Aoth would have reacted to a buzzing fly when intent on fighting a foe. Still staring at Tchazzar, the Great Bone Wyrm kept on hissing and growling his own incantation.
Aoth’s neck muscles tightened in anger. He cursed, then unlocked the most powerful spell currently stored inside the spear, poured extra force into it, and sent the results streaking from the point in a stream of sparks.
The sparks detonated in rapid succession as they hit the Bone Wyrm’s wings and spine. Each booming, fiery blast jolted him downward like a gigantic boot stamping on his back. A couple of small bones and pieces of bone fell away from his body. He stumbled over the words of his incantation, and Aoth felt the accumulating power dissipate in a useless sizzle.
Let’s see you ignore that, he thought. Then Alasklerbanbastos raised his head and spread his jaws.
Jet lashed his wings, and then the world turned into glare and a pounding bang. It took Aoth an instant to understand that in fact the thunderbolt hadn’t hit them. The griffon had dodged it.
Alasklerbanbastos spread his own wings, gave them a clattering flap, and climbed into the air.
Keep away from him! said Aoth.
Obviously! Jet snapped. He veered, and darts of blue-white light crackled past them.
As they dodged back and forth across the sky, Aoth hurled fire, acid, and every other force that seemed like it might be capable of hurting an undead blue dragon. More often than not, the attacks hit their target. But none of them made Alasklerbanbastos falter for even a heartbeat.
Whereas he only has to hit me once, said Jet.
I know. Aoth looked for Jaxanaedegor and found him hovering far from the action. He peered down at Tchazzar. The red dragon was still writhing under the web of shadows.
A boom jolted him and tumbled Jet end over end, like the griffon was somersaulting. Only his buckled harness held Aoth in the saddle. For a moment, the mind meshed with his own was dull and oblivious, and then, with a screech, the familiar snapped back to full wakefulness. He beat his wings and somehow regained control of his trajectory.
But by the time Jet pulled out of his fall, Alasklerbanbastos was plunging down at him, enormous claws poised to catch and rend.
Jet swooped one way and another, trying to get out from under the dracolich. Alasklerbanbastos matched him move for move. Aoth hurled flame from his spear. It splashed across the Bone Wyrm’s legs and ribs and must have been doing some harm. But the undead blue kept closing in.
Until an arrow plunged into his right eye socket.
Aoth suspected that the shaft hadn’t actually injured Alasklerbanbastos. But judging from the way he jerked, it must have at least startled him. And perhaps it was a maddening distraction to have it bouncing around inside his hollow skull. Because the next time Jet veered, the dracolich failed to compensate. The familiar streaked into the clear, and Alasklerbanbastos plunged on by.
Aoth glanced around and wasn’t surprised to spot Gaedynn grinning at him from Eider’s back. Though he’d been leading griffon riders for almost a hundred years, he’d met few archers who could have made that shot.
He was surprised at how many other griffon riders were coming on behind the redheaded scout, ready to aid their captain in his suicidal folly.
Their shafts fell on Alasklerbanbastos like rain and seemed to do as little harm. The dracolich shook his head, opened his jaws, and spat out Gaedynn’s arrow. Then he lashed his wings and climbed. The light in his eye sockets glowed brighter. Lightning crawled on him and leaped from one bone to another.
Aoth pointed his spear and rattled off words of command. A blade of emerald light leaped from the point of the weapon and streaked at the ascending dracolich. Guiding it with little shifts of his hand, trying to match Gaedynn’s accuracy, he made it hack repeatedly at the spot where Alasklerbanbastos’s left wing connected to the shoulder bone.
Alasklerbanbastos twisted his head to regard the sword of light. No doubt to get rid of it before it accomplished its purpose. But then Meralaine recited an incantation. Her voice was a girl’s voice, high and breathy, yet the charge of dark magic it carried made it seem somehow cold and leaden, as well as enabling a fellow mage to catch the sound even across the sky. Though Aoth didn’t take his eyes off Alasklerbanbastos to look for her, he surmised that the necromancer had persuaded some griffon rider to carry her aloft.
Her spell made the dracolich hesitate. Only for a heartbeat, but in that instant, the flying blade accomplished its task. The wing broke away from the body. The Bone Wyrm started to fall-
— and then stopped.
Because, Aoth realized, while wings helped Alasklerbanbastos maneuver across the sky, it was ultimately magic that held him up. As it was still supporting him, while the wing also stopped tumbling and floated upward again.