He stood up and found his fallen sword, then tried to assess how much mystical Power remained to him. To his surprise, he had plenty. Bahamut had left him some blisters and scrapes, but had evidently refreshed his paladin gifts.
A Daardendrien warrior with a broken leg lay in front of Skuthosiin. Jaws open wide, the green dragon’s head arced down at him.
Medrash shouted, “Torm!” The world blurred for an instant as he switched places with his injured kinsman.
Sidestepping, he slashed at the side of the dragon’s head as it plunged by. He missed the slit-pupiled yellow eye, but his blade split the scaly hide beneath.
Skuthosiin whipped his head up high, almost snatching the sword from Medrash’s grip. But he held on tight, and, slinging drops of gore, the blade pulled out of the wound instead.
Skuthosiin glared down at him, and the spiritual deformity that made him profoundly if indefinably hideous seemed to concentrate in his gaze. Perhaps it was supposed to make Medrash avert his eyes, or to churn his guts with nausea, but it did neither. It only made him even more determined to destroy the threat to his people once and for all.
“I don’t care how many little gods you have propping you up!” the dragon snarled. “My lady is the only one that matters!”
“Prove it,” Medrash said. He raised his sword, and white light blazed from the blade. Skuthosiin recoiled. Medrash dashed forward to strike while the wyrm was still dazzled. Other warriors did the same.
Aoth had tattoos to blunt pain and avert shock. To keep him awake and active even when wounded. Sprawled inside Alasklerbanbastos’s rib cage, he released their power.
And that was all he did. He didn’t know how badly he was hurt-badly, he suspected-but he was sure he couldn’t withstand another blast of the dracolich’s breath. His only hope was to lie motionless and convince Alasklerbanbastos he was dead already.
Just look away, he thought, watching the Great Bone Wyrm through slitted eyes. There are dozens of people beating on you and trying to kill you. Look around at them.
Alasklerbanbastos’s head whipped away. Then Tchazzar crashed down on him like an avalanche.
Nala tried to avoid conflict as she skulked around the edges of the battle. It wasn’t too difficult. With Skuthosiin and various giants to fight, her fellow dragonborn tended to overlook her. Which was fortunate, because she needed to make haste.
Impossible though it seemed, she could tell that the tide had turned against her master. Probably realizing it, he had at one point spread his wings to take to the air. But, chanting in unison, three of the vanquisher’s wizards had created a web of blue light that covered the center of Ashhold like a lid on a jar.
The barrier at least kept the Lance Defenders on their bats from harrying Skuthosiin any further. But in Nala’s judgment, they weren’t really the problem. Nor, for all their power, were the mages. Nor the common warriors, jabbing and hacking with dogged determination. It was Medrash. The paladin was exalted, fighting like one of the dragon-killing rebels in the tales of treason and blasphemy that made up the history of their people.
Nala had to strike him down and make it stick. Then Skuthosiin could still prevail, and would unquestionably know whom to reward for his victory.
She could smite Medrash with the Five Breaths as she had the redspawn devastator. He wouldn’t get back up from that. She just needed a clear path between them, but with combatants scrambling and pushing one another back and forth, that wasn’t easy to come by.
Yet finally she found it. Wishing she still had the wyrmkeeper regalia she’d discarded-she didn’t actually need it, but it would have made the magic easier-she raised her shadow-wood staff, focused her thoughts, and took a deep breath.
Then a jolt stabbed through her torso from back to front. She looked down and saw a finger-length of bloody blade protruding from her chest.
The pointed steel jerked backward and disappeared. She crumpled to her knees. Balasar stepped into view and grinned down at her.
“My feelings are hurt,” he said. “Why would you think you ought to kill Medrash ahead of me? I’m the clever one. I tricked you into letting me into your filthy cult, didn’t I? And I spotted you slinking around tonight and did a little sneaking of my own.”
She struggled to wheeze out a curse, but couldn’t manage it.
“Ah well,” he continued, “I forgive you the injury to my pride. And now, much as I’d like to stay and chat with such a lovely lady, I have a dragon to butcher.”
Yes, she thought, go. She’d find the strength to heal herself. She’d rise up like Medrash did. And how he, his clan brother, and all Tymanther would regret it when she did!
Then Balasar aimed his point at her heart, and she realized he had no intention of leaving her alive.
Aoth had been in many bizarre and dangerous places in his hundred years of life, but few stranger or more perilous than inside the body of one dragon when it was fighting another.
Grappling, snapping with their fangs, slashing with their claws, lashing with their tails, the two wyrms rolled over and over together. Their snarls, grunts, and the thuds, crashes, and tearing sounds as their attacks landed were deafening.
Aoth had found it difficult to keep his feet before. It was impossible now. He bounced around like a pea in a barrel tumbling down a hill.
The noise and punishing bumps made it almost impossible to think. Still, he realized that at the moment, the greatest danger to him was Tchazzar. Already damaged by Eider, Jet, and Aoth’s own efforts, sections of Alasklerbanbastos’s ribs were snapping and crumbling by the moment. If the red dragon smashed completely through, the blow could easily pulverize Aoth as well. And if Tchazzar spat another blast of fire, it would roast him in his cage.
He had to get out. He cast around and saw that one of Tchazzar’s strikes had broken away more bone and slightly widened the breach through which he’d entered. That was one tiny particle of luck, anyway.
He’d need both hands to reach the hole. With a pang of regret, he let go of his spear, gripped sections of rib, and alternately climbed or crawled, depending on the attitude of Alasklerbanbastos’s body at that instant. Lightning crackled from bone to bone, piercing his shoulder in its transit. His teeth gritted and his muscles knotted until the flare ended.
When he reached the hole, he had to judge the speed and direction of the entangled dragons’ movement and pray it didn’t change. Because if he emerged at the wrong moment, their weight would come smashing and grinding down on top of him.
He made his best guess, swarmed out, and jumped. He landed hard. Wings-some bare bone, some sheathed in crimson hide-flailed against the ground, and tails whipped through the air. The storm of motion was all around him, and he was sure something had to hit him. But nothing did, and then the dragons rolled farther away.
He ran to put even more distance between them and him, just like everyone else was doing. Jet plunged down in front of him. “Get on!” the griffon rasped. “I’ll take you to the healers.”
Suddenly feeling weak and dizzy, Aoth clambered into the saddle. The straps buckled themselves. “Not yet. I need to see what happens.”
“You need-”
“I said, I’m going to watch.”
Jet screeched in annoyance, lashed his wings, and carried his master aloft.
As he did, Tchazzar broke Alasklerbanbastos’s various holds on him, got his feet planted, and struck, all in a single blur of motion. The red dragon’s fangs closed on the dracolich’s neck, right beside the head.
Aoth grinned, because it was a shrewd tactic. The grip would keep Alasklerbanbastos from using his own teeth or his breath.
Flames leaping between his fangs, Tchazzar bit down hard. Aoth saw the effort manifest in every bunched muscle down the length of the war hero’s body. Surely in another moment his teeth would clash together, and Alasklerbanbastos’s head would fall away from his body.