Free of its burden, the claw reached farther out from the wall. It was a sculpture of the blackest smoke. It stretched toward the floor of the cavern and touched a small wet stain on the rock near the carving’s base.
“Of course,” Moris whispered with sudden insight. “Her blood calls the dragon forth. The mer’ai girl has not bonded. As with all dragons, her scent lures Ragnar’k. He cannot resist her call. It is the ancient instinct of his bloodline.”
As they watched, a dragon’s head carved of smoke rose from its slumber to extend toward the blood. Its snaking neck unwound from its coil. Vague in form, it silently edged toward the blood, wisps of smoke trailing up from it as if from a spent fire. It seemed to have no real substance, but Geral’s unmoving body warned otherwise. The dragon hunched over the small pool of blood, drawing forth the rest of its body from the rock. Forelimbs bent tight to the rock, and it snuffled at the scent. Then it raised its huge head and seemed to spot the girl retreating in Kast’s arms.
The pair had reached the large root and were skirting its edge. On the far side of the root, Joach saw Greshym raise a hand and point. Even with his weak eyes, the old mage had spotted the awakening dragon. Shorkan turned to study the smoky beast. Joach enjoyed the look of surprise on the Praetor’s usual placid features.
“We are powerless to interfere from here,” Moris said behind him. “What will happen now is beyond our ability to change.”
As he spoke, the beast continued to pull free of the rock. Wings of smoke spread from its hunched back to reach for the roof of the cavern. As more of the dragon escaped its rocky prison, it bunched up on itself, its tail snaking free of the stone to whip back and forth like an angry cat. It was a monstrous, hulking shadow crouched over the blood of the girl. Its nose followed the path of Kast across the chamber.
Then it opened its cavernous jaws and screamed its lust. Joach fell to his knees, his hands over his ears. The pain ripped through his head. He noticed others fall to the stone, too, some rolling with the agony of the screech. Joach saw even Greshym collapse, his poi’wood staff rolling from his stunned fingers.
“He’s killing us!” Flint exclaimed, bent over in agony.
“No,” Moris said. He had somehow kept his feet, though his face was a mask of pain. “He bellows his challenge.”
Joach noticed that three people seemed unaware of the ripping scream. The Praetor was unaffected by or simply deaf to the dragon’s roar, as were two others: Kast stepped over the white-robed brothers as he headed for the exit. The girl lay curled in his arms, her gaze fastened to the tunnel opening.
The Praetor’s attention focused on the pair as they crossed the cavern. Shorkan strode forth to intercept them, drawn to these two, obviously suspicious of the strength that kept them untouched by the mysterious assault. He raised his arms. Black fire coursed the length of his sleeves.
Joach’s vision began to blur from tears of pain. The cavern became blotches of light—some dark, some bright. Then as suddenly as it had struck, the roar ended, leaving a quaking hollowness in his assaulted skull. He wiped at his tears just in time to see the monstrous, shadowy beast surge across the cavern. One moment it was a hulking, seething wall of shadows; then in a blink it was gone.
It flew in a streak of smoke, a maelstrom of tendrils and clouds as it bore down upon the unsuspecting pair. It banked around the gnarled root in a swirling eddy of smoke. Joach winced, knowing that blood would be shed here.
The Praetor also spotted its flight and backed suspiciously from it. Behind him, Greshym struggled to rise, using his staff as a crutch. Without turning, Shorkan reached a hand back, and Greshym’s staff flew from the old one’s weak fingers to the Praetor’s fist. Greshym, suddenly unsupported, fell to his arms and knees. Shorkan raised the staff before him. His black magicks, drawn like lightning to an iron rod, flowed out from the Praetor’s body to encase the staff in flame.
Shorkan held the blazing weapon before him defiantly, ready for battle.
But his challenge was ignored. The shadow dragon sped without hesitation past the darkmage to descend upon its true quarry. Just before it struck, Kast must have sensed the approaching menace and swung around, the girl under one arm, a knife appearing in his fist as if from the air. It was a poor match for what he faced, but Kast did not falter. He crouched in readiness as it struck.
Kast and the girl vanished into the heart of the smoky cloud. Whether consumed by the dragon or crushed, Joach cringed against what would be revealed. As he pushed finally to his feet, assisted by Moris, he watched the outcome with wide eyes.
The cloud roiled about the pair, occasional glimpses of the dragon—a snaking tail, an unfurled wing, a claw that grasped toward the roof—sprouting like sudden blooms. But nothing was revealed of the two buried at its heart.
Near the struggle, Greshym had pushed to his feet, still bent with his one hand resting on a knee. He hissed at Shorkan, his words loud enough to reach Joach’s ears. “Kill them all before it’s too late!”
The Praetor stood his ground with his staff of darkfire raised before him, but he made no move to obey the other.
“Now is the only time you can stop Ragnar’k,” Greshym implored. “If he takes root, he will become flesh!”
At that moment, the smoke dragon drew tighter around the pair; its tendrils coalesced, and its pall darkened. The swirling smoke became an eddying black pool around them.
“Strike now!” Greshym screamed. “Destroy it!”
“No!” Shorkan said. “I will have it for my master. The Black Heart will find a use for this magickal beast.”
“You fool!” Greshym stumbled forward and tried to grab his staff from the other.
Shorkan elbowed him away. “Stand back!”
As they argued, the smoky fog suddenly surged up to form the figure of a dragon, its head raised toward the ceiling, its wings spread wide. It screamed once again, a piping roar of triumph.
The noise blasted through Joach, closing off all his senses. Blinded, he did not even feel himself fall to the stone floor. One moment he was standing, staring in awe at the dragon triumphant, and the next he was pushing himself off the floor, his teeth aching. He rubbed at a tickle on his neck. His ear bled.
This time, even Moris had not been able to keep his footing. The hulking brother shoved to his knees with a groan. Blood welled from his ears, too.
Joach raised his head, his temples throbbing with even the slightest motion. Across the chamber, Greshym fared no better. He lay sprawled upon the floor, unmoving. Hopefully dead, Joach prayed.
But as before, the Praetor stood untouched. He searched around himself, mystified, still unsure what assault kept knocking the room to its knees. He then studied the only other pair untouched by the onslaught. Nearby, Kast crouched, the girl still in his arms. But—
“Sweet Mother, the dragon is gone!” Joach blurted.
Flint rolled to his knees. “Where did it go?”
The Praetor was the first to respond in a coherent fashion. He still held Greshym’s staff, which was afire with black magicks. “I don’t understand what quality of magick you two possess,” he said coldly, obviously believing the two to be the source of the smoke trickery, “but my master will find you both fascinating.”
Kast spoke up. “Who are you?”
“Ah, you speak.”
“The bond between Kast and Sy-wen has been sundered,” Flint mumbled beside Joach.
The girl spotted the darkmage and struggled to free herself of Kast’s arms, but he held her secure. Though no longer obligated by magick, he still protected her. “You’d best let us pass,” Kast said with menace. He still had his knife in his hand.
Greshym groaned and crawled toward the Praetor. “You . . . you cannot defeat Ragnar’k,” he warned. “We must flee.”
Shorkan kicked aside his groping hand. “Flee? They have revealed their magick; now it is time to demonstrate mine.”
With these words, Shorkan pointed his staff—not at the pair but
at the glowing root. Fire lanced out and struck the thick stalk. At first, the root’s glow seemed to hold the darkfire at bay, but then fingers of flame spread open like some loathsome black claw and grabbed the root’s trunk. The chamber jolted violently with its contact.
Moris and Flint both gasped.
From its foul grip on the trunk, a river of darkfire now linked root to staff. The staff then began to suck the energy of the root to itself, bleeding the tree of the last of its ancient magick. Under the assault, the taproot began to crumble to dust, its very substance dependent on the magick at its heart.
Overhead the roof groaned as its single support faded. Boulders crashed to the floor.
As the last of the root’s magick was consumed, the well of darkfire could no longer be contained to the staff’s length. Black flames cascaded down in fiery torrents and bathed the darkmage in a robe of fire. His entire body now flowed with power. The air grew frigid as the darkfire drank the heat from the cavern. Black ice rippled across the floor from the mage’s toes. Where it touched the collapsed forms of any of the white-robed Hi’fai, their flesh cracked and shattered.
Who could hope to withstand such a creature?
Kast stood his ground. “Stand back,” he warned again and raised his small dagger higher. Its blade reflected the sick light of the black flames.
From inside the tower of black flame, mad laughter echoed forth, the sound drawing the last of the warmth from the room.
The Praetor stepped toward them.
SY-WEN WATCHED THE creature sculpted of fire stalk toward them. She shook her head to clear the spell-cast glaze from her eyes. How many other nightmares hunted this cursed cavern? She vaguely remembered that some smoky demon had threatened them, but where had it vanished? And now this fire demon laughed at them and blocked any chance of escape.
Kast held his dagger higher and backed away, but she knew what approached could not be defeated by a quick wrist and a sharp blade. She had only to look to the cavern floor littered with singed bodies to know the true danger they faced. She wriggled in Kast’s arms. “Put me down,” she scolded. “Let me at least fight before it kills us.”
Kast hesitated a heartbeat, then lowered her to the stone floor. Sy-wen’s legs betrayed her—her weight out of water tricking her limbs—and she fell hard on her backside.
“That’s helpful,” Kast grumbled under his breath. Even when faced with his own death, he had time to insult her. A second dagger had appeared in his other hand.
Red faced, Sy-wen scrambled to her feet, scuttling backward while doing so. “I . . . I can fight.”
She straightened and reached to her belt. No dagger lay sheathed there, but she was not weaponless. Her fingers found the star-shaped crustacean attached to her belt. The stunner’s poisonous sting could stop a full-grown rockshark, and Sy-wen was a skilled wielder of the weapon. She narrowed her eyes and pulled the stunner free, using a finger to flip off the protective shell that housed its stinger.
Cradling it in the webs of her hand, she pulled her arm back and stepped in front of Kast.
“Fie, girl! Stand aside!”
She ignored him and studied the figure for a weak spot. It was best to strike a rockshark’s eye.
“So the little one thinks she has claws,” the demon hissed.
Sy-wen ignored his words, too. Studying the creature, she noticed the only part of the demon free of flame was its face. Just as well! She swung her arm, and with an experienced flip of her wrist, the stunner shot from her webbed fingers. It spun and flew true.
Sy-wen had only the feeblest hope the weapon would immobilize the demon, but perhaps it could at least delay the creature enough for Kast and her to escape. Her strange attack caught the demon off guard. He tried to block the stunner with the staff, but he was too slow, and the arc of the spinning sea star curved deceptively. It struck him just below the eye, fastening immediately to the demon’s flesh.
“What is this th—?” Then the demon crashed to his knees. He dropped his staff and dug at his face with both hands.
Sy-wen’s blood quickened. She had done it! Glancing back at Kast, a look of pride shone on her face.
“Get back, girl!” he yelled.
Sy-wen’s breath caught in her throat as she swung around. The demon had managed to rip the stunner from his face. But that was impossible! A stunner always buried its five legs deep into the tissue, too deep to remove without a blade. Then she saw her answer. Where the stunner had struck, black flames shot out of the demon’s face. His magicks had driven the tiny beast from his flesh.
The demon rose to his feet, but did not stop there. He kept rising on a pillar of black fire. His face was sculpted rage, his eyes pools of black energies. He spread his arms, and fire lanced forth to shake the roof. Loose rock rained down and rattled like hail upon the floor.
“I would kill you now,” he boomed, his voice as black as his flames. “But placing you at my master’s feet will be a greater punishment!”
Kast leaned over to protect her from the falling rock. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve kept you on Jarplin’s ships.”
Sy-wen leaned closer to him and did not object to his sheltering embrace. They were doomed, but before they were destroyed she would seek the small comfort of his arms. She raised her face to his. “No apologies, Kast. If I couldn’t have gained my freedom,” she said, “I would rather have died anyway.”
She saw the tears that marked his eyes, like rain on rock. His voice was a strained, choked whisper. “Yes, but did I have to deliver you to it?”
She reached a hand to his cheek. This time it was no spell that drew her fingers. She wanted to wipe away his tears. No man should die with such guilt in his heart. As her hand touched his face, her eyes grew wide. She finally saw what lay new upon the man’s skin. Her fingers brushed across it.
The tattoo of the hunting seahawk was gone, and in its place was the finest rendering of a fierce dragon, black wings raised for battle, red eyes ablaze with the hunger for blood.
She stared into the dragon’s gaze and recognized him, knew him as her mother knew Conch. Her heart leapt toward the dragon as her hand stretched toward him. The tattoo was her bonded, and like all mer’ai, she knew her bondmate’s name.
Ragnar’k.
With her finger’s touch, the world blew out from under her.
JOACH JUMPED BACK, slamming into Moris behind him. Sweet Mother! His eyes could not make sense of what was happening. He had thought the dark-haired man and the girl doomed. Shorkan rode waves of flame and crested above them like a striking snake. But now . . .
He had seen the girl reach to touch the man’s cheek and neck, perhaps in a tender good-bye or something deeper. But at her touch, the man’s flesh blew out from him in sheets and tangles of black scale. His clothes ripped so savagely that a torn shoe landed near Joach’s toe. The frenzied motion was a blur of wing and claw.
Shorkan shied away from the maelstrom of scale and bone, skirting backward atop his column of flames. Greshym rolled away, almost caught in a splash of the Praetor’s fire. “I warned you,” the old mage hissed at the leader of the Brotherhood.
A roar raked the cavern walls and washed away any further words from Greshym. All eyes turned to where Kast and the girl had once stood. A second roar split the cavern stillness.
The girl was still the same, though wearing a dazed expression. She rode atop the back of a monstrous dragon. Thick black legs ground silver claws into the stone itself. Scaled wings, scintillating with sparks of rich colors, swept upward like huge ribbed sails, reaching for the roof. Yet all this was nothing compared to its huge head: eyes aglow with a red fire; jaws open, revealing curved fangs longer than a man’s forearm. It stretched its neck again and roared at the two darkmages.
This was no smoke dragon, no magickal wail. It was flesh and fury.
With the force of its roar, the black flames of foul magicks were blown back like a candle’s flame before a gale. As Shorkan cringed away
, the flames were snuffed and stripped from the Praetor’s robe, swept away to dash harmlessly against the far wall. The cavern shook with the dragon’s thunder and the play of wild forces.
Greshym crawled to his knees and grabbed at Shorkan’s doused sleeve. “He’s too strong. You can’t defeat Ragnar’k without a heartstone. We must retreat to your tower.”
Shorkan’s hands clenched into fists; his shoulders shook. His black eyes bore murderous hatred at the great beast.
Greshym pulled harder on the Praetor’s sleeve. “You once taught me to know my battles, to know when it was best to fight. Heed your own words, Shorkan!”
Shorkan unclenched his fists and backed beside Greshym. The younger mage kept his eyes on the dragon, but the hulking beast kept its place, claws dug deep in the rock. Right now, it simply guarded the girl. As long as the darkmages did not threaten, it only watched them warily, muscles tensed and ready, head low with menace. Shorkan seemed finally to recognize the danger here and pulled Greshym to his feet. “You have much to explain,” was all he said to his fellow mage, but his voice was iced venom. He waved a hand to the floor, and a well of swirling blackness opened at their feet.
“Wait!” Greshym yelled.
But it was too late. The two darkmages fell like heavy boulders into the darkness, vanishing and taking the cursed doorway with them. The floor was once again ordinary stone.
The cavern suddenly shuddered violently. Rock dust and fair-sized pieces of the roof crashed to the floor. What was left of the mighty root cracked and crumbled. The walls groaned.
Moris gripped Joach’s shoulder. “We must get out of these lower levels. Come.” He led Joach and Flint across the chamber, aiming directly for the dragon. The handful of surviving Hi’fai in their stained white robes were already hurrying toward the single exit.
The dragon seemed to sense the trio’s approach. It swung its head menacingly at them. Its wings, which had relaxed slightly once the darkmages had vanished, twitched farther up. Eyes glowed red with warning. Words, unspoken by any tongue, bloomed in Joach’s head: Come no farther.