The pirate prince? Kast asked, intruding.
“He and the d’warves face the shadow of Ragnar’k.”
What of the dragon?
The bond between Sy-wen and Ragnar’k grew stronger with her attention. She read her dragon’s heart and despaired. It roiled with dark lusts and raving madness. There was no denying the reality. “He’s gone over,” she whispered into the wind. “He’s ill’guard to the Dark Lord.” With this realization, her heart broke. Oh, my sweet giant . . .
Her anguish was felt and answered from afar. Bonded . . . come to me . . . join with me. The thoughts came from Ragnar’k, but they felt more like the simaltra. Black, oily, full of the promise of pain. There was no love, only ancient bonds of blood and death. Come share the taste of raw meat torn from bone, listen to the wails as my fangs rip the entrails from soft bellies . . . Come join with me, my bonded.
She pulled her mind away, but she could not sever the connection. Now awakened, the dragon was linked to her.
Ragnar’k sensed her retreat. Dragon laughter followed after her. We’ll always be one.
Sy-wen opened her eyes. Her cheeks ran with tears. Not even the winds could dry them swiftly enough.
Sy-wen? It was Kast again. His sending was a warmth to melt the ice from her veins, but shivering, she knew Ragnar’k was right. She was again chained to a demon.
“We have to stop him,” she moaned.
Ragnar’k? How?
She could hardly think, her heart torn. The ancient bonds between dragon and rider, once formed, wound down to the bones of each. The loss of a dragon would often drive its rider into a despair from which there was no end. To lose your bonded was to lose yourself. But Sy-wen knew she had no choice. “Ragnar’k must be slain,” she said aloud, needing to hear the words from her own lips.
She pulled up her sharkskin hood, resolved to do what no rider had ever done in the history of the mer’ai. She would slay her bonded.
Kast banked over the battle below.
As the world tilted on a wingtip, the war appeared below in all its carnage. The army of the dead, controlled by the black beast, engaged the forces of the mer’ai, the Dre’rendi, and the elv’in. It was a battle they could not win. As each ship, dragon, or warrior was slain, the monster would flow over the newly dead, enslaving them. With each death, the Dark Lord’s force grew.
Their only defense proved to be fire.
As the battle had waged, it grew clear that flames could burn the oily tethers connecting the dead to their master; once severed, the puppets fell limp and lifeless. Now volleys of flaming arrows sailed through the gloom, while barrels of flaming pitch were cast from catapults in fiery arcs to explode amidst the flowing creature.
Still, the monster remained a tide of darkness, seeming without end. Where one section burned, another flowed forth.
It was a stalemate between living and dead. But the standoff could not last forever. Eventually the barrels of pitch would run out, the supply of arrows would dwindle—and the black beast would roll over them all.
“We can’t wait for the others to break through,” Sy-wen said. “Ragnar’k moves even now upon Tyrus and the d’warves.”
What would you have us do?
“The fleets have lured the monster from the gate. With the way open, I say we chance a flight through the entrance.”
Alone?
“We must try. We are of no use in this fight, but we can be vital to defending Tyrus and the others.”
Kast remained silent, but Sy-wen knew he would agree. He was at heart a warrior, a Bloodrider. We must be swift, he finally said.
“As the wind,” she echoed back to him.
Preparing himself, Kast rode a rising warm draft to gain height. Soon they were well above the fighting, near the low clouds. The slopes of black stone steamed from inner fires. Are you ready? he sent to her.
“Go,” she whispered, leaning closer to his neck. “Just go.”
Tilting forward, Kast tucked in his wings. Dragon and rider became a dark arrow pointed at the heart of Blackhall. They fell toward the fighting, gaining speed. Winds screamed past her covered ears. She vaguely sensed the ankle flaps tightening, keeping her seated in place.
The world swelled under them. The dockworks were a flaming ruin. The township ran with rivers of black flesh. Everywhere, the clash of steel divided the living from the dead. The winds reeked of burning flesh, mixed with the rotting stench of the beast itself and the sulfurous brimstone of the volcanic mountain. Sy-wen held her breath, a prayer trapped in her chest.
Then as they flew over the bulk of the dread beast, Sy-wen again felt the buzz in her skull, an echo of the simaltra that threatened to fill the empty spaces left by the tentacled creature from the egg. Sy-wen gasped at the intrusion. She was a lock that the evil here was attempting to pick.
Sy-wen?
Through their bond, she sensed Kast felt none of this. So why her, and not him? Then a thought arose . . . an answer that grew to certainty in her heart. Her blood ran cold. She stared again at the beast, studying its snaking tethers, its mastery of puppetry. She now knew what she was seeing. She knew why the Dark Lord had been so desperate to enslave Ragnar’k.
“No . . .” she moaned as they plummeted toward the monstrosity here.
Sy-wen? Kast’s flight began to bobble, to lose focus. His worry for her was causing him to falter.
“Don’t stop! Make for the gate!” She instilled her words with fire.
Kast obeyed. His wings sprang out, catching their fall and turning it into a steep sweep toward the open gate, flying over the rippling darkness below. The monster noted their passage and undulated more vigorously under them.
Sy-wen’s head ached, her vision narrowed to the yawning gate before them. Beyond the threshold, fiery light glowed back at them. Torches perhaps?
Kast pulled up to pass just under the arch. Sy-wen’s body pressed into the dragon under her. Below, the sea of oily flesh surged and eddied. Ahead, a tangle of tentacles shot skyward, attempting to block their passage.
Sy-wen knew that to brush that black flesh was to be enslaved. Fly, she urged her love. Fly like the true dragon of my heart.
Kast put all his love into the artistry of his flight. As they came upon the tangle, he swung atop one wingtip, then the other, wending through the grasping tentacles. He swerved and dodged through the threat, at one point rolling through the air in a spiral.
The beast might sense her, but it was blind to the dragon, unable to match its speed or careening flight. In triumph they broke past the beast and shot through the gate.
The hall beyond was huge, cavernous as the gate itself. It was a chute of melted glass lit with a thousand torches. But beyond the gate, the hall was deserted. Sy-wen sensed that the Dark Lord had emptied the entire island to man the monster back at the gate and to fuel the last of his arcane acts. Nothing lived here now but the Black Heart’s dread purpose. All subterfuge at governing had fallen away, burned up in this final cause.
But to what end? What did the Dark Lord plan under the first full moon of midsummer?
Kast flew down the hall, maneuvering over bridges or under catwalks with fine movements of his wings’ edges.
Back at the gate, Kast sent to her, you knew something, something you were afraid to speak.
“The creature . . . I know what it is.”
What?
“A giant simaltra. A monstrous version of the smaller ones that possessed Hunt and me. I recognized its touch, the way it ate at my will. I think that’s one reason the Dark Lord wanted Ragnar’k out of the way. The dragon’s roar, ripe with magicks, could damage the creature, as it did the smaller ones back in the dungeon.”
Once captured, Kast added after a stunned moment, the dragon’s magick could be used against us, too.
“As is being done right now. Ragnar’k challenges Lord Tyrus and the others. I don’t think the prince or the others have the magick to fight a demon dragon made of smoke.”
 
; Will we fare any better? Kast asked.
She remained silent as they winged down the long, dark hall, as if down the throat of some dark Leviathan that sought to swallow the world.
“We may not have magick,” Sy-wen finally said, “but we have something more potent.”
What’s that?
She narrowed her eyes. “We have each other—and the bonds that tie all three of us together.”
Can those bonds withstand the magick of the Dark Lord?
Sy-wen stared down the long hall, unsure. Her voice was faint. “Pray that they will, my love. Pray they will.”
26
Er’ril rode down through the mists in a rope sling. The world had vanished around them. The edges of the pit were half a league away, impossible to discern through the swirling fog. Only their party was visible, clustered together on the ropes lowered from the belly of the Windsprite.
Elena swung at his side, wrapped in her cloak, near enough for him to reach out and touch. They had been dropping for an endless time; was there any bottom to this pit?
Even sounds failed to reach them. As they had dropped away from the ship, the echoes of battle—screeches, bellows, roars, and cries—had faded along with the world. The mists seemed to wipe everything away.
Er’ril studied the others, spread around him like so many ripe fruits on a vine. No one spoke. The mists were strangely warm, dampening skin and clothes to an oily sheen. They reeked of sulfur and burned blood.
Er’ril glanced upward. The ship had vanished, lost in the cursed fog. Earlier, the Windsprite had dropped to the level of the mists. From the stern hold, ropes and pulleys lowered the party through the belly hatches. They had dropped away unseen—Joach’s magick had worked its illusion.
Elena’s brother swung nearby, clutching his staff. The length of gray petrified wood shone as pale as new snow, though streaked through with veins of crimson, Joach’s own blood.
Around him, the others watched the mists, packs in place, ready for an attack. Weapons glinted in the gloom. Tol’chuk bore a hammer, as did Magnam. Harlequin Quail twiddled a dagger in his fingers, looking almost bored. Jaston, Fardale, and Thorn all bore short swords. Meric and Nee’lahn, hanging side by side, remained weaponless, bearing only the magick inside them.
“The moon rises,” Elena whispered beside him. Though her words were no more than a breathless utterance, all heard. Sounds swirled strangely within this unnatural cloud.
Er’ril swung to face her. She opened her cloak enough to reveal where the Blood Diary was tucked. The top of the gilt rose poked above the pocket’s edge, glowing as bright as a star.
Frowning, Er’ril glanced upward again. “But the sun still shines,” he mumbled.
She nodded, closing her cloak. “A fool’s moon.” She huddled back to herself. “I dare not open the book until there is solid footing.”
He nodded. The magick of Cho’s release could alert whatever lurkers hid in the mists below. It was best to wait to consult the spirit of the book until they were safer. Hanging on ropes, they felt exposed, regardless of the thick mists that hid them.
Jaston spoke from the side, sheathing his sword. “Cassa returns.” Off to the left, a small winged shape appeared, spiraling up from below. She flapped and glided up to Jaston, settling into the swamper’s arms. She was clearly exhausted, her tiny face pale, her wings trembling.
“Cassa?” Jaston whispered, drawing a damp strand from the child’s face.
“My connection is thread thin,” the child said in a voice far older than her small frame. “I don’t know how much longer I can maintain this hold.”
“What have you seen?” Er’ril asked.
The child’s eyes flicked to him. “The mists end in another forty spans or so, opening into clear air. I dared not stay for very long.”
“What did you see?” Elena asked. All eyes were on Jaston and the child, but Er’ril kept a watch around them.
“The mists swirl about the height of a castle tower above the bottom of the pit. Empty rock lies below, but it appears natural, not dug with tools. I spotted stalagmites and outcroppings that seem to have been there for ages.”
Er’ril spoke. “They must have dug down and broken into the cavern system under the ancient school of the Chyric mages.”
“Where the rock’goblins lived,” Elena mumbled.
“I saw no goblins,” Cassa said faintly. “There was nothing moving down below.”
“Nothing’s there?” Er’ril asked. He frowned deeply. Could all of this have been for nothing, a trick to lure Elena away from the true battle at Blackhall? Er’ril’s eyes settled with suspicion on the small form of Harlequin Quail, but the man wore a frown that matched his own.
The swamp child spoke again. “The pit lay empty, but I spied a tunnel leaving the space. It glowed fiercely with a most strange light.”
Er’ril crinkled his brow. So something was down there. “We’ll proceed cautiously. We all must be alert.”
Mumbles of assent answered him, but Harlequin quipped, “And here I was planning on going in blindfolded.”
Er’ril ignored the man. As they continued to drop, winding down through the mists, even the gloomy glow above faded away. They traveled through darkness for an endless stretch, until slowly a silvery shine lit the mists under them. “Be ready,” he whispered to the others, as a freshening breeze washed across his damp skin.
Then they were dropping into open air. Below appeared a cavern floor, littered with broken pillars of rock, boulders, and jagged stalagmites. Just at the edges, Er’ril could make out the lowermost step of the excavation here. They had reached the bottom.
And as Cassa Dar had described, the floor remained empty. But Er’ril did not relax his guard: There were plenty of places for creatures to hide. And directly ahead, a tunnel cast out a silvery sheen almost too bright to look upon. It was a constant, substantial light that drew stark shadows across the cavern floor.
Er’ril pointed to a pile of boulders. “We should—”
His rope sling jerked, almost tumbling him from his seat. He clutched at the rope with his free hand. The others were similarly bobbled; Elena swung against him. He grabbed for her, but she jostled away.
“What’s happening?” Jaston called out. His swamp child, startled by the swaying, now winged around him in panicked circles.
“Something’s attacking our ropes!” Magnam answered.
As if confirming his words, they all began plummeting toward the stone floor, not as fast as if their ropes had been sliced, but much more quickly than their slow descent a moment ago. And with each breath, they fell faster and faster.
“Watch the rocks!” Er’ril yelled as the floor flew up toward them.
Like so many crashing boulders, they struck the floor. Cries arose from among the party. Er’ril took the brunt of his landfall with his legs, then rolled to his shoulder, dispersing the momentum of his landing. He was on his feet in his next breath. He spotted Elena a few steps away. Blood dribbled from her hairline. He rushed to her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Just a scrape. I’m fine.” She wiped at the blood and stared around the boulder-littered floor. “The others . . .”
Meric ran up with Nee’lahn. Both seemed unharmed.
“Everyone back!” the elv’in called, his frantic eyes on the mists above. The ropes continued to snake out of the sky, whistling downward. “The ropes weren’t cut! The ship—the Windsprite—it falls!”
Er’ril gaped upward as Meric’s words struck him. Then he grabbed Elena by the arm. “Hurry!” he cried. “Make for the walls!”
They all fled through the forest of stony pillars and jumbled rocks. From above came the ominous sound of splintering wood and the snap of sails in a gale. It grew to fill the pit.
And still they ran. Thorn and Fardale had slipped into half-wolf form, bounding away. Er’ril saw Joach helping Jaston; the swamper limped on one leg, his face gone greenish. Past them, Tol’chuk loped with Magnam at his si
de.
A crash echoed, sounding directly overhead.
“Seek cover!” Er’ril shouted.
He whirled Elena behind a boulder, sliding to his knees, pulling her under him. He covered his head just as he caught a glimpse of the broken bulk of the ship crashing out of the mists, sails ripped and flapping like the arms of a plummeting man.
He ducked as the explosion of wood on stone blasted across the pit. Timber and debris shattered out, striking the walls with splintered impacts. Just past their boulder, a huge wooden pulley wheel bounced and rolled by. It smashed against the wall, shattering to tinder.
As the echoes of the crash died away, Er’ril jerked to his feet, peering past the boulder. In the center of the pit, the blasted ruins of the proud windship lay half hidden in a plume of silt and rock dust. Small fires already licked greedily at the broken timbers, ignited from shattered barrels of oil. The iron keel was a twisted arm protruding from the broken field.
The others rose from hiding places, faces pale with shock. They slowly gathered, picking their way across the debris, shaken and bruised. Meric looked especially stricken.
“If any of us survive this,” Er’ril mumbled, stepping to his side, “we’ll bury the crew with honors.”
“If there be any bodies here,” Tol’chuk said. The og’re stepped forward, dragging the upper torso of a monster, one wing still attached to a shoulder. The beast’s bald head, peaked ears, and fanged muzzle were well known to all.
“Skal’tum,” Elena said.
Joach blanched, Jaston still leaning on his shoulder. “My illusion must have failed.”
Elena shook her head. “It lasted long enough to get us here.”
“Or trap us here,” Harlequin Quail said. He stared at the ruins. “We can’t say we exactly dropped in unannounced.”
Confirming this, screams echoed through the mists from above.
Er’ril stepped forward. “To the tunnel! Now!” He led them off.