not even sense so many? Where did they come from?”
“Don’t you realize, Vraad?” Faunon snarled, waving an arm in the general direction of the creatures. “These are your loving relations!”
“Impossible!”
A familiar laugh echoed in their heads.
A new race of kings… it said, the voice dwindling in intensity with each word, as if the renegade guardian were fleeing now that its work was done.
“So much for the vaunted power of the other guardians and their masters!” the warlock muttered. “That thing has been waiting for us! It probably kept them silent so it could teach us a fatal lesson for not obeying it before!”
So it seemed, although Sharissa could not see how the outcast could have known they would come when they did. Still, that was a worry for another time. Right now their lives were all at stake. The rampaging monsters were all around them, cutting off any hope of escape through the gateways. It was doubtful that they could have outrun the horrors anyway.
“This way!” Faunon called, pointing in the direction the patriarch and the others had gone. There was still the question of what was happening to them. If the outcast guardian was responsible for the voice the patriarch had though was his bride’s, then it could be nothing good.
They started up the steps and were halfway when she recalled Darkhorse. He was still engaged with the one dragon, dancing about and entrancing it much the way a snake might entrance its victim. The eternal, however, had little strength now, and against a creature that had already proven its natural magical abilities, the shadow steed stood a good chance of being defeated. Whether he could die or not was something Sharissa had no desire to discover.
“Darkhorse! This way!”
He seemed not to hear her. She began retracing her steps, but Faunon and Gerrod pulled her back up.
“Look before you run!” Faunon reprimanded her. He turned her head so that she could see the dragon making its way toward them. Unlike the others, who seemed more a mix of browns and greens like the riding drakes, it had a silverish cast to it and eyes that gleamed with more intelligence. It avoided the battling drakes and stalked the tiny figures with true purpose.
“But Darkhorse…”
“You know he only stays because you do! He’ll leave when you are safe! Take her, Tezerenee!”
Gerrod did, securing a hold while the elf readied his bow. With the elf backing them up, they continued to climb the steps. Faunon released an arrow once he was at the top, but it hit just before the dragon’s forepaws. The shot brought them a few seconds, but little more.
“And I used to pride myself on my shooting!”
“I think the dragon might have had something to do with it!” Gerrod suggested as he pushed Sharissa on. “I felt a tug, as if it made use of sorcery in its defense!”
“Rheena pray for us if it did!”
The doors of the building were open and, to their surprise, undamaged. Once through, Sharissa and Gerrod closed them while Faunon stood back and kept watch just in case. When the doors were finally bolted, they took a moment to catch their breaths.
“Where… where can my father be with all this commotion?” the young Tezerenee asked between gulps of air.
“The great… the great hall is where he said he would be,” Sharissa suggested. “It’s our best bet!”
“And then what? Sharissa, do you think your sorcery can teleport us out of here?”
She had already wondered about that and suspected that the answer was no. Even if the guardian was truly gone, the wild magic inherent in the dragons outside was wreaking havoc upon her own abilities. There was also Faunon’s warning about utilizing their powers during this time.
If it came to life or death, however, she would do what she could and damn the consequences.
They jumped away from the door as a massive weight pushed against it, causing the hinges to creak dangerously.
“Gerrod!” a voice without called.
“Dragon’s blood!” the warlock nearly choked as he stepped farther and farther back from the doors. His pale visage was the color of bone. “I know that voice, but which one? Esad? Logan?”
“It hardly matters! I think the time has come to retreat from the doors!” Faunon suggested. “Sharissa! Do you know the way we have to take?”
He had only had limited access to this building. Gerrod had never even been inside here. Sharissa was the only one familiar with the building’s design, not that the path was that difficult. Time was, however, of the essence.
She nodded. “Just follow me!”
Ignoring the severity of their predicament, the elf asked, “Do you think we’d rather wait around here?”
They could hear the dragon trying to break its way in as they ran, and it was obvious that the doors would not hold too long. Sharissa hoped to find the patriarch and then lead the party to the upper floors, where it would be impossible for the dragons to reach them. So far, they had seen none with wings, but that might not remain so. If these dragons were what she thought they were, then wings might be merely the next step in their evolution.
Together we can do something, she kept telling herself. With my power, Faunon’s, and what the rest can contribute, we should be able to teleport us all to safety.
Should was the optimum word.
So engrossed was she in the planning of their escape that she nearly fell across the body lying across the closed doors of their destination.
“Careful!” Faunon caught her. It seemed that someone was always catching her. Sharissa felt brief pangs of frustration, but forgot her aggravation with herself when she saw who-or rather, what-she had nearly tripped over.
It was one of the Tezerenee. His head had been nearly severed from his body, but with good reason. With his helm off to one side, the trio could see that he, like Lochivan, had progressed through a part of the transformation.
“He was perfectly normal when we last saw him!” Gerrod objected.
“But he isn’t now!” Sharissa forgot about the body and rushed to the doors.
“Help me get these open… and pray we don’t find another like him waiting for us!”
They heard yet another hiss down one of the corridors. Heavy thuds warned them in advance that this part of the citadel was not empty.
The doors proved not to be bolted, but something had been placed behind them that made it difficult at first to push them open. The combined efforts of the three, not to mention the knowledge that another dragon was only minutes from discovering them, proved superior to whatever held back the doors.
Sharissa peeked in as the doors spread apart and barely held back a gasp.
Lord Barakas stood with his sword out before him, as still as a marble statue. The great hall was in ruins, and she saw part of the mangled corpse of one of the patriarch’s remaining two men. The other was nowhere to be seen, although it was almost a certainty that he, like the first, was dead.
Facing the clan master from where the thrones had once stood was the largest of the dragons that any of them had yet seen in the citadel.
“Now what do we do?” Gerrod asked.
The hissing in the corridors had multiplied. Sharissa did not think they had any choice, especially since it sounded as if the outer doors were beginning to give. She gritted her teeth and replied, “One dragon is always better than two or three!”
They stepped inside, and Faunon and the warlock quickly closed and bolted the doors behind them.
Barakas and the dragon before him had still not moved. It was as if they were waiting to see who would look away first. The dragon, a huge, emerald and black beast, bled from a number of cuts around its eyes and throat. Part of the patriarch’s armor was in tatters, and he looked to be bleeding, although it was hard to say since his back was turned to them. Sharissa wondered why the dragon looked so familiar and then realized the monster resembled the ancient dragonlord in the ruins of the founders’ settlements. Was this what the renegade had wanted the
