the lode-luck of the dwarves, it must be one of those dracoliches Elminster had told him about! Delg swallowed and sat down in his saddle again. He was getting too old for this sort of thing…
No dwarf stood a chance against that! Nor, he thought grimly, did little Shandril, even if she had married a boy who could cast a handful of spells and gained some fire magic of her own. The mule beneath him had slowed to a walk as he had sat thinking.
Delg booted it mercilessly in the ribs then, waving his axe so that it flashed in the sunlight. 'Get you going!' he snarled into the mule's ears. 'I'm late for a battle, and they'll be needing me, never fear!'
Thiszult flew low over the trees to one side of the road, the wind of his flight whipping past his ears in his haste. He had to find them, and get ahead of them. Soon, now…
There was a flash and roar of flame ahead. Startled, Thiszult veered off to one side, rising in the air for a better look. Were they in a fight? This might prove even easier than he had thought!
A vast, dark skeleton wheeled in the air, and Thiszult gasped in astonishment. A Sacred One! But how did it come to be here? And-who was it? He had never seen one so large and terrible before! As he stared at the dracolich, its cold orbs met his gaze, and it rose toward him. Its skeletal jaws looking somehow amused.
But I'm invisible! Thiszult thought in amazement. How can it see me? Or is that a power of the Sacred Ones?
From the great dracolich's maw, a blue-white bolt of lightning leaped and crackled. Thiszult did not have time to protest that he was a friend before it struck him. All his limbs convulsed at once, and he was dead, mouth open to speak, even before Shargrailar's bony claws struck his body and tore it apart. Thiszult's secret, powerful magic fell to earth. It was lost in the trees below.
Far away, Salvarad of the cult sighed and turned from his scrying font. Thiszult would never take the Purple now.
Shandril got up, grimly. The stink of cooked horseflesh was strong in her nostrils. Faithful Shield had lived up to her name all too well. The dracolich's flames had poured strength into Shandril, not harmed her. She only hoped Narm had survived.
Lightning cracked overhead as Shandril ran across the smoking road. She did not look up; she had eyes only for her man. A heart-twisting, blackened tangle of horse's legs met her gaze. Where once she would have turned away, sick, she now ran forward without hesitation, peering anxiously into the smoking slaughter. Narm! Oh, Narm!
He had no protection against dragonfire. He could well be dead. Their child would never know its father… Shandril snarled at herself. None of that! Find him, first!
There he was, moving weakly, half-buried under scorched baggage. He was alive! Oh, gods be praised!
Tears ran down Shandril's face as she knelt beside him, tearing aside smoldering straps and canvas with frantic haste. Narm moaned. His hair smoked; the left side of his face was black and blistered.
'Oh, Narm! Beloved!' Shandril wept. Cracked lips moved; lids that no longer had lashes flickered open. Watery eyes met hers, lovingly-and then looked beyond, and widened.
'Look out, love!' he hissed, painfully. 'The dracolich comes!' Shandril followed his gaze.
The great Shargrailar wheeled directly above them, vast and dark and terrible. For all that it was only empty, hollow bones, the undead creature was awesome. Shandril shivered as she gazed up at its fell might. It turned and dove silently down the sky at them again.
'Run, Shan!' Narm croaked from beneath her. 'Get you hence! I love you! Shandril, go!'
'No,' Shandril said, in tears. 'No, lord, I will not!' As the great bony jaws opened, she carefully climbed forward until she lay gently atop Narm's blackened body, shielding him as much as she could. Narm groaned in pain. She braced herself to lift her weight off him, and said softly, 'I love you.'
As the roar of the dracolich's approaching flame grew in the air about them, Shandril put her lips to Narm's and gathered her will. Then blasting flame swallowed them again.
'Clanggedin aid me!' Delg muttered, as the mule bucked beneath him. The road before him was one great smoking ruin. A roaring cone of fire had just raked it again. In a moment the swooping dracolich would be above him. The mule bucked again. 'Oh, blast!' Delg burst out, as he found himself somersaulting forward in the air. His frantic grab for the saddle-horn missed. Well, at least he still had hold of his axe. He tucked it close against him so that it would not be chipped in the hard landing to come.
So the mule's saddle was empty when the raking claws of Shargrailar swept the poor beast skyward, rending and tearing. The dracolich let out the first sound it had uttered in many long years as it rose into the air-a long, loud hiss of anger and frustration. It shredded the mule as if it were a rotten rag, and wheeled again. Destroying an enemy had never taken this long before.
Shandril desperately drew in all the flame that struck her, and strained to reach the dragonfire that ravaged Narm's helpless body and draw it into her, too. Through their joined lips she felt the fierce energy flowing; sluggishly at first, then faster and faster. Gods, the pain! Her lips were seared as if by hot metal; tears blinded her. Her body shuddered at the pain, but she held fast to her Narm as the last of the flames swept over them and were gone.
Still energy flowed into her. She realized with a start that Narm's own energy was stealing into her now; she was killing him, draining him to death! Hastily she broke their kiss and stared anxiously down at the slack, silent face. Oh, Narm! She had no art to heal him! What had she done?
Bitterly, Shandril felt the swelling energy burning within her. Her veins were afire; she was bloated with more than she could hold for long. The pain…
Into her mind then came Gorstag's voice, telling of her mother: '… to heal or harm…!' Heal! Could she heal as well as burn? She gathered her shaking limbs to lie tenderly upon Narm again, and set her lips to his. Closing her eyes, Shandril willed energy to flow out of her gently, slowly, like a cooling flow of water, through her lips. It did.
Through their kiss she could feel her released energies flowing into Narm. She willed it so, fiercely, and felt his feeble heart grow stronger, and his body began to rally. He moved beneath her, struggling to speak.
Shandril shed fresh tears as she poured still more energy into her beloved, until he was whole and strong and-
Bony claws raked shrieking agony across her back. Shandril was torn free of Narm and flung to the road beyond by Shargrailar's angry strike. Pain almost overwhelmed her; she shrieked aloud, flame gouting from her mouth in her agony. Ohhh, Tymora, the pain!
She had ignored the strike of another bolt of lightning and the numbing impacts of a shower of magic missiles while healing Narm, but the great dracolich could slay her this way, destroying her as surely as if she had no spellfire. Shandril twisted and writhed in the dust of the road in her agony. She could feel her blood flowing out of her. Blood, blood… she had seen more spilled these last tendays than in all her life before this, and she was heartily sick of it!
Well, now she could do something about it. Shandril opened her eyes and looked for the dracolich. A fierce anger was upon her. Exultation rose within her to join it; she could heal! She could use spellfire to aid as well as to do battle! On hands and knees, Shandril turned and saw Shargrailar sweeping down again, its cold eyes glimmering at her from its cruel skull, its claws outstretched to rend and tear. The onetime thief from Deepingdale met the dracolich's chilling gaze and laughed.
From her eyes flames shot forth, in two fiery beams that struck the undead dragon's own eyes. Smoke rose, and Shargrailar screamed.
Bony wings sheared away to one side in agony; Shandril was still laughing in triumph as she spat a white inferno of flames into the blinded dracolich. It reeled backward in the air, blazing, and crashed to earth.
She ignored its snappings and thrashings and turned back to heal Narm. Shandril felt a tingling in her own torn back. She bent her will to cleanse and heal herself as she crawled back to join her husband where he lay among all the dead horses. She sighed at the soothing relief from pain that spread across her back. Ahhhhh…
Her energy was much lessened, now, and Shandril became alarmed as she gave more of it to Narm. She shouldn't have healed herself… she had too little left, and the dracolich was still dangerous. It was not wasting spells on her any longer; she could not gain any more spellfire from it. Oh, Tymora! Was her luck always to be bad?
