'They escaped her. They escaped her just before I was born. We were far, far apart, but we could feel one another, yes, we could feel one another inside.'
He was speaking of the two other creatures Deathwing's consort had created, the two whom Kalec shared some responsibility in destroying.
'But they were not like me,' Dargonax continued, a slight hint of contempt arising. 'They did not think well. They only hungered. They let the hunger think for them. They were foolish and they died foolishly....' The shadowy head leaned a little closer, but still not enough to be distinct. 'I will not die foolishly.... I will not die... and you will help me...friend...'
'Yes...of course. I will—'
Without warning, Dargonax once more spoke In Kalec's head.
Kalec was thrust up into the air much the way the dragonspawn corpse had been tossed. He shot out of the pit and landed on his feet next to the fetid body. No sooner had he landed than he saw the corpse—carried by Dargonax's magic—float back into the pit.
Kalec turned toward the pit—and an invisible force arising from within shoved him toward one of the passages leading away from the chamber. Dargonax's will was incredible and, at the moment, something against which the weary blue could not fight.
With no choice, Kalec obeyed. He wanted to find Korialstrasz, although he feared thinking too much concerning the reasons exactly why. Kalec was not certain how much of his thoughts Dargonax could read or sense. Indeed, he might have already given all his secrets away.
The blue dragon felt a surge of magic rush through him again, his own magic once more there for his use. However, it was not his will that next raised his hand and created his sword.
Gripping the weapon tight, Kalec exited.
SEVENTEEN
Vereesa and the dwarves remained prisoners. They had not given up on their plan of escape: they had simply not been allowed to implement it as the ranger had intended. Even now, even after hours had passed, they all sat ready to move on her signal.
But there was one very large reason why the high elf could not yet move. Now standing guard with the skardyn and the dragonspawn was another drakonid. He was neither Rask nor the one who had taken Udin, but had a similar sharpness of eye that warned Vereesa that he would be more difficult to fool than the dragonspawn. Indeed, he watched the ranger most of all, and the one time that she had started to rise, he had immediately reached for his weapon.
Vereesa had not given up, but she had to wait. With the drakonid as wary as he was, the high elf would not even get to the door, much less open it.
She and Grenda had communicated by glance, the dwarf acknowledging her understanding that everything had to wait, no matter how long. Fortunately, dwarves and high elves could be far more patient than humans.
Then...Rask stuck his scaly snout into the chamber. He located the second drakonid and growled, 'Come!'
The two vanished a moment later, leaving the anxious dragonspawn back in command. The bulky creature obviously wanted to follow Rask, but had been given no order. It clearly chafed at being kept from something that had to be more exciting than guarding a bunch of prisoners safely secured.
That worked to Vereesa's advantage. She slipped toward Grenda.
Another drakonid entered. The same drakonid responsible for Udin's fate.
'You,' he rasped, pointing at the ranger. Doing her best to keep the tiny blade secreted, she faced the creature.
'The door,' the drakonid commanded of the skardyn. Several of the squat fiends rushed up to fend away any heroic dwarves while another unlocked the cell. As the skardyn swung the door open, the drakonid approached. In his other hand, he held a long rope, which he began unwinding.
'Come—'
The tiny blade burled itself in his eye.
The ranger charged into the skardyn before her, bowling them over by sheer surprise more than anything else. Striking their bodies was like striking rock, but she used leverage in her favor.
And behind her poured out the other prisoners.
The first two dwarves perished quickly, pikes in their guts. Their sacrifice helped those behind them, for Grenda and others seized on the pikes and tore them from the grips of their foes. That created a further opening that allowed the rest of the prisoners to flee the cell.
Vereesa paid no mind to the skardyn, the drakonid still her greatest concern. Even as he pulled the blade free of the ruined eye, the ranger fell upon him. With no weapon of her own, she grabbed for the rope.
Still dealing with his awful wound, the drakonid let his grip on the rope slacken. He belatedly tried to grab the high elf by the throat, but Vereesa had already darted to his side.
The dragonspawn came lumbering at the pair. Vereesa looped the rope and before the drakonid could turn to face her, tossed the loop around his throat. She pulled tight.
With a savage croak, the drakonid tried to free himself from the makeshift noose. The ranger tightened her grip on it as she turned to face the dragonspawn.
The four-legged behemoth swung hard at her, its ax chipping away at the ground as it just missed. The ranger used her weight to kick at the guard while at the same time also adding it to the force she was expending on the rope.
There was a terrible cracking sound. Vereesa felt the drakonid grow limp, its neck broken.
But being caught between the two foes now left her at the mercy of the dragonspawn. The bestial warrior snagged her leg and dragged her in closer for the kill.
Still clutching the rope, the high elf tried to use the dead drakonid's weight to keep her from the dragonspawn. Unfortunately, the strength of the latter was so great that both she and the corpse easily slid toward her eager adversary.
Vereesa released her hold. The sudden change in resistance caused the dragonspawn to go stumbling back. The ranger went sliding under the heavy feet as the dragonspawn collided with one of the walls.
She twisted out of what remained of the creature's hold, then rolled under and to the side. The ax came down, but the dragonspawn, still off-balance, missed by a wide margin.
Scrambling away from the behemoth. Vereesa came up behind a skardyn with a pike. Moving with the swiftness of which her race was famed, the ranger ripped the pike from the creature's claws before it knew what was happening, then kicked it into the waiting hands of a pair of dwarves. She spun around just as the dragonspawn closed on her.
The pike thrust into his shoulder, but, thanks to the scale hide, did nothing more than leave a small scar. The dragonspawn tried to chop her weapon into pieces and only by rapid maneuvering did Vereesa keep that from happening. She wished for her bow, certain that she could have planted arrows in both eyes and the throat if given only a few seconds. As it was, the pike was an unfamiliar weapon, one at the moment more suited for humans or sturdy fighters like the dwarves or skardyn.
Around her, the dwarves were pressing their savage cousins. The skardyn had more of the weapons, but they did not have the numbers. Grenda had seized a whip from one fallen foe and used itnow to good effect on those wielding pikes. She would let the whip lash around the weapon's long pole, then use a skilled flick of the wrist to wrench the pikes forward.
However, one skardyn managed to slip behind Grenda. The scaly dwarf raised an ax at her back....
