Nesha-tari cleared her throat, and the doors barred against the hobgoblins shuddered under a heavy impact.
“We should go if we are going,” John Deskata said quietly. “We can sort out what just happened later.“ John looked absolutely awful as he was the only one who had not bathed recently, and was now spattered both in hobgoblin gore and his own blood from the deep thigh wound Amatesu had already healed. But worse than that to Tilda was the hard, blank set of his face, and the smoldering green eyes that now looked both somehow right, but terrible.
Nesha-tari waited no longer. She pulled both Claudja and Phoarty by the shoulders and hurried them down off the dais and back toward the open set of doors, the Duchess still holding tightly to a dagger Tilda had given her and the wizard clutching a heavy satchel to his chest. Shikashe handed Zeb his crossbow and followed the others, while the cleric and the shukenja still eyed Zeb oddly.
“Are you all right?” Tilda asked him once she had her breath back.
Zeb nodded dully, then his eyes seemed to finally get some focus back as he looked at her.
“You? Did I hurt you?”
“Bruised but unbroken,” Tilda said, and turned to follow the others. Zeb trotted beside her.
“You’re sure?” he said, his voice now returning to normal after sounding punch-drunk and stupefied. “Miss Matilda, I would never forgive myself if I in any way damaged your breasts.”
Tilda stopped for a moment at the bottom of the dais stairs, and Zeb jogged on past her looking back with a wide, wolfish smile and a wink.
“Told you he likes you,” Heggenauer said as he clanged by as well.
Tilda started after them shaking her head, but her mouth broke into an unbidden smile. Amatesu was beside her as the two mounted the stairs at the back of the line. The echoing bangs from the other door were deafening now, and when everyone was in the hall by which they had entered they closed those doors behind them. There was no way to lock them from this side.
Tilda wanted to ask if anyone had any idea where they were going, but Nesha-tari had already set off down the long, carpeted hallway at a lope and the others had to rush to keep up. They did not slow until they reached the end of the hall that ran the full length of the palace’s wing, and the open doors to the tower through which they had entered, what now felt like days ago. Despite that feeling, Tilda was surprised to see the gray light of Vod’Adia’s early dawn through the open doors across the tower floor.
Nesha-tari waited for the others to gather around her before she stepped out into the tower with her hands spread apart and the blue lightning sparking in her palms, raking the surroundings with her luminous eyes. She spoke in Zantish.
“She says,” Zeb panted, “that we should get away from here and regroup in the house where we camped last night. From there we will decide what to do next.”
“How far is that?” Claudja asked.
“Just across the open area. The three-story on the corner to the south and west.”
The party filed into the tower, Tilda again with her bow raised though her chest and arms were already sore. Not so much from Zeb crashing into her, but more from the score or so of bow shots she had taken in a matter of minutes.
Nothing interfered with them in the tower and Nesha-tari led the way outside again at a run, heading for the footbridge over the snaking ditch through the blasted palace grounds. The others ran with her, grouping closer together than was probably wise, but all feeling nervous.
Something dark and massive arose from the ground to the east of the party, throwing a great shadow across the morning sun. Tilda felt its touch like an icy hand and the strength went out of her legs. Party members were falling to the ground, and she was one of them.
The same titanic roar that had shaken all of Vod’Adia awake on the first night after the Opening sounded again, though this time it came from much closer, and it was aimed. A heavy wave of sound pressed Tilda into the dirt and dust and she lay beneath it shuddering, for surely nothing could stand in the face of it.
Chapter Forty-One
The noxious stench of Danavod’s breath washed over Nesha-tari Hrilamae, flapping her cloak and the tattered legs of her trousers. Dust blew over her bare feet but the servant of Blue Akroya leaned into the maelstrom. At least it was not the Dragon’s full breath weapon, for just as Akroya could cast lightning from his maw Danavod could spit acid. Probably enough to turn the party and the ground around them to a soupy puddle.
The party would have been unable to avoid it, for apart from Nesha-tari and Uriako Shikashe everyone had flattened to the ground. Even the samurai had stumbled to one knee. Nesha-tari kept her feet only because this was not her first time in the presence of Greatness.
“Danavod!” she cried when the wind subsided. The Black Dragon was a mountain before her, an even darker black than the stone city all around. “I am Nesha-tari Hrilamae, the favored servant of your Brother, the Azure One! Desist!”
Danavod growled from deep in her stomach, the rumble oozing out of her maw along with tendrils of smoke. Her voice came from no particular location.
“Your affiliation avails you not, if you have come against me on Akroya’s orders.”
Nesha-tari’s blue eyes blinked. “I have not. Nor am I against you at all! I came only for these people.” Nesha-tari threw out a hand toward where the Circle Wizard and the Duchess huddled on the ground in the midst of the party, the lot of them cringing like mice. “It was your own Shugak who sent me to stop this Wizard, while Akroya sent me to slay an Ayonite who sought the capture of this woman.”
“You did not stop the Wizard,” Danavod’s disembodied voice boomed. “He has been unto the Node, and it is disturbed.”
There was a grunt from Uriako Shikashe. The samurai was back on his feet, though still hunched over in the Dragon’s shadow. His two swords were in his two hands.
“Shikashe, sit!” Nesha-tari shouted at him, but he either did not understand or just chose to remain swaying on his feet. Fortunately Danavod was not paying him any heed. The Dragon lowered her great head to fill the space in front of Nesha-tari.
“Do you deny helping this Wizard come unto the Node?” Danavod growled, both in her words and from the wall of swords that were her poniard teeth. Nesha-tari shuddered but stood her ground.
“I do,” she said through her own clenched teeth. “I dragged him away from the place before he had cast any spell, or worked any sort of magic.”
Danavod’s lifeless black eyes were like huge pearls, yet there was a knowingness within them.
“Then I shall not slay thee myself, Nesha-tari Hrilamae. Though I shall not make the same promise for others.”
The Dragon rose on her hind legs, spread her wings, and released another shattering roar. Uriako went flat on his back and Nesha-tari sat down hard. The massive Dragon threw herself high into the air and the sun was blocked out by a gray hurricane of dust raised by her beating wings. Nesha-tari still heard the Dragon’s voice though she could no longer see her.
“Leave this place if you can Nesha-tari, and return to your Master. Your fate is in your own hands, and your blood is not on mine.”
The Dragon rose high over the palace and rent a hole in the mist high above as she left Vod’Adia. Nesha-tari saw a patch of blue sky for only a moment, before the vaporous seal closed around it.
The ground was ringing under hobnailed boots, and hobgoblins sounded horns. Nesha-tari peered through the settling dust and saw two groups of them, one coming through the tower from the palace, and another charging across the open ground from the west. There were dozens of the hulking Magdetchoi in either band.
Nesha-tari got back to her feet and she was the only one to do so yet, for the others were only starting to shake themselves from under blankets of thick gray dust, hacking and spitting. Nesha-tari could have left them, and made her own way for the gate. Not long ago, that is exactly what she would have done. But she looked at
