him. He crunched into himself so hard that his tail bones impacted the back of his head. Bones were broken. One of them jutted up out of his arm. He could feel raw, nauseating pain where exposed nerves and marrow were touching air. With his other arm he yanked the broken one crudely back into its proper shape and let loose a horrific yell. Then he turned and called forth blast after blast of magical energy, while Kraw, and both halves of Shokin did the same inside his mind. A swarm of poisonous insects, a jagged streak of crimson lightning, then several balls of roiling purple energy came pulsing out of his fingertips and assailed the beast.
Deezlxar countered most of them with shielding spells. The poisonous bugs found his blood more toxic than they were and they soon sputtered to the ground and faded into nothing. The lavender blasts charred the Abbadon’s flesh as it advanced, but none of it did enough damage to stop the coming attack.
Another streak of lightning found Deezlxar’s wounded head, and sizzled the life out of its eyes, but still Deezlxar came on. The Abbadon had taken Gerard’s best and it was still ready for more. Gerard knew that he had to retreat and regroup. There was no way that he could win this battle, not this day. His armor plates were crooked and several other bones were broken besides his arm. The gore that had splattered his body was starting to sizzle on his flesh.
Gerard spun and clawed deep slices across one of the Dark One’s necks, then he did the only thing he could do to survive. He flashed himself away with a spell.
He appeared in the empty blackness somewhere away from Deezlxar and immediately began trying to heal himself with his magic. He wasn’t done with the Abbadon yet, but he was no fool.
As much as Shaella wanted to march the huge, hairy, bone-wielding gorax into Locar to straighten out the breed, she couldn’t. She’d promised Ra’Gren aid, and the gorax would go far toward keeping Queen Rachel’s army from crossing into Dakahn. Shaella had to remind herself that it was Bzorch and his barbaric breed giants she was mad at. Not all of the people of Locar had betrayed her, just the breed.
She found that she couldn’t be mad at Flick for retreating from the battle as he had. His Choska had been critically wounded, and Ra’Gren’s men lost the fight anyway. The feel of the wind in her hair, and Vrot’s young, strong muscles churning his wing strokes under her, confirmed the decision.
Cole was another matter. She was completely infuriated with Cole. Despite her orders, he’d let one of the Choska slip into the world without being bound, and had instead bound the will of an overgrown insect. Gerard hadn’t loosed those demons for her to squander. She wasn’t sure if Cole was going mad down in the dungeons, where he spent most of his time these days, or if he had some strange purpose that she didn’t know about. Cole had always been more like her father than Flick. Maybe that’s what it was. She would deal with him soon. It had to be done.
Shaella hated having to bother with Ra’Gren again, but it was necessary. She was certain he would put her in a mood. She decided that she would save dealing with the breed for last, that way the fires of her wrath would be fully stoked when she found them.
The statue-filled bailey before Ra’Gren’s palace was crowded as she circled low over it. Clouds were building up in the sky and she wanted this part of her day over with so that she could fly above the coming storm on her way north to Locar.
She loved to skim the tops of the storm clouds. The kinetic energy built up in them was powerful and seemed to charge her blood.
The people below cleared away for her as she brought Vrot smoothly down. With a wide snap of his wings his hind legs touched the ground.
The dragon took a lurching step before his front claws went forward and his wings pulled in. Shaella didn’t bother to dismount.
“Go fetch your king,” she ordered a uniformed man who was posted at the top of the steps. His expression showed his reluctance to do any such thing, but he didn’t balk. He glanced at the dragon fearfully, then turned and strode into the palace entrance.
It didn’t take Ra’Gren long to appear. He was followed by a dozen of his overlords, all but two of whom chose to stay high up on the stairway away from the dragon. Ra’Gren’s expression was angry, yet curious, as he strode powerfully toward her. He stopped when he was on a level with Shaella’s eyes. Just to be difficult she had Vrot raise her up a little higher so that Ra’Gren was forced to look up at her or back up a few steps.
“You failed me in Seareach,” Ra’Gren barked. “Your creatures were of no real help.”
“I didn’t agree to help you take Wildermont,” Shaella snapped. “I only agreed to help you defend against the Eastern Alliance. Those hellcats were supposed to be a gift to help you guard the pass, but still you lost it.”
“Nevertheless, those things failed us.” He looked at the messenger who’d arrived earlier with the particulars of the battle. It irritated Ra’Gren that Shaella knew what happened before him. “My man tells me that your half- breeds betrayed you and helped Jarrek win the day. If this is the sort of assistance you give, I’m not sure I want it anymore.”
“You’re an old fool.” She hawked and spat at the ground a few steps below him. “Do you even know what sort of threat approaches?” She looked at him hard, hoping he would try to come down on her for calling him a fool in front of his court. His face was red, and cords throbbed under his clenched jaws, but his eyes kept darting down to Vrot’s slobbery maw and then back to her. His voice was level and controlled when he spoke.
“Tell me of this threat.”
“An army, twenty thousand strong, is marching across Valleya as we speak. They mean to storm your border and attack here at O’Dakahn. Queen Rachel didn’t like the party you threw for her men in the Seareach passage.” Shaella allowed herself a smug smile. It was nice having a spy in General Spyra’s bed. “Are you prepared to defend your borders, and if not, are you prepared to defend the city?”
Ra’Gren’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no words came to him.
“That’s what I thought.” Before he could respond she waved him to silence. “If you don’t want my assistance, if my aid isn’t to your liking, then I’ll be on my way.” She started to urge Vrot into flight but, as expected, Ra’Gren stopped her.
“Queen Shaella,” he said in a way that hid his deprecation in the tone of his voice.
Shaella heard the inflection and knew it for what it was. It was a plea.
“What can we do?” he asked her when she didn’t fly away. “I have men, plenty of soldiers, but it would take days to get them all to Oktin and Lokahna to defend the bridges.”
Shaella waved her hand and spoke a word in the language of demons. The huge gorax appeared right in the middle of the bailey among the statues in a brilliant flash. People gasped and yelled and nearly trampled each other trying to get away. Even Vrot took a cautious step back from its sudden appearance. The wolf-headed gorax growled out loudly and waved its huge bone club about. It stood over twenty feet tall, and its black ape-like chest rippled with muscle that contrasted with its thick gray fur. As if irritated at being called upon, the demon bashed one of the marble statues into a crumble. The head and shoulder of the destroyed monument flew ten feet and bounced into the base of another statue with a heavy thumping crack.
“My new friend can keep the Seaward army from crossing at Lokahna. That will buy you some time to get troops to Oktin. I doubt Rachel’s army would want to march that far north anyway, not after losing the element of surprise. Send a few thousand archers to help the gorax cover the banks of the river, and a few hundred cavalry to round up any stragglers that might win their way past him, but warn your men to stay clear. If it is in his way, and alive, the gorax will kill it if he thinks it came across the river into your kingdom.”
Looking at the gargantuan demon beast Ra’Gren found that, for the first time in a very long time, he was speechless.
The Shark’s Tooth fought its way up the channel against the mild current of the Leif Greyn’s diffused flow. They had long since passed under the shadow of the Dragon Spire and were nearing the open marsh where the Leif Greyn River split. Once, the route would have been impossible to travel due to Claret’s presence, but now the spiking volcanic formation was nothing but a sinister landmark amid a swampy half-submerged jungle. The normally snapper-filled waters seemed empty of life. Even the insects seemed to have better things to do than bother Lord
