Prophet of Moonshae

17

Undeath from Above

'Look!' Alicia pointed upward from the Gullwing's hull. The vessel still raced along the trough in the sea carved by Keane's spell. Now the princess wanted to scream, but her voice remained level and firm. 'Dragon!'

The huge beast dropped from the gray overcast, dimly visible in the fading light of day. Wings as broad as the Gullwing's length spread across the sky, and a horrific head drooped at the end of a sinuous neck. Scales of dull red, crusted over with rot and mold, formed a patchwork of skin, gaping to show white bone. Gleaming red eyes compelled attention, glowing spots of fire that burned within the black chasms of their sockets. Jaws wide, the monster plummeted toward the sleek longship.

Keane's head whipped around to follow Alicia's gaze, and immediately the concentration of his part water spell broke. Waves heaved around the vessel, though not so violently as those that had threatened to swamp her earlier in the day.

'Archers! To arms!' cried Brandon. The prince himself seized a long harpoon from the hull and raised it to his shoulder, turning to face the creature that swooped toward them from the rear.

Tavish immediately changed her song, striking a series of martial chords that filled Alicia's heart with savage courage. The princess drew her sword and stood beside the prince, uncaring that the weapon would be of little use against the monstrous presence in the sky.

'Let fly!' shouted the prince.

A dozen northmen launched arrows, but as the missiles soared upward, they all realized the futility of the attack. Most of them fell short, and those that struck the great snout seemed little more than slivers in the face of the monstrous foe.

Staring at the beast, Alicia felt the awe-inspiring presence of the great serpent strike terror into her heart. Her knees weakened, and her vision blurred as she reached out to grasp the mast for support. Even Brandon, she sensed, grew numb at the sight of imminent, diving death.

But then Tavish struck her harp again, and the magical strings sent notes of heroism and pride through the air. Alicia heard them and shrugged off her fear, to be replaced with a cool anger that brought her to a peak of fighting efficiency. All around she felt the northmen reacting to the enchanted harp and the spell woven by the skilled bard, a spell that vanquished their fear and cleared their heads for battle.

Beside her, Brandon grunted as he hurled his harpoon. The heavy missile soared upward to bury its barbed head in the monster's chest. The dragon's mouth gaped as it bellowed its rage, and then a rumbling roar assailed them. Smoke belched forth, and staring into that hateful maw, Alicia saw a billowing inferno of fire start to erupt.

'Frigidius! Karythi!'

Keane pointed his finger straight into those murderous jaws and shouted the command of a spell. As the dragon's fireball breath erupted, a blast of white light exploded from Keane's hand, meeting the fiery cloud in midair. The princess felt a blast of frost-the icy effect of the wizard's spell.

The two arcane forces, one of unnatural hotness and the other of equally extreme cold, met in the air with a sound like a thunderclap. The force of the explosion rocked the Gullwing in the water, sending Alicia tumbling.

The pressure of the blast surged outward as wind, smashing the diving serpent to the side. The monster, struggling desperately to stay aloft, nearly struck the tops of the gray waves. Veering wildly, pressing powerful strokes downward with its vast wings, the creature barely stayed above the water. Striving to fly, it slowly gained altitude as it flew away from the ship, trailed by another volley of arrows that fell well short of its scaled tail.

'Well met, my hearties!' Tavish's voice, full of cheer and confidence, boomed from the stern. Surprised, Alicia saw that even Knaff the Elder looked at the bard with respect from his position at the helm.

'Did we drive it off?' Alicia wondered, looking at the gray cloud where the serpent had disappeared.

'I doubt it,' Keane said sourly. 'Though perhaps we surprised it a little.'

'You surprised it,' Brandon said, looking at Keane with frank appreciation. 'Sorcery or not, that was well done!'

'Look!' Giant Wultha, in the center of the longship, pointed skyward and shouted. 'It comes again!'

'And here, to port!' Knaff added his own cry to the alarm. Unlike everyone else, the grizzled veteran had not confined his attentions to the flying creature. Now he pointed to the left, across the storm-tossed surface of the sea.

'Another longship!' Alicia cried, feeling a momentary delight. 'Friends?' A ship emerged from the haze, rising and falling across the rolling swells. Its red sail, emblazoned with the dark image of a great bird of prey, swelled in the wind.

'Not likely,' Brandon replied, quashing her hopes after a quick glance. 'I don't know that black eagle sigil, and I know who my friends are.'

But they couldn't afford to spend time in deliberation. The other ship, tacking against the wind, was still several miles away as the flying monster skimmed at them from the starboard beam, racing just below the pressing blanket of cloud. They could see no sign that it had been injured by the attack. Indeed, the creature uttered a bellow of rage that seemed to indicate it attacked with more fury than ever.

'Archers ready!' cried the prince as the beast nosed into a shallow dive.

Alicia clenched her sword, and much to her surprise realized that her other hand grasped Keane's arm quite firmly. Embarrassed, she released him, knowing that their only real hope of besting the creature rested with him.

The dragon seemed to sense this, too, for it dove directly toward the magic-user. The monster's red, glowing eyes, floating like amorphous spots in its great vacant sockets, sought out and locked onto Keane.

'Bulterus!'

The man spat another spell, this one a hissing bolt of lightning that crackled upward straight into the face of the monster. Like the force he had unleashed against the iron golem, the blast of electricity smashed into the serpent and filled the air with the sizzling odor of its force.

The dragon shrieked and veered, knocked from the path of its dive by the explosion. But this time it did not soar away over the wavetops. Instead, the monster crashed into the bow of the Gullwing, cracking away the figurehead and rocking the vessel crazily in the rough water. The beast perched at the prow of the ship, its hindquarters balanced on the hull while its tail dragged in the water.

'Attack!' shouted Brandon, seizing his great war hammer and charging toward the bow. Alicia ran at his side, so propelled by the mighty cadence of Tavish's song that she forgot the fear that would normally have locked her, or indeed any other person, in place.

The dragon's neck darted forward, and a seaman screamed as the awful jaws closed over his head and torso. When the monster reared, it left only the wretch's legs spurting blood from the severed midsection. A savage, taloned forefoot raked, ripping the faces from two more northmen.

Yak and Beaknod attacked. The firbolg chieftain wore, as always, his displacer beast cape, but now the grinning cat's skull rested on his head, snarling in hatred at the dracolich. Driving his stout club against the monster's shoulder, the firbolg struck with bone-crushing force.

Beaknod drove at the beast's other side, the huge giant-kin bellowing a battle cry. Gotha met the firbolg with a slash of his claws that sent the giant stumbling backward. Then the awful mouth struck down and daggerlike teeth closed over Beaknod's shoulders and head. With a strangled cry, the giant twisted reflexively and then drooped, dead.

The beast cast the body aside as Brandon's hammer crashed onto a monstrous foot, and Alicia drove her blade into the tendons of its leg. Screaming in pain, the dracolich reared back, the force of its motion carrying the splintering bow of the longship deeper into the rolling sea. Huge jaws gaping, the creature belched another cloud of smoke, and then Alicia felt the impending heat of its fiery breath.

In that instant, she lost hope of living and became a whirlwind of battle. She chopped with all her might,