flight downward, Trinculo held on slightly longer, grimacing as Chalintash's claws dug deeper, then released.
The copper dragon fell like a stone. As he plummeted to the ground below, Chalintash rolled over in the air and extended his wings to their widest, trying to use them to slow or halt his fall. Trinculo hovered above him and put his own breath to good use. A brilliant gold beam of light burst from his maw, catching his opponent full on. The light shone like a beacon that lit up Beregost and all of the surrounding farmland. Chalintash buckled under the intense heat, but his wings he kept spread wide.
Khalt watched breathlessly as Chalintash careened through the air, but knew that Trinculo's plan hadn't worked. They'd done it together fighting wyverns in the Forest of Amtar, but a copper dragon was much larger and stronger than any wyvern. By the time Trinculo's breath was spent, Chalintash had recovered into a secure soar, and was in no danger of striking the ground. Still, part of Trinculo's plan had succeeded. The course of the battle would depend on Trinculo's superior speed and wits.
Khalt ran past the ruins of buildings brought down by Chalintash. Men and women tore through the rubble, desperately trying to find survivors. Just outside the town, Khalt saw a line of city guardsmen under the leadership of a yellow-robed cleric of Lathander. They were standing in a long line armed with longbows, flame arrows at the ready.
Khalt ran up to the cleric and startled him when he shouted, 'Hold!'
The cleric whirled to face him. 'Who are you?' he demanded.
'Don't do anything to enrage the copper dragon,' Khalt advised.
'He looks mighty enraged already,' the cleric protested. 'We must protect our temple and town.'
'He's distracted now,' Khalt told him. 'Launch your arrows and you run the risk of bringing his attention back to the town. Let my companion and I try to deal with him.' He paused a moment before adding, 'But if we should be lost, show no mercy.'
With that, he bolted off into the dark fields, hopping fences and dashing past frightened livestock, making his way to the ruins. Occasionally he cast a look back to see the two draconic forms racing across the heavens, mere spots in the night sky.
Soon, Khalt reached the ruins south and east of Beregost. Once it had been Ulcaster's school of magic, but it was destroyed by Calishite rivals centuries before and now was little more than a number of stone walls and crumbling towers. The ground was slick with sheep droppings and surprised, luminous-eyes stared at him from the darkness. All was quiet and still, and it seemed far away from the deadly dance still playing out far above.
In the ruins there were two reasonably tall pillars, twenty or so feet apart. Khalt ran up and inspected them carefully, running his hands over one of them until he found a deep groove cut into the side. Its original purpose was ornamental-it outlined a panel where the dim impression of a bearded wizard stood-but Khalt knew a more functional use for it.
He pulled open his bag of tricks and started to work.
The cloudless night sky sprawled before Trinculo, each star like a tiny candle lighting the roof of a vast cathedral. As he spun and flitted through the night, he lost all track of up and down, so that the sky might be the carpet of the world, and the ground the ceiling. How he loved this! To fly through the night, every star rippling off glossy scales-the freedom of it! But not tonight.
Trinculo made every twist and turn his slender body could manage, every unpredictable to keep his from him. He pushed aside thoughts to keep from thinking of his friend. Every now and again, Trinculo..uuiu eaten juac a glimpse of the copper dragon on his tail, but it scared him to look. The turquoise gleam in his eyes had diad away, degenerating to a dull reddish glow.
Chalintash's blithe and generous soul was gone replaced by the cold instinct of the reptilian brain, w ltn an gentleness and warmth shorn from him, Chalintash knew nothing but fury and that gave him strength, but also made him reckless and thoughtless. That was Trinculo's advantage. Occasionally he would slow and almost let Chalintash catch him, and fly away in a new direction, and listen to Chalintash's growls of frustration.
Trinculo saw a white flare go off far below him and pointed his nose down toward it. But as he did, he passed closer to Chalintash, who belched his breath weapon-not the line of acid, but a white gas that rolled out of his throat and all across the sky in a noxious cloud. Trinculo swept through it, and gulped as he realized that Chalintash's breath had impaired his mobility. He travelled toward the ground just as fast, but not in a controlled dive but a random, dangerous free-fall, and with his enemy so close behind. As the ground got larger and larger, he didn't dare look back to see just how close the copper dragon was… he could almost feel claws grasping or teeth snapping at his flailing tail.
Like a silver comet in the night, his luminous, reflective form rocketed to the ground. Trinculo was plunging toward the darkened ruins of Ulcaster's school, frustrated by the tortuous lethargy that vexed his limbs and wings. If he could not react in time, he knew he would surely strike the ground. Though he could not see Khalt among the ruins, he knew the elf was there and what Khalt had planned. They had perfected this technique against wyverns in the Forest of Amtar. He located two central pillars that looked high enough and sturdy enough to stand in for the thick trees.
'Avachel, bless the fools!' Trinculo cried as he was set to plow into the ground.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to force his heavy body into action, pulling himself upward and directing himself forward. His bones were slow to respond and he felt unimaginable pressure as he struggled. His scaly belly raked against the grassy ground as he finally pulled free of his dive, sending frightened sheep scrambling. His torpid form sped through the pillars and when he allowed himself to turn his head back, he saw Chalintash do the same, just as he hoped.
An arrow hit Chalintash from above, penetrating the scale and embedding just at the point where his wings met his body, and just where he could not pluck it out with his teeth. He snapped back to find its source, only to see a gleaming white line tied to the arrow and leading back to one of the two pillars he'd just passed through. The tether pulled taut, and the arrow ripped a path through dragonflesh.
Chalintash let out a sharp squeal as sublime pain wracked his entire body. The shaft in his wing was an elven arrow of attraction, designed to penetrate the target and st» v in place through practically anything, and the line was enchanted with considerable strength, wrapped firmly in place around the broken pillar. Chalintash broke off his pursuit of Trinculo and spun back to find who'd shot him. He saw the elf standing atop the pillars where the line led, another arrow at the ready.
Khalt fired, the arrow flying right toward Chalintash's face. The dragon just barely dodged it, and closed a claw around the thin line that tied it to the pillar. Chalintash yanked as hard as he could manage, but the pillar was secure and barely trembled. Khalt nimbly leaped off the top to the ground beneath and dashed off, unseen, somewhere into the ruins.
Chalintash took the line in his teeth but could not break it. He flew forward to the pillar, inspected it closely. The tether was down in a groove set into the side of the pillar. The dragon scratched at it with his claw but could not disturb it. Something crossed his face, as if he were trying to dredge up from the quagmire of his mind the best solution.
'Back here!' came a voice. 'Have you forgotten me so quickly?'
Trinculo had perched farther away in the ruins. Chalintash spun around to face him, but even in his Rage- impaired state, he was too smart to plunge forward and let the line pull tight again. Instead, Chalintash snatched up a large piece of rubble in his talons, lifted it up into the air as high as he could, and tossed it at Trinculo.
Surprised, Trinculo tried to scramble for safety, but still affected by Chalintash's breath, he was too slow. The stone struck Trinculo in the face hard and crumbled with the impact. Trinculo opened his mouth wide, blood dribbling from his broken teeth, and spat his renewed breath weapon at the copper dragon. Once again, the beam of light flashed from Trinculo's mouth to illuminate Chalintash's brilliant russet color, bathing him in scorching heat. Chalintash made no effort to escape, but simply stared at Trinculo, as he was cooked alive.
Khalt crouched in the darkness at the foot of a ruined wall and watched, amazed, as Chalintash hovered in midair, beating his wings slowly as Trinculo's breath consumed him.
It must be the Rage at work, Khalt reasoned. Is he not feeling the pain, or is he simply past responding to it?
But soon Trinculo's breath was spent, and Chalintash's only response was to shake his great mass so that steam escaped from beneath his scales.
Then, Chalintash turned back and pointed his nose at the pillar to which he was tethered. He was clearly
