Song of the Dragon

this so that you will have no romantic notions about this combat. The Hak’kaarin were fine warriors despite their size: organized and efficient. There were only seven of these Iblisi, and the mud gnomes died by the thousands. In the end the gnomes won because their numbers-and the key help of RuuKag-overwhelmed the Iblisi.”

“So you want us to charge them in force?” Drakis asked, his voice skeptical. “I don’t think we’ve got quite the numbers that the mud gnomes had. .”

“Nonsense!” The dwarf winked. “This calls for subtlety and a large dose of legerdemain. I want you to keep an open mind. If nothing else, remember this: There are only seven in a Quorum. They are each powerful beyond belief, but with each one you kill they are diminished just as greatly. In such a contest there are no rules but one: He who lives, wins. You cannot take any of them in open combat. No one can. You have to be where he does not suspect you, attack from where he cannot see you, and kill him before he knows he’s dead.”

“Clever trick,” Drakis agreed, “but they’re almost to the beach. Their fires are burning a path before them, and anyone who tries to cross it is being burned to cinders before they reach the other side. We have no time for an elaborate defense.”

“Not elaborate,” the dwarf grinned. “Just subtle. I’ve been saving this one up.”

The dwarf reached inside his waistcoat.

In his hands he held the dwarven Heart of Aer.

The rocks shattered before Belag’s face, collapsing in front of him into a blue haze. The manticore instinctively fell back away from the powerful eye of the Iblisi staff that was searching him out among the rocks, and he tumbled down the seawall.

“Ouch! Get off!”

Belag rolled over, pushing up off the sand while throwing himself against the seawall. “Ethis! We need to get closer to them!”

“Closer?” the chimerian shouted over the roar of the fires burning from the shore to the heart of the village. The Iblisi were incinerating them from thirty yards away.

“We can’t hurt them if we’re not close enough for our weapons.”

“What about the Sondau?” the chimerian asked over the din. “Don’t they have archers?”

“Great ones, but their volleys aren’t hitting their marks,” the manticore answered, his face peering over the sands toward the advancing enemy. “Something is deflecting them.”

“I can only imagine what that might be,” Ethis groused.

“If we can get around their flank,” Belag said, licking his incisors. “Then we’d be close enough to taste their blood.”

“Around their flank?” Ethis drew himself up next to Belag. “Do you see a flank?”

“At the water’s edge,” Belag pointed. “We just need to draw them closer to the village. .”

Two small hands clapped them both on the back at the same time.

“Fellow warriors, take heart! The Wind-princess of Nordens has come to your aid!”

With that, the Lyric leaped blithely over the seawall and began running with all her might toward the burning village.

“NO!” Belag roared.

Drakis floated upside down in the night. He had to close his eyes from time to time to avoid being dizzy, but he clutched his sword in his right hand so hard he thought the grip might snap.

The fires spread by the Iblisi drifted below him. The heat from them was making him sweat, and this worried him as much as anything because he somehow knew that a single drop falling from his brow could easily call death upon him.

He twisted slightly as he opened his eyes. The dwarf was back behind the ridge of stone beyond the lane of fire. Trust the little fool not to mention that he had some skill in magic. Just when was he going to tell the rest of us, Drakis thought, at my funeral or after?

Beneath him he could see his target: a robed Iblisi just below him, his staff gushing fire across the landscape only three feet below him. Drakis opened his left hand, readying it for the plunge, his right hand coiled with the sword, ready to strike.

The dwarf had said they never look up.

He hoped this worked.

Suddenly, Drakis fell from the sky.

In a swift motion, Drakis grabbed the sharp chin of the elf beneath him and, using the Iblisi’s shoulders as leverage, swung his knees down his victim’s back. The tip of his sword connected at the base of the throat just above the collarbone and slid with satisfactory force into the rib cage and tore through the creature’s heart.

In the next moment, Drakis lay on the ground surrounded by the dense ground cover of the jungle with the dead elf lying on top of him.

That’s one, Drakis thought. But it’s not enough. They’re moving too fast.

In the next moment, he was yanked skyward by the dwarf’s magic once again.

“Wait! Look!” Ethis shouted.

The Lyric ran across the line of Iblisi, diving at the last moment behind a tree. The trunk exploded into a thousand splitters, toppling the tree-but she was no longer there.

The Iblisi saw her at once, their Matei staffs shifting to strike her with their full force. Blue and red rods of light arced toward her, waves of flame and sound engulfed her. .

. . But never reached her.

“She is the Wind-princess!” Belag said with shock.

“Wind-princess or not,” Ethis said with a smile as he pointed, “look what she’s doing!”

The Iblisi continued to train their power against her as she darted about the village ruins, drawing them inward and away from the beach.

“There’s your flank, Belag,” Ethis said. “But I’ve got something I have to tell you before you go. . something you have to do that can mean all the difference in the world to us all.”

The manticore looked quizzically at the chimerian.

“You must do this for Drakis,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

Drakis once again floated over the landscape. They were moving too fast, and this was taking far too long. Good plan or not, the end result would be the same.

Another of the Iblisi was below him now. He needed the dwarf to move him just a little more to the left.

The fires below were unbearable. The heat was making it hard for him to concentrate, and his eyes stung.

He opened his left hand again and drew back his sword.

The dwarf was moving him slowly, carefully. .

A gust of wind drifted over the fires, carrying with it a wave of smoke just as Drakis drew in his breath.

He coughed.

The Iblisi looked up just as Drakis fell. He jumped sideways but not far enough. Drakis caught him on the way down, dragging him along, but the sword did not enter properly and plunged into the elf’s body at an angle.

The elf screamed.

Drakis tore the blade from the body of the elf just as Jugar’s magic dragged him into the air.

Two of the Iblisi leaped into the air to follow.

CHAPTER 45