I dashed through the courtyard and caught sight of rocks rising in front of me. A broad staircase twisted up into the cliff beside the courtyard and rose to a plateau halfway up the towering formation of the temple structure. From there, a broad waterfall crashed past the temple and into the city below.
I headed for the stairs. It was the closest thing I had to a choke point. A glance over my shoulder told me that the wyrm was still in earth-shattering pursuit. Vesma and Kegohr chased after it with their weapons ablaze.
The stairs were wide and deep. I raced up them two at a time with a pumping heart and screaming legs as I tried to get a lead on the wyrm.
The monster shot up the stairs after me. My chosen pathway was broad for a human, but the stairs were still narrow compared to the vast body of my pursuer. The winding staircase left little space for the wyrm to flex its coils and drive up after me. I increased my lead on the beast while Vesma and Kegohr started to catch up.
The stairs doubled back at the first turn, so I ran past and above the space I’d just been through. After a dozen yards, I stopped, spun, and raised the Sundered Heart.
“And how will you escape from this little predicament, sweet man?” Nydarth murmured.
“Same way I always do,” I wheezed. “Grace, good style, and taking breaks to catch my breath.”
I forced air into my lungs as the wyrm slithered past below. I brought my sword down on its body as it struggled up the stairs. I’d aimed to slice through its neck, but my blade bounced off its scales with a flash of sparks. I swung again, two-handed this time, but the scales still didn’t part.
“It’s a rather dense creature,” Nydarth observed.
I bit back a reply as the the wyrm stopped, reared up, and snapped at me with jaws full of sword-like teeth. I dodged backward and just avoided having a leg bitten off.
Vesma reached the rear of the wyrm and sliced at its tail. Her spear was unable to penetrate its hide and glanced off. She jumped onto the tail and ran along it, stabbing as she went, probing for weaknesses.
As the wyrm twitched its tail in protest, Kegohr caught up. He swung his hefty mace and slammed it down, but it bounded off the wyrm without leaving any sign of damage.
The monster reared up, let out a piercing screech, and flexed its tail. Vesma was flung threw the air but managed to control her landing and came to a stop on the upper set of stairs. Kegohr, hit by the end of the tail, got the worst of the blow and shot back to the bottom of the stairs.
“Keep going!” I shouted as the wyrm started its ascent again.
Vesma and I ran up the stairs with the monster hot on our heels. Bowls of clear water and torches of sputtering flame lined our path toward a plateau on the mountain.
The stairs took a second turn. I stopped to attack the wyrm while I had the high ground. I reached into my dying pool of Vigor and birthed spear-like Plank Pillars underneath the wyrm with as much force as I could muster. The huge snake reduced them to splinters with a single movement of its monstrous body. Vesma focused and hurled an Untamed Torch at the serpent’s face as it drew closer to us at a frightening rate. Water blasted free of the Wyrm’s mouth and dissolved the flames.
Vesma stared at it in horror. “Just snuffed it out like a candle.”
The mountainside was clear of loose stones, and I couldn’t drop a huge boulder on the creature’s head. I wasn’t going to get lucky a second time by using the ‘drop something massive from above’ again. Vesma shoved me up the stairs as the wyrm reared back and fired another jet of high-pressure water. The monster hissed in rage and redoubled its efforts to reach us.
We finally reached the plateau. Water streamed in from a gap in the rocks to one side, became a river that split the open space in two, and fell from a dizzying precipice at the far end of the plateau. A bridge spanned the river and lead to an altar up against the rock wall.
“What now?” Vesma asked, looking back down the stairs. The wyrm writhed upward with Kegohr in pursuit.
“The eyes and mouth,” I said. “They’re the only gaps I can see in its defenses.”
“So, we face it head on?” Vesma looked dubious.
“I’ve got another idea. Get behind the altar and wait.”
I ran across the plateau and stood on the precipice of the waterfall. Qihin City opened out behind my back. We’d come far higher than I’d first realized.
I turned and readied myself to face the wyrm My sword shone in one hand as fire flickered in the other.
The wyrm shot over the top stair and onto the flat ground of the plateau. It reared its head as it had done when it first entered the temple, and its forked tongue tasted the air in search of its prey.
“Ethan,” Nydarth began. “What are you—”
“Come and get some!” I shouted at the monster.
I launched an Untamed Torch at the wyrm’s face for added effect. It was one of the hottest fires I’d summoned, a blazing ball of yellow light that I’d hoped might blind the beast. But it reared up at the last moment and caught the fireball against the scales of its throat. The wyrm screeched in shock and lowered its head to stare straight at me.
The beast writhed across the plateau as its huge mouth widened to swallow me whole. The bridge collapsed beneath a flick of its tail, and water flew as its coils hit the river. It was 20 feet from me. . . 10. . . 5. . .
I jumped toward the creature. The wyrm’s jaws
