“Did you see him?” Inara rasped. “Did you see Alijah?”
Galanör looked around. “We must have passed each other,” he lamented. “The roots are tall here; it’s like a maze.”
Inara found her feet again, but Galanör was needed to steady her. “I failed,” she whispered, her eyes reflecting the flames. “I tried…” She couldn’t bring herself to relive the event, her energy on the verge of abandoning her altogether.
A light rain of red dust showered the pair, the remnants of the crystal leaves. “Come,” Galanör bade, helping her up. “We need to go.”
As he guided her away, back towards the doorway, the fire continued to spread and smoke billowed around them. Inara couldn’t even think of a way to save it now.
The tree was dying.
All was lost.
Alijah stepped through the doorway and into the gloom of the pit. His bond with Malliath returned instantly and with perfect clarity. The king welcomed his companion’s thoughts and feelings, both of which seemed to clear his head. It had felt unnatural to be so disconnected, leaving some of his own thoughts to fray at the edges.
He looked up to the circle of light, where snow flurries drifted down into the pit. He saw hundreds of Drakes running along the spiralling walkway, ascending to freedom. Of course, Inara had freed them all, and broken his time spell too. Despite his instinct to stop them escaping, he let his sister have her small victory. After all, the Drakes had served their role in his plan, a plan he had now completed. He would have preferred to have spent longer and torched a lot more of the tree, but the deed was done.
Now he just had to wait.
I’m coming to you, he said.
There were no words from Malliath. The dragon was all action as he battled two of his own kin, both fierce opponents, even for one so ancient and powerful as Malliath. Alijah could feel his companion’s rage building with every claw and tooth that sank into his muscles. So intense was it, that the king believed he could actually feel some of the pain that accompanied those attacks. Alijah was tempted to withdraw slightly from their bond, so as to distance himself from the pain, but he wanted to feel it, to share as much of the battle with his dragon as possible.
Taking one more step away from the doorway, the king was struck by an arrow fired with greater accuracy and speed than any human could have achieved. The force of it sent him back a step, causing a portion of his cloak to interact with the edges of the doorway and disintegrate. The pain of it brought forth a roar from the half-elf and he instinctively reached for the missile. Looking down, the arrow had found the smallest of spaces between his scale mail, just below his shoulder. His fingers hesitated to touch it.
Whipping his head up, he saw an elf on the stone platform - she looked somewhere between determined and shocked. Using her own surprise against her, Alijah threw his hand out and caught her in his telekinetic spell. Her yell was cut short when she collided with the adjacent wall of the pit and fell to the ground.
“You must be… Aenwyn,” he groaned, struggling to stand up straight. Bracing his open hand beneath the shaft of the arrow, the king flicked his fingers and drew it out with a touch of magic. It was agonising, but he had endured much worse.
A little dazed, Aenwyn rose to her feet, nocking a new arrow as she did.
“If you’re here,” Alijah reasoned, “so too is Galanör.” He looked around the shaft but found no trace of the ranger. “A pity. I would have liked to have finished what he started on Qamnaran.”
The muscles in Aenwyn’s face subtly twitched as she took umbrage at his comment. The muscles in her face weren’t the only ones to shift beneath the skin. Her arm pulled back the bow string half an inch and the knuckles in her hand paled. To Alijah, it was a glaring sign informing him of her imminent intentions.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he advised, his hand braced against the bleeding wound on his chest.
Aenwyn took no heed of his warning and raised her bow with enviable speed. In the same moment the arrow left the string, Alijah waved his free hand from left to right. The spell caught the arrow, Aenwyn, and most of the dirt beneath her feet, launching all of them into the air and back into the wall.
The fresh wound sent a spike of pain through his body and the king winced, his hands balling. Somewhere far above, he was sure he heard Malliath’s almighty roar.
Without giving Aenwyn another look, Alijah made for the stone steps. Approaching the first pulley system he came across, Alijah wrapped his good arm around the rope and kicked out the mechanism holding the counter weight. In seconds, dwarven ingenuity had him rising up through the shaft, past the fleeing Drakes. After reaching the top, he swung across to the wooden boards and simply walked round the top level until he was standing on The Moonlit Plains again, his whole body sagging to one side in submission to the hole in his chest.
The sun was setting now, and not just on the world. Soon, magic would have its last day, then there would be no more battles for he could end them all, unchallenged. But that was not this day. As night approached, The Rebellion continued its stubborn attack on his Reavers, the battlefield as relentless as ever.
Time to leave, he said into his bond with Malliath, wary of losing too many more of his forces.
The black dragon dived down with Athis close on his tail. The two flexed their wings and glided low over the plains, just east of the battle. Athis proved faster, however, and caught up just enough to drive both dragons down
