Alijah felt Vilyra and her dragon, Godrad, before he saw them. The pair intercepted Ilargo only seconds before he could rake at Malliath’s back and head. The undead dragon pinned Ilargo to the ground, using its surprise to its advantage. Ilargo, however, was larger and would inevitably free himself, giving Alijah little time to make his own departure astride Malliath.
Where are you? Malliath pursued, his mighty chest heaving.
In the heart of the battle, Alijah might as well have been as far away from Malliath as The Narrows. But it had been The Crow who had taught him to always have an exit strategy. From his belt, he took the leather pouch, filled with water and a single crystal. He knew, having picked one up only seconds after entering the realm of magic, that the crystals lost their power when removed from the water.
The pouch was dripping in his hand as he prepared to throw it and open a portal. He paused, his attention momentarily stolen by a figure not far from the inner edge of the battle. Gideon Thorn, coated in mud and blood, stood watching him.
“What have you done?” the old master demanded.
“I’ve ended it,” Alijah replied definitively, annoyed that the Dragorn had seen him looking so beaten after taking the arrow.
Without another word, he threw the pouch and commanded the magic therein to explode into the form of a portal. He stepped through and dropped down onto Malliath’s waiting back, beyond the edges of the battlefield. He gritted his teeth against the pain that shot through almost every limb.
Not far away, Athis was shaking his horned head in a bid to regain his senses. When he did, and he inevitably would, the red dragon had only to unleash his fiery breath upon Malliath and the flames would consume Alijah. Such an attack could only be met with magic, the very thing the king knew he would struggle to conjure after opening a portal.
We’ve already won, Alijah insisted, watching Athis recover. Their slow death will rob The Rebellion of what little resolve it has left.
Though Alijah’s consciousness was beginning to slip, succumbing to fatigue, he could still feel his companion’s insatiable fury. Malliath wouldn’t be satisfied until he felt their bones crack between his jaws.
Go! Alijah urged, unsure whether he would be able to keep his eyes open for much longer.
Malliath grunted, forcing a plume of smoke from his nostrils as Athis finally turned on them. His wings rose high and beat down, clearing them both from The Moonlit Plains and into a twilight sky. Vilyra and Godrad freed themselves from battle with Ilargo and quickly made to follow their master.
When the battlefield was so distant that it could be seen in its entirety, Alijah slumped in his saddle. His bones demanded rest for the magic he had let loose and he knew, given the time, he would fall into a deep sleep. Right now, however, he didn’t care. Right now, he was content.
Rest now, Malliath whispered into his mind. The war is over.
No, Alijah uttered, a tired smile pulling at his mouth. Not just the war, but war itself.
23
Cursed
In the waning vestiges of light, Doran Heavybelly swung Andaljor with all his might, refusing to give up the fight. He had fought for two days without rest, stealing seconds here and there to down a mouthful of water, often taken from the corpses of his kin. The muscles in his arms stung with fatigue, his hands pulsed in pain, and his feet were on the verge of abandoning him altogether.
What remained of his senses had taken note of the dragons, their fight their own. A part of him acknowledged the fact that Alijah Galfrey must have entered the battlefield if not descended into the pit already, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the details surrounding that dilemma. There was only the fight.
Hours ago, he had glimpsed the power of Inara - her magic hard to ignore - and had even caught sight of a man he believed to be Gideon Thorn, though he hadn’t seen the man in the flesh for over a decade and the dwarf had certainly been plagued by sweat in his eyes at the time. Alijah was their fight. As much as Doran would love to bury his axe and hammer into the half-elf’s scrawny body, he knew the would-be king possessed magnitudes of skill above his own.
He settled, instead, for slaying Reavers. He was good at that. His axe cleaved and his hammer pummelled. Anything that survived that deserved to live in the dwarf’s opinion.
From what Doran could tell of the battlefield, only two Trolls remained on their feet and one of them was currently being swarmed by Centaurs. If they all survived this, the son of Dorain promised himself he would reward Kelabor, and every tribe of the plains, with anything that the lands of Dhenaheim could offer.
That still seemed like a very big if to the War Mason.
For every Reaver they put down, two more seemed to spring up, as if the dead were waiting to replace the dead. Even now, as he drove one of the fiends to the ground, his axe lodged in the centre of its head, three more Reavers emerged from the melee. The dwarf retrieved his axe and backed off as the trio stepped over their dead and made to attack.
As they advanced, the sun’s final rays of light faded and the grass came to life wherever it could between the bodies and snow. Cast in the green light, the Reavers appeared as menacing wraiths in their lunging attack. He would have spat some witty remark, words to goad, but he didn’t have the energy to conjure words, let alone voice them. Instead, he let Andaljor do all
