“Oh my God!” Anna said, kneeling and laying her hands on the wizard. “What happened to him?”
“You’ve got to do something,” Eric urged her.
She closed her eyes. While Eric waited, he looked over at Ryan, the dragon, and then finally noticed several dead birds on the ground. The grass that hadn’t long since been burnt by dragon fire had withered and died. So had all the trees near the clearing’s edge. Everything nearby but them appeared to be dead. The mostly untrained wizard had drained the energy from everything, killing it all. What had kept him from drawing energy from them, too?
His gaze returned to Matt. The lines in the wizard’s face disappeared as his features returned to normal and his eyes opened. Anna looked fatigued. Being a vessel of a god’s power was not without its drawbacks.
“You’re getting better at this,” Eric remarked.
“It’s getting easier to reach her each time.”
Eric helped her up.
Matt sat up slowly, eyes on the nearby flaming dragon, then the knight. “What about Ryan? Is he okay?”
Eric extended a hand and helped him to his feet. “Time to find out.”
They headed over and found the knight on his back, awake, and in tremendous pain.
“Can you tell us what’s wrong?” Eric asked him.
“I’ll be able to tell,” said Anna, closing her eyes as she knelt beside him. It started sooner this time, Eric thought, but took longer, for Ryan had been more badly hurt. Several bones had been broken and the armor had to be loosened to prevent the dents from digging into him. Anna was so fatigued that she refused to get up. Knowing she needed rest, Eric suggested the others remain together while he went in search of Soliander’s staff and Korrin’s less important lance. It took more than an hour to retrieve them, and by then, Anna felt well enough to walk with assistance. They headed for the Dragon Gate, eager to put all of this behind them.
Matt couldn’t help eyeing the dragon. The dagger spell wasn’t supposed to include fire. It just should’ve sent the dagger at his target and followed any evasion until the blade pierced the heart. He had clearly overdone the drawing of power and nearly killed himself. If he ever had the chance to do magic again, he really needed to learn control. But he’d killed Nir’lion. He’d outsmarted her, too, much of that improvised battle plan being his. He’d never felt so formidable and proud, the memory of that power coursing through him and its utter destruction on someone trying kill him and his friends bringing a smile to his face.
Burn, bitch, burn.
With a final look at the scene, the champions left Soclarin, disappearing through the Dragon Gate to find the great hall of Castle Darlonon on Honyn empty, rain still pouring through the roof. Matt wasted no time putting the staff into the gate, having no idea how to close it for real, but then words formed in his mind as if he’d said them all before. His arm gestured before he understood what he was doing, the gate reacting like a finely tuned instrument. A rainbow of colors swirled across its surface, a ray of light shooting into the rainy sky. As if striking an invisible layer in the stratosphere, it burst into a ring that spread outward as if to encircle the planet.
For a few moments, nothing else happened and they stood exchanging glances at each other and back at the sky. Then the first dragon came into view, being pulled backward by an invisible force, its wings beating uselessly. It looked back then, the motion making it tumble over so that it now appeared to be flying forward, but all four legs and its wings showed signs of fighting the inevitable. With a roar of defiance, hatred, and anger, it hurtled down toward the gate and then disappeared with a whoosh and a puff, air buffeting the amazed champions. Eric suggested everyone but Matt step away in case a stray wing, claw, or tail managed to hit one of them. That’s when Matt realized a shield protected him, so he felt safe, having a front row seat to the spectacle.
Dragon after dragon lost control as the gate wrested them from whatever act of destruction they were engaged in. Pulled across the sky, they shrieked in defiant outrage as they plummeted into the castle and through the Dragon Gate, a blur of silvers, reds, blues, and other colors. Matt lost count of how many as the numbers rose to the thousands, the champions their last sight as they were violently flung from Honyn once more. No sooner had the last of their kind gone through than the gate closed with a flash. The champions stood breathless, eyeing each other wordlessly until Matt pulled the staff free.
“Wow,” said the wizard. “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.” He turned away and saw the queen’s collapsed tower through the ceiling’s hole. The others followed his gaze as he added, “We’d better get up there.”
“Let’s get Lorian first,” suggested Eric.
And so they did, finding an empty prison, the elf abandoned inside by mercenaries and cult members who’d already fled, no one wanting to face those who’d closed the Dragon Gate. They gave him the bag of soclarin ore for safe keeping and wasted no time climbing the queen’s tower, giant cracks in it raising fears that worsened on seeing blocks of dislodged stone on the stairs. The fallen guard had disappeared, but the two unconscious guards remained at the top. Anna knelt beside each and with a quick prayer brought them awake, Ryan’s sword point indicating they ought to flee down the steps as fast as their legs would allow. They quickly disappeared.
As Matt watched, Eric and Lorian clambered over the loose stone blocking the doorway, the outside wall of the tower
