the Order of Blue Fire were more than a dragon’s equal.
Slanya observed all this in moments, trying to determine the best course of action. She could find Gregor and try to get him to stop the ritual, but as she took in the full scope of what was happening on the field below, it quickly dawned on her that things were too far along. Gregor couldn’t help her stop it now.
The line of pilgrims formed a-nearly complete circuit around the field, holding hands. Accordants and others in the pale blue robes of the Order of Blue Fire scoured the line and stopped where pilgrims were jumbled. They made them get quickly back into line and link hands. And soon, if Slanya’s guess was correct, the entire line of pilgrims would form a complete circuit. And once that happened, Vraith would use those souls in her ritual to move the border of the Plaguewrought Land.
Not only would all the celebrating pilgrims inside be destroyed, butmore importantlythe Order of Blue Fire would see this as a huge victory, and they would do it again. And again. They would expand the Plaguewrought Land at their whim, wreaking chaos across Faerun.
Slanya shuddered. No, this must be stopped.
Just at that moment, Slanya registered a palpable change in the air around her. It was as though the line of pilgrims coalesced all of a sudden. Something new had arrivedthe birth of a new entity. Slanya could feel it forming from the line of pilgrims down the hill.
She watched in rapt horror as the border veil spat the wild magic onto the nearest pilgrims at either end of the arc. Some power held the pilgrims in its thrall, for they did not run. They did not flinch or cry out. They did not react at all as the blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim and raced to complete the circuit.
Above them, the gauzy border veil fluttered, and Slanya felt her gut drop inside her as she watched. The solid, prismatic surface pulsed and flickered as the ritual magic increased, as the blue fire rushed along the line of pilgrim flesh and souls.
The ritual had started.
The rising screams reached Duvan’s ears as he clutched the rope around Tyrangal’s neck with both hands, trying to stay on. Hot wind blew foul and dusty through the border veil. Hundreds of tiny rock particles floated in the air, stinging his skin as they flew.
Duvan had never wanted to ride on a dragon’s back, and now that he had, he never wanted to again. Jerky and rough, with sudden turns, drops and climbs, the ride left Duvan’s stomach behind. His hands burning from the effort, Duvan’s entire job seemed to be to hang on and protect Tyrangal from the spellscarred’s attacks.
So he held on as tightly as he could, refusing to be dislodged despite his bruised hands and the cuts on his knees and belly from the dragon’s sharp horns and spikes. He held on despite the magical attacks from below, and the arrows flying past.
Apparently dragons were unwelcome at the festival.
As they flew, Duvan caught glimpses of the scene below. Spellplague advanced along the perimeter of pilgrims, lighting up the night with white fire. They must have been in unfathomable pain as the blue fire burned their bodies, but they could not move out of it. The line was on fire from both ends now and would soon meet in the middle.
What would happen then, Duvan didn’t know. But it was bound to be decidedly not good.
“I am not making much progress against Vraith’s cadre of accordants,” Tyrangal said. “Together they are too powerful.”
Duvan nodded. He didn’t know what he could do; the scale, of this battle was beyond his abilities. He did know that he wanted to survive it. He wanted to live through this to figure out what he could do with his life. How he could make a difference. It was an odd feeling; he’d never cared about making a difference before.
He’d never cared about much of anything before.
His tenure on the Fugue Plane and the prospect of spending eternity as just another brick in the wall of the City of the Dead had given him a new perspective. The boredom and futility of doing nothing forever was far scarier to Duvan than living in pain.
“Hold on, Duvan,” Tyrangal said, her voice drowned out by the cacophony of screaming pilgrims. “It looks like three of them are coordinating and”
Duvan saw three glowing spheres now floating at intervals near the border veil. He watched in fascinated awe as bolts of ice blue shot out from them. The shafts sped directly toward him and Tyrangal.
Duvan’s hands yanked abruptly as, under him, Tyrangal swerved in the sky, plummeting as she tried to dodge the bolts. But even though the main shafts missed hitting them directly, the air froze and crystallized around Duvan. Tyrangal’s scales iced up, and the dragon’s movements grew sluggish.
Breath stopped in Duvan’s chest, and his skin burned with cold. His eyelids froze open, and his hands went numb. His vision darkened, and his joints locked. The vapor in his nostrils crystallized.
From the rate of their plummet, it seemed as though Tyrangal was having similar issues. The ground approached quickly as they fell.
He’d never been afraid to die before, but now he was.
Now he wanted to live. He wanted to accomplish something, to be a force for good. Slanya had showed him that being a force for good didn’t always mean pain. Sometimes it meant satisfaction and companionship and caring.
The dragon managed to shift against the magical frost, moving enough for her wings to catch the air. Tyrangal’s body shuddered and lurched beneath Duvan, then rose sharply. Perhaps they’d get out of this.
As they quickly gained altitude again, Duvan felt himself sliding to his left. Inexorably and uncontrollably, he drifted nearer the point where he would fall. His ice-encrusted hands on the rope around Tyrangal’s neck had grown numb. With his fingers frozen, he was unable to hang on.
Tyrangal must have sensed this and adjusted her flight to nudge him back to the center. With a slight shift of her body, she helped him regain his balance on her neck. For now.
Far below, tiny pilgrims screamed as their bodies ignited with spellplague. The line was almost entirely engulfed now, the circuit nearly complete. In the halos of the bonfires, Duvan could see scattered pilgrims who had refused to join the line. They had all stopped their dancing, stopped their revelry. They all stared, dumbfounded, at the rippling wave of blue fire that raced over their brethren.
More blue bolts slammed into Tyrangal and she faltered. Huge blocks of ice formed large encrusted masses on the dragon’s wings. Beneath Duvan, Tyrangal dropped into an angled, spinning nosedive.
Completely frozen, Duvan slipped free and fell.
He could not move, but his eyes were frozen open, and he could still see. He could see the dark shadow of the ground grow larger as he fell. Beneath him, but off to the side, Tyrangal crashed into the ground. She was moving so fast that her body dug a massive furrow in the grassy earth.
In the split second before the onrushing, unyielding ground shattered his frozen body, Duvan saw his mentor and benefactor defeated. Defeated and probably deada huge dragon, frozen into a monstrous block of ice, crashing like a mote to the earth, scattering a bonfire and a small group of pilgrims out of the way.
So this is the end, he thought in his last instant. If they can beat Tyrangal, they win.
Standing in the stirrups, Slanya’s breath caught in her chest as she looked out. across the field and watched Tyrangal fall out of the sky. Her heart wrenched as she saw the tiny figure of Duvan, a dark speck, silhouetted against the massive backdrop of the undulating prismatic border veil.
Dread swelled inside her as she watched Duvan’s plummeting form break away from the dragon and fall. She lost sight of his dark form as he disappeared into the blackness of the field, crashing into the ground. Falling substantially apart, both dragon and rider had nonetheless landed inside the arc of pilgrims.
Slanya took a quick glance at the line of pilgrims. Spellplague covered about half of the arc and was marching forward rapidly on two fronts. Each successive pilgrim called out when the fire took them. And once ignited, each person seemed to glow white hot, forming the base of a high wall made of pale blue flame stretching up into the sky.
Obviously, talking to Gregor now would have no impact, but was there anything else she could do?
Abruptly, a possibility occurred to her. Perhaps there was a way to stop it. She wasn’t sure if it would work, and she knew it might kill her, but it was a chance. To stop the chaos from engulfing the world, she would do whatever it took.
