wyrms retaliated in kind.
Aquatic dragons commonly lacked the sorcerous talents of their kindred on land. As a rule, it was only the species that thrived in either environment who cast spells beneath the waves. Some suchblacks and at least one topazhad joined the dragon flight, but Tu’ala’keth had hoped that by now, their madness might have rendered them incapable of using arcane talents.
Alas, that was not the case. Water became acid, searing the flesh of the thrashing sea-elves caught amid the transformation, diffusing outward to blister the skin and sting the eyes of other warriors. Black tentacles writhed from a central point to batter and clutch at a dozen mermen. The morkoth who’d snagged
Tu’ala’keth’s attention a moment before wailed, froze into position, and turned into a thing of translucent glass sinking downward toward the mountaintop. Its koalinth thralls exchanged wild-eyed looks as if silently asking one another what to do now.
“Hold!” called Morgan’s disembodied voice. “Hold fast. Bowmen, the enemy’s in range. Start shooting!”
“About time,” Anton muttered. Feet kicking lazily, he’d been floating with his crossbow already shouldered. Now he pulled the trigger, and though he hadn’t had much time to practice shooting under water either, the dart streaked forth to pierce the silvery scales of a dragon eel just above its black, deep-set eye. He instantly worked the lever to cock the weapon again.
Countless quarrels hurtled at the oncoming dragons. For their part, the wizards and priests switched to a new set of spells. Tu’ala’keth read another trigger, and a colossal squid coalesced into being in front of the wyrms. Her comrades materialized enormous creatures akin to whales, sharks, octopuses, eels, and jellyfish, counterparts to mundane animals drawn from spirit realms or elementals like those she and Yzil had battled. The conjured servants surged forward to engage the reptiles. Meanwhile, other mages evoked sudden booms among the dragons to stun them and pain their sensitive ears, or sweeping their hands to and fro, wove hanging patterns of multicolored light to arrest a wyrm’s gaze and hold the creature stupefied.
The allies hoped this magic, even if it ultimately did little damage, would slow the dragons’ advance, giving the crossbowmen time to shoot them repeatedly. It did, for a few heartbeats, and one by one, the reptiles started breaking through whatever barriers, living or inanimate, tangible, phantasmal, or psychic, the spellcasters had placed in their way. A sleek, glimmering, silver-blue water drake caught Tu’ala’keth’s squid in its fangs and snapped and raked it to shreds.
A black with a withered, cadaverous countenance snarled a counterspell to thrust an elemental back to its native level of existence. Glittering like the jewel for which it was named, its eyes blank yellow flame as bright as Eshcaz’s, the topaz simply stared at a priest of Deep Sashelas who’d attempted to shackle its will. The sea-elf screamed, convulsed, and clutched at his head. Blood billowed from his nostrils.
Abruptly, or so it seemed, on the far left flank of the company, a dragon turtle was much too close. It opened its beak and spewed its breath weapon. Water boiled to steam, and the mermen caught in the effect boiled with it. Furious with bloodlust, not hunger, the huge creature didn’t pause to gobble its victims. Rather, flippers lashing, it rushed forward to attack new ones.
Coral-headed spear in hand, other sea-elf warriors swimming frantically to join him, Morgan set himself in the dragon turtle’s way. The imminent threat didn’t keep him from giving further orders in the same crisp fashion as before.
“It’s time to fall back. Remember the route you’re supposed to take, and wait for a mage to enchant you before you retreat.”
Tu’ala’keth belatedly realized the morkoth wizard had been the nearest conjuror to her and Anton, and it now lay on the slopes of Mount Halaath in the form of a glass statue. She cast about and spied a sea-elf warlock not too far away. She pointed, and Anton followed as she swam in that direction.
Others were racing there as well, sometimes shoving their comrades aside in their haste. The company had held its position as well as anyone could have expected, but now, with the dragons nearly on top of it, many warriors were on the verge of panic.
In fact, in their eagerness to converge on the magician, they threatened to crush him. A shrill edge of fear in his voice, he cried, “Give me some space! I can’t conjure if I can’t move my arms!”
Tu’ala’keth gripped the drowned man’s hand and invoked a surge of Umberlee’s majesty. It granted her a moment of mastery over her fellow sea-dwellers, and when she shouted for them to calm themselves, they heeded her.
“Thank you,” said the wizard, understanding she’d helped him even if he didn’t comprehend precisely how. He swept a scrap of vegetable matter through a mystic pattern and rattled off words of power.
Tu’ala’keth’s muscles twitched and jerked. Other folk cried out as the magic jolted them. After the initial shock, she felt no different. But when she looked at those among her allies who were still awaiting enchantment, or at the dragons, they seemed to move sluggishly. In actuality, she knew, the reverse was true. The spell accelerated the reactions of those it touched.
“That’s done,” Anton said, sliding another quarrel into the groove atop his crossbow. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“Yes,” she said
As if it were the signal for everyone clustered around the warlock, the spherical mass of bodies burst into a ragged, streaming mass. Everyone swam downward and southeast, toward Myth Nantar and the plateau on which it sat, as fast as their magically quickened limbs could speed them along.
The spellcasters still had a responsibility to slow the pursuing drakes. Otherwise, the reptiles might overtake and slaughter everyone, the charm of acceleration notwithstanding.
So Tu’ala’keth turned periodically to release another spell from her parchment, to summon a demon to assault the dragons, or plunge an area into darkness and hinder the reptiles about to pass through it.
Whenever she did, she felt a surge of awe at the spectacle of the onrushing wyrms. They dwarfed the allies as sharks dwarfed minnows, loomed above and extended to either side of the company like a titanic wall of glaring eyes, bared fangs, and curved talons. They were as terrible and beautiful as her vision of the Blood Sea, and she realized that even if this venture cost her her life, it was worth it simply to behold them.
Whenever she wheeled to work magic, Anton turned, shot another bolt from the crossbow, and cursed to see wyrms slaughtering folk who hadn’t fled quickly enough. Another burst of dragon-turtle breathTu’ala’keth wondered fleetingly if this was the same creature Morgan had engaged, if the councilor was now deadboiled locathahs so that lumps and strands of flesh slid loose from their bones. A sea dragon spread its gigantic jaws and swallowed two shalarins at once.
Then Anton shouted, “Watch out!”
Tu’ala’keth cast about and couldn’t find the threat.
“Below us!” Anton cried.
She looked down. Somehow, a shimmering water drake had been able to swim fast enough to overtake the rearguard but hadn’t been content simply to tear into the folk at the very back. Instead, it had dived beneath the fleeing company then ascended in the obvious hope of taking someone entirely by surprise.
It had nearly succeeded. Its jaws spread wide to seize Tu’ala’keth, and she doubted she even had time to evoke more magic from the scroll’s ever-dwindling supply. Instead she extended her trident at the creature’s head and asked Umberlee for a burst of spiritual force sufficient to cow any sea creature, even a drake.
The power flared, but the wyrm simply failed to heed it. Its essence was too strong. It swiped a forefoot and knocked the trident out of line. She tried to twist out of the way of its jaws and, when it arched its body to compensate, realized that wouldn’t help her either.
Anton dived at the drake, the point of Umberlee’s greatsword poised to pierce it like a spear. He’d considered trading it for one of the weapons specially designed for slaying wyrms, but in the end, had opted to stick with the blade that had served him well against Eshcaz. Behind the amber lenses, his eyes burned with the contagious fury of the sword. Or perhaps it was simply his own innate determination.
The dark blade plunged deep into the reptile’s head. Flailing, it couldn’t follow through on its intention to bite, and Tu’ala’keth wrenched herself away from its teeth.
She hoped the drake would die, for surely the greatsword had driven in deep enough to reach the brain. It didn’t, though. It roared and whipped around to threaten Anton. Its wing, slightly torn where someone had managed to hurt it a little, swatted her tumbling away.
She refused to let the bruising impact stun her and oriented on the wyrm once more. The greatsword was
