Chapter 27 #3
“You’re going to kill us, Wreylith!” Syla yelled, though she hadn’t seen if the dragon had knocked that piece free.
The creatures she’d escaped seconds earlier followed her across the floor. She sprinted for the bed but, even with Fel and his weapons there, she didn’t know how much safety it offered.
“Here.” Teyla waved for her to hurry.
As if she wasn’t already.
The orb warm and glowing under her armpit, Syla rounded two dead bug-lizards and skidded across the floor in her haste to take cover behind the headboard.
Sweat and blood ran down Fel’s red face, but he remained their stalwart defender.
He’d switched back to his mace, probably having no more luck firing the quarrels at the scaled creatures than he’d had with the dragon.
A roar boomed from the back of the canyon. One of frustration? Syla couldn’t tell but hoped there were too many obstacles for Vorik to hide behind for the dragon to reach him.
Something crashed after the roar. Another chunk of the canyon wall falling down?
Above, the Sixteen Talons and Freeborn Faction dragons flew in and out of view, none aware of the chaos below, but they had chaos of their own.
Riders that had once all been allies loosed arrows and crossbow quarrels at each other as their dragons dove and wheeled, biting and launching streams of flame.
One rider screamed in pain as an arrow pierced her shoulder, and she lost her sword.
The gargoyle-bone blade startled Syla by falling and clattered onto the floor ten feet away. Like boulders, it appeared weapons could pass through the barrier. If only Syla knew how to use that to their advantage.
If any of the aerial combatants noticed that the sword had disappeared instead of landing on what they perceived as the desert floor of the canyon, Syla couldn’t tell. They seemed too busy battling each other. Wreylith arrowed across the canyon with a black dragon and a gray dragon chasing her.
Syla stiffened. The black dragon was familiar, and so was its rider. General Jhiton.
Why was the bastard chasing Wreylith? Wasn’t his vexation with the faction riders? Those he believed had taken Vorik as a hostage?
“Here are the old runes.” Teyla touched a glowing silver mark, and it throbbed. In the temple tongue, it read: Defender.
Though Syla wasn’t the one poking at things, the mark on the back of her hand also throbbed, pulsing in time with the rune.
She was too busy clenching a fist and glowering at General Jhiton to wonder at the significance. She wished she could get rid of the stormer officer, not only because he was chasing Wreylith, but because…
Her gaze shifted to Vorik, magnificent Vorik fighting with all his speed, stamina, and skill to keep that dragon from reaching them, to protect her.
If not for the commanding officer of the Sixteen Talons being his brother, would Vorik even be her enemy?
He was loyal to his people, but they were the general’s orders that he was obeying. If Jhiton were gone, maybe—
“Pay attention, Syla.” Teyla gripped her shoulder as another eerie wind gusted through the laboratory. “I’ve translated enough to determine that this is a weapons platform.”
The new information pulled Syla from her thoughts. “What? The bed?”
“These runes say that one blessed by the gods and sworn to protect her people might call upon its power. That’s you.”
Syla peered at the runes.
“Unfortunately, it’s not me.” Teyla waved to the platform under the canopy. “I already tried standing up there and putting my palms on the marks on the columns.”
“Marks?” Syla rose and climbed onto the platform to look.
The two columns framing what she’d been thinking of as the headboard had faint handprints etched into the marble, as if one was meant to stand between them and rest one’s palms there. Another set marked the columns on the foot-end of the bed. Or, if Teyla was right, of the weapons platform.
“I think that’s how to activate it,” Teyla said. “Give it a try.”
The black dragon roared again as the battle continued above, the combatants unaware of the other threats below.
“I’m not a protector either,” Syla said but tucked the orb into her pack with the ore and set it next to the amphora, then stood between the headboard columns. Arms stretched wide, she could just reach two of the handprints, the marble cool beneath her palms.
Fel cracked a creature on the head and jumped off the platform to drive it back and give Syla more room.
“You’re a healer,” Teyla said. “What more protection could a person give?”
“I’m sure it means warrior.”
Even if it did, as Syla flattened her palms to the marks, power surged into her. At first, she thought it an attack and willed the magic within her to drive it back, but it was warm and invigorating, not painful.
Protect humanity, a soft ethereal voice whispered into her mind. We never meant for this to be, for our children to be threatened by his creations. Use this power to defeat him.
The bed—the weapons platform—thrummed with power that reverberated through Syla.
Teyla and Fel must have felt something too because they backed away, eyeing it warily.
Deeper in the canyon, more rocks tumbled free as Wreylith gouged another chunk from the rim.
For the first time, as boulders crashed down the wall to hit the floor, a beam of unadulterated sunlight flowed in.
With it came the sounds of dragons roaring, riders shouting, and swords clashing—the battle above.
Wreylith, talons gripping the canyon rim, lowered her neck far enough to peer through the hole in the still-translucent-but-damaged barrier.
The red-eyed black dragon spun away from Vorik to look at this new intruder. It roared. An instant before it flew toward Wreylith, Vorik ran up its waving tail and jumped onto its back. The black dragon shook itself, trying to knock him free, but it kept going toward Wreylith.
Did she see the threat? She’d withdrawn her head to claw at the edges of the barrier, trying to widen the hole so she could fit through. Wings folded to her body, she dropped into the laboratory where she was vulnerable to the oncoming dragon.
“Look out!” Syla cried as Vorik, kneeling atop the black dragon’s back, drove his sword into its neck.
Power surged within the weapons platform, and two glowing silver balls of energy shot out from the hollow tops of the columns.
Instead of going straight up, they hooked sideways and blasted toward the black dragon, the creature screeching when Vorik’s sword plunged into it.
It shook like a dog and knocked him flying, but the silver balls smashed into its flank, and magical energy and light enveloped it.
The attacks derailed the dragon’s flight toward Wreylith, and it struck the wall instead. She lifted her talons and slashed at their foe, then bit for its neck.
An angry roar came from the center of the laboratory, not from a dragon but from the apparition of the storm god.
Great power radiated from that cloud of ugly energy.
Darkness pushed out the beam of sunlight, and a horizontal line of circular orifices opened on the rock walls on both sides of the laboratory.
Black balls of energy similar to the silver ones that the weapons platform had emitted shot out. Dozens of them.
Several slammed into Wreylith, and she screeched in sheer pain and pitched to the ground.
“No!” Syla cried.
The other balls blasted through the barrier, knocking holes into it as they flew upward.
Sunlight streamed through the holes, but it didn’t help anything.
Those destructive balls of energy flew toward the dragons and riders who’d been too lost in their own battle to notice Wreylith finding a way into the laboratory.
Unlike cannonballs that could only fly along their trajectory, the storm god’s defenses twisted and turned to follow their targets. Several struck dragons. One slammed into the chest of a faction rider. Yet another ball shot across the laboratory to blast Wreylith.
“No!” Syla shouted again, trying to figure out how to make the marble weapons platform fire again.
With nothing targeting the black dragon, it recovered and leaped for the wounded Wreylith. Too dazed by the storm god’s projectiles to recover in time, she only managed to get one wing up, a feeble defense from the usually mighty dragon. Her foe lowered its jaws, fangs ready to crush her neck.
The columns thrummed under Syla’s touch, and she willed the gods’ magic to come to the defense of Wreylith, to kill the cursed black dragon.
This time, not two but ten silver balls of energy shot out. They sapped her of her strength, but she didn’t care. One after the other, they slammed into the black dragon with tremendous power.
Their enemy flew away from Wreylith, silver energy crackling all over its black scales. Tail rigid and its back arching unnaturally, the storm god’s creation screeched in pain until it crashed to the floor and didn’t move again. The red glow of its eyes disappeared in death.