Chapter 32
“Will you look at that,” breathed Vic. “Somebody has very generously made a donation to the local decor.”
The skull was big enough for one of them to stand in. The eye sockets dark yet seeming to stare down at them. Subtly unnerved, Harald turned in a slow circle, seeking threats.
The undulating ocean of copper flames that rose endlessly from the ground made it disorienting to stare into the distance.
“Stay calm, stay together,” said Nessa. “Let’s form up like before, loose collective but in order. I’ll take point. Let’s see what lies beyond that bridge.”
Harald dropped into a flanking position, Kársek center, Sam on the far side.
He resisted the urge to summon his Servitors just yet.
Together, their group strode through the immaterial flames.
They were beautiful, mesmerizing, thick enough low down as to hide feet and shins altogether, rising in great tongues to shoulder height.
No warmth. No pressure. A pure illusion?
“Up there,” said Sam, pointing with her burning blade. “I saw movement.”
Everyone sighted up the side of the huge cliff where one end of the bridge connected. Nothing. Then—movement. The rock itself shifted, revealed itself to be a giant snake whose camouflage had hidden it perfectly while still.
It was huge. Its body as thick across as an old tree, the scales heavy and thick, lighter across the belly, and even as Harald studied it, the scales on the back began to darken and turn purple. Its face was stubby, its eyes burning bronze, with great whiskers like a catfish hanging from its jaw.
The stone snake observed them from a good thirty yards above, just far enough away that it was beyond most of their ranged attacks, then abruptly slithered away and out of sight, around an outcropping.
“Gone to fetch reinforcements?” mused Harald.
“Wasn’t a dragon.” Vic sniffed. “I’ll count that as a minor positive.”
It was strange. Falling into a march again with his companions, Harald felt a slight resistance, a friction, some measure of frustration.
They were out in the open. His natural advantages—his ability to hide in shadows, to move silently, to operate as an assassin—were all but nullified by being out here.
Should he suggest he break away, shadow their party much as Shadowpaw did him, to gain the element of surprise when an attack finally took place?
No. He studied his companions sidelong. They were already wary of the changes he’d undergone.
Suggesting he leave them altogether would only upset them further.
Harald fought the urge to sigh. At what point would fighting alongside the Throne Hunters begin to feel like babysitting? He’d done pretty damned well by himself with his Servitors.
They passed under the bridge. All was silent and still but for the illusory bronze flames.
Passed into a great enclosure beyond. A hill of bone rose in its center.
Three, perhaps four, enormous bestial skulls had melted into each other, warped so it was hard to discern where one ended and the next began.
The result was horrific, as if the skulls were screaming, a mess of fangs, twisted horns, eye sockets large enough to camp inside.
Vertebrae, fibrous nets of bone, twisted ribs formed the base.
“Ergh,” said Sam, frowning in dismay. “That’s awful.”
“Stay sharp,” said Nessa. “They know we’re here.”
High walls surrounded the plaza or whatever this was.
The stone looked as if it had partially melted so that frozen cataracts of smooth caramel dripped and flowed down over ledges and engulfed columns.
In the very back, haloing the hill of skulls, was a giant circular window, its center crisscrossed with more enormous bones.
An amber haze hung over everything.
“Nope.” Vic smiled sharply. “I’m afraid this isn’t to my liking after all. Where do we apply for a refund? Concierge? I say, concierge?!”
“Movement in the hill,” said Kársek quietly. “Small shapes. Humanoid.”
He was right. The shadows were starting to shift.
Little figures began to crawl toward the hill’s exterior, and when they finally emerged, they revealed themselves to be small, lizard-like people, their skin slate blue but so encrusted with amber and bronze scales that they looked crested, armored along shoulders and the backs of their arms. Wide mouths were slits in their snub muzzles, their eyes like amber beads without pupils, and around each floated a small constellation of rocks whose centers pulsed with an amber light.
“That’s at least twenty,” said Sam. “More coming out.”
“Ranged attacks are likely,” said Nessa. “Let’s circle out wide.”
“Um, snakes?” Vic sounded almost apologetic.
“The big snake guys? There.” He pointed with The Point, and Harald saw he was right: hugely scaled snakes like the first they’d seen were emerging slowly from holes along the western side of the enclosure, squeezing themselves out to blossom as their scales flared and their long, heavily armored bodies poured down the walls.
“That’s a lot of snakes,” said Sam matter-of-factly.
The ground shivered, then again, then again. A subtle pulse, like something huge walking toward them.
The huge thing appeared, coming into view from around the back of the skull hill, which had barely hidden its saurian bulk.
A gigantic stone lizard, four legged, its tail rising into the air and lashing behind it, its pale stone body encrusted with huge purple gems along the spine and shoulders and down each leg, horns like huge tree roots twisting back from its brow, jaw so ponderous and massive it looked like it could crunch a carriage into kindling, eyes tiny red dots lost in pits of armored scales.
It whipcracked its tail, causing the terminus which erupted into a mass of purple scales to catch fire, and the heavy purple crystals that sheathed its body began to glow.
“Nessa?” Sam almost managed not to sound nervous. “Plan?”
“Ordered retreat,” said Nessa, backing up. “No sense in fighting them all at once.”
Harald glanced behind them. “No can do. More snakes coming from out south.”
Indeed. Six or seven more of the huge serpents were undulating toward them, passing through the shadows under the bridge.
“Then we’re taking down the big guy,” said Nessa, tone firm. “Once he’s dead, we can mop up the others. Harald, task your golem with holding off the snakes to the west. Your Twilight General can hold off the ones to the south. Everyone else, with me.”
And Nessa broke into a run, sprinting toward the giant lizard who was stomping their way, its every step still causing the ground to shudder.
Harald summoned his Servitors, including the Rootwarden, who immediately sank his feet into the ground and summoned roots to enshroud his legs, heavy tower shield raised.
The Gauntlet Golem broke into a run the moment it appeared, white sphere of protective energy appearing around it as it charged the dozen snakes coming from the west. The Twilight General appeared already in flight, huge wings blurring with a buzzing drone as it flew up and toward the southern snakes.
Shadowpaw appeared to Harald’s side and fell into a mile-eating lope as he bayed happily.
The gigantic lizard ceased its advance. It was so huge that it felt like the Throne Hunters were charging a building. Its purple crystals flared brightly, then it opened its maw so that a virulent stream of pulsing purple fire flew at them.
Harald activated Abyssal Imperium and threw his will against the attack.
The air grew shadowed, and this time instead of motes of void glass appearing, great broken shards of black glass manifested in the air, some as small as Harald’s palm, others as long as his forearm.
These began to slowly swirl in a great vortex around Harald even as the temperature dropped, and when the lizard’s blast of purple flame entered Harald’s zone of control, it dimmed.
Sam’s Shield of Valor appeared directly before the blast, which engulfed its kite-shape and poured around it. The lizard dragon kept blasting the shield until it shattered, but by the time it had done so, Nessa’s Will of the Blade had guided them all to split into two flanking forces.
The void shards began to tear the lizard dragon apart. Wherever they passed over the monster’s body, they split the geode-embedded hide, opened seams that bled profusely.
Essence began to flood into Harald.
A hail of fist-sized bombs fell upon Harald’s team as they ran out wide—the little lizard guys in the hill had loosed their weapons—and wherever they hit, they detonated into cacophonous booms of force that carved out craters.
One hit Kársek square in the shoulder and hurled the dwarf aside to send him tumbling.
Harald mentally commanded Shadowpaw to assault the hill even as he ducked and wove forward, the Aetherlight Circlet protecting him from direct hits.
Up ahead, the lizard dragon rose onto its rear legs to roar its defiance, its stance a prelude to a charge or a new attack, but just as it began to fall forward to engage with Nessa and Sam, Vic darted in with The Point and engaged his Piercing Lance—no doubt using his Intimate Dissection to disrupt the monster’s attack—which worked, because the light that had been building up on its tail tip suddenly snuffed out.
Sam raised her fist and unleashed a blast of Light of Censure, the golden light hitting the lizard right in its broad chest, causing the scales to blacken and split.
Harald summoned his Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant, and putting on speed, leaned into the curve of his attack, coming in fast and low as Kársek picked himself up off the ground.
The lizard swiped with a huge claw, a blow that Nessa ducked but Sam tried to tank with her Shield of Valor—only to be sent flying as the claw tore right through the shield.