Chapter 22 #2
“Are you sure that’s not going to blow up if lightning hits it again?” Fel asked after she explained what she was doing and why. He glanced at her, though his gaze kept returning to the battle overhead.
Vorik and Jhiton were slashing at each other every time their dragons were close enough.
And Agrevlari and Ozlemar attacked each other, too, using talons and fangs, each trying to tear great chunks of scaled flesh from the other.
Their necks whipped about, their tails snapped, and they roared between bites, as if they were mortal enemies locked in battle for what had to be the last time.
Vorik’s face was far more conflicted, his expression pained as he cut with determination for his brother.
Jhiton’s face, aside from the eerily glowing eyes, was a chiseled mask of stone. There was no sign of humanity in it.
“I’m not sure at all, no,” Syla said, still trying to add power to the magic of the ointment, still hoping.
“Comforting. Where did the crazy silver-haired woman go?”
“I don’t know.” Syla had seen Captain Lesva fall into the harbor, but as the battle between brothers—and their dragons—grew more frenzied, Syla couldn’t look away from them for long.
What if Vorik had come back to her only to die scant minutes later? She’d barely gotten to hug him and hadn’t had a chance to ask him how his duel for the tribe had gone. Or to tease him about his love for blackberry cobbler. Damn it. She dashed tears from her eyes.
Agrevlari tumbled past just above the ship. Ozlemar sped after him, the dragons even more savage in their battle than their sword-wielding riders.
As if they’d been frustrated with each other for ages, they gyrated in the air, talons raking into each other’s flanks and chests.
When he caught up, Ozlemar bit for Agrevlari’s head, almost breaking a horn.
On the black dragon’s back, Jhiton leaned over with both swords and swung for Vorik’s throat.
Vorik contorted himself, half sliding off Agrevlari on the far side, to avoid the slashing blades.
How he didn’t fall off, Syla didn’t know, but he popped back up as the dragons batted their wings to fly apart and regain lost altitude.
Agrevlari circled, reached a higher position, then dove for the back of the black dragon, giving Vorik an opportunity to slash Ozlemar’s tail.
After drawing blood, he threw a knife toward Jhiton’s back.
But his brother hadn’t lost track of him and turned, using a sword to knock the blade away.
A great rumble came from the clouds above the harbor, shaking Syla to the bone.
Watch out! Wreylith warned, disengaging from a battle of her own to fly toward the ship.
Syla echoed the warning to Fel and the crewmen as she jumped down and backed away from the weapons platform.
Before she’d gone more than two steps, a huge branch of white-blue lightning shot from the clouds.
It caught Ozlemar, making the black dragon screech in pain, on its way to the ship.
Then it struck the weapons platform, and the air crackled and buzzed with tremendous magical energy.
Afraid she had made the wrong decision and the great marble artifact would explode, Syla jerked an arm protectively over her face. Fel did more than that. He knocked her to the deck and used his body to shield her.
The air kept sizzling, the intense power squarely striking the reservoir of the weapons platform, overwhelming Syla’s senses.
Silver light flared from it, mingling with the crackling energy from the clouds.
The lightning continued streaming into the weapons platform, and Syla risked squirming out from under Fel.
None too soon. Wreylith had arrived, and she snatched Syla up.
If that receives more power than it can hold, it may blow up with such force that it destroys the ship, Wreylith said as she slung Syla onto her back. It may blow up all the docks and vessels in your harbor and some of the city around it.
Syla cursed and yelled for the crewmen to abandon the Fanged Whale. With the brilliant lightning pouring down from the low clouds, many already had.
Fel had started for the railing but turned as a lone person climbed over it near him.
Lesva, sword in hand, dripping water onto the deck, peered around.
Fel glared at her and raised his mace. Lesva lifted her sword toward him as she gaped at the lightning, but she also kept looking around until she spotted Syla on Wreylith flying upward to help Agrevlari and Vorik.
Despite lightning glancing off the black dragon, Ozlemar continued to fly.
If anything, he looked invigorated. Jhiton retained both of his swords, and his eyes gleamed with swirling power as he urged his mount to fly at Agrevlari and Vorik.
“Crazy bastards, both of them,” Syla said, though she was sure the mad god’s hand guided them.
Agrevlari fights with us, Wreylith observed. Even though the rest of his kind are against us.
Yeah, I appreciate his help too.
If only they weren’t still so very outnumbered.
On the deck of the ship, Fel advanced toward Lesva, though he probably didn’t want that fight.
She wasn’t looking at him. Her injured yellow dragon had returned, and it swooped down and plucked her up.
Once she was astride its back, they flew toward Wreylith even as Wreylith flapped her wings in another direction, trying to catch Ozlemar.
Without a weapon, Syla could only flatten her hands to Wreylith’s back to anchor herself on.
The lightning branch finally extinguished, the harbor growing darker without its brilliance and with the ominous clouds lower than ever, the fog thicker.
It couldn’t quite dim the silver glow of the weapons platform, but Syla’s eye was drawn away from it.
Near the bluff, a strange funnel of those clouds was arrowing toward an opening in the rock face.
“I think it’s refueled!” Vorik shouted to Syla as Ozlemar and Agrevlari engaged again, each clawing for the other’s belly as they also bit for necks.
Syla considered the weapons platform as Wreylith, with the yellow dragon arrowing for her from behind, was forced to turn around and deal with that threat.
The Fanged Whale hadn’t been destroyed, and neither had the marble gift from the gods.
Even from high above, Syla could sense power radiating from it.
Maybe Vorik was right. Maybe her idea had worked, and its reserves had been replenished.
I need to get back down there to use it, she told Wreylith.
But Wreylith was fully engaged with the yellow dragon now, fending off an attempt to bite her in the tail. She whipped it at her foe’s flank, her back tilting as she turned in mid-air to breathe fire.
Lesva calmly tilted to the side to avoid the flames, then straightened when the dragons were flying past each other close enough that she could swing her sword at Syla.
It came so swiftly that the white blade blurred, but Syla reacted quickly enough to flatten herself to Wreylith’s back.
Her dragon banked, flying away, then roared, unwilling to take Syla back to the ship while an enemy was after her.
If only Syla had a way to help Wreylith.
At least Vorik was still alive, his dragon clashing again and again with his brother’s.
Unfortunately, more dragons had found the hole and were pouring through it, attacking the castle and the city as well as the ships in the harbor.
Syla spotted an orange dragon in the mix, one that was biting and snapping at those around it.
Young Igliana. She was trying to help the Kingdom, but she could only do so much.
The weapon is again ready to be used, the ethereal voice of the platform said into Syla’s mind.
Good to know. Thanks. “I just need to get down there,” Syla muttered as the dragons clashed again.
When Wreylith’s back tilted, and only Syla’s magic kept her astride, she thought about letting go and swimming back to the ship, but they were high above the harbor now, and much wreckage bobbed on the surface of the water. Falling would be dangerous.
Any chance I can fire you remotely? Syla thought toward the weapons platform.
She didn’t expect an answer, certainly not the somewhat amused tone of the words that came. One who is linked to one of the mad god’s creations as well as marked by the moon has powers unknown even by us.
Is that a yes?
The voice didn’t respond.
Even as she had to duck low to avoid another swipe from Lesva, Syla imagined herself pressing her hands to the marks on the posts.
Two dragons were flying over the docks, dodging cannonballs and breathing fire at ships.
Furious that they’d gotten through, that the capital was under siege again, Syla willed the magical projectiles to fire.
To her surprise, all four posts shot out silvery spheres of pure energy.
Two sped toward each dragon and slammed into their heads and torsos.
The dragons didn’t even have time to screech before they crashed into the docks, wood snapping, and wings dislocating as they hit.
One flapped a leg feebly, but the other had died before striking down.
Relieved cheers went up on the ships.
Lesva cursed, and Syla was close enough to hear the words that followed. “There’s nobody on the platform. How did they—” Her furious eyes locked onto Syla. “You.”
“Me,” Syla agreed quietly as Wreylith flew toward the yellow dragon and roared.
Lesva curled her lip and rose up on her dragon’s back so that she could shift her sword to her left hand and pull out a throwing knife with her right.
As she drew her arm back to hurl it, Syla commanded the gift of the gods to fire again.
Lesva threw the knife as a silver sphere sped up from below.
Again, Syla was fast enough to duck. A good thing or the knife would have struck her between the eyes.
The yellow dragon saw the magical attack coming and tried to bank, but the projectile arced to follow. It slammed into Lesva and blasted her from the dragon’s back. By the time she landed in the water, she was dead, charred beyond recognition.
Though the sheer power of the weapons platform awed and terrified Syla, she didn’t hesitate to fire it again, aiming at the other dragons that had invaded the harbor.
As the projectiles sped after them, she looked around for Vorik and Agrevlari.
They were flying near the cliff, both dragon and man peering toward it.
Ozlemar had disappeared—no, there he was flapping his wings to speed through the hole in the barrier to escape the area.
He dripped blood as he flew, and one of his wings had a lopsided hitch to it.
But where was Jhiton? He wasn’t on the dragon’s back.
Syla followed Vorik’s gaze toward the cliff and spotted Jhiton climbing toward the same gap that clouds were twisting and writhing into. The entrance that led back to the ancient laboratory under the castle. Lightning flashed toward Agrevlari and Vorik, driving them back from the cliff.
Syla glared at Jhiton’s back, determined to target him with the next projectile, but he shimmied through the entrance and out of sight.
She almost fired anyway, thinking the great silver spheres might blow open the side of the cliff—and him with it.
But that cliff was under the castle. She dared not try to destroy the perch on which it rested.
As more lightning flashed in the clouds, fresh fear swept into Syla. She’d sent Captain Vonla and however many troops she’d taken with her down into the tunnels near that laboratory.
Agrevlari flew to Wreylith’s side, and she roared at him. He roared back. Their vocalizations sounded more like the war cries of comrades than anything antagonistic.
Vorik called over to Syla. “He’s going to that laboratory. Or maybe to destroy the shielder.”
Probably both.
“I need to get down there,” she called back.
Vorik nodded, not questioning her. Syla was more worried about Jhiton killing everyone in the tunnels than anything about the laboratory specifically, but having the storm god access one of the places where he’d once created wyverns, dragons, and other fearsome creatures might have bad repercussions.
And Jhiton had visited the shielder chamber before. He knew where it was.
After making sure the weapons platform had either killed or scared away the remaining enemy dragons that had invaded the harbor, Syla touched Wreylith’s back. Take me to the castle, please.
“Your Majesty!” Fel called from the deck of the Fanged Whale as Wreylith flew toward the bluff.
Syla lifted a hand toward him, knowing he wanted to come along, but after watching Jhiton slither into the cliff to do who knew what, she didn’t want to take the time to pick up Fel.
She urged Wreylith to fly faster, glad Vorik was at her side, and hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
Her dragon ally wouldn’t be able to help her in the tunnels.