Chapter 16 #2
Fel eyed her, as if he might consider tossing her into the closet with Abrya. But then the clangs of swords and a cry of pain came from the hallway outside. The fighting had reached them.
Fel and Oyenar braced themselves inside the doorway while the guards fired crossbows and wielded swords in the hallway.
Glass shattered, and something flew through the window, a sphere that bounced across the floor and almost hit Syla in the foot. An explosive?
She sprang across the bed, hoping it could provide cover.
Fel whirled, eyes wide, and snatched up the explosive.
He threw it back out the window. At the same time, a gout of fire streamed down from the rooftop.
It caught the explosive as well as whoever the dragon had been aiming at in the courtyard below, and a great boom shook the floor and rattled paintings on the walls.
The windows shattered and broke, hurling glass into the room, pieces skidding all the way to the closet.
Lady Abrya let out an exclamation of dismay.
Your enemy approaches, Wreylith warned.
I guessed that from the explosives. Thank you.
A cheeky archer is firing at me. Two of them!
Scraping noises came from the roof above. Dragon talons? There weren’t windows facing the other side of the palace, but a scream erupted from the courtyard in that direction, and Syla imagined an archer going up in flames.
In the hallway, clatters and bangs sounded, and the guards in front of the doorway surged out of view to meet the threat. Oyenar stepped out to assist his men.
Syla pushed herself to her feet, expecting Lesva and her riders to come from that direction. She looked at her puny scalpel and wished she had some of her aunt’s booby traps to throw. Anything that might prove effective against the rider captain.
Lesva didn’t charge in from the hallway.
Silent as death, the black-clad rider sprang in through one of the broken windows.
If she hadn’t landed on shattered glass that crunched softly, Syla might not have noticed, though as soon as she swung her head to look, she sensed the power of the woman.
Silver braids bouncing on her shoulders, Lesva spotted Syla and ran straight toward her.
“Fel!” Syla cried as she threw one of her vials.
It arched accurately toward Lesva’s face, but she batted it away with her sword. The vial shattered in the air, but if any of the astringent droplets struck her skin, they didn’t disturb her.
Fel sprang at Lesva from the side, trying to keep her from reaching Syla.
In an inhuman feat of strength, Lesva leaped high, her head brushing the coffered ceiling as she pulled her knees up to her chest. Fel almost lost his balance as he passed under her instead of colliding with her, but he caught himself and spun, swinging his mace at her.
Almost casually, Lesva deflected it with her sword as she landed. Not hesitating, she continued toward Syla.
Syla threw another vial, this time aiming for the corner of one of the bed posts. It clipped the edge and shattered, a few droplets flying toward Lesva’s eyes as she approached. She closed them in time, but the liquid struck her cheeks and lips.
It wouldn’t deter the great warrior, and Syla considered running into the closet and slamming the door shut. But that also wouldn’t impede this foe. Worse, it would alert Lesva to Abrya’s location. Instead, against her survival instincts, Syla lunged forward and grabbed Lesva’s arm.
Fel tried to knock Lesva’s sword away and grip her from behind, but she deflected his mace while locking her gaze on Syla, her lip curling with anger and loathing.
Though Syla hadn’t been able to best her the last time they’d battled with magic, she willed her power into the captain, hoping Lesva was more distracted this time. If the rider let her guard down, Fel would brain her. Too bad Oyenar and his guards were engaged in the hallway and couldn’t help.
With startling ease, Syla’s power flowed into Lesva.
She sensed the woman bringing her own magic to bear, trying to form a shield to block Syla, as she had before.
But something had changed. The moon-mark on Syla’s hand flared, but the dragon tattoo on her other hand also activated.
It tingled with power, so much that it almost hurt as it also sent magic through Syla and into her foe.
The dragon power twined and mingled with that from Syla’s gods-gift, and Lesva gasped in surprise as she struggled to deflect it all.
She lifted her sword toward Syla, but Fel growled and swung his mace toward her head.
Once again, she had to deflect his attack.
Meanwhile, Syla sent a tendril of power to Lesva’s trachea to cut off her air supply and another to her heart in case she had the strength to stop its beats, to end the threat forever.
Fire and smoke come from the ships in your fleet, Wreylith said.
I’m busy right now, Syla replied, sensing Lesva was far from defeated.
Her blue eyes burning with fury and determination, Lesva roared as she summoned more power and strength. She ripped her arm from Syla’s grip and kicked her in the stomach, knocking her back into the nightstand.
As Syla lost her connection, her ability to harm Lesva evaporated. For a moment, Lesva spun and focused fully on Fel. Her blade blurred as she slipped it past his mace, stabbing him in the shoulder, then kicking him and sending him tumbling back.
He hit the floor, rolled, and came to his feet, his mace still in his hand, though he couldn’t bring it up fully, not with the puncture in his shoulder. Lesva crouched to spring after him, but Syla ran forward, intending to grab her—to touch her—again.
A shadow fell over the windows, startling them all. Red scales flashed.
Wreylith’s head was too large to fit through a window, but that didn’t keep her from lowering her horns and ramming into the exterior of the building. Her great head came through two windows—and knocked out the wall between them.
Before Lesva could spin toward the dragon and strike with her sword, Wreylith snapped her jaws around her. Lesva was fast enough to bring her sword up and jam the point into the roof of the dragon’s mouth, preventing the maw from closing, from crushing her to death.
Wreylith roared in pain but didn’t let go of the captain. With a flexing of her long neck, Wreylith pulled Lesva out of the suite. Twisting the sword, the captain tried to drive it higher into the vulnerable flesh at the top of the dragon’s mouth.
Syla winced in sympathy and lifted a hand, but there was nothing she could do.
Roaring again, Wreylith used her long neck like a whip and flung Lesva away from the palace. The captain flew over the courtyard wall and into the streets beyond, disappearing from view. Her sword went with her, but Wreylith roared again. It had probably hurt as much coming out as going in.
Thank you, and I’ll heal you as soon as I can, Syla promised.
Wreylith roared again and shook her head like a dog flinging water after coming in from the rain.
“Fel, are you all right? We have to go after Lesva.” Syla ran past him to the giant hole in the destroyed wall. “Make sure she doesn’t come back to—” Spotting smoke in the distance made her trail off, and she gaped, then swore, remembering Wreylith’s warning. “The fleet!”
The docked ships were burning, including the one carrying the weapons platform.
Syla swore again.
Climb on, Wreylith said. I will take you there.
Can you manage? How is your maw?
Dreadful, but dragons can survive many indignities. Wreylith lowered her head to the wall.
Syla rushed forward without hesitation. A sword in the roof of your mouth is more than an indignity.
“Your Majesty!” Fel blurted.
“Stay and protect the lord and lady!” As Syla climbed over Wreylith’s snout and past her horns to slide down her neck to her back, Fel tried to follow her.
“You are my charge!” he bellowed, but Wreylith faced him and bared her fangs, denying him the same route to her back. He looked like he would try to follow Syla anyway, despite the fangs and the smoke wafting from the red dragon’s nostrils.
“Protect Abrya!” Syla repeated as Wreylith drew away from the palace and crouched to spring into the air. “Lesva is still alive, and Lady Abrya is moon-marked.”
Fel scowled but, as Wreylith flew away, turned back to guard the closet.
With the sounds of battle still raging in the palace, Syla hoped it would be enough. It was possible Lesva had died or at least been incapacitated after that landing, but Syla doubted it. She’d seen the woman survive too much to dare believe that.
Indeed, when Wreylith flew over the palace wall, and they looked down to the area where Lesva should have landed, Syla didn’t spot the woman.
“Too bad she’s not crumpled in a pile, having fallen on something pointy,” Syla said.
Such as her own foul sword. The taste of my own blood fills my mouth.
“Don’t worry. I have an ointment for that.” Syla patted the dragon on the back.
Wreylith’s rumble sounded more suspicious than anticipatory.
As the dragon flew toward the docks, Syla couldn’t help but look back, afraid she was making a mistake by leaving the palace, that Fel and the other defenders would be overwhelmed and that Oyenar and Abrya would be taken.
Or killed. But Aunt Tibby was on the Stormslicer, and Syla couldn’t abandon her to the stormers.
More, if the Kingdom lost their weapons platform, they lost their ability to take the fight to the stormers and defeat dragons.
This might be the most important battle of the war.