Warlord (41 page)

And then he saw someone hit with the breath of ice that was not wearing armor at all.

Nyad had a fire spell glowing in her fingers, ready to fling it, as Gren’averr’s exhalation hit her. She did not even have time to flinch before it rolled through her hair, blowing it back as it turned her pale skin a deathly white. It covered her over completely in mere seconds. Cyrus watched it all with the benefit of Praelior in his hand, the entire spectacle slowed down to a horrible, lethargic pace, until Nyad, the heiress of the entire Elven Kingdom, was nothing but an ice statue.

A warrior, his armor frozen over from Gren’averr’s attack, staggered sideways at exactly that moment. He collided with Nyad, his footing lost on the ice slicking the floor below, his upper body hopelessly entangled in her outstretched arms, and the pair fell to the ground, the warrior coming down hard upon the ice princess.

She shattered like glass dropped out of a window’s frame, into fragments no bigger than a simple icicle, and Cyrus almost felt he could hear her scream in the sound, but it was nothing more than the howling breath of a winter dragon, screaming in triumph at the death of the elven wizard.

Shock ran through Cyrus’s limbs like cold tingles twitching at him, compelling him into action. He ran at the dragon’s face in a pure sort of rage, and Gren’averr dodged away, twisting his long neck to protect his face from Cyrus’s attack.

Cyrus found he did not care, that an eye was too easy a target in any case, for this particular bastard of a dragon, and he plunged Praelior hard from the hip into the dragon’s scaled neck, twisting it as he drove it in.

He was rewarded with a cold wash of blood, a shade of orange that he couldn’t have guessed at if he’d been forced to. Gren’averr bucked and recoiled at his attack, twisting his head back down to snap at Cyrus, but Cyrus was already rolling to the side. Gren’averr’s head presented itself perfectly to him as he brought it down, and Cyrus jabbed the blade into the joint behind the dragon’s jaw, neatly skirting the scales and knocking two of them loose with the force of his attack.

This drew a shrieking from the winter dragon, not unlike the one he’d emitted when he’d caused Nyad’s death, but more pained this time. Cyrus pulled his sword back and noted a crust of icy ichor on the surface, then plunged it in again and pushed upward this time. Orange blood dripped down the dragon’s neck, staining his pristine white scales as he tried to twist to look at Cyrus, but reaching his full extension and failing.

Cyrus dragged his blade around, cutting a jagged path between scales as he ripped his way through dragonskin. Gren’averr ran his head around slowly, twisting and drawing still more orange liquid out of the gaping wound as he tried to attack what ailed him. With every foot further he cut, Cyrus watched the strength fade from the dragon’s motion as it fought helplessly to try and strike at him until it started to sag, and finally, when he had almost reached the back of its neck, went limp and dropped to the icy ground beneath him, a great cloud of snow arising on either side as he landed.

“Sonofabitch,” Cyrus said, staring down at the dead dragon. Gren’averr’s tongue did not hang out of his mouth like his brother’s had, and for a moment Cyrus considered running down and ripping it with his own hands in hopes that some small, ebbing part of the dragon’s life still existed enough to feel it before it perished forever.

“Well done,” Vaste called up to him. Cyrus stared down at the troll, who wore a wide smile. There was a thick crust of ice on the armor of the warriors at the fore, but Cyrus could not see any other bodies, and already it looked like the victims of Gren’averr’s assault were being pried from their frosty entrapment.

Cyrus drifted down slowly. Vara was lingering not far from where Nyad had perished, looking at the ground carefully, Curatio at her side. Simply in the way they were moving, the stiff way they carried themselves, he was certain that they knew.

“What are you so damned grim about?” Vaste asked as Cyrus reached the floor. “We’ll have the frostbite cleared up with some healing spells in a few minutes, no problem.”

“Come with me,” Cyrus said, beckoning him forth as he headed for Curatio and Vara. He motioned toward Andren, whose fingers were glowing with the light of a healing spell. “Get the other officers,” Cyrus called, and with a nod, Andren moved off to fetch them.

“What the hell is going on over here?” Vaste asked as he and Cyrus came up to the spot where Vara and Curatio were quietly standing their vigil. “You look someone died—” The troll paused. “Oh. Oh, gods. Someone died, didn’t they? Some poor, unfortunate warrior whose name none of us even knows—”

“Vaste,” Cyrus said, voice low and hushed. “It was Nyad.”

The troll’s eyes flickered, his lids closing and opening rapidly. “I’m sorry?”

“Nyad was up front to cast fire spells to keep the cold at bay,” Cyrus said, his voice low, as Thad, Longwell and Odellan trotted up. He knew each of them was catching his words as he threw them out. “She was hit by the dragon’s breath, and … she got tripped over by one of the warriors at the fore.”

“Who was it?” Vaste said tightly. “I want to remember this clod’s name. Forever.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cyrus said. “It was an accident. Gren’averr did it, not the warrior.”

Vaste clutched a mighty hand together. “If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him.”

“You could resurrect him if you feel that strongly about … whatever it is,” Andren said as he and Erith joined the circle. “What are we mad about?”

“Nyad is dead,” Vaste said in a voice that suggested he was without life of his own.

“And there’s no way to … piece her back together?” Odellan asked, looking as ashen as the lands they had just traveled through.

“There’s not enough left of her to properly fill a coinpurse,” Vara said with a muted savagery.

“Good gods,” Erith said. “Nyad? Truly. We’re not just … joking or something?”

“Do I look as though I’m in a joking mood?” Vaste asked, menace in his voice giving it a quiver. He half turned, and in his profile Cyrus saw danger, his anger on a thin leash. “What do we do now?”

“We go on, of course,” Thad said, frowning. “We’re not done yet.”

“We just lost the heiress to the Elven Kingdom,” Vaste snapped at him. “Continuing is hardly a foregone conclusion.”

“We go on,” Cyrus said, and every head snapped to look at him. “We gain nothing by leaving now. It certainly doesn’t honor her sacrifice, and we have … people counting on us.” He set his jaw.

“Fine, then,” Vaste said in a voice that suggested it was anything but. “I’m going to go pound on the dead corpse of that ice dragon with my staff for a while. Let me know when we’re ready to kill the next one.” And he spun and left before anyone had a chance to respond.

The rest of the Council stood in shocked silence for a moment after that then began to break up, separating into smaller groups. Cyrus could hear the hushed voices, the quiet surprise, the disbelief as the word started to spread beyond them and into the army.

“Are you sure about this?” Vara asked, under her breath, from just behind his ear.

“No.” Cyrus did not turn to face her. “But we’re going on anyway.” The chill in the room felt suddenly unbearable, and he was filled with a desire to say anything but, to take her in his arms and have a wizard cast them home, where he could strip off his armor and throw it to the ground along with his sword, leaving it all behind forever. He did not say this, though, but he was certain Vara could hear it anyway.

When they went charging into the next room, they found a dragon very much awake, and very quick to respond to them. This dragon, called Groz’anarr, was brown-scaled like the earth he represented, and even before he came at them, he swung his spiked tail into one of the boulders piled around his quarters and sent it rolling into the ranks of the frontline warriors charging at him. Cyrus dodged it, watching it spin past and slam into the armored forms behind him, drawing screams of pain as it struck and rolled through, chewing bodies under it as it went.

Gods, let their armor protect them
, Cyrus thought as he sprung off the ground with Falcon’s Essence as his aid.

The smell of earth was thick in the chamber, like fresh upturned dirt and rock dust.
It would have been nice to have Fortin for this one
, Cyrus thought, but knew that leaving the massive rock giant out of the expedition had been the most expedient course.

The flat, blunt face of Groz’anarr wavered, then decided on Cyrus as his target. He took a breath as Cyrus drew closer, and when he opened his mouth, a stream of rocks as wide as Cyrus’s thighs came shooting out as though propelled from a trebuchet. One of them clanged off Cyrus’s armor, spinning as it ricocheted. It left a numbness where it had struck, not so hard as the punch of a god, but most certainly noticeable and definitely fatal without armor as protection.

Groz’anarr saw the impact of his attack and switched targets immediately, directing his breath toward the advancing Sanctuary horde. He sprayed into a field of warriors advancing at a run, and Cyrus watched them bowled over as surely as if the dragon had sent another boulder through their number. Cyrus, for his part, advanced toward the dragon’s head, heedless of the danger.

Spells were impacting all along the dragon’s flank as he turned sideways to snap at Cyrus. The dragon moved quickly, but not so quickly that Praelior did not give Cyrus advantage. He dodged as the dragon halted its breath and snapped at him. Cyrus landed a swipe against its nose as he passed, and it bucked its head and smacked him in the back as he ran past it, dragging Praelior into the side of Groz’anarr’s face.

The dragon’s attack was offhand and somewhat lucky, but it did not stop Cyrus from being staggered nonetheless. It knocked him off balance, sending him stumbling on air, knees wobbling and trying to catch himself. He failed and hit the air in an ungainly face-plant, spared injury or pain by virtue of the Falcon’s Essence spell. Cyrus fought back to his feet and turned his head to look, anticipating another dragon attack.

Warriors were crouched around Groz’anarr’s legs now, hacking away at his scales to some effect, mystical swords carving swaths of damage with their blades. The dragon paid little attention to this, however, as his head was engulfed in a swarm of arrows like nattering insects in his face. A few of them stuck out of the wound Cyrus had made, and Groz’anarr swung around to direct his attack toward the rangers below, stomping away from the warriors at his belly.

“No!” Cyrus shouted, getting to his feet and propelling himself into motion, chasing the back of the dragon’s retreating head. The beast’s long strides carried him past and through the scattering frontline warriors, toward a patch of green cloaks crouching near a series of boulders, Martaina in the front.

The bombardment of arrows did not slow as the dragon drew nearer the rangers, slinking along like a lizard with his belly near to dragging the ground. “Scatter!” Cyrus shouted, but it was too late.

Groz’anarr unleashed his breath of rocks only thirty meters from the formation of rangers, and few enough bothered to seek cover. Cyrus watched Calene Raverle dodge behind a boulder, but she was one of the few. In some he saw the steadfast defiance, the courage that sprang from wanting to face down their foes. On one elf, he watched the movement of lips throwing out some curse, and in a few others he saw surprise as the first rain of rocks came down and the rangers finally began to react.

Martaina was at the fore, and she moved at the last second, throwing herself to the ground. The blast of rocks struck her on the hip as she dove, and Cyrus saw blood, though whether it came from her or the rangers behind her, he could not tell in the chaos that followed. Screams filled the air, filled his ears, and he saw at least one head completely destroyed, splattered as surely as if a titan had landed a foot upon it. Another ranger seemed to dissolve into red as if a strong wind had blown him apart, and yet another, a dark elf, exploded in dark blue, his chainmail falling to the ground as if uninhabited.

“NOOOOOO!” Cyrus screamed, slamming into the dragon’s head with nothing but rage. He hit the scales at full sprint, his Praelior-enhanced speed and reflexes allowing him to strike with the force of a boulder dropped off a cliff. Groz’anarr’s long neck dipped from the impact, then slammed down to the ground as Cyrus’s momentum carried him forward. Scales burst free from the back of the dragon’s neck and flew through the air like tossed rocks, and while Cyrus staggered, he came back to his feet as Groz’anarr’s head wobbled back up.

This time, he faced the dragon head on, and in a flash he saw Nyad in his mind, the icy statue, shattered forever, and it spurred him on in another charge. Cyrus ran at Groz’anarr’s face, ignoring the mouth and focusing on the punch-drunk eyes. He saw the dawning awareness just before he hit, the late-term attempt to simply open its mouth and swallow him, and he corrected for the lazy motion, slamming shoulder-first into the dragon’s nose, knocking asunder more scales and not even bothering to plunge Praelior into flesh as he shoulder-charged the bastard.

This time Cyrus did not give ground; he merely slammed into the dragon’s nose and held his position, letting the force of impact run through him as though he were a wall. The dragon’s face gave against his anger, and Groz’anarr’s neck snapped back some twenty feet while Cyrus held his place in the air. This time the dragon’s eyelids fluttered.

Cyrus howled with rage and charged again. He knew that Groz’anarr, in his present state of near-unconsciousness, would not be able to avoid his attack. This time he caught the dragon under the chin. His head snapped back harder this time, the sound of breaking bones running down the thin neck. Groz’anarr’s head fluttered like a leaf for a few seconds, and then dropped without ceremony to the ground, landing on a boulder, deep purple blood oozing out from under his head. His eyes were fixed, a deep green, staring straight ahead, unmoving.

“Sacred shit,” the unmistakable voice of Calene Raverle said from below him. “Our Guildmaster just beat a dragon to death.”