A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [43]
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Ezendor Blackgult was dimly aware of his mount rearing under him, and men who'd served him for years hacking aside blades that sought his life, raising shields to protect him and leaving their own throats and joints endangered.
He cared not, nor could muster wits enough to do anything except wrestle against this gnawing worm in his head, this red, clawing thing of agony that savaged him and raged through his brain and clawed ever farther.
He was weeping, he knew, and roaring nonsense-when he wasn't spewing vomit, shuddering, and railing against the wizard's spell-lash.
He knew who it was. Oh, yes, he knew Ingryl Ambelter was gloating at the other end of the spell clawing at him… he could feel the Spellmaster grinning and enjoying his wails and retchings, peering at whatever memories he could see as they fought across his mind-the regent ever retreating, and the wizard striking at will.
Three Above, what did it take to kill a wizard? This one should have been dead several times over-and deserved to die a hundred times over-yet here he was, grinning and plunging mindworm spells into anyone he pleased to torment, using the-
Horns of the Lady! He was sitting on the throne and drawing on its power for his damned spell!
With a roar of sheer rage Blackgult called upon the throne himself, by the linking enchantment Kelgrael had laid upon him. It was a feeble thread, doomed to fail against any strong-willed creature sitting on the throne, let alone an archmage-but his furious effort shook the Spellmaster's gnawing, just for a moment.
And that was long enough.
He snatched the Dwaer forth and flung them into the air above him, calling on their power as he did so-and power roared into him, like a white-hot flame, storm lightning come calling to crackle right through him, shocking him with its pain and cleansing him of mindworm and Ingryl's gloating both.
With a grin that clenched his jaw white, Blackgult rode that roiling power right back along Ambelter's spell, leaping across the miles between Sardi Fields and the Throne Chamber of Flowfoam in an instant. Ruthlessly, he smashed into the Spellmaster's mind, searing and scouring in a mind-blast as brutal as the spell Ingryl had used on him.
"Die, bebolten wizard!" he roared. "Graul you-graul you!"
Ambelter would survive even this, somehow; he knew it even as he bellowed his heartfelt desire. Wizards always did. Grimly he lashed about in the cringing, shuddering mind, not knowing quite what he was doing but trying to work harm nonetheless.
All too soon-perhaps only moments after his first triumphant lance into that dark and gloating mind; he knew he could never tell-he felt the raging power of the Dwaer turned aside, deflected like a swordblade parried in the fray.
Dimly aware of screaming around him and the Dwaer whirling above his head, in a sky where lances thrust and quarrels hummed, Blackgult snatched back his power, and was abruptly back on a hilltop overlooking Sarth, with Flame Riders washing over the last of his men around him, pressing forward with fierce grins to slay.
The Regent of Aglirta gave them a fierce grin of his own, and his eyes flashed dark and terrible. Someone moaned in sudden fear-even before Ezendor Blackgult rose in his stirrups and gave them all good cause to fear.
"For Blackgult!" he roared, in a voice that rolled and echoed across all that battlefield. "Far Aglirtaaaaaaa!"
And a white flame arose on that hilltop so bright that it outshone the sun. Men cried out, blinded-even before the flame leaped forth among them, two Dwaer almost singing as they spun hungrily around each other in the air, and they died in their thousands.
Sarindan silk sighed into nothingness in an instant-and Sarindan flesh boiled and was gone an instant later. Blackgult roared out his rage in a voice of thunder, and men died wherever he looked, as a trembling built within him that told him he must stop soon, or be torn apart by the very Dwaer he was harnessing…
Only his scrying shield saved him. A trifling defense, thrown up out of habit to