Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [20]
“I’ll figure something else out,” Rakka said. “Just go, before it decides we’re a threat and blasts us out of here. I’ll get you down there one way or another.”
“Fine with me,” said Kresh. He glanced at Sarkhan. “You?”
Sarkhan grasped his staff tightly and gave a sharp nod.
Without warning, Kresh let out a scream that shook the cavern. The dragon tensed, and its claws gripped big chunks of the cavern floor. Kresh launched his spear down at it, and the rest of his warriors all screamed and followed suit. A hail of black-tipped spears rained down on the dragon as it snapped its wings out, forming a curving, scaly shield.
Most of the spears glanced off the scales and bounced away, but a few of them pierced through its wings. The hellkite made a furious inhaling sound and gathered up its body and breath to attack, knocking through several stalactites with its limbs.
Sarkhan finished his spell with a primitive shout. Kresh felt his heart explode with passion, a feeling of breathless fervency, a feeling that he could rip the dragon apart with his bare hands. He saw his warriors light up with the same surge of emotion as they all drew swords.
With his vision tinged by the craze of Sarkhan’s spell, Kresh was not bothered about the height of the ledge. He and his warriors ran straight over the edge as if time and gravity had no meaning, screaming at the top of their lungs, propelled horizontally by the force of their fury to meet the dragon.
Only after his feet had pushed off from the ledge did Kresh have an impulse to turn his head back at Rakka—not out of concern for the small problem of gravity and the fifty-foot drop, but to share eye contact in the instant of breathless glory. And what he saw was Rakka as he had never seen her: eyes ablaze, hair floating in a tornadic tangle, her mouth bent in a terrible grimace, her hands stretched out as if to push the warrior clan over the ledge by the sheer force of her will.
BANT
Mubin stepped forward into the arena and brandished his prized mace. His opponents, the squires of the three mercenaries Rafiq would fight, stepped forward as well. As they advanced, the audience fell quiet, allowing Mubin to hear the crunch of the gravel below his feet.
The Jhessians circled the great rhinolike rhox, their distance from him proportional to their respect for his abilities. Mubin allowed himself a deep grunt of satisfaction. He was proud of his membership in the Order of the Reliquary—as few rhoxes could claim—and the Order praised his scholarly contributions to the research of ancient relics. But standing on his own two feet, with a weapon and shield in his hands, glowering at three foes who were determined to destroy him, he was truly in his element. He hadn’t as many sigils as Rafiq of the Many, of course, but the ones he wore were well deserved. He knew that the young Jhessians had been spared little by not having to face his companion.
The youths spread out around him, trying to trap him in a triangle. His bulk should have made him slower than the young humans, but they were unused to their front-fitted armor, while his strength let him maneuver easily. He tested them, striking at one of them sideways with his mace, but the Jhessian stepped just enough to let her armor deflect the blow. One of them lunged at Mubin with a sharp sword, but Mubin was able to snap his shield into place to protect his flank. Metal sparked against metal.
One Jhessian yelled out and charged Mubin. Mubin turned, yielding no ground and setting for the attack. It was a ruse—the other two ran around to Mubin’s flank and pounced on his weapon arm. Mubin let the mace fall from his fingers and focused on the charging combatant. Instead of deflecting the charger’s attack with his shield, he thrust forward with his free hand, grabbed his foe’s sword arm and twisted the sword free. As he disarmed the man, he followed through by bringing his elbow up into the Jhessian’s jaw. There was a mighty crunch, and the youth fell away, disarmed