Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [23]
“Damn the elementals, Rakka! Just bring the ceiling down!”
It had stopped being an assault on a majestic foe. It had become a massacre, and a matter of survival.
“No,” she answered. “Keep it busy. Just a little longer.” She was gathering her spell materials back together, assembling the sangrite chips into an approximate circle.
“You have to collapse this place now, Rakka! There’s no hope of beating that thing!”
No response. She must have gone mad. Sarkhan turned to the dragon. If he were some other person, he would have escaped up the volcanic vent they had used to get in. But instead he threw out the edges of his cloak, ran at the hellkite, and leaped off the ledge himself.
As he fell, he drew on every bit of power left in him, and became a dragon made of fire.
NAYA
Tenoch hated the night patrol. If he slept, he got a whipping. If he managed to stay awake all night, he got to listen to the shrieking of jungle insects and the snoring of his pridemates—pests, both of them. So instead he spent the night in a dreary state halfway between sleep and wakefulness—not enough to feel any kind of satisfying rest, but enough to get grudging agreement that he had done his duty.
There was rarely movement in the den at night, especially after the Festival, which is why his half-sleep was disturbed by the footsteps of the figure, quiet as they were. Only Tenoch’s eyelids stirred, and only enough to get a look at what was going on.
It wasn’t much. A hooded figure approached the bonfire at the center of the den. “Probably just someone from the den who can’t sleep,” Tenoch muttered. The fact that the person wore a cloak was a little strange, as it was a warm night, but people could do what they wanted, Tenoch figured. The figure bent over and tossed something into the fire, paused to look into the fire for a moment, and then walked into the darkness.
Excellent, thought Tenoch’s groggy mind. He already had a happening to report to Jazal in the morning, proof that he had witnessed something. He nestled his head on his arm and let sleep take him.
The night was a blanket of insect whirrs, the sleepy murmurs of his pridemates, and the occasional bellow of a faraway gargantuan. The bonfire hissed and crackled, lulling Tenoch to sleep. A loud pop startled him, but he dismissed it as a wet stone in the fire that had cracked. He set his head down again, only to hear a series of muffled bursts from inside the coals. Annoyed, Tenoch stuck his head up again, to see what was happening.
Noxious purple smoke streamed out of the fire.
“What the hell?” he muttered. If the canopy caught fire, he was going to catch the whipping of a lifetime.
Annoyed, he lurched to his feet to go investigate.
“Terrible, terrible things,” he involuntarily whispered to himself when he saw the bonfire.
Creatures made of darkness had begun to form out of the billowing smoke. They dropped out of the fumes in distorted humanoid shapes, landing on their feet in hunched positions. They looked around and sniffed the air with a hissing sound.
Then a single, enormous creature of shadow emerged from the bonfire, easily twice the size of a nacatl. Its claws were dagger-sharp and its eyes empty like a skull. It peered around the den and saw Tenoch, who froze.
It took him a dozen short breaths to pull enough air into his lungs. He tried to yelp, but it only came out as a whimper. Then he began screaming in earnest.
JUND
Rakka watched Sarkhan sail over the cavern ledge, his body igniting and expanding until he almost filled the cavern with his brilliance. The Sarkhan-creature slammed into the dragon, and the two engaged one another, snapping and striking with their jaws and claws. The man has a gift, that’s for sure, she thought. She could finally complete her mission.
She assembled the circle of shamanic ingredients quickly and set up a small, crystal obelisk in the center. With only a morsel of effort she bound an elemental of magma into the crystal, containing its enormous essence inside the tiny symbol. She