Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [27]
“What is its purpose?” asked Rafiq.
“There’s script here, carved in the stone. It’s similar to runes I’ve seen in our Order’s reliquary. There are symbols for mana here, but I don’t recognize all of them.”
“It’s a warning from Asha,” said a nearby knight of the Skyward Eye.
“Why do you say that?” Rafiq asked.
“This obelisk is part of Asha’s Prophecy. ‘The armies of Death are foretold; Their Names revealed in the primeval Stone,’ ” said the knight. “ ‘The prophet’s Word; Fells the mountain of War.’ The merchant Hazid … We believe that he’s the prophet it mentions. He brought a spell that felled the ‘mountain’ of Giltspire, and revealed this primeval stone. And on it are the names of the armies of death to come.”
“Where’s this Hazid now?” asked Rafiq.
“Gone. He fled after the castle was destroyed.”
“I’d like to stay and study these inscriptions,” said Mubin. “Or head back to the reliquary to do more research.”
“There’s no time,” said Rafiq. “We have to find this Hazid before his trail goes cold.”
JUND
As he recovered from his fall to the floor of Malactoth’s cavern, Kresh’s first thought was to find a sword. But blood was obscuring his vision. Had he injured his head? He couldn’t remember. His own weapon was still buried in the face of Malacoth who was engaged with a dragon of pure fire. What should have been awe at the deadly struggle was dampened by the number of his warriors who lay dead around him. He found an unbroken obsidian-tipped spear nearby, but had to push a friend’s body over in order to retrieve it. He had fought side-by-side with that man through a lifetime of hunts. Because the onslaught had gone so badly, his hunting was at an end.
Kresh heard a sharp, grinding sound above his head. Spidery fractures spread throughout the ceiling, and the whole cavern shuddered. Chunks of rubble fell toward Kresh, and he had to roll out of the way, diving for cover. Doing so made him dizzy—how much blood had he lost? In his growing delirium, he thought he saw an enormous obelisk made of red crystal there in the cavern with them, exposed beneath what had been a huge column of rock. It was like a tower made of hardened fire. Could it be made of sangrite, the dragon’s stone? He wasn’t thinking straight—it was far too large to be made out of such a rare material. He needed to focus. He just needed to kill the hellkite, and get his remaining men out of there. Where were all the elementals? And where the hell was Rakka?
He saw two draconic shapes warring before him. He lifted the spear, gathered up all his strength, and threw the weapon without caring which creature he hit.
The pillar of Jund’s rare red stone, sangrite, shone in the center of the cavern, casting a glow over Sarkhan and Malactoth. Sarkhan had his hands locked around his war-staff, causing the dragonspell that blazed around him to lock its claws around the neck of his foe. Malactoth bit and slashed at him directly, burning himself on Sarkhan’s spell repeatedly, but coming dangerously close to cleaving Sarkhan’s actual body in two.
Sarkhan had the beast in his grasp, but needed a killing blow. Kresh’s warriors were mostly dead, and Rakka was nowhere to be found. But then Sarkhan saw it: a spear flew into view, arcing directly at his chest. Sarkhan let go of his staff with one hand and pivoted his body away from the spear’s flight path—only to catch it as it was about to whizz by.
Sarkhan’s movement pulled his fire-dragon’s claw away from the enemy dragon’s neck, freeing the beast to strike at him. Malactoth surged forward—and as he did so, Sarkhan turned the obsidian point toward him and leaned into the hellkite’s motion, burying the spear deep in his chest.
Malactoth died with a deafening roar that shook loose what remained of the cavern’s structural pillars. Sarkhan thought he heard a yell of his name, perhaps a warning from Kresh, but it was lost in the din and too late besides. As Sarkhan fell upon the hellkite’s body, the ceiling collapsed all around him
Sarkhan didn’t regain consciousness as much as have it forced upon him. His body