Azure bonds - Kate Novak [124]
When she had ceased struggling again, Moander continued. "Telling you all this has been most amusing. The news makes you unhappy, doesn't it? Of course, the others will want to purge your memory of everything I've said. After all, the best assassin is one who does not know she is a weapon, since she, or you, could then withstand all manner of telepathic prying. You do not register as a constructed creature, and after the sacrifice of the saurial, the runes on your limb will be hidden from view so that no one, not even you, will ever suspect your… eh? What's that?"
They reached the tree line, and Meander's now fungous form began uprooting the nearest trees, plowing them under and adding their mass to its own. But what drew the attention of the god was the huge shadow that blocked the high-noon sun. Akabar's head jerked upward just as a bolt of fire shot from the heart of the darkness. The flame tore a huge gouge in the mound's side, instantly igniting the fresh timber Moander had recently accumulated.
Akabar screamed and pitched forward into muck next to Alias. His cry was joined by a chorus of hundreds of fanged mouths which suddenly opened in the mucky hillside, all piping the same horrendous scream. Alias gagged on the smell of the smoke from burning offal.
The shadow dove below the tree line for a moment and then circled back. Now able to watch it without the sun in her eyes, Alias could tell that the shadow was a dragon-one of the great red wyrms reputed to haunt the north country. As it closed in for its second attack, the swordswoman spotted two riders mounted atop the beast, one on its head, the other a greenish lump between its wings.
It can't be. Can it? Alias wondered, not daring to believe her eyes. But they saw true. Her friends rode atop the red dragon, and the red dragon looked strangely familiar.
"Here comes the rescue party!" shouted the high, childlike voice of Olive Ruskettle, as Mist dropped down to strafe the Abomination yet again.
Akabar stood up again and focused on the dragon. His eyes glowed a burning coal white, though his face wore a calm, deadened expression. From the mage's mouth came a low-pitched muttering interspersed with the sharp gutturals and clicks of magic words summoning power to the speaker. Alias tried to kick at Akabar's form, hoping to knock him from the mound or at least spoil his spell, but the Abomination had not been so wounded that it loosened its tight hold on her. Her struggles were useless.
The mage's body wheeled about, keeping the dragon in view just as she began making her second pass. A blinding flash of energy sprang from Akabar's fingertip and caught the wyrm in the belly. The dragon jerked her head back and bellowed, almost knocking Ruskettle from her head.
At the same time, great vines shot up from the surface of the Abomination, with great force as if fired from concealed ballistae. At the ends of the vines rode the decaying forms of the Red Plume mercenaries whom Moander had consumed. Some still wielded their weapons, while others tried to grapple the dragon's with their bare hands.
Most of the arching vines fell short of their mark, and the sickening thuds of dead flesh hitting hard ground sounded through the forest. Two vines succeeded in entangling the dragon, one in the middle of the neck, the other near the base of the right wing.
Akabar muttered another spell, and a trio of magic missiles sizzled through the sky with unerring precision, striking the purplish plates over the beast's heart.
The former Red Plumes closed on the dragon's passengers as the tendrils they had ridden upward spun about the beast like spider's silk entrapping a fly. Dragonbait skewered the man approaching him.
The god-possessed corpse thrust itself farther unto the lizard's sword and grabbed at Dragonbait's shoulders, attempting to knock him off balance. Dragonbait lashed out with a powerful kick, removing his sword, and sending the corpse spiraling down to the ground.