Azure bonds - Kate Novak [133]
Though his stomach had risen to his throat when he'd momentarily hung upside down, the mage did not lose his focus. Another pyrotechnic spell speared the god.
Moander burned. The hill, now composed more of harvested wood than refuse and slime, blazed. Even better, Ruskettle and Akabar could spot great flames shooting up through the coarse outer mesh of trees and brush, flames that originated nearer the heart of the monster.
In her plant prison, Alias felt the air grow stuffy. The wails began to weep thick, yellowish tears through the moss. She rose to her feet, but was knocked back to the ground by a sudden sideways jerk of her enclosure. It seemed as if Moander had decided to move her prison.
Moander halted and flattened out in an effort to draw more material into its mass, perhaps in an effort to smother the flames. But as the halfling had noted to Akabar the evening before, the forest was quite dry. Whatever the god drew into itself just fed the fires more. And the duskwoods were renowned for their fine burning resins.
Next the Abomination tried to contain the fire by creating a firebreak in its body, splitting itself in two and leaving half of its mass behind. The pyrotechnics had done their job, though. The fire was everywhere; there was no escape from it. Flames curled out of the heart of the moving half of the hill and, like a fire that's just been stirred, the blaze leaped higher and burned hotter.
Mist had retreated, circling high overhead to evade any return attacks, but when none seemed forthcoming, she swooped back to administer the final blow. Akabar felt the dragon's chest swell with a mighty intake of air.
Before Mist had a chance to exhale, though, the top of Moander popped off like a cork in a bottle. Startled, Mist pulled up sharply, wary of some new type of attack. A pod twice the size of the dragon, but less than a tenth the size of the god before they'd attacked it, shot out from the hill. Egg-shaped, the missile tumbled end over end as it rose into the air. At the zenith of its flight it righted itself and then swept southeastward in a blur of movement.
"Gold lions will get you good lunch that our woman is in that thing," Olive shouted.
Akabar nodded. "Along with whatever passes for the consciousness of Moander."
Dragonbait gave the dragon a sharp prod, and Mist took off after the pod.
Behind them on the ground below, the burning pile of trees that had once been the Abomination of Moander spewed out a black column of smoke high enough to be spotted in Shadowdale, Hillsfar, and Yulash.
Mist began to strain, flapping her wings faster to keep pace with the escape pod. Akabar concentrated, then barked the harsh syllables of another spell and pressed his hands against the back of the dragon. Summoned energies flowed from his hands into the great wyrm.
Mist lunged forward at twice the speed. Her wings beat the air as gracefully and as quickly as a bird's. The ground blurred in their vision, and they began closing the distance between them and the pod.
"What did you do?" Olive gasped, her words torn from her mouth by the wind.
"Haste," Akabar explained. "Dangerous for humans-ages them a year. Can't hurt this creature, though. She sleeps longer than that after a meal."
*****
Moander spoke again to Alias, but now with just a bass voice, rumbling against a garbling background chatter that was almost unintelligible.
"Flying," he said after a garble. "Life energies low. Must gate." Another long garble, then the bass voice surfaced. "Prepare for transport. Damaged goods."
The last phrase struck Alias as something that Akabar might say, and she fancied that some part of the mage's mind must have entered into Moander's being and not just the other way around. Perhaps it was the mage's spirit warning her to keep herself