Azure bonds - Kate Novak [137]
As Akabar pulled out of his dive and began to fly upward, he became aware of the halfling's weight. Would he be able to carry her and Dragonbait? he wondered.
The saurial had begun arcing downward. He'd lost his grip on the finder's stone, but still clutched at his sword. Akabar flew upward to intercept him.
Drat the halfling, the mage thought as he struggled to reach the saurial. He would not be able to cross the horizontal distance between himself and Dragonbait before the lizard fell past him. If Olive had not tagged a ride, he could have done so with ease. As it was, he was forced to angle down, arms forward like a diver.
Dragonbait fell with his arms spread open, presenting the most resistance to the air. Akabar did not think the saurial was the least panicked, but he was willing to bet the air around Dragonbait smelled of woodsmoke.
Behind the mage, Olive swore loudly and profusely. She had no idea how to present the smallest profile when flying, so she slowed the mage's movements even further with the resistance of her body in the wind. Akabar offered his own prayer that he would reach the saurial in time.
The flying mage's path intersected the free-falling lizard's about thirty yards from the ground. By then Dragonbait was plummeting like a comet, and Akabar's tackle hit him with so much force that something gave in the mage's shoulder and the saurial's ribs. The trio of wizard, halfling, and lizard was too heavy to remain in flight long. From their mid-air impact, they lofted in a very low arc, before they began to sink earthward.
They landed in a dell between hills. The ground was soft, but littered with boulders. The threesome rolled and slid, lost their grip on one another, and fell apart. Akabar kept flying after he lost the added weight. He pulled up and landed smoothly on a large rock. He touched his shoulder gingerly; the flesh dimpled inward and his wrist and arm buzzed with a thousand tiny needle-pricks. A dislocated shoulder, he realized, almost intrigued with the injury.
The halfling, with the luck endemic to her race, had skidded to a stop in a particularly soft, boggy area. She rose to her feet completely uninjured but quite slimy, smeared with mud and grass stains. Dragonbait needed to lean on his sword to rise to his feet.
Akabar turned his attention to the battle between the now-gigantic Mist and the monstrously swelled Moander. The Jawed God had increased its size once again and regained its hold on the red dragon. The two behemoths tumbled in midair, though why they did not crash was yet another mystery puzzling Akabar. Mist's wings were too entangled to fly, and the blue flames that had propelled the god through the sky were no longer apparent.
The air shimmered around them like heat rising from the desert sands. Beneath the tattered shards of the god's body, which Mist had ripped away with her claws, lay only great vacuities. The smell of fetid swamp Akabar had noticed aboard the dragon reached his nose even on the ground.
Along Meander's side, a second huge, duskwood-fanged mouth split open. So wide did the jaws part that the god resembled a giant clam.
Confronted with this new set of jaws, Mist began thrashing like a wild beast. She was a great wyrm, one of the most powerful of her race, and much enhanced by the Turmish mage's magic, yet, while her opponent seemed to be made of nothing but that great maw, she was still flesh and blood. Then she remembered she was also fire.
Mist breathed a long stream of flame from her bloody mouth and nostrils. The fire plunged deep into the god's mouth. With a sudden horrifying insight, Akabar understood the significance of the swampy smell, Meander's great but empty size, and its ability to hover. The mage squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away from the battle.
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