Azure bonds - Kate Novak [27]
Dragonbait sniffed the air and growled. The halfling turned to the lizard and offered her still outstretched hand. Dragonbait backed away a step and bared his teeth. Ruskettle hastily lowered her arm.
"If we flee," Alias said, "it's likely we'll be caught in the open and fried." She arched her eyebrows and looked at the mage.
"Any suggestions?"
"Seal her in?" Akabar offered.
"Sure," countered Alias. "Have an avalanche handy?"
"Mayhaps," the Turmishman replied with a grin. He held up the scroll he'd been perusing. It was crammed with tightly calligraphed symbols. "This title says it is a spell to conjure a wall of stone."
Alias's eyes lit up. "Can you cast it?"
The magic-user nodded. "All I need do is use a simple trick to read the magic. That will evoke the powers locked within the text. Of course, it may not work." He spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
"Half a chance is better than none," the warrior insisted. "Let's try it out on the beast's front door. Dragonbait!"
The lizard stopped staring at the halfling and followed the swordswoman and the mage over the scattered boulders that ringed the mountain. The halfling brought up the rear.
They don't stand on ceremony much here, it occurred to Ruskettle moodily. As she walked, she pocketed her latest acquisitions, a ring and a small vial smelling of cinnamon.
By the time they reached the lair's main entrance, steam was billowing from within. The cavern's front opening was small but still quite wide enough for a dragon to pass through. From somewhere deep within, beyond their sight, a deep, throaty muttering rose and fell.
"Can the dragon use spells?" Akabar asked the halfling, concerned that the beast might have other, hidden talents.
"No. She's just cursing," the halfling explained. "The old girl talks to herself, deciding what she should do, where she should go, who she should eat, and so on. All that stuff."
Alias said grimly, "Can we just seal her in and get out of here before she reaches a decision?"
Akabar held the scroll out at arm's length and began intoning its spell in a low, melodic voice. Every so often, he would glance up at the entrance, then back to the paper.
Alias looked at her sword arm, but the symbols remained inert. Relief was quickly replaced by a sensation of horror as she spotted Ruskettle ambling over the stones directly toward the cavern's mouth.
The small humanoid took up a position some twenty yards from the cavern and cupped her hands before her mouth. She bellowed, or at least shouted as loud as a small creature could, "Heyyy, Misty!"
All at once, the mutterings in the cavern stopped.
Alias held her breath. Akabar looked up and almost scrambled the spell by missing an inflection. He continued to read aloud, though faster than before. Alias looked for Dragonbait, but the lizard was bounding over the rock-strewn hillside toward the halfling.
Ruskettle continued her taunting. "We made it, you big sack of shoe leather! We got out, and I'm going to tell everyone you're an oath-breaker! You jackass-faced salamander!"
Dragonbait was only halfway to the halfling's position when a deep rumbling came from within the mountain, like the sound of an erupting volcano. The mage quickened his verbal pace yet again. Alias was torn between worrying that the mage's speed would spoil the scroll's spell and that the wall created wouldn't be large enough to cover the lair's entrance or strong enough to stop a dragon.
"Oath-breaker, Fight-faker!" brayed the halfling. Twin amber lights appeared far within the cavern, growing larger by the second. They framed a red, open mouth set with swordlike teeth.
"Flame-brain, Lame-brain, Tame-brain, oooff-" The half-ling's jeers were lost in a sharp exhalation as Dragonbait slammed into her, knocking her down the hillside for the second time in ten minutes.
The rising roar of the oncoming dragon now hurt Alias's ears. Akabar was shouting as well, spitting out the last phrases of the incantation. The scroll itself was being consumed by the force of the magics and was burning bright