Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [102]
The crushing wave of awe that swept over Danyal was no less sickening for its familiarity.
“Dragon!” he gasped in horror, all but lurching forward. His knees turned to rubber, and he stumbled, staggering, then falling onto his face as Mirabeth collapsed and buried her face in her hands beside him.
Emilo skidded to a halt beside them, his face turned skyward. “Would you look at that?” he declared, his tone full of wonder. “A dragon!”
Danyal didn’t want to look, but he needed to know. He raised his eyes and saw the serpent soaring overhead, blotting out the stars across a great swath of sky. Crimson scales reflected like rubies in the flaring light of the fire across the chasm, and then two massive wings pulsed downward, a blast of wind raising dust from the road.
“Take cover!” shouted the youth, reaching up from the muddy ditch on the uphill side of the road to seize Emilo by the wrist. He pulled the kender in beside Mirabeth and himself, hoping that they had been far enough from the lights around Loreloch to escape the serpent’s notice.
The three of them lay in chilly water and sticky mud, staring in horror at the winged shape that had soared over them and now plummeted, intent upon the edifice of Loreloch.
Many of the pursuing bandits had come as far as the middle of the bridge. Now, confronted by flying death, they turned en masse and tried to flee back to the manor.
But the dragon was far too fast. The serpent closed the distance with another deceptively leisurely stroke of those great wings. The massive head lowered, and then the night became bright with a hellish assault of flame. The dragon flew onward in a rush, leaving behind a cacophony of crackling fire, screaming men, and rushing wind as the inferno sucked in the cool night air.
Next Flayze glided past the manor, ripping away one of the great walls with his mighty forepaws. Another gout of flame spewed from those cruel jaws, this time turning everything within the manor walls into blazing destruction. A billowing cloud of fire arose, swelling into a mushroom of oily flames as the stables were incinerated next.
Coming around the great edifice, the red dragon crushed the cottages and barns of the village with blows of its claws or the whiplike lash of its monstrous tail. Again it breathed, and a dozen small houses crackled into fire.
Finally it came to rest on the ground beside the stronghold. With a few rending blows of its powerful fore-claws, it pulled down the rest of the walls. It smashed into the sturdy tower once or twice, but then apparently decided that solid structure wasn’t worth the effort to destroy it. Instead, the wyrm concentrated on crushing any buildings still standing, burning everything flammable, and killing anything that moved within the ruin that had, minutes before, been Loreloch.
Only when the destruction was absolute did the serpent once again spread those vast wings. Catching a rising updraft, air heated by fires kindled by the dragon’s own breath, Flayze launched himself into the sky and soon vanished into the dark of the night.
CHAPTER 36
A Trove of Treasure Second Majetog, Reapember
374 AC
Later, when I was asked to explain my decision to climb the tower in Loreloch, I could not recall the exact thought processes that led me away from my young companion and into the lofty aerie of the fortified manor. I can only recollect a feeling, a sense as though a muse was singing to me from atop those stairs, a goddess of historians and chroniclers who urged me to visit the chambers above. No doubt my recollection of Kelryn’s statements-he had told me that his library was in the highest part of his stronghold-helped me to make the decision.
In any event, I was halfway up the long, spiraling stair before it even occurred to me that I should perhaps have let the boy know of my intentions. By then, of course, it was too late; I would have risked discovery of us both had I gone back down to look for him.
So, instead, I continued on.
By the time I reached the top of the stairs, excitement and anticipation had gone