Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [112]
The serpentine monster’s neck twisted, bringing the reptilian visage downward with a rasp of dry scales until the twin nostrils gaped before the companions. A small puff of black smoke emerged from the flaring snout, and Danyal coughed reflexively. Kelryn Darewind was still awestruck, staring at the wyrm.
Strangely, the explosive convulsion of his lungs seemed to bring some semblance of control to his limbs, and Dan was able to push himself to his hands and knees.
Crawling to Mirabeth’s side, he took her hand, grateful for the returning pressure of her fingers.
“Now,” he mouthed.
Mirabeth nodded, and Dan pulled on her hand as she tried to roll away.
But the false priest overcame enough of his own terror to twist, to threaten with the knife pressed now against the young woman’s back.
She groaned in pain and, with a grimace of bitter dismay, Dan froze.
“Look!” Mirabeth gasped.
Still clenching her hand, Dan turned to see Emilo standing, apparently dazed, before the dragon’s broad nose. The scarlet jaws gaped slightly, revealing a multitude of teeth, the largest of which were easily as big as the blade of Danyal’s knife.
“The skull of Fistandantilus belongs to me,” hissed the dragon wickedly.
“No. The skull belongs to no one-no one except itself,” replied the kender.
At least, the words came from Emilo Haversack, but the voice was deeper and more forceful than the kender’s familiar chatter.
Emilo studied the bony artifact that he held in his hands. Then he raised his head once again, calmly meeting the dragon’s glare.
With a deliberate movement, the kender tucked the skull under his arm, the bony face looking backward. With the opposite hand, he reached into a pouch at his side and pulled forth a gold chain, from which dangled the pendant of a familiar gem.
“My bloodstone!” Kelryn Darewind’s shriek was a thin, piercing blade of sound. Eyes wide, the man grasped at his shirt with his left hand. His right still held the knife with white-knuckled intensity, the tip of the blade digging cruelly into Mirabeth’s back.
The skull stared from its black eye sockets, grinning with locked, rigid teeth.
“If you are wise, red serpent, you will withdraw immediately and you will have a chance to live.”
The words came from the kender, but again this was not Emilo Haversack speaking. The diminutive figure cradled the skull as he allowed the glowing gemstone to sway dizzyingly back and forth.
The dragon snorted, and Danyal was momentarily certain that they would all be engulfed and killed by a lethal explosion of flame. But something-perhaps it was merely a desire to protect the treasures from harm- held Flayze’s deadly attack in check.
Instead, the great serpent flicked a claw, striking Emilo in the chest, propelling him backward with violent force. The kender’s body smashed onto the ground, bounced, and collided with Foryth Teel. The historian caught Emilo’s limp form and gently lowered him to the floor.
Somehow the skull and the pendant had remained with the frail body through that violent assault, and now, as blood seeped from a deep wound in the kender’s chest, the grinning death’s-head lay between Emilo’s feet while the pendant rested nearby on the floor. The pale green light pulsed from the stone, bright even in the fiery illumination of the dragon’s lair.
Kelryn Darewind, his features locked in an expression of horror, lunged toward the stone, then whirled as Mirabeth took the chance to dive away from him. She scrambled across the floor, and the bandit lord darted after her, then backed off with a snarl as Danyal faced him with the large, curving knife. Foryth Teel, in the meantime, gently probed at the mess that was the kender’s chest.
“Is he…?” Danyal glanced at the bloody figure and was horrified to see the white flash of Emilo’s ribs through the tear in his chest.
“He’s alive.” Grimly