Pool of Radiance_ Ruins of Myth Drannor - Carrie Bebris [118]
The gauntlets, meanwhile, weakened the pool. The whole lake was infused with white light now, bubbling and rolling like a pot set to boil. Steam rose in the cavern, lending the air a humid thickness. The cavern smelled of sweat, fire, and blood.
Kestrel pushed damp locks off her forehead and reached for her club. She’d no desire to employ such a close-range weapon against the dracolich, but it was the only tool she had left.
Pelendralaar, however, would not give her the opportunity to use it. The dracolich beat his wings rapidly, trying to take flight. Did he seek to escape or attack from above?
As the creature rose in the air, his tail snaked down behind him. Corran dropped his shield and ran to the tail. He grabbed it just as its end was about to slip from reach. The paladin dangled one-handed for a moment, then sheathed his sword and began to climb the tail as if it were a rope.
Pelendralaar swung his tail like a pendulum, trying to dislodge Corran, but each sway threatened his equilibrium as he struggled to hover in the cavern’s close quarters. He didn’t have room to properly spread his wings, and Athan had significantly damaged one of them before being flung aside. Corran climbed higher, using the tail’s spikes as a ladder.
“Hang on, Corran. Hang on,” Kestrel whispered. Ghleanna sent another barrage of acid arrows to distract the creature. Durwyn, now restored by Faeril, also launched bolts at the beast. The missiles struck Pelendralaar in the neck and upper body. Faeril dashed to Athan’s side now that the path was clear.
Though Kestrel could smell the acid burning through what was left of the dracolich’s skin, the beast ignored it. He kicked with his hindlegs, but could not quite reach the paladin. Furious, he shot a series of magical bursts at Corran. Those hit but did not deter Tyr’s knight.
Corran scaled farther up the dracolich’s body. Kestrel held her breath each time he touched another spike-one scratch and the paladin would become paralyzed and tumble helpless to the ground. As Ghleanna released a third volley of arrows upon the creature’s head, Pelendralaar awkwardly maneuvered himself until he was directly over the Pool of Radiance.
As the pool boiled below, Corran reached Pelendralaar’s back. When the beast twisted his neck to snap up the paladin in his jaws, Corran was ready. With an upward thrust, he drove his sword through the underside of the creature’s jaw and into his skull. “I smite thee in the name of Tyr the Just!”
Pelendralaar threw back his neck, then dived headlong toward the bubbling pool. The paladin rode the creature like a runaway horse. The two plunged into the frothy water and disappeared into its depths.
“Corran!” Kestrel ran to the pool’s edge. She and the others peered into the cloudy water but saw no sign of him.
Suddenly, the center of the pool spouted. Kestrel’s heart stopped as a fully restored Pelendralaar shot into the air-without Corran.
“I live again!” the dracolich shouted in triumph, buffeting his wings as he hovered near the ceiling. Flames flickered in his eyes once more. He celebrated his restored strength with a mighty roar.
Steam poured from the pool below, filling the cavern with sultry fog. The boiling water hissed and popped. Before their eyes, the waterline dropped-one foot, ten feet, a score and more.
The vapor surged up at Pelendralaar. The creature’s bellow quickly dissolved into a choked gasp. His tail crumbled to powder, his legs next. When his wings disintegrated, the rest of him plummeted into the basin.
The dracolich exploded in a cloud of dust on the dry pool floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
White mist filled the cavern. It swirled and danced, propelled by the cool breeze that drifted in with the early dawn light from the hole in the chamber wall. Kestrel could barely make out the faces of her friends, though all sat mere feet away.
All but one.
Kestrel felt Corran’s absence more strongly than she’d ever