Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [74]
Thorn rolled to the side, gritting her teeth against the pain when her broken arm struck the floor. The raging man’s rock smashed against the floor, and before he could draw back for another blow, Thorn drew her blade across his legs, severing the rigid tendons. He might be impervious to pain, but his fury couldn’t help him stand on crippled legs, and he collapsed beside her. He pushed himself up on one arm, twisting around, and for the first time, Thorn had a really good look at his face. What she saw surprised her. It wasn’t the savage fury she’d expected; instead, there was a terrible hunger in his eyes, a desperate sorrow. He drew back the stone, preparing to hurl it at Thorn’s face, but she was faster. Steel pierced his wrist, and the bloodstained rock fell from his hand and clattered against the floor. The man, teeth bared, lunged at Thorn as Steel returned to her hand. Her thrust caught him under the chin and drove Steel up through his skull. He shuddered and finally lay still.
The third man should have finished her.
He was a dwarf, with insects crawling in his matted beard and the same lost look in his eyes. His club was a shard of Cannith hardened glass, tough as stone, already raised over his head. Steel was trapped in the corpse of Thorn’s last foe, and her own injuries had sapped her speed. She didn’t have the time to parry or the strength to roll away.
But the blow never fell. The dwarf stood over Thorn, an instant away from the finishing blow … frozen.
“Well, do something.”
Through the haze of pain, it took Thorn a moment to recognize the voice. Drego. His words were enough to break Thorn from her stupor. She reached out. Her hand locked onto the dwarf’s leg. This time, the rage came more easily, even for this stranger. The pure, visceral hatred flowed through her, washing away her pain. Fire coursed through her veins, but this was a comforting, cleansing heat. The feral dwarf fell to the ground as the sensation faded, and Thorn pushed herself up, using both her arms. She was weak, exhausted … but her broken arm and shattered ribs were whole again. Just like in the battle with Sorghan, and with Toli in Droaam. She’d torn away her enemy’s lifeforce and used it to preserve her own life.
“I’m impressed, beloved.” Drego’s voice seemed to come from all around her, a whisper flowing around her head. “How much of you remains, beneath this ghost?”
Ghost? Thorn tried to form the words, but she had no strength left. She fell to the ground, and exhaustion drew her down into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Fallen
Lharvion 21, 999 YK
A chill gripped the air, and the stone felt cold against Thorn’s cheek. It took a moment for her to get her bearings. There was no pain. Whatever injuries she had suffered had been healed. But she was stretched out on the hard floor, and Steel wasn’t in her hand.
She opened her eyes—
And saw the skull. It towered over her. Each of the curved teeth lining its vicious maw was longer than her forearm. She could have crawled inside one of the vast eyesockets. Bone, teeth, and the curving horns atop the skull were all as black as basalt. Disoriented as she was, it took Thorn a moment to recognize it for what it was: the skull of a dragon. She stared at it, puzzled.
As consciousness returned, Thorn realized that she’d been moved. She wasn’t in the passage in Fallen. She was lying on the floor of a vast cavern. Or was it a cavern at all? Now she could see that it wasn’t stone beneath her. It was glass or crystal, dark purple in color. As if the entire chamber had been carved from a massive Khyber dragonshard. Even as this information clicked into