Bastion of Darkness Read online

  “He’s gaining! Oh, he’s gaining!” Ardaz cried, glancing back often and spotting the dragon making its way around the mountain’s stone arms.

  Belexus did well to guide the pegasus in tight to the mountainside, weaving about the rocks and keeping every jag right behind them to block the dragon’s line of sight. This might buy them time, but not much, the ranger knew, for the dragon was obviously the swifter, and was amazingly agile in the air, despite its great bulk. Searching the landscape, Belexus came around the next outcropping, then put Calamus into such a steep dive that Ardaz nearly rolled right over the ranger’s shoulder. A shrieking Desdemona did go over, one swiping claw raking the ranger across the cheek, and then the cat was spinning and falling, spreading wings as she went, becoming a raven and quickly swerving out of harm’s way. The wizard, fumbling vainly to right himself, screamed and held on for all his life, but the ranger bent low, and Calamus put his head down, diving straight out. As they dropped behind the rolling wall of a short ravine, the pegasus spread his wings and turned out of the dive, muscles straining to hold straight and steady. Belexus tugged with all his strength in an effort to help lift the steed’s head, to help Calamus turn horizontal to the ground.

  Somehow they broke out of the dive, and Ardaz stopped screaming long enough to note the shadow of the great dragon as it sped past high overhead. The wizard tried to say as much to the ranger, but found that his lips and all his face were perfectly frozen from the cold, rushing air. To that effect, Ardaz lifted his palm and summoned a small ball of flame, holding it close.

  Belexus needed no guidance. He continued to descend among the lower peaks, turning Calamus away from the mountain as soon as he found enough cover, weaving tight turns about the stones. He cared nothing for specific direction, was only determined to get them all as far as possible—and as quickly—from the mountain and the dragon. Still the guilt nagged at the ranger—where would the wyrm go to loose its vengeance? But even that guilt, that longing to finish this properly, did not prepare Belexus for the shock when he came smoothly around one rounded, snow-covered bluff to find Salazar rising up before him.

  Fortunately, the dragon was as surprised as the riders and the pegasus, and so they came together too quickly for Salazar to loose its deadly fires. Belexus snapped off a series of sharp blows as they passed right underneath the serpentine neck, the ranger fighting to keep the beast from turning down its terrible maw and biting them all in half. His aim was perfect, it had to be, stinging the wyrm about the chin, and out they came, lifting just over a beating dragon wing, Belexus pulling hard the reins to spin completely over and down, narrowly avoiding a swipe of the tremendous tail.

  The ranger thought that the successful maneuver would buy him a few moments, thought that the sheer bulk of the dragon would force it into a long and slow turn, but the wyrm surprised him as it straightened perpendicularly to the ground, thrusting its tail down and forward, outspread wings catching the air and fast stopping the momentum. Then Salazar merely dropped, turning and angling as it went, wings catching the air and propelling it after the thieves.

  Down went the pegasus, through another ravine, over one bluff and around another, then climbing rapidly behind a long rocky arm of the higher mountain, the guiding ranger reasoning that height would afford them speed and a wider view.

  Again, though, the wyrm proved much smarter and quicker than Belexus believed, and as they continued their steep ascent, Ardaz poked Belexus on the shoulder and pointed in the opposite direction of the shielding outcropping, up above them.

  Belexus pulled Calamus over and about, a rolling, dropping evasion, nearly dislodging the poor wizard yet again. The pegasus willingly responded, though the maneuver put them into a straight drop. Again, the strength of the ranger and of the flying horse somehow pulled them out of it before too much momentum could be gained, and Calamus tightened his wings and whipped them about the mountain arm, putting the stone between them and the dragon.

  Salazar swooped past, talons clipping and gouging the rock. The roaring wyrm pivoted its head as it flew past and loosed its breath, and only dumb luck saved the trio, the fires hitting the stone below them and melting it away to slide, glowing, down the mountainside.

  The evasion had cost the friends all their momentum, however, and Belexus desperately tried again to flip the horse right over into yet another swoop. He had to abort that maneuver, though, for the dragon had angled down in its pass and was now below them—and not so far below them!—and in complete control. Up came the huge horned head as the ranger pulled on the reins; the great maw opened wide, barely forty feet away.

  Again Ardaz screamed, and Belexus did as well, but the ranger kept his wits about him enough to draw out the diamond sword, readying it for a last desperate strike.

  They knew that they were dead, knew that they could not possibly turn fast enough to avoid the snapping bite. At the last possible instant, Ardaz loosed a lightning bolt, albeit a weak one, and Belexus swung wildly.

  He hit nothing but air, for as the dragon started to snap its head forward, a black speck zipped across its face, clawed feet raking hard at its eye.

  Salazar roared in protest, spun over in the air, and swooped after the newest foe.

  “Desdemona!” Ardaz cried, and the wizard’s heart caught in his throat when the dragon, so swift and terrible in pursuit, shot a line of flame the raven’s way.

  The frantic Belexus had no time to worry about Desdemona, turning Calamus again and dropping into a long dive the other way, plummeting, only half in control, past the stones and snow-covered bluffs, then leveling off and gaining speed. Around a corner loomed not the dragon, but the hovering ghost of DelGiudice, and before either the pegasus or the spirit could react, riders and mount sped right through DelGiudice, a most unsettling event for all involved.

  Del caught up with the trio soon after. “Give me the sword,” he offered determinedly, extending his hand. “And I will go battle the dragon.”

  Both ranger and wizard stared at him incredulously.

  “Salazar cannot hurt me,” the ghost said confidently, thinking that he’d found the solution. Indeed, Belexus almost handed the blade over, but then retracted it, clutching it close.

  “Ye canno’ be hurt by the wyrm,” the ranger reasoned. “But suren the wyrm’d tear the sword from yer hands, and then we’d be without the only weapon that might sting the beast.”

  When he considered his lack of skill with weapons, Del found that he couldn’t really argue with that logic. “Give it to me anyway,” he said. “Let Salazar chase after me and his stolen treasure. That is what he most wants, after all.” He offered a sly wink to his friends. “The dragon won’t catch me.”

  The plan did sound plausible, though Belexus was hesitant about parting with the weapon. Before the ranger could decide whether to agree or argue, though, the diamond sword suddenly appeared in Del’s hands. Belexus blinked many times, then looked to his own hand, and the sword he still held.

  “A few tricks left in my old bones,” Ardaz remarked through his chattering teeth. He, too, would have winked, except that one of his eyelids was frozen closed. “I do daresay!”

  Belexus caught on; Del already understood, since the sword in his hands was surely illusionary, a trick against sight, but not against touch. The speeding spirit looked all around, his gaze finally settling on one particular spot, the same ledge beneath the rocky overhang that the friends had first set down upon when they had arrived at the mountain.

  “Get up and out of sight and put down on a ledge somewhere to give Calamus a needed rest,” Del explained. “If my plan works, we’ll be rid of the foul wyrm, and soon enough.”

  Following the spirit’s line of sight and considering the view, Ardaz and Belexus began to figure out what Del might have in mind. In any case, the spirit was right: They, especially weary Calamus, needed a break. And so the ranger lifted his mount up above the outcropping and found a sheltered ledge, tucking them all in tightly behind stone
walls. Both of the men belly-crawled out from cover to the lip of the ledge, peeking out and down to see DelGiudice standing on the lower ledge, under the stone, waving the illusionary sword and calling for the wyrm.

  “There,” Belexus announced soon after, spotting the flying dragon as it sped straight for Del.

  The wyrm came in fast, turned upright at the last second, and hovered in the air just before the spirit.

  “Looking for this?” Del shouted, holding forth the sword. “A trick, am I? Well, a trick, then, that steals from under a dragon’s nose! A trick that now carries the one weapon that the pitiful wyrm fears!”

  A low, ominous growl spilled from the dragon’s mouth.

  “Fire away, then!” Del said with a laugh. “Show me again your pitiful breath, weakling Salazar! No, wait; allow me to find a side of bacon, that I might cook it in the fire, if the fire is hot enough to cook bacon, that is.”

  On the higher ledge, the wizard’s heart leaped into his throat, for he, like anyone who knew anything about dragons, understood that to insult the beast’s fiery breath was perhaps the very worst thing that anyone could possibly say.

  But Del knew what he was doing, purposely goading forth that breath. Unfortunately, though, the dragon, too, figured out the ruse. The fires would engulf the spirit, true enough, but they would likely also melt out the supporting rock around him, and hovering Salazar was not so far away.

  Instead of fire, therefore, the dragon attacked furiously with bite and claw, and with its sheer bulk, rushing to the ledge, barreling right at, and ultimately right through, the surprised spirit.

  “Time for leaving,” Belexus reasoned, understanding that Del and the illusionary sword would not keep Salazar busy for long. The ranger blew a long breath as he watched the spectacle of dragon rage, as he watched Salazar tear and bite away huge chunks of solid stone. “Time for leaving fast,” he added.

  But Ardaz had another idea. He pointed his staff out from the ledge, gathered all of his energy, so much so that his white hair and beard began tingling and standing on end. And then he let fly the greatest bolt he could muster, aiming not at the wyrm, for that would have done little more than feed Salazar’s anger, but at what he considered to be a critical spot in the overhang. The lightning stroke blasted in, the ensuing crack of thunder rolled and rolled, and so, too, sounded the ominous rumble within the stressed stones.

  Salazar thought to leave, wisely so, but the image of that sword, of that prized piece of stolen treasure, held the dragon an instant longer, a clawed foreleg reaching out and grasping for the blade.

  And passing right through the blade.

  The dragon roared in outrage, and that tremendous sound only intensified the split of the stones. Out from the ledge leaped the wyrm, spinning and diving, but not quick enough, for the falling rock caught the beast by the wing, tangled it and pounded it, taking the dragon on a long and bouncing ride down the side of the mountain.

  “Good enough for you, murderous beastie!” Ardaz cried.

  Belexus stared at the wizard incredulously, not used to such obvious outrage from the gentle man.

  “Oh, Desdemona,” Ardaz said softly, and the ranger understood.

  For Del, there were moments when the rock was passing him by, followed by moments when one piece hooked him and took him along, followed by a confusing rush of stone that left him wedged into a crack of a dropping boulder. Then all was spinning chaos, the spirit wondering if this slide could harm him or perhaps even destroy him.

  It ended three thousand feet below the ledge, the spirit of DelGiudice weaving about the openings in the crushed stone, finally coming to a place of living matter, the buried dragon, that he passed right through. At the very end of one of Salazar’s forelegs, Del found an escape, and he came out into the daylight, looking about for his friends. He spotted them at last, circling down slowly on Calamus, and he waved to them and hailed them, then went silent with fright as the rock all about him erupted and flew wildly.

  Salazar pulled free of the rubble, roaring madly. Belexus turned Calamus about sharply, the pegasus all too willing to angle away from the dragon. Still, the ranger feared that he and his friends were bagged, for the dragon could out-fly the pegasus and there was no apparent cover anywhere in this area.

  But the dragon, as luck would have it, could not out-fly Calamus at that time, could not fly at all, for one of its wings had been torn and broken in the tumble. The battered wyrm loosed its breath at the trio, more for show than as a real attack, for they were long out of range. Then, grumbling and growling like a beaten cur, the defeated dragon began climbing through the rubble.

  “Farewell, mighty Salazar,” DelGiudice, standing near, offered quietly.

  The dragon head turned to face him.

  “You cannot harm me,” the spirit calmly and rationally explained. “Nor should you desire to harm me.”

  “THIEF!”

  “But only of necessity,” Del replied. “Trust me when I say to you that my friends and I had no intention of waking you, had no desire to disturb you in any way. What fools would we be if we had come willingly, eagerly, to the lair of the greatest terror in all the world!” The spirit was trying to play up to the legendary ego of dragons, trying to settle Salazar down so that, when the wing finally healed, the dragon might not be so quick to come out of its hole.

  “THIEF!” the hardly satisfied wyrm roared, and its breath fell over Del, who gave a motion like a sigh, though no breath was exhaled, and stood calmly, waiting for the conflagration to end.

  “Thief indeed,” he called again after the wyrm, who had resumed its climb. “And know that if Salazar comes out of his lair, I, DelGiudice, will enter that smelly place and take more than a single sword!”

  The dragon’s tail snapped down so hard that a wide crack appeared on the ground, but the battered beast did not bother to look back.

  It was many hours later, the sun setting over the western horizon, before Belexus and the wizard drifted down to the spot where Del’s spirit patiently waited. Calamus dropped lightly to the stone, and Belexus hopped off, helping Ardaz to follow.

  “You could have come up to us,” the weary wizard reasoned.

  “I didn’t know where you had gone off to,” Del replied. “First rule when you’re lost: Stay put.”

  “Well, stay put no longer,” Ardaz said, and Del noted that all the usual cheeriness was gone from his voice. “We’re far too near the dragon’s hole for my comfort.”

  “And for me own,” Belexus agreed, glancing nervously up the mountainside. The two of them had watched Salazar slink back into the mountain hours before, but that fact brought little easiness, for dragons, particularly when hunting, have the patience of elves, as only creatures who live through the centuries might understand. “We’ve been too long near this place, and now’s not the time for merrymaking,” he added, seeing the ghost’s widening smile. “Back to Calamus for yerself and me,” he said to Ardaz, “and back to the air for yerself,” he added, pointing at Del. “And let us be long from this place afore we stop to consider our good fortunes.”

  The others readily agreed—the others who had accompanied the ranger to this spot, at least, for all about the friends, from behind every conceivable stone, appeared dozens of short, sturdy men, with dark brown skin, and with the knotted muscles that come from years of working stone.

  “Dwarves?” DelGiudice asked skeptically.

  “What name do ye be puddin’ on us den?” one of them replied in a choppy but lyrical accent that sounded somehow familiar to the ghost.

  “Hey boss, de Architect Tribe we be,” another added, poking Belexus hard as he spoke.

  “Well, well,” Ardaz remarked. “This does get more interesting by the moment, now doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 15

  The Witch’s Gift

  HE STOOD UP. It seemed a minor thing to the animals in the forest about him: a man climbing unsteadily to his feet, as one who had been asleep might, or as one who had been
sitting too long in an awkward position. But for Bryan of Corning, that movement felt momentous indeed. He remembered the pains and that deathly chill when he had crawled into Avalon more than a week before. He remembered the view of his own feet, black and thick, and he remembered most of all the pain when Brielle had warmed them again, the agony that had so quickly replaced the sheer numbness.

  That was all past now. The half-elf wriggled his toes, all ten of them—and how glad Bryan was to see, to feel, that he still had all ten of them! And though his legs were surely tingling and prickly, it was a sensation that Bryan savored: the evidence of life.

  “I thought ye’d sleep all the winter,” came a quiet yet strong voice from the side, from the shadows of the lower branches of an evergreen.

  And Bryan saw her then, and surely his heart fluttered, though he had already given that heart to another. If the horrid wraith had been darkness incarnate, then this, before him, was the embodiment of beauty itself, walking softly, a dream creature on a blanket of gentle fog, her golden hair shining, green eyes and the emerald wizard’s mark sparkling through the shadows. Bryan understood that the twinkle of those eyes could penetrate the darkest of nights, like the soft gasp or the sharp cry of a lover, like the very stars above.

  Bryan’s smile widened as Brielle stepped out of the brush, dressed only in her white gossamer gown and her delicate slippers, though the air was not warm and the ground was covered still with snow. “I am truly indebted to you, fair sorceress of Avalon,” the half-elf said, bowing low.

  “Nay,” the witch replied. “ ’Tis me place to do the things I do, and nothing more.”

  Bryan didn’t believe a word of it. He knew what Brielle had gone through to save him, knew that she had taken his pains as her own, one at a time, and, with them inside her own seemingly fragile frame, had battled them and overcome them. He knew that she, for the better part of a week, had felt the same agony as he, and he understood, too, from their joining, that Brielle had been near to the brink of death, had come so very close to stepping over that thin line and slipping away forever into the dark realm.