Plague of Shadows Read online

  "Certainly. I can't carry much extra weight, though. Are you planning to take that giant pig poker?"

  "No. We leave all this."

  "All of it?" the bard was astonished.

  "Someone's likely to need it, someday. It's bad enough we're taking the crown."

  Vallyn shook his head in disbelief. "Elyana, those things are worth a fortune."

  "Time is wasting, Vallyn. Get us out of here."

  The bard sighed, lifted a hand, twitched fingers, and then brought it down across the strings.

  Elyana felt the flow of magic gather around them, but nothing happened. Vallyn frowned. He set his hand to the strings more forcefully, producing a louder sound.

  Still nothing.

  Vallyn cursed. "There must be a magical barrier to keep people from teleporting in or out."

  "I've heard of that," Kellius said. "It makes sense that the place is protected."

  "We'll have to fly back out, then," Elyana said. "Hurry, you two."

  They hurried up the stairs, Vallyn sighing regretfully as they passed more gems. The stairwell had remained open, but closed the moment the last of them stepped free.

  A moment later, Kellius cast another flight spell upon himself and the bard, and once more he and Vallyn lifted Elyana, compensating better for her weight this time. They floated with her up through the hole, around the overhang, and set down on the roof.

  The wizard was no more comfortable with the edge than he had been before, and hurried away from the edge as soon as he released Elyana's arm.

  She turned promptly to take in the view. On the plain below there was no sign of the dragon, only the motionless carcass of the gigantic white worm. She searched the horizon. Could the great lizard have gone after their friends?

  Vallyn too had advanced toward the center, though he was a pace or two behind Kellius as he slung his lute into place.

  One moment there was nothing on top of the roof but themselves and the dark, skeletal fingers cast across the stone by the tower's spires. The next moment the dragon melted into existence from the shadows and snatched up the wizard with one great claw.

  There came a sickening crunch, and then bodily fluids were leaking all down the black scales and great curved claws. Kellius was already limp.

  The dragon bared its teeth.

  Before Elyana had fully registered the awful moment, Vallyn strummed a single chord and vanished.

  The dragon turned to focus on Elyana, dropping Kellius. The wizard's ruined body struck the roof with a sick thump.

  "What strange treats the morning brings," the dragon said. "Don't any of you intend to fight?"

  Chapter Fifteen

  Abandonment

  There was no time to mourn. Elyana reacted without thinking, dashing for the ledge. The dragon's head whipped after. She heard the teeth, each half her body length, clamp down just behind her. For all the creature's violence, she knew that it was just playing with her. If it wanted her dead, it could already have killed her with ease.

  Elyana had only a vague inkling of a plan; the first part involved getting off the roof alive. She stepped to the edge even as the roof shook under the beast's great weight, then dropped. Her hands caught the ledge and she hung there, contemplating the dizzying drop and the impossible gap between overhang and the floor beneath. At any moment she expected to be blasted off the side of the tower by the creature's breath. There was no hope for it. She'd just have to leap from the overhang and hope she hit the floor with her feet. She swung once, twice, heard the dragon cackle, and arced out across space.

  Her boots struck the floor. Above her she caught a brief flash of dragon snout, and then overhang and roof blocked her view. Her waist had barely crossed the ledge, but the rest of her hung out over empty space. A vast dragon leg swept down as she contorted herself sideways to grasp the stone with her hands. The dragon's claw thumped into her armored back, inadvertently propelling her to safety.

  She scrambled to her feet, dashing for the stairwell, only then remembering it was closed.

  Once again she was bereft of options. She thrust her hand into the space and experienced for herself what poor Kellius had described—though it felt not so much like she was being burned as that her skin was being flayed while spikes were driven through her flesh. The pain was so intense that her vision blurred and her knees buckled; she was not sure she could have screamed if she had wanted to, for her throat muscles were clenched shut in agony.

  The dragon's head swung down to consider the space, blotting out the light on the tower's south side.

  The door opened. Gasping, Elyana dashed through it and down the stairs.

  A blast of darkness missed her by handspans, saturating the air around it with cold. She leapt off the left side of the stairs.

  Seasoned warrior though she was, Elyana had done too much, too quickly, and her landing was hard. She came down awkwardly on her left leg and stumbled.

  "Don't you want to play?" The dragon's voice echoed from above.

  But Elyana was already running down to the next level, favoring her left leg. In the respite she cursed the bard. Vallyn would only have had to take a few steps to carry her along with him. She held out a faint hope that he'd gone for aid, then found herself wishing he wouldn't. Coming back with Drelm and Renar would only get someone killed.

  The ice and snow at the foot of the second flight of stairs had mostly melted, though the stone still glistened wetly. She cast down her pack and bedroll, thrust her head through the patterned breastplate, and was buckling on one side before she heard slow, deliberate footfalls on the floor above. Human footfalls. The dragon's voice came again, but altered. The harsh lower tones were gone, leaving only a lilting feminine soprano. "You don't really think you can get away from me, do you?"

  Elyana felt a cold stab of fear. She snatched up gauntlets, pack, and lance and backed toward the lower stairs. The breastplate was a little wide and a little short, and banged into her as she moved. It might have been a shade more comfortable if she'd had the time to buckle the other side.

  She pulled her shirt out of the pack and lifted it clear. She didn't know the full extent of the crown's powers, but she was sure she'd find them useful.

  There was no crown. In its place was only a small flat rock.

  For the briefest moment, Elyana thought the crown had slipped out from the shirt and must be lying loose...and then she understood with great clarity. Vallyn had touched the crown before her, while humming. He'd cast a spell and somehow transported or switched the crown right in front of her eyes. There'd been no magical pulse from her armband when she touched the crown, while she'd felt one the moment she clasped each of the other artifacts. She should have noticed. But why should she have suspected Vallyn? How long had he planned the betrayal? Was that, like his vanishing act, a split-second choice?

  She didn't know, and there was no time to ponder. She tossed down the pack and slipped on one gauntlet. She heard the slow, methodical impact of feet on the stairs, one after the other.

  By all that was holy ...She tilted the lance toward her, studying the notes. It had been many human generations since she had sat at her father's side, holding the old choral book, and she could not be sure these musical symbols were even in a proper register. The staff lacked a line along the top.

  "There's really no point in hiding." The dragon's voice floated down toward her with false cheer. "Although I do enjoy a good game just as much as the next lady."

  Elyana backed up beneath the stairs, rotating the haft to better study the music.

  The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs. She heard the scuff of slippered soles on the stone.

  "Hmm, where might you be hiding?" The dragon sounded as though it were an adult playing a hide-and-seek game with a small child.

  Elyana gulped. />
  The creature that stepped around the edge of the stair was garbed in a flowing black dress. She had a beautiful white face framed in the most luxurious and silky black hair Elyana had ever seen. Her lips were cruel and sensual, and her eyes glowed darkly with mischief. Fine black eyebrows were upswept above lovely brows.

  The lips parted in a short laugh. "An elf, cowering under the stairs with her armor half on, wearing one glove. Really, what did I do to deserve this? Must my entertainments always be so poor?"

  "You didn't enjoy the worm, then?" Elyana asked levelly.

  The mouth bent in a frown. "That was your doing? I did not sense that level of power in the wizard I crushed above. Was he a friend? Say yes. I hope he was a friend. Did you like to see him dripping?"

  "You're pathetic, dragon." Elyana held the lance casually pointed away from the thing with the woman's shape. "No more refined than the worm itself. Your nature would only have been more apparent if you'd snapped off his head."

  The delicate brows furrowed in anger. "You mock me?"

  "Why did you leave these treasures here, I wonder, rather than take them with you to your lair? Wouldn't it have been easy to cart them past the ghosts?"

  "The treasures belong to my lord, Zon-Kuthon."

  "So you were afraid to take them."

  The lips flared to expose perfectly white teeth. "Do you think you're funny, thief?"

  "Not especially. But I am a fine singer."

  The first few notes were out of her mouth before the dragon's eyes narrowed. The creature raised a hand, and Elyana saw her fingers twitch with the beginnings of a spell.

  But Elyana finished her song and the lance tip glowed. Elyana lowered it to charge, and at thought of the imminent impact, a searing bolt of white light projected from the pointed end and blasted the dragon's assumed body into the wall.

  The dragon-woman screamed as she struck the picture of Shelyn watching the pipers. She slumped to the ground. Elyana breathed no sigh of relief, however, for her adversary climbed rapidly to her feet, dark eyes blazing.

  Elyana sang again, but before she could complete the melody all sound fell away from her—she could hear nothing. The dragon lowered glowing hands and smiled wickedly.

  The grinning mouth moved, then frowned as the dragon realized Elyana could hear none of its taunts. This, too, annoyed the creature. It seemed to Elyana that the dragon lived in a constant state of egotism and irritation.

  Elyana could not be sure just how badly she had harmed the dragon, or how much damage the monster had sustained in her battle with the worm. She didn't think the thing could be at full strength. But how weak might she be?

  Not weak enough. The dragon-woman's lips were moving once more, and it raised its hands again. Elyana charged, the lance gripped in both hands.

  Clearly the creature was unused to humanoids running toward her, for the dragon-woman's eyebrows rose not so much in worry as in astonishment as Elyana closed the distance.

  As the tip closed in, the dragon-woman reached out with one hand and tried to bat the weapon away. The moment her flesh made contact, she cried out in pain and snatched her fingers back. Elyana drove the point into the creature's chest.

  The lance pierced flesh, but even in human form the dragon was dense. Though all Elyana's weight and considerable momentum were behind the blow, the weapon barely pierced the creature's flesh.

  Elyana was pulling the lance free to jab again when the dragon's lovely mouth opened wide and darkness poured forth.

  The ebon cloud blotted out all light in the chamber save one; the symbol upon Elyana's breastplate, which glowed brilliantly.

  Weakness washed over Elyana, and her right hand's grip was suddenly too feeble to stay fixed around the lance haft. The left hand was shielded by the gauntlet, but it alone wasn't strong enough to maintain her grasp when the weapon was struck a heavy blow.

  Elyana tottered backward, breathing wearily, and drew her sword. The broken harp in her armor blazed more brilliantly, and suddenly the darkness itself was dispelled, as if burned away. Elyana felt her strength return to something approaching normal levels. Her hearing too was restored, though it was soon obvious that effect had little to do with the armor.

  "I want you to hear me, elf!" The dragon had stepped away from the wall. Elyana did not see where the lance had been cast, but she heard it clanging down the stone stairwell toward the next level.

  "You sound irritated, dragon," Elyana said. She could not quite keep the breathlessness from her voice.

  "And you sound tired."

  "I think you're the tired one. First the worm, then an elf. Are you starting to think it was a mistake to come in after me, yet?"

  The dragon spat. "Kedretitas does not make mistakes. Those are for lesser beings." The woman stood glowering, and Elyana felt a wave of fear crash against her, then break somehow against the breastplate, like the ocean parting against a reef.

  The dragon screeched in fury. Her head swayed and bobbed in a reptilian way as the woman-shape sprinted forward in a fluid rush. One of her hands latched hold of Elyana's sword hand as the elf swung. Somehow it had gotten under her guard. The creature's speed was astonishing, and Elyana's brows rose in amazement as the dragon-woman lifted her by the wrist, grinning into Elyana's eyes. She twitched her fingers playfully as she reached for Elyana's throat with her free hand.

  The pain lancing through Elyana's forearm was excruciating; she felt the bones grinding together and knew that she was moments away from hearing the bone snap. She inadvertently let go of her sword, which clanged into the stone behind the creature.

  Out of desperation, Elyana slammed her gauntleted hand onto the dragon's shoulder. The result was better than she could have hoped: The beast whined in pain and released her. Elyana landed on her injured leg, grimacing.

  Her arm throbbed and her ankle was afire with pain, but she smiled as she limped toward the retreating dragon.

  "That hurt, did it?" Elyana asked.

  "You're nothing without your little magical toys," the creature snarled. "They're not even yours. They belong to Zon-Kuthon and his loyal servants."

  "Then why do they hurt you?"

  "Their intent is shaped by their wearer, idiot!"

  "If you want them, come and take them."

  The creature screamed at her; Elyana didn't wait for whatever attack would come next. She dove for the beast's legs. The moment her armored hand struck the dragon, the creature's scream transformed into a cry of agony. Elyana's weight would not normally have staggered the creature, but the touch of the gauntlet did.

  Elyana slammed into the ground, and the armor smashed into her chest, but even as she struggled for breath she pushed forward so that both gauntlet and breastplate touched the dragon's calves. The creature cried out in agony and wrestled away, kicking out a foot as she fought clear. The blow caught Elyana near the elbow, and she heard a snap at the same time pain washed through her arm.

  Elyana clambered to her feet, panting. Even the slightest movement jarred her broken arm and sent waves of agony coursing through her body. The dragon lay unmoving, and Elyana's sword rested a few paces to the right. She hesitated only a moment to catch her breath and focus through the pain, but it was a moment too long. The dragon pushed herself up, her eyes bright red, one hand already shaping a symbol in the air.

  Elyana lurched forward and grabbed the spellcasting hand with her gauntleted fingers. The dragon-woman's hand spasmed, and she screeched. Elyana clamped hard and dragged the thing with her.

  "Wretch!" The dragon cursed her with unfamiliar words and fought to stay Elyana's progress by digging fingers into the stone. But they were human fingers, despite the dragon's great strength, and while her nails drew furrows in the stone, the creature still lacked good purchase. She was leveraging her feet beneath her when Elyana's hand closed on
her sword.

  Elyana's arm was bruised and broken. When her hand wrapped around the hilt and lifted, she screamed in agony as the weight of the blade pulled on the wounded limb, then screamed again, almost at a pitch with the dragon as she drove the weapon down through the gaping rent the lance had left in its dark dress.

  The shock of the blow was so painful that the room momentarily blanked out around her. Elyana's hand slipped from the sword.

  She came to a moment later, slumped down, her left hand still clasped about the human wrist of the creature dying beneath her. The dragon strove in vain to reach for the sword as black blood drained out from the wound. Elyana was spent, yet something troubled her; she wished she could remember what it was. Something about the dragon.

  The dragon-woman stared up at her, her expression troubled. As her life passed, the face settled into a mask of disbelief.

  Elyana gazed down at the still form for a long time before she released her hold with the gauntlet, then sank to her knees. Her sweat-soaked hair hung down across her eyes.

  She was never sure how long she sat there, the dead dragon and the throbbing pain her only companions. Gradually she roused herself into motion, wondering how she might possibly leave the tower in her condition. She hadn't seen a ground-level door when she'd looked from above, but it might be hidden as the entrance above had been. If there were no way out below, she'd somehow have to lower herself from the tower—a monumental task, given her condition. First, she'd have to wrap and brace her arm one-handed, which was already more challenge than she desired.

  And then Elyana realized what had troubled her. This was the dragon's assumed shape. It was a spell, and spells faded. How long would this one last?

  Elyana lurched to her feet, taking her sword up in the gauntleted hand, for the other hung useless at her side. Every staggered step sent pins of agony through her arm. She gritted her teeth and soldiered forward. It would be good, she thought, to grab her bow—but how would she carry it? And how much time did she have?

  The dragon's spell wore off. One moment there was a humanoid corpse in the room. The next, a massive black dragon occupied a space that could not possibly contain it. The creature's great skull slammed into the stone wall and her body bowed, straining against stones until they yielded, shattering the wall and flinging hunks of masonry into the open air.