Cyrus strode to the rail and watched the last farewells exchanged, and loved ones and companions moving out of the center of the army"s loose grouping. "What do you think? Do I need a speech?" he asked quietly.
"Let"s go kill some dragons!" Andren shouted, and the call was taken up in the foyer with several thousand raised voices. "Nope, I think I got it for you."
"All right, then," Cyrus said and nodded to Nyad. The elven princess stood back a little ways from the balcony, looking a little peaked. "Take us to the Ashen Wastelands, Nyad."
"Aye," she said and steeled herself visibly. The light of a teleport spell burst from her hands and cracked around them, carrying them off in a cascading light storm of fury.
When the light faded from Cyrus"s eyes, he was greeted with strangely familiar dark skies. Clouds filled the horizon from end to end, grey as any day he"d ever seen, and near enough to night as to make him wonder how it had been mid-afternoon only a moment earlier.
He took a step and felt the soft ground envelop his boot. He glanced down and saw ash, indeed. He took another step experimentally, and the ash came up almost over the toe. "Well, this is going to be a long walk."
"Six days," Vaste moaned, stepping up to look out over the horizon with Cyrus. "Why couldn"t the dragons have built a portal nearer to their most sacred and holy shrine?"
"Because that would have doubtless opened it up to a.s.saults of the sort we are about to perpetrate," Odellan said, stepping up beside them.
"Yes, but it would have been so much kinder to my tootsies," Vaste said, pointing at his feet.
"All right, Army of Sanctuary," Cyrus said, making his usual motion, "fall in."
They walked through the rest of the day, treading in ash, mountains barely visible both before and behind them on the horizon. Cyrus could see nothing to their left or right, to the east or west, and could scarcely tell direction but for the faint hint of the sun somewhere beyond the clouds.
The air carried the stink of something burnt, and coughing was a common thing to hear from the army behind him. Cyrus led the way until the darkness grew so complete that they could not go any farther, and they halted for the night, eating cold provisions and bread conjured before the night grew dark enough that spell light would have lit the wastelands and alerted dragons to their presence.
When they bedded down, they buried themselves in ash in the way that Cyrus had once seen a child on a beach cover herself over. In the night they heard the shrieks of dragonkin, of drakes and wurms, wyverns and other lessers of their sort. Cyrus heard the flap of wings overhead once, as did, he suspected, everyone else in the army.
They slept poorly, and continued their march the next day covered in ash. Their target was plain upon the horizon, and they scarcely needed Curatio to guide them once they knew what they were looking for. Cyrus stayed at the fore, his black armor grey from its coating, reminding him more than once of Ca.s.s Ward.
After three days, the silence began to feel oppressive. No conversation was carried out above a whisper, per the orders of Cyrus and Ehrgraz, when he had laid out the plan. "Echoes carry in the wastelands," Ehrgraz had said, "and the last thing you need is to draw attention to you small people by talking in big voices."
Cyrus had acceded to the dragon"s wishes, and now he saw the wisdom in it. Fewer dragonkin pa.s.sed in the day, and always the army halted when they were sighted, dropping and hiding among the piles of fallen ash. It was easy to blend in, and after three days, Cyrus almost believed Vara"s natural skin tone was a deep grey.
"This is a bit much, isn"t it?" she asked when they ate lunch.
"Whatever it takes, right?" he replied, but saw her face fall as he said it.
On the fourth day, they crossed an acidic stream, clogged with the dusty grey ash that filled the land. It held a putrid smell, and as they crossed it, Cyrus wondered at its toxic properties. It seemed to run toward the sea that he knew existed far, far off to the west, but he did not hold much hope that it would become much cleaner at its mouth.
On the fifth day, the shrine on the horizon seemed so close they could almost reach it if they ran. Cyrus kept the pace steady, but not quick, and he could feel the restlessness growing in his army as the time pa.s.sed and the miles grew long.
"They want to be done with this grim land," Odellan said to him as they started to settle for the night. "The army grows sick of the march."
"Aye," Cyrus said, nodding. "This isn"t exactly like anything we"ve ever done before, is it?"
Odellan smiled, cradling his carved helm on his lap with one hand while he held his bread in the other. "It"s always a new adventure with Sanctuary, isn"t it?"
"Like I said when I asked you to join," Cyrus said with a faint smile. "Though I doubt you knew what sort of adventure you were in for."
"No, indeed not," Odellan said with a low chuckle. "And to think I had figured killing the G.o.d of Death was an unusual week for you. If only I"d known ..."
"You would have run away and joined a mercenary company?"
"I don"t think so," Odellan said with a shake of the head. "I probably would have run twice as fast to join Sanctuary." He grew serious. "There is no one doing as much to defend the Elven Kingdom that I swore loyalty to as Sanctuary is, whether they see it or not." He waved at Nyad, who was already covering her robes in ash in preparation to lie down for the night. "I mean, you have the King"s heir as one of your officers, and we"re about to attack dragons in a somewhat mad effort to redirect the attention of the Kingdom"s greatest threat." He shook his head. "I might be doing more to uphold my oath here than I ever would have as an Endrenshan, or even an Oliaryn of the Elven Kingdom."
The night was long and quiet, the stillness almost maddening after nights of drakes and wyverns flying over them constantly. Cyrus was prepared for this, he thought; Ehrgraz"s notice about the zone of desolation around the temple a.s.suring him that there would be no traffic, no patrols to discover them this late in the expedition. It was still a hard night, even with Vara close at his side, their armor pressed against each other, yet separating them.
The dawn of the next day was barely one at all, the sun slipping behind the sea of clouds that covered the sky before Cyrus even noticed it. Rising, he found the shrine the largest point on the horizon, and only half a day"s journey at that.
"Come on," he said, still keeping his voice low, and he pressed the army forward.
The ash clung to them, hung in the roof of Cyrus"s mouth, and no matter how many times he spat and washed it with water, more seemed to flood in through his nose. He wondered if he would ever be rid of it, even after leaving this place far, far behind.
The shrine drew ever closer, and yet like an object just out of reach of the fingertips, felt impossibly far away. The noon hour came and left, and Cyrus"s mind made him believe that he was no closer than he"d started the day. The shrine was clear, though, strangely familiar architecture wrapped around a steep-sided volcano, the top smoking, adding its own small contribution to the ash that filled the wasteland.
"I had a friend," Curatio said, "an elven craftsman, one of the old ones, like me-he a.s.sisted the dragons in building the temple structure around the volcano." Curatio pointed. "The dragons ... they liked elvish architecture, but their claws don"t allow for great detail in building. Their eyes appreciate it at a scale they can"t hope to deliver on their own."
"Why is this place so important to them?" Cyrus asked, trudging along in ash.
"You have to understand," Curatio said, his hood up and grey as everyone else"s in this expedition, "the dragons believe differently than we do. Their focus is on nature and the elements, the elemental powers of earth that correspond to each type of dragon that is out there." He looked slyly at Cyrus. "You didn"t think they were all fire-breathers before this, did you?"
"I knew they weren"t," Cyrus said with a shake of the head. "Or I"d heard it, anyway. I guess I never gave it much thought."
"There are fewer of them than you would think," Curatio said. "Of the old kin, anyway. Their b.a.s.t.a.r.d offspring-drakes and wyverns and such-they"re the footsoldiers of the dragon army. The type we"re about to face ... they"re the real thing." He shuddered.
By the time the dark began to fall, and Cyrus called the halt, they were within a mile of the shrine. Even in the dark, he could see the colonnades, the three tiers of the immense structure that wrapped around the volcano at its heart. The first two reminded him just a little of the Coliseum in Reikonos, but the last looked like claws reaching up the side of an egg where it jutted out of the second level, cresting a few hundred feet below the volcano"s exposed peak.
It was another poor night of sleep for Cyrus, this close to the goal and forced to wait until the morning. Vara slept silently in his arms, apparently not nearly as worried as he. The ash in his mouth was beginning to remind him of the smell of dry death, choking him every time he thought he was about to fall asleep.
And then the morning came, and after a silent breakfast that felt strangely like it might be their last, Cyrus marshaled his army and marched them under the great arch and into the most sacred shrine of the dragons to make war.
The wide first floor was empty, a maze of columns and silence that left Cyrus listening hard, even as he watched Vara do the same before she shook her head, flakes of ash falling out of her hair, which was no longer gold. The smell of burning was heavier here, and Cyrus followed the map in his head as laid out by Ehrgraz, circling around the first floor of the dragon shrine. It took the better part of an hour for them to find the ma.s.sive staircase, but once they had, it only took a few minutes to ascend the mountainous steps with Falcon"s Essence as their aid.
In the hallway above, Cyrus took stock of his surroundings. The corridor was gargantuan, stretching up above him, the size of several dwellings stacked atop one another. The perimeter looked out through the wide columns that had been visible from outside, but the interior was not the rock of the volcano, but rather square lines of carefully laid blocks, layered to create living quarters in this place for its inhabitants. Cyrus could see the great door to the nearest of those ahead, but it did not open like a traditional door, with a k.n.o.b and hinges to allow it to move to one side. This one opened up, hinged like a contraption he"d once seen in Reikonos to allow dogs to pa.s.s out of houses, a cutout door at the base of a larger one.
This was no door for a dog, however, being big enough to fit a house through. Cyrus led the way over to it, exhibiting a confidence he did not feel. When he reached it, he stood with one hand placed upon it, the elven craftsmanship obvious in its attention to even the small details. The door did not sc.r.a.pe the ground, and there was barely enough room between it and the floor for Cyrus to place his boot in the gap.
He took a breath, deep in, letting his anxiety flow out. He did not dare speak for fear of warning the inhabitants of these quarters of their arrival before he came crashing in with his army. Instead, he waited for them to a.s.semble behind him, and when it was done, he beckoned forward a few strong men, and they lifted together, holding the door up long enough to allow the army to fill in, for others to take up the burden, and then Cyrus came back to the fore.
The room they found themselves in was a natural wonder, made of smooth rocks that looked as though they"d been taken from a mighty river and layered one atop the other. Their natural shapes made the floors and walls uneven and rough, and Cyrus felt unsure in his footing. In the corner of the room slept a dragon in the middle of a small pond. It moved, rustling, and the sound of splashing followed, a small wave of water cresting out of the nest of the water dragon.
Cyrus held a hand up in front of his lips, listening to the water splash and ripple from the dragon"s last movement. He made his way over to his quarry, as quietly as possible, boots clinking lightly against the uneven stone floor.
He had barely made it halfway there when the dragon did more than stir; it rose out of the water and spread its wings, eyes sprung open and taking him in with all his followers. It was smaller than Ehrgraz, and when it opened its mouth, the dragon language came pouring out along with drips of water big enough to fill a pot.
"h.e.l.lo, Wellsheverr," Cyrus said, noting the surprise in the dragon"s eyes as he used the name that Ehrgraz had given him. His army filled in behind him, and he felt a hope spring up, a confidence that this would be the first victory of many today. "Time to spring some leaks."
Cyrus started forward in a charge, but his hope died as a blast of water shot from the dragon"s mouth hit the ground just before him. Without warning, without a chance to prepare himself, Cyrus lost his footing and was swept away, flung through the air without grasp on anything, until he hit something-a wall, perhaps-and unconsciousness overwhelmed him.
"You really stuck your head in the dragon"s mouth this time, meathead!" Erith"s voice screeched in Cyrus"s ears as he wakened, soaked, the ash washed from his face and down into his eyes, burning them. He coughed and the ash came out in great clump in his spittle, along with more liquid, causing him to retch further.
"I don"t feel so well," Cyrus said, pushing against the hard stone he was lodged against as a cacophony reached his ears. Water pooled in one of them and drained out of the other, running down his cheek to drip off his chinstrap.
"You just got hurled across a room," Erith said, thrusting a blue hand in his face and giving his eyes something to focus on. "Did you expect it would feel like a gentle roll in the hay with a she-elf?"
"Clearly you"ve never been with a she-elf," Cyrus said, taking her hand and nearly pulling her down as he got up. The world swam around him, color and lines blurring. His eyes focused, and he realized that the world wasn"t really blurring ...
... the room was flooding.
"s.h.i.t," Cyrus breathed as he watched Wellsheverr spray a mighty geyser of water out of his mouth, sending a half dozen Sanctuary warriors flying with the force of his attack. Odellan stepped out in front and shouted loudly enough that the dragon paused to focus on the elf, and then sprayed his mighty blast right in Odellan"s face.
The elven warrior ducked as the blast hit, knocking him back a few steps, but ultimately, leaving him on his feet, albeit hunched over. "Nicely done," Cyrus breathed.
"Yeah, well, you might be able to do better yourself if you weren"t standing over here gawking like a dark elf on his first time in Reikonos," Erith said and slapped him on the pauldrons, knocking him forward a step. "Get back in there; you"re healed. What are you waiting for? An invitation?"
Cyrus took a breath, hesitating a moment more, and then he charged forward into the rush of knee-high water that was already flooding the room, rushing for the exit. He slipped a few times as he fought his way through, but never enough to fall.
Wellsheverr was blasting water against Odellan again, though this time the elf was circling away, running on air as the dragon chased him with the spray. The elven warrior was a step quicker, though his breastplate and greaves were now absent the layer of grime and ash that had settled on them over the last few days, dulling them. Now, the elf looked like himself once more.
"A eritan yaghrah iune glaymorre!" Odellan shouted as he darted toward the dragon"s head. "Unataara, glaymorre!"
Cyrus"s mind struggled to put that one together as he watched the elf plunge his blade into the dragon"s left eye, dodging the spray to do so. ""I take from you now your ... cheese? Give me your cheese"?"
"You really are awful at elvish," Vaste said, causing Cyrus to look to the side to see the troll cradling his ma.s.sive head in his hands. "I"d hate to see how you"d mangle trollish."
"I speak it very well," Cyrus said, dodging past as Odellan recoiled from the dragon, retreating into the air, "it"s not hard to understand grunting and pointing."
"Oh, ha ha."
Wellsheverr had stopped spraying water, and the rush was subsiding, finding its level as it ran toward the exit. Now the dragon stood on its hind legs in the enormous chamber, trying to thread its long, thin neck to strike at Odellan, who clearly bore the brunt of its displeasure. Odellan, for his part, dodged another snap of teeth bigger than Cyrus"s hand and circled around to bury his blade in its remaining eye. With a scream, Wellsheverr dropped back to the ground, a flurry of spells bouncing ineffectually off his scales.
"I wonder what pioneering genius of battle Odellan learned that strategy from?" Vaste asked with a healthy dose of irony, and loud enough that Cyrus could hear him even as he ran toward the cascading battle. Warriors and rangers were milling about, struggling to position themselves where they could hack at Wellsheverr"s legs. "Or what idiot, perhaps?"
Wellsheverr opened its mouth, and another blast of water began to spray out, blindly this time, but someone was ready for it. A crackling burst of lightning hit the spray so quickly that Cyrus could only tell what was happening thanks to Praelior"s enhancement of his speed. The lightning surged into the dragon"s mouth and down into the water pooling around them as well.
The pain was immediate, causing Cyrus"s muscles to spasm hard, giving him a headache that was sudden and persistent, just behind the eyes. He saw a similar effect fall over the rest of Sanctuary"s army, a sudden doubling over of everyone in the room that had their legs in the water, a full-brain pain of the sort Cyrus recalled having once when he had eaten snow from the ground in a northern pa.s.s too quickly while trying to sate his thirst.
A thud shook the room as Cyrus pried his eyes open again. Wellsheverr had fallen over, now resting on his side, tongue hanging out of his mouth, scales cleanly torn from his legs.
"Oh, well done," Vara said acidly from a little in front of Cyrus. He saw her clutching at her own head, and then she waved her hand, which glowed with healing magic. "That b.l.o.o.d.y well hurt."
"But it hurt him more," Odellan said, comfortably above them all, and, Cyrus reflected, probably not suffering from a headache brought on by the lightning strike. "Being responsible for his death and all."
"We were killing him just fine without needing to resort to striking the entire raiding party with lightning whilst we"re all knee-deep in water," Vara snapped. The water was actually receding now, either draining into the pool where Wellsheverr had nested or running out the door.
Cyrus turned to look and found the door slightly open, a few bodies caught in the crack at the bottom. He frowned. "When did that happen?"
"Probably while you were tumbling through the air," Vaste said, easing closer to him. "Wellsheverr"s water blast looked like it hurt."
"It didn"t feel good," Cyrus said, turning his neck experimentally. "Go resurrect those people, will you?"
Vaste looked flatly at him. "I"m going to need a druid, too."
Cyrus blinked. "Why?"
Vaste sighed. "Because there are more. Ones that didn"t get trapped in the door, that got washed out it instead, and if they followed the level of the floor-"
"They"re in the ash below," Cyrus said, coming to the reluctant conclusion. "All the way down."
"That"s right," Vaste said with a nod. "I"ll also probably need Andren and Erith. An hour isn"t much time when you have to climb down and sift through wet and muddied ash-"
"Do what you have to," Cyrus said, waving him off toward the door. "We"ll recuperate here for a bit."
"Yay, we killed a dragon," Vaste said lightly as he walked away. "Five more to go."
Cyrus looked at the corpse of Wellsheverr as the water ran by him, now only up to his ankle. The raiding party was quiet, subdued, with the sound of muted conversation, hushed whispers, all around him. They were looking at the dragon, who, in spite of commanding one of the milder elements, had put up a considerable fight.
Cyrus found a stone that protruded slightly out of the water, and sat upon it, watching the rush and the chaos, and the recovery from battle, and wondered exactly how much of a toll the next fight would exact.
"You look like a man with doubts," Curatio said, his robes a mess, bags firmly entrenched under his eyes and made darker by the ash. He gathered the hem of his robes about him, still dripping water and smeared with ash, as he sat down next to Cyrus.
"You knew it"d be like this," Cyrus said.
"Of course," Curatio said, matter-of-factly. "This is hardly my first run-in with dragons, nor indeed, even with these dragons."
"You know these specific dragons?" Cyrus asked, staring at the rest of the Sanctuary army, milling about next to the corpse, carving scales as souvenirs, cutting pieces off the tongue. He shook his head at the ghastly business being done there, but knew there was nothing for it. Dragon parts fetched a pretty penny in the markets of Reikonos. And we"re always seeking gold, aren"t we?