Fawnlum did not ask any questions, spurred by the desperation in Morgenferrin’s voice, but climbed up her offered wing, clamoring up to straddle the base of the dragon’s neck.
Taking a firm grip of the frills running down the length of Morgy’s spine, she reached down to help pull Nepta up behind her, as the dragon leaned over to Honee, as the scout stood in the air next to her head.
“Guard this with your life!” she ordered, handing her Half-wing.
Then with a sweep of her wings, she carried herself, Fawnlum and Nepta up and away into the darkness.
“Why aren’t we going to Castletree?!” Fawnlum shouted, amid the rushing wind.
“The key to this battle isn’t over there!” Morgy bellowed back at her. “The cloud, the shrooms and the human victims were never about an invasion! They were elements to prepare one giant spell!”
With the dragon’s natural sense of direction, in a mere minute they were alighting next to the shroom where they had rescued Sienna. As Fawnlum and Nepta stepped once again onto firm terra, Morgy finished telling them about the attack on Castletree.
The humans looked at the shroom in the light of Fawnlum’s disc, as Morgy shifted back to her human form.
“With the attention those wizards were giving Sienna’s Toadstool,” she reasoned, “it must be the key to the portal. We have to destroy it.”
She stood in front of the shroom, waved her hands in the gestures of a spell, and mumbled arcane phrases, finishing with her open palms directed at the door. Then she cursed, as the unaffected surface of the shroom stayed solid to her touch.
“What was that?” Fawnlum asked.
“A spell I keep at hand for opening hidden chests and portals and the like,” she grated, not hiding her anger. “The safeguards should be more relaxed! It should open more easily now!”
Nepta stepped beside Morgy. “The door is there.” She rubbed her chin for a few seconds.
“What is the name of your spell?”
“Its title in the text is Ninlon’t.”
“Cast it again. Hold onto the effect as long as you can. Keep it aimed at that spot.”
Nepta stood with a steadying breath, with hands raised at her sides, as she started the invocation to summon Diamance’s power.
The belt shone in the moonlight. “Be ready to release, when my own spell has reached its peak,” she said, with closed eyes.
Morgy repeated her casting, as Nepta wove her own invocation.
Fawnlum watched, as Morgy slowly brought her hands together, capturing her spell’s power.
The moonlight around them grew brighter. As Nepta’s words grew louder and her voice more reverberating, Fawnlum felt tiny impacts on her skin, as if small invisible pebbles were hitting her.
Nepta’s empowered voice reached an echoing zenith.
As she often did, Fawnlum marveled at how her brilliant wizard friend could recite so many odd words from memory, in the proper sequence. But she did catch one word, ‘Ninlon’t’, as Morgy had named her spell.
Fawnlum squinted at the brightness, but felt a lifting of her spirit, as she had experienced when the uzruul had sang their song in the summoned moonlight.
With Nepta reaching her climax, Morgy made her move.
Fawnlum stood with them, a wide smile spread across her face, as a bolt of air wafted through her auburn hair, and the front of the shroom rippled across its surface.
Not waiting for an invitation, Morgy again touched it. Her arm sunk in as if the surface was just an illusion. She entered.
Quickly, Fawnlum and Nepta followed through the shroom-pocket. In three steps, they were standing with the dragon in the mining chamber.
The green glow of the slime-puddles was cast about the room, along with the bodies of their kills. The light of the disc followed them, and Nepta took a minute to catch her breath.
“Nepta,” Morgy slowly asked her, pinning her with an imposing glare. “What did you do?”
“Oh,” she replied with a deep sigh. “After we came through the first time, I prepared a field-effect charm, to use the moonlight to receive Diamance’s power. Just now, I took Ninlon’t into that field to share in that strength.”
Morgenferrin took a moment to contemplate the explanation, just long enough to raise her right hand, with fingers and nails curled, as if baring a set of claws. “You foolish little girl! Do you know what would have happened if – !”
“We made it, didn’t we?” Nepta quickly countered.
Morgy relaxed her rant, and took an appreciative new look at the shiny belt girding Nepta’s slender waist.
“Right,” Fawnlum answered to both of them. “Let’s move.”
<*> <*> <*>
Egress did not think they would make it. But damn if they did not get through the door a second time. The dragon was right – – there was less restraint on the locking enchantments. Little Nepta had done quite well.
But this was no time to be admiring other people’s work.
He positioned his spell-components – two tiny wood-shelled compasses – and started thinking through the phrases of his memorized spell, which would teleport him to a personal, critical locale.
<*> <*> <*>
The wizard had not been from the assassin or fighter discipline, but with the stealth inherent in any uzruul, he had approached, with his prey none the wiser.
From the knoll hill, Egress stood over the bodies of Nazzrant and Mohlake – his quick spellcasting had slain them before they could retaliate – and observed volley after volley of arrows and catapult projectiles hammering Grilch’s forces. The child he had spared had caught up to the caravan, and told his tale; and the city had prepared well.
The defenders would wear down the orc army, then charge out in full melee, and the northern offensive of Maguleth’s plan would fall to pieces.
As gratifying as it would be to watch, he turned to go. He made his way quickly southeast, where his small flock of ugly, magically altered vultures was waiting.
<*> <*> <*>
Fawnlum led their way through the tunnels, jogging with the bright disc-light leading.
“Someone wanted this place pretty badly,” Morgy observed, as they passed through the Cool-Flow chamber.
As they ran through the tunnels, Nepta had to ask the obvious, gasping for breath. “Where’s the resistance? Why is this place so deserted?”
“They must have sent all their forces to attack Castletree,” Morgy replied. “But whether there’s someone in front of us or not, we have to reach that Toadstool.”
“Carry Nepta,” Fawnlum told her.
It was nothing for Morgy’s dragon-strength, and she scooped Nepta up, and resumed her run, behind Fawnlum’s long-legged sprint.
They were smart this time, Fawnlum noted, as she quietly led them onto the same landing from their first infiltration of the Great Hall. A group of bodyguards stood around the wizards.
But of greater concern was the more intense and ominous green glow coming from the Toadstool, as the dark-robed figures did their work.
“Do you feel it?” Fawnlum whispered to Morgy.
“Of course,” she hissed.
Fawnlum did not need sensitivity to magic, however, to see a new obstacle – – a sort of barrier surrounding the wizards.
It looked like a gigantic, semi-transparent bubble, in the shape of a squatting toad.
“With a magical shield in the way, Diergon only knows how we’ll get through,” Fawnlum said.
Morgenferrin quickly answered, “Speed above all else, and hit hard.”
“Right,” Fawnlum replied, her mind focusing on the imminent battle. “Nepta. While they watch us, do whatever you need to.”
Morgy walked a few yards away, and started her transformation. Bones cracked and popped out loud, and her golden mane pulled itself back into her scalp, as skin was replaced by shiny scales over her expanding body.
Fawnlum quickly padded down the stairs, crouching behind the handrail.
Before she reached the floor, she was seen by the Slime’s prisoners, and they called out to her. With nothing for it, she jumped the last few steps to the floor.
Giving her mightiest war-cry, she charged.
The cadre of bodyguards answered, and charged at her in a bunch, flowing as a mass away from their patrons.
Maybe it was the glowing Icefire waving in the air, or just their enthusiastic fixation on the lone target in front of them. Whatever the case, they did not notice Morgenferrin, until the dragon swooped in from above Fawnlum, spraying a horrible jet of acid right in their faces.
Some avoided the attack, jumping to the side, but landing in the Slime. Fawnlum rushed through, hardly slowing down.
All other tri-cleorps ran for the exits. Their fear-born loyalty to their magical masters could not measure up, to the sudden appearance of a roaring, flying dragon.
With the Daghaivan left to fend for themselves, Morgy came up short in front of the toad-bubble, prudently assessing the thing before attacking.
But even from farther away, Fawnlum saw the arrogant sneer of the familiar short wizard on the other side of the barrier, and that simply could not be tolerated gracefully.
Morgy loosed her corrosive breath again, only to snarl, as it ran down the shield’s surface like harmless rainwater.
<*> <*> <*>
Levitating above the southwest border of Castletree, the lich chuckled as he watched his forces enter the forest. The elves’ precious Segune Tree in the center shone stubbornly, but Hkoshiktay’s portal in the sky would snuff the light, and the childish elves within.
Hkoshiktay, the King of Torn Skins, would then enter the physical world, and from there go into the upper realms by the Segune’s own celestial portal. There the disgraced diety would surprise and slay the noble elven god Pyrelsor, and begin his revenge on the goodly gods, for his defeat so many millennia ago.
Maguleth laughed out loud, at the defenders’ pathetic efforts to resist the inevitable outcome, when he heard Pouzelle’s voice calling to his mind through a spell of telepathy.
<*> <*> <*>
Fawnlum saw her dragon ally take a more direct approach, hovering up above the shield, then slamming down on it with all four legs, hard. Instead of breaking, the shield stayed intact; and Morgy’s taloned feet slid off onto the stone floor.
Fawnlum reached the bubble, and hit it with Icefire. Her saber’s keen edge slipped aside as uselessly as Morgy’s claws. She struck again and again, with all the wasted effort of wind against a rock.
As the wizard with damp robes laughed, she reversed her grip as she had done against Felldrake, brandishing the back of her mighty blade like a club, and took careful aim at one spot – – the crease where the toad-bubble’s massive thigh folded against its body.
She hit it, and her blade bounced off. Then she saw a spot of white appear on the toad’s belly. Like frost before sunlight, it disappeared. Nepta had magically attacked from a distance, but her spell had also been repelled.
Fawnlum hit the thing in the crease, again and again. Each impact of the indestructible Icefire was landing squarely in the fold of the joint.
“Move!”
Fawnlum dodged, as Morgy’s tail slashed down, hitting the crease with a tremendous smack!
The shield twinkled in protest, and a crack appeared. Morgy tensed with her legs for another hit, but stopped and looked up, as if she sensed something.
“Another wizard!” the dragon called to Fawnlum. “A lich, no less!”
Fawnlum looked. He was up above them, standing on the great stone bridge spanning the Hall.
She heard his booming voice echoing throughout, given strength by magic.
“Fawnlum!” Morgy cried. “We must stop him!”
She held still, and let Morgy pick her up in her claws. With one spring of the powerful hind legs, they launched, Fawnlum’s stomach dropping into her knees.
Then she saw the giant creature emerging from the glowing portal at the wizard’s side.
“A serpenzor!” the dragon screeched.
Fawnlum felt the tremor in her voice, and heard the fear.
Although she did not realize it, serpenzors were the natural enemies of all dragons. Giant, snake-like creatures given flight with huge, bat-like wings – they were created as living weapons by Hkoshiktay when he had been exiled.
As it sailed above them, distracted by the new world it had been pulled into, the beast noticed the copper dragon.
Morgy cut her speed, and somewhat gently released Fawnlum.
“Take the wizard!” she shouted.
Fawnlum dropped 10 feet to the walking-surface. As she rolled with the impact, she looked at the flying serpent, to get a better look at the thing that had put such fear into her unshakeable ally.
Morgy accelerated away with a beat of her wings, with the serpenzor splitting the air in a piercing shriek, flying in pursuit.
Fawnlum stood with sword bared. She was short of the midpoint of the bridge, with her enemy 100 feet away.
On the landing, Nepta switched tactics, using a more subtle spell. She concentrated, and let the air inside the toad-bubble receive her focus, rather than the protective shell itself.
Within minutes, a freezing fog formed inside the bubble. The figures inside started to move more slowly.
Then, as the inside became more opaque, the shield disappeared. The creature from Sienna’s story – the snake-woman – crawled away from the Toadstool, and looked right at her.
The heroic wizard kept her posture rigid, and her spell in effect, as Pouzelle slithered toward her, as fast as a viper.
Never had Fawnlum seen such a picture of decay, in body or spirit. A corpse stripped of its flesh, Maguleth stood before her, with skeletal moving arms and strange voice ringing out, draped in layers of once-grand but tattered robes. Repulsed, she watched as the teeth and jaws flapped up and down, as if it still had a true mouth.
She raised her saber, feeling the hunger in Icefire to strike. But she did not charge, thinking hastily back to Nepta’s lectures about facing a magic-user, when one only had a blade.
Concentration was the key, no matter who the spellcaster might be.
‘Even Red Dragons,’ Nepta had told her, ‘need time to cast. But their concentration has been disciplined over centuries. At any time other than the initial start, if you get close, even with an empowered saber, you’re too late. Close is the worst place to be, if even part of a spell takes effect.’
With his arm-waving, the young heroine knew a magical attack was coming. She looked down, over the rail of the bridge, at the Toadstool and the wizards around it. She looked back at the lich, and smiled.
Maguleth patted himself on the back for his good fortune. When Fawnlum first appeared, he recognized her. More to the point, he recognized her glowing sword for what it was: a magical weapon of purity to slay evil. His hatred for her increased ten-fold.
But the barbarian had hesitated. Superstitious savages like her were so much fun to intimidate with his appearance. His spell of two-dimensions would grab the oversized wench, and fold her like paper.
To his dismay, however, she took that noble sword, and struck the narrow base of the great stone spire connecting the bridge’s railing to the Hall’s ceiling. His dumbfounded-ness turned to alarm, as he realized her intentions.
Morgy rolled in mid-air, breathing a jet of fire. The serpenzor dodged it. Its speed and the strength of its scales were as true as the ancient stories told. Although it had no breath weapon, its ferociousness would carry it forward, where its prodigious jaw and fangs could penetrate her scales, and make an opening for its horrible venom. If it locked its teeth and coils around her, she was as good as dead.
She rolled forward and dove. She was a nimble flyer, true to her species, but she was lumbering through the air like a fattened duck, compared to her opponent.
It was closing on this pass. She could not pull her turn any tighter. It was going to get her!
The great jaws snapped shut, and the air rushed past, as it missed her.
She watched it right itself, twisting to regain its speed as it went wide. Then she smelled the tell-tale aromas in its wake – – the heavy stench of sulfur, and burned ash.
It was used to flying in a different world – the foul lower plane of its birth – where the atmosphere was heavy with char and soot. The air in this cavern was light and clear. It did not know what to do in these flying conditions!
She dove to build speed, and glanced at the sound of ringing steel, nearly roaring at Fawnlum to stop being daft, chopping into that massive piece of rock. Then she caught herself, as she saw the truth.
Baneck’s claims rang as sweetly as a sliced apple, as Fawnlum felt Icefire’s wonderful edge sink again into the stone.
She noted the change in the corpse-wizard’s manner; he had even taken a step toward her. He had stopped one spell to cast another.
She sprang away from the spire, across the width of the walkway, and jumped onto the rail. Her saber held to the right, and a deadly drop on her left, she ran as sure-footed as Honee, atop the narrow surface. Then she felt a physical force push past her saber, as the spell-effect meant for her struck the spot where she had been standing.
She hopped back down, dashing right at Maguleth.
The snake-woman grabbed Nepta, and quickly wrapped her in her giant coils, pinning her arms to her sides, and gripped her hands around her throat.
Pouzelle relaxed her grip on Nepta’s neck, though, letting her stay conscious. “Can’t even talk now, can you, pretty?” she taunted.
Nepta defiantly looked up at her.
“You should have stopped your attack while I was coming at you. I suppose you think I wasn’t worth the trouble?”
With her snake-half holding them both in a standing position, she rippled her coils, pivoting them around, until Nepta was looking at the Toadstool again. Saved from being frozen in place, the Daghaivan were moving again, maintaining their spell.
“Your cause is lost,” she gloated. “I’m going to keep you alive, until your spirit is as twisted and broken as your flesh!”
He had missed the big girl, his spell wasted! To Maguleth’s further consternation, as soon as Fawnlum rushed at him, he saw over her shoulder, as the copper dragon landed on the spire.
Morgy breathed the full force of her acidic breath on the upper anchoring point, where the spire joined with the arch hanging down from the ceiling. The stone sizzled and smoked. Much of the corrosive liquid ran down the surface, but still ate away at the critical spot.
She launched herself over the rail again, as the serpenzor closed in.
At Maguleth’s gesture, octagonal wooden discs – eight of them – flew out from his robes, and floated around him in a ring.
Fawnlum saw them, but did not stop her charge.
She knew it was common for wizards to use a magical shield. But it could be weakened, if it was hit with great enough force, just like the toad-bubble.
The wizard leered at her – – as if his shield would be stronger than Icefire. She was not going to yield to this evil; she would show him the worth of a warrior’s heart.
She came on, Icefire practically pulling her at him.
Maguleth stood still, as if daring her to try it.
But neither Fawnlum, nor the lich, realized the depths Baneck had awakened in Icefire.
Empowered by the primordial nature of Wintermore, the noble spirit of an extinct Celestine dragon, whom the planar worlds had forgotten for far too long, rose up in righteous fury, as the edge cut deeply into the weave of malevolent energies surrounding Maguleth’s body.
Fawnlum felt a wave of dread wash past her, as sparks flew, and a construct of magic itself flew apart.
Maguleth’s skeletal jaw flew open in panic.
Still holding Nepta tight so they both watched the Daghavan, Pouzelle said, “I have to rejoin them, and help bring about the glorious new world.”
She brought her lips right down to her ear. “I’m afraid I can’t leave you alive after all, pretty.”
The coils started to squeeze. Nepta’s bones strained, and her breath failed.
Suddenly, the snake-woman’s head was enshrouded in a miniature purple-colored cloud. She arched her back, dropping all hold on Nepta, and clawed at her face. Nepta fell to the floor, as Pouzelle writhed and jerked, fighting for breath.
A male uzruul elf appeared above Nepta, pulling her out of the coils and to her feet.
He wore the robes of a wizard, but she could feel as his body pressed against hers, his muscles were firm, and finely toned. This despite being smaller than any mature male she had ever seen.
“Up!” he ordered.
She stepped away from the twisting snake-body, holding onto him, as she worked to steady herself.
He pointed at the toad-bubble, and snapped, “To your task, woman!”
Then he pulled away. She watched him disappear down the closest tunnel.
She silently mouthed some syllables, to prepare the best spell she could think to use at a time like this, trying, with an effort, to force the handsome elf’s intense face out of her mind.
Fawnlum felt a twinge of resistance, as if she was cutting through water, as the ghoul’s shield crumbled, and he screamed, bearing his palms at her.
Morgy had exploited the serpenzor’s poor flying techniques, but it was learning fast. As she landed on the spire again, she breathed fire on the still-simmering acid. The foul smoke rose up in a thick, miniature cloud, enshrouding her, as she roared out her challenge.
The bloodthirsty abomination sped in. A horrible, crunching ‘crack’ rang out, making the whole bridge shudder.
Morgy smiled, as only her scaly face could, as she glanced up from where she had dove down onto the walkway. The great rocky spire plummeted; the massive serpentine body followed, its jaw rammed up through its skull.
She jumped to look over the railing, watching as the spire smashed through the toad-bubble and Toadstool, with a truly horrifying crash.
The Daghaivan jumped back, some of them dying under the rocky mass, others from the falling carcass.
Morgy was on the survivors, before the last coils hit the ground.
Fawnlum swung, but with his lightweight body, Maguleth jumped back, screaming at her. She kept her focus, as the spire’s impact shook the Hall.
His howls turned into a wail of anguish, as she nicked his forearm. He convulsed, as if wracked to the core, and jerked back even faster.
But then she cursed, as he retreated where she could not follow, throwing himself over the rail.
“Coward!” she yelled, as she watched him land in a clatter on the floor, 50 feet below. Then he sprang up, and ran through one of the exits.
The squashed Toadstool’s green light faded, and the Hall quickly dimmed, Icefire still glowing angrily in her hands.
“Be still, my blade,” she muttered. “The craven dog has fled.”
Despite being high up in the open, she activated her disc. She glanced over the other rail, briefly looking at the Slime-victims, then quickly ran to the nearest set of stairs.
<*> <*> <*>
Sienna watched from East Osterly’s wall, as a new echo rumbled in the distance, from the blood-funnel. It resounded, with penetrating vibrations, and she watched as the great crimson’s rotations slowed. Then the cumulus’ color faded, disappearing as if it had never been.
“She won.”
Then she shouted out with more force, calling all attention to herself, with saber held high. “The day is won!!”
