That made them no less mad than the rest, Dru himself included.
“Seeee, masterrr! Seee!”
“I see, Sirvak. Hush now.”
Silesti was wearing a brilliant black suit that clung to his form and covered all but his head. As his eyes narrowed on Dekkar, one gloved hand went to a pouch hanging from a belt around his waist. Many of the assembled Vraad watched the two with mild interest, though a good number ignored them completely. Feuds were just one more thing in the life of the sorcerous race. The only interest was in what sort of action the combatants might take.
Dekkar struck first, creating a miniature rainstorm above Silesti’s head. Without pausing from his own task, the latter sorcerer created a shield that made the rain bounce off and slide down to the earth around him, leaving Silesti high and dry. Dekkar, however, seemed none too upset over that abrupt change. He stood quietly, openly challenging his adversary to do his worst.
The other Vraad was only too happy to do so. From his pouch, Silesti took out a tiny, wiggling form that Dru could not make out even when he amplified his vision. With careful precision, Silesti tossed it toward the expectant Dekkar.
True to form, Dekkar did not wait for the creature to reach him. With a wave of his hand, he stole from his own raging storm a single bolt of lightning. It struck the hapless servant of Silesti and sent the bits scattering. A wind rose up, blowing them toward their original target, but Dekkar was hardly in danger from ash.
On Dru’s shoulder, the familiar shifted, raising one claw and then another as it tried to comprehend the apparently useless assaults by the two spellcasters… men capable of raising mountains, if need be.
“Masterrrr…”
Dru smiled grimly and shushed the beast. He understood what Sirvak could not. After so long a struggle, the feud had become ceremonial. What seemed like minor touches of Vraad power would soon lead to far more.
As if in response to his thoughts, the true assaults took place.
From around Silesti’s feet, the torrent of rain rose upward around his shield, creating a cocoon of some silky substance whose binding force was the counterspell the ebony-clad sorcerer himself had cast. Dru knew, as Silesti now knew, that the trap also grew beneath the latter’s feet, essentially sealing him in.
While Dekkar laughed and some of the spectating Vraad clapped their approval, Silesti’s spell came to full fruition. The ash had settled on the broad Vraad’s person, including his face and arms. Dekkar had, of course, ignored it, and it came as quite a surprise, then, when he found himself suddenly sprouting tiny, toothsome heads that rose on serpentine bodies and proceeded to viciously bite their host. More and more vermin sprouted from his clothing and his flesh, taking root wherever possible. There were even a few on the ground near his feet, but Dekkar stomped them to death.
Many of the Vraad thought that they were finally seeing the culmination of the millennium-old struggle. Dru doubted that it was so. Both adversaries had faced a vast array of traps in that time. It would take more than these to kill the two.
True enough, both assaults began to falter. From within the cocoon there rose a tremendous heat, one that even touched Dru despite the height and distance separating the balcony he stood on from the site of the duel. A simple spell of his own cooled the area around Dru, but Silesti’s prison lacked any such protection. It sizzled and melted, evaporating to nothing by the time the residue reached the ground again. Even the cloud had dissipated.
Dekkar, meanwhile, did little but stand and wait. Once his initial surprise had passed, he stood smiling despite the bites he had suffered. It was soon easy to see why. The vermin began falling off, first a few, then in great numbers. Each one was dead, that is, each one that had bitten the sorcerer. Dru caught sight of one of the last, true to its mission, snapping at Dekkar’s unprotected hand. Once the creature drew blood, it instantly recoiled, as if ready to strike again. Instead, the monstrosity shook, spat the blood of its victim from its mouth… and fell to the earth, its grip and its life both things of the past.
“Masterrrr?”
“Poisoned, Sirvak. Dekkar’s blood is poisoned. I wonder how he survives it? It would have to be a strong poison to kill one of those creatures, I suspect.”
Like two bedraggled but triumphant bookends, Dekkar and Silesti faced one another, each ready for the second round.
“Masterrr!” Sirvak’s talons bit deep into Dru Zeree’s shoulder, a signal that the familiar was more than just apprehensive. A dark shadow blotted out all but the artificial illumination the Vraad themselves had created for the coming.
The sky was filled with dragons. Huge monsters, larger than the tallest horses and quite able to fell said animals with one blow of their massive forepaws. There was a rider on the back of each emerald horror, a sure enough sign, not that one had been needed, of who the newcomers were.
“Tezerenee…” Dru muttered to himself.
Below him, the crowd, whose interest in the duel had grown with each passing second, suddenly became silent save for a few hardy souls who dared to whisper what Zeree himself had just said.
Tezerenee.
There were more than forty and Dru knew that these were only a token representation of the clan. Vraad, by nature of their egos, were not a familial race. Dru and his daughter, Sharissa, were a rarity. Under the draconian rule of their patriarch, the Lord Barakas, the Tezerenee were a cohesive and masterful family of sorcerers. They were also skilled fighters, another aberration in a race that relied so heavily on their magical prowess.
Dragons began to land on the roofs and walls of the city.
From a distance, each rider seemed identical. Dark green armor covered them from head to toe, forged from the scales of the very beasts the Tezerenee rode. Ferocious dragon-crested helms all but obscured the savage faces of the Tezerenee. Two of them wore crimson capes, Lord Barakas and his eldest son, Reegan. Nearly a third of the riders were sons of the patriarch, spread across the five thousand years of his life. (How many more there were and how many had died one way or another during those millennia was something no one spoke about within earshot of the Lord Tezerenee.)
Barakas Tezerenee had landed on the roof of a building that had flattened itself out at the moment of arrival. From his vantage point, the overwhelming figure overlooked all but Dru. Barakas stroked his heavy beard and stared long and hard at the two duelists.
“This is the final coming.” His voice, augmented by his power, sent a tremor literally through the city. Oddly, despite his bearlike appearance, the Lord Tezerenee’s voice was smooth and calculated. It was also the voice of one so used to commanding that even a simple “good day” would have seemed an order to be obeyed.
“This is the final coming, Masters Dekkar and Silesti. From here, the Vraad will be moving on to a better, less disreputable home.” The warring sky rumbled, as if punctuating his statements.
The two feuding sorcerers glanced at each other with disquieting looks.
“See that these two finish their absurd duel once and for all.” It was not evident at first to whom the patriarch was speaking, for he still studied Dekkar and Silesti. Then, two riders remounted their reptilian steeds and rose into the sky. The two rivals began to protest, but a sharp glance from Barakas froze them where they stood.
Dru blinked, leaned over the rail of the balcony, and studied Dekkar and Silesti closer. Frozen, indeed. Neither sorcerer was moving, save to look around futilely for someone who would free them from the Lord Tezerenee’s spell. The dragons descended to points just above the heads of each hapless Vraad, raising dust storms that sent the throngs backing away, and, at a command from their riders, grasped Dekkar and Silesti in their forepaws.