Pain seared his back. Once again he invoked the magic of the numbing tattoo. It worked, but not as well as before. He turned, rattled off words of power, and crumbled the foe who’d just spat on him into a spill of dust.
Individually the dragonborn were no match for him, but there were a lot of them, they weren’t attacking individually, and they weren’t stupid enough to bunch up so he could catch several at once with a spell devised to smite multiple opponents. Gradually, and despite his best efforts, they surrounded him.
More acid caught him in the back. He cried out and lurched forward. Dragonborn lunged to hack and stab while he was off balance.
Then he felt a presence enter his mind and avail itself of his eyes. A shape as black as the night sky overhead plunged out of it to pierce reptiles with its talons and smash them under its hurtling weight. Jet twisted his head and decapitated another dragonborn with a snap of his beak. Startled, the rest recoiled.
Aoth tried the tattoo again and found there was still a little analgesic virtue left in it. “Were you spying on me?” he gasped.
“No,” Jet replied. “I was just taking some exercise and happened to fly overhead. But I probably should have been. Why is it you can never mate without it turning into a situation?”
A dragonborn recovered his nerve and charged. Aoth ducked the swing of his axe and drove his spear into the creature’s guts. Then the rest of the enemy surged forward, and there was no more time or breath to spare for talk. Not until every reptile lay torn, blackened and smoldering, encrusted with frost, or otherwise slain on the ground.
“Curse it,” Aoth growled. “We really could have used a prisoner to question.”
Jet grunted. “And here I thought I was doing well just to save your hide.”
“Believe me, I’m grateful. It’s just that it’s unfortunate.” Aoth studied the bodies.
“I see it too,” the griffon said. “No piercings, just like in Luthcheq.”
“You’re right,” said Aoth, “but this time I’m noticing something more. Dragonborn come in a variety of colors, but every one of these is black. What are the odds?”
“Not bad, if they belong to some sect or cadre that only takes black ones.”
“All right. But they all spat acid at us, just like all black dragons spew acid. Even though the color of a dragonborn’s scales has no relation to the nature of his breath weapon. So what are the chances of that?”
“Maybe not as good. But what does it mean?”
Aoth sighed. “I have no idea.” His burns throbbed, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
Then the yellow door flew open, and Cera rushed out with a mace and targe that were either made of gold or, more likely, simply looked like it. The priests and guards scrambling behind her were similarly equipped. They all stopped short at the sight of the carnage.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” said Jet.
Cera gave Aoth an apologetic look. “It’s only been a few moments. I brought the others as fast as I could.”
“I know,” said Aoth, “and you’re not too late to help us. We’re both burned. It hurts quite a lot, actually.”
She dropped her weapon and shield and came to inspect his wounds. She murmured a prayer and gently touched her hands to the burned spots, and a soothing warmth began to ease the pain.
“Did you know there were this many dragonborn in Soolabax?” asked Aoth.
Cera shook her head. “That’s what I can’t understand. There aren’t any.”
“Well,” said Jet as her fellow sunlords-moving gingerly in proximity to such a formidable beast with such a gory beak and bloody claws-began to tend his burns, “maybe not anymore.”
Gaedynn banged his shackles on the floor. It jolted his wrists and soon made them sore, but he kept at it anyway. He’d already tried and failed to squeeze his fingers together and slip a hand free, or to grip a chain and pull it free of its moorings in the wall. He didn’t know what else to do.
On his left, Jhesrhi recited one incantation after another. Sometimes it sounded like she was giving commands, sometimes like she was coaxing, and sometimes growling threats. But however she tried it, she never produced more than a puff of displaced air or a momentary bitter taste on his tongue.
Finally he stopped pounding to catch his breath. That inspired her to pause as well. The darkness felt even darker without their noise to fill it.
He examined his shackles by touch. If his efforts were damaging the lock or knocking loose the hinges, he certainly couldn’t tell it. He cursed.
“I’m not getting anywhere either,” Jhesrhi said.
He tried to speak with his customary self-assurance. “Ah well, the chains are just a temporary inconvenience. Our escorts will remove them to take us back to Jaxanaedegor. Then your powers will return and you’ll set one of the wretches on fire. The light will enable me to strike down the others.”
She hesitated, then said, “Yes, I’m sure that’s just how it will go. But just in case it doesn’t…”
“Yes?”
Another hesitation. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t think like that anyway. We have to believe there will be something we can do.” Footsteps padded in the blackness.
Jhesrhi sucked in a startled breath. Gaedynn felt his muscles tighten, and exhaled to blow the tension out.
He only heard one person approaching. And he’d never heard the vampires at all until they laid hands on him. Was it possible that he and Jhesrhi really did have a chance?
The footsteps halted in front of him. Then something clicked against the floor.
“Food and water,” rasped a voice with a barbarous accent. “Dragon want you strong.” The guard sniggered. “Want your blood strong.”
The hope bled out of Gaedynn as fast as it had come. Because this wasn’t the escort who would unlock the shackles after all.
Still, he needed to quench his thirst and fill his belly. Crawling, he groped his way forward as far as his chains would let him go. There he found what felt like a ceramic bowl with a chipped rim. Inside it were water and a hunk of bread. The bread was soggy where the water had soaked into it and hard as rock elsewhere.
He forced himself to drink slowly. The water was lukewarm and tasted of sulfur. His parched body shivered with relief as it went down.
Meanwhile, Jaxanaedegor’s servant padded onward. A second clack announced that he’d down set Jhesrhi’s bowl.
Then there was nothing. No sound indicative of further motion. Evidently the guard was still standing in front of Jhesrhi.
Intelligent as she was, she no doubt realized it, and it likely made her as uneasy as it did Gaedynn. But she needed water as much as he had. Her chains clinked as she came forward.
Leather creaked. The guard was moving. The chains rattled as Jhesrhi scrambled backward.
“You pretty,” said the guard. He paced after her. It was horribly easy to imagine him pressing her up against the wall.
Arms outstretched, Gaedynn moved left to the limits of his chains. There was nothing within reach.
From beyond his straining hands came the sounds of grunting, clinking chains, slaps smacking a face, and blows thumping solid flesh. Then the guard yelped. Something big and heavy slammed into Gaedynn’s hands.
He’d thought himself poised to act if he got the chance, but in the dark the sudden impact caught him by surprise. It felt like the guard was bouncing back out of his reach before he could catch hold. He grabbed frantically. Gripped what felt like a brigandine and the body inside it.
He still didn’t know what sort of creature he was fighting. But the would-be rapist could obviously see in the dark, which meant he’d make short work of his opponent if Gaedynn gave him a chance. He heaved the guard off balance, threw him down on the floor, and dropped on top of him.
There he hung on with one hand and bashed with the other, looping a length of chain to use like a flail. As he made one such attack, something sliced the skin atop his knuckles. Apparently his swinging fist had grazed a fang or tusk.