Magnus looked up in time to see Rkard diving forward. The boy’s sword flashed, hit the Dragon’s scorched leg, and snapped. The young mul cried out in disbelief, then rolled through the fire wall and came up facing Borys. He stood about a quarter of the way around the circle from Magnus, less than a dozen paces away.
The Dragon stepped into the fire curtain and stooped down to pick up Rkard.
Magnus pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward, his legs protesting each step with fiery pain. “Rkard, over here!” he yelled.
The young mul looked toward the windsinger. When Borys’s hand flicked down to cut him off, the boy dodged away and began to run, fleeing toward a hut on the opposite side of the plaza.
The Dragon turned to chase the boy.
Suddenly, on the other side of the fire circle from Magnus, a gnarled mass of bone stood between Borys and the boy. The lump was almost as tall as the Dragon himself, with glowing orange eyes, a long gray beard, and stiff branches of bone protruding from its shoulders. Magnus shook his head, unable to understand where the banshee had come from. The thing had appeared in a flash, standing where there had been only empty air an instant before.
“I won’t let you slay our king again,” said Jo’orsh.
“I have no intention of killing him,” Borys replied. “I’m taking him to Ur Draxa, where I’ll return him to you-in return for the Dark Lens. Now, stand aside.”
With his arm of stiff bone, Jo’orsh slashed at the Dragon, opening a long gash in Borys’s snout. Boiling yellow blood spilled from the wound, hissing and popping as it splashed off the cobblestones.
Magnus circled around Caelum’s fire curtain, ducking his face behind his shoulder to shield it from the blazing heat.
Borys tried to sidestep his foe, and Jo’orsh moved to block his path. The Dragon struck, driving a fist through the banshee’s gnarled ribs. A deafening crack reverberated across the square, and the banshee burst apart. Shards of white bone rained down on the plaza from one end to the other.
As soon as they hit the ground, the fragments astonished Magnus by slowly tumbling back toward the place where Jo’orsh had been standing.
Swallowing his shock, Magnus lowered his shoulder and charged. Though he was not foolish enough to believe he could injure Borys, he hoped to slow the beast down long enough for Rkard to escape.
Borys stepped away, forcing the windsinger to change courses and rush after him. In two paces, the Dragon crossed to the hut where Rkard had gone. He ripped the hide roof away and tossed it across the square. Apparently, the young mul had left through a back window, for the beast did not reach down to pluck him out of the building.
“Where are you, little boy?” the Dragon slapped the hut in frustration.
The building exploded into flying stones. Less than a dozen paces away, Magnus had to stop running and duck to shield his head. When the windsinger looked up again, the beast was tearing the roof off the next building. Again, the Dragon smashed the shack, then he ripped the hide off a third shack.
This time, a red flare shot up from inside and engulfed Borys’s slender head inside a glowing likeness of the sun. Unconcerned, the Dragon reached into the hut. When he pulled his hand out, it was curled into a tight fist, with Rkard’s head showing out of the top.
“No!” Magnus roared.
The windsinger sprinted the last few steps to the plaza edge. He threw himself at the Dragon’s bony shin and wrapped his massive arms around it. Borys started toward the tiny silt harbor east of the village, smashing his foot through the nearest hut.
The windsinger grimaced from the impact but held on easily. His thick hide was as tough as a lirr’s, and it shielded him from all but the most serious blows. He began to sing in his loudest voice, calling up a gale from the Sea of Silt. Borys dragged him through another hut, then another and another. Magnus continued to sing, and soon the sky above was filled with gray clouds of dust. Yellow bolts of lightning crackled out of the gathering storm, each striking the Dragon’s head. The windsinger was not foolish enough to think his windstorm could harm the beast, but he hoped it would draw his friends’ attention to Rkard’s danger.
Borys chuckled then slammed his foot through the village wall and stepped into the harbor. Magnus sank beneath the silt. He closed his eyes and mouth, trying to breathe through his nose. The membranes protecting his nasal passages were clogged by dust, but at least the filters kept him from swallowing the powdery loess and choking. He would not suffocate for a few more moments.
Holding his breath, Magnus pulled himself up Borys’s knee. The storm would continue for a few moments without his ballad, but if he wanted to keep it going, he would soon have to raise his voice again. The windsinger reached up, searching for a handhold on the Dragon’s thigh.
Magnus felt a hand slip around his torso. The claw pulled him free and lifted him out of the silt. The windsinger saw that the Dragon had already carried him and Rkard out of the harbor. They were heading toward the heart of the Sea of Silt.
Above Magnus, Rkard had managed to work an arm free of the Dragon’s grip and was trying to bend a clawed finger back to free himself. The windsinger knew he would not succeed. Even a mul child could not be that strong.
Magnus snorted, clearing his nostrils, and raised his voice in song. A peal of thunder cracked over the Dragon, and a dozen forks of sizzling energy stabbed at his head. Borys’s eyes flashed even brighter than the lightning.
“Your noise makes my head throb,” the Dragon hissed.
Three sharp claws pierced the windsinger’s hide, cracking his massive ribs like a storm snapping faro branches. His ballad changed to a howl. He felt the Dragon’s arm whip outward, then Magnus found himself soaring over the pearly sea. His black eyes clouded over, and he began to arc downward, the wind singing in his ears.
Neeva found her unconscious husband next to the well, one armed draped over the side. The flesh had been scraped off one side of his skull, and a dark streak on the cobblestones marked where he had been dragged across the plaza to the pit. Strangely enough, the wound itself looked clean, as though someone had taken the trouble to bathe it before abandoning him.
“Caelum! Wake up!” She kneeled at his side and shook his shoulder. When his eyes failed to open, she slapped his cheek-not lightly. “Tell me what happened to Rkard!”
The dwarf’s eyes did not even flutter.
Behind her, Jo’orsh’s bones continued to clatter as they tumbled toward each other. Neeva looked toward the noise and shuddered. The banshee had reconstructed only about half of his gnarled body, most of the torso and one leg, and somehow he looked even more hideous than before.
Rikus and Sadira appeared at the edge of the plaza, leading the five haggard survivors from the Bronze Company toward the well. The rest of the command, nearly thirty warriors, had perished in the battle with the counterfeit Borys. At the time, with its claws ripping through steel breastplates and its heels smashing thick dwarven skulls, the beast had seemed real enough. It was not until the fight had ended and the Dragon had shrunk into a frightened, battered gorak that they had discovered the creature’s true nature.
It was then that they had noticed the dust storm drifting out to sea. For a moment, it had seemed to Neeva that she saw a red light in the heart of the tempest, but the others had not been able to find it when she tried to point it out to them. Finally, even she could not see the glow, and the squall had moved out of sight. They had rushed back to the village, finding it as quiet as when they had first arrived.