Tithian cursed silently. It would have been better if both Caelum and his wife were already dead. Now, Neeva would be one more person trying to kill him after Borys died. Still, the king was not overly concerned. In the weeks since he had stolen the Dark Lens, he had noticed that the higher the sun was in the sky, the more searing the surface of the Lens. Judging by the orb’s relatively bearable temperature at the moment, the king knew the sun was about to set-taking with it Sadira’s powers. If he could time things so that they finished the Dragon just after nightfall, the sorceress would not be a challenge. That would leave only Rikus and his sword to worry about.
Rikus’s hand flashed out, grabbing Tithian’s long hair. “Bring them back,” he ordered.
“I can’t do that-”
“Then I have no reason to keep you alive.” The mul pressed the Scourge’s tip to the chitinous collar connecting the king’s head and his scorpion’s body.
“Let me finish,” Tithian hissed. He was very careful to keep his tail motionless. “Perhaps we can still save them.”
“How?” the mul demanded.
“We can follow,” Tithian replied, gesturing toward the arch. “And we can do it quickly, if you’ll let me fly us down to the arch.”
Rikus released Tithian’s hair. “We’ve got little enough to lose,” he said. “Do it.”
The Dragon’s foot returned to the ground, and Neeva felt the chasm’s incredible heat at her back. Still clinging to the axe handle, she blinked several times. A wasteland of black scoria sloped gently away before her. It was laced with jagged fissures and twisted ribs of rock, and it appeared more windswept and bleak than any terrain she had ever seen. The plain ended in the far-off distance, where a sheer cliff rose straight into the boiling red clouds of the sky.
In a step, Borys had crossed the sea of molten rock.
The Dragon limped from beneath an arch identical to the one they had departed a moment earlier, then growled in pain. Knowing what would come next, Neeva braced her feet and pulled her axe free. She dropped to the ground just as Borys’s claw slapped the place where she had been hanging.
The warrior swung her axe. The sparkling edge bit deep, then began pumping bolts of mystic energy into Borys’s wrist. The Dragon’s hand swelled to twice its normal size and blew apart, pelting Neeva with beads of fiery, yellow blood and bits of bone.
Borys’s howl shook the ground.
Neeva dived away. She rolled across her shoulders and came up facing the Dragon’s flank, her axe still in her hands. Ignoring the agony of her many burns, the warrior charged, aiming her blade at the leg she had mangled before.
Borys pivoted away. Neeva found herself crossing the open plain without protection. The Dragon fixed an eye on her, and white, blazing pain filled her head.
“No!” She used her last act of free will to hurl the axe at him.
Borys’s eye widened, and he shifted his gaze to the weapon. The axe tumbled through the air end over end, flying straight toward his abdomen. He brought his good hand-the hand holding her son and Sadira-down to block. The blade sliced across his forearm and bounced toward the arch, drawing a whirling spout of yellow blood after it.
The Dragon’s claw sprang open, allowing Sadira’s legs to dangle free. Before the sorceress could fall out, Borys flipped his hand palm-up. Neeva saw her son peering out from beneath Sadira’s sheltering form.
Borys’s fingers twitched but did not close. He glanced down at them, curling the lip of his long snout into a snarl. His claws trembled some more, and Neeva knew her blade had severed a tendon.
“Sadira, get Rkard out of there!” the warrior yelled. When she saw that the sorceress was already reaching for a pocket, Neeva sprinted toward her axe.
Borys cut her off with a single step. “I promised your cur of a child that he would see you die.”
The Dragon fixed his eye on Neeva. Again, a terrible pain filled her head as he forced his way into her mind. She continued to run-then a crimson glow lit the field. It was bright enough to cast shadows on the ground, and she knew that Rkard had cast his sun-spell. The agony in her head vanished. She looked up to see Borys’s head swaddled in a globe of red light.
Sadira pointed up at the Dragon’s face. A bolt of blue energy crackled from her finger, blasting away a large chunk of hide. Then the sorceress gathered Rkard up and leaped into the air. Borys recovered quickly, lashing out at the flying escapees with both maimed hands.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Neeva darted between the Dragon’s legs. He lifted his injured leg to stomp her. She dived for her axe and saw the shadow of a huge foot falling around her. Her face and chest scraped across the rough stone, then the warrior’s hands closed around the handle of her weapon. Borys’s heavy heel settled across her back. A sickening crack sounded down near her waist, sending a searing wave of agony through her hips.
Neeva screamed and tried to pull herself from beneath the beast’s foot, but her legs would not come free. Her toes went cold, then an icy tide of numbness rose through her feet, traveled up past her knees, and spread into her hips. To the warrior, it felt as if her legs had vanished. Her own flesh and bone seemed as remote as the stone upon which she lay.
Growling in anger, Neeva used one hand to swing her axe over her back. She managed only to strain her shoulder and strike a weak, glancing blow. The weapon slipped from her grip and fell to the ground beside her.
Borys stepped away without reacting.
Neeva rolled herself over and tried to sit up. The muscles of her legs and hips would not help her do even that much. She picked up her axe and braced the handle against the ground. As the warrior pushed herself up, the ebony stain suddenly drained from the weapon’s blade. The bone hilt faded from black to its natural ivory color, and the light falling over the plain dimmed from angry crimson to murky scarlet.
Neeva heard her son cry out in surprise, then Sadira cursed in anger. The warrior looked across the plain and saw the pair crashing to the ground from a low height. Their limp forms went tumbling across the broken expanse. His head still encased in the fiery globe of Rkard’s sun-spell, the Dragon turned toward them and watched as the pair came to a stop.
“Get up!” Neeva yelled.
Rkard jumped to his feet and rushed to the sorceress’s side. He started to pull her up, but Sadira stood and pushed him behind her. When she turned to face the Dragon, Neeva saw that the sorceress’s skin was as white as alabaster.
Rikus and Tithian stepped between the pillars of the great arch, Sacha floating a few steps behind. The edifice looked as though it had been shaped from a single block of stone, for if there were any seams in the construction, they were not visible in the polished face of the black granite. They walked farther down the passage. Rikus counted thirteen empty alcoves lining the interior walls, the same number as the golems he had destroyed. They reached the back of the arch and peered into the fiery sea.
“When did Borys vanish?” Tithian asked. “As he passed beneath the front of the arch, or as he stepped out the back?”
“On the front side,” Rikus replied. “A sheet of orange fire covered the opening, and he stepped through it.”
Tithian cursed. “He must have touched something or spoken a word.”
“He growled for a second or two,” Rikus replied. “That’s all.”
“That’s it!” the king said, growing excited. “The arch must be controlled by a command word. Repeat it exactly.”
“If I could sing like a lirr,” the mul replied, growing annoyed with the king. “My throat’s not built for sounds like that.”
“You must-or your friends are doomed,” Tithian said. He motioned across the molten sea, then raised the leathery wings he had grown to lower them from the top of the hill. “It’ll take hours-maybe days-to fly across that.”