Convulsing. Transforming.
A dragon-size lump of flesh.
Jo rolled to her feet, a snarl on her lips and Wyrmblight in her hands. The blade shone faintly, and its hilt was warm to the touch.
“Stand back!” shouted Karleah, waving her staff at Jo and Braddoc. The old wizardess struck the ground with the staff. It stayed upright by her side, its ball of light illuminating the cavern still. Karleah pulled back her sleeves and immediately began murmuring an incantation, her gnarled hands blurring with speed.
Ignoring Karleah’s instructions, Johauna swung Wyrmblight above her head and leaped forward, shouting, “Fliiinn!”
As Jo hurtled toward the transmuting lump of matter, it exploded in size and shape, taking Verdilith’s form. The squire hurled Wyrmblight down onto the beast in a massive, two-handed arc that carried every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed.
A sudden, blinding flash of blue light came from Jo’s left and struck Wyrmblight before her blow could reach the dragon’s flesh. The blue streaks of Karleah’s spell flared brilliantly, magic clashing with elven silver and dwarven steel. A tremendous shudder of energy traveled up the blade and into Jo’s arms, almost wrenching the sword from her hands. The full force of the blow struck her body, and Jo was thrown backward across the cavern.
The squire’s flight ended almost forty feet later when she struck a stalagmite. The stone projection caught Jo in the back, and breath exploded from her body. She tumbled to the stony ground. Her spine felt snapped in two and tears of pain stung her eyes. Jo struggled for air, but her lungs would not respond. Sharp, stabbing pains pierced her chest.
Am I dying? she wondered frantically. Why can’t I catch my breath? I’ve got to kill Verdilith. I can’t die until he is dead! The squire’s fingers tightened on Wyrmblight, still clutched reflexively in her hand. Please, let me live, she pleaded to the sword. Let me outlive the dragon, if only by moments! She struggled to control the fear that washed over her.
The Great Green, Verdilith, separated Jo from Karleah and Braddoc. Around him lay stalagmites, crushed to rubble beneath his newly formed claws of ivory. His emerald-green hide was laced with myriad cuts, and fresh blood seeped from unhealed wounds. A gaping gash nearly a foot deep and more than three feet long bled profusely along the dragon’s right side. It was a serious wound, though perhaps not mortal, and it looked fresh. Jo had expected Verdilith to be healed by now, healed with the extraordinary spells he knew.
In the instant that all these thoughts flooded through Jo’s spinning mind, the great green dragon reared back in fury, extending and fluttered his giant, batlike wings. Wind whistled through numerous holes in the wings’ fragile membranes. A few of the holes were so large that Jo knew the dragon couldn’t fly.
Attack! Jo cried silently to her friends. Just beyond the beast, she could see Braddoc and Karleah; they stood like statues, poised as they had been when Jo had made her lunge. Apparently Verdilith’s magic is far more powerful than Karleah’s, Jo thought with a moan of pain.
Struggling desperately to move, the squire braced Wyrmblight against the ground and tried to pull herself upward. She rose to one knee before agonizing pain twisted through her back, forcing her back to the stony cavern floor. With an extreme effort, she held her head up and looked toward the dragon and her comrades. Why are they just standing there? she thought anxiously. Why don’t they do something?
The dragon turned his enormous head toward Jo, and the curved amber horns on his brow glinted coldly in the light of Karleah’s staff. Through her haze of pain Jo wondered if Verdilith had somehow read her thoughts. She saw the golden, malevolent eyes staring at her, perhaps gauging her ability to harm him. Then, with slow and deliberate malice, he stepped toward Jo and extended his trembling right claw. She gasped, struggling back from the razor-tipped talon. Eyeing her evilly, Verdilith lowered the massive claw, setting the ivory tip of one nail on the flat of Wyrmblight.
“No!” Jo shrieked, trying desperately to yank the sword away. It wouldn’t budge; the sigil for Glory was snagged on the dragon’s claw. Wyrmblight’s hilt felt suddenly red-hot in Johauna’s grasp. With one quick flick of his talon, Verdilith wrenched the sword from Jo’s hand and sent it skidding across the stone floor toward him. The hilt struck sparks in the darksome lair as it passed.
“Wyrmblight,” the dragon whispered in greedy awe, pinning the sword beneath his claw. Careful not to let the blade touch his flesh, he prodded it toward a cluster of stalagmites. There, with the caution of a jeweler, he slid the sword between a tight pair of rock columns. Then, setting his claw on the hilt, he began to bend the blade sideways. “Good-bye, Wyrmblight,” the dragon mumbled venomously.
“No!” Jo cried out again, struggling to get up. Her body cried out in pain but, gritting her teeth, she slowly rose to one knee.
With a ghoulish smile on his spearlike teeth, Verdilith snapped the blade harshly to one side. Instead of breaking, however, Wyrmblight cut hissing through the rock columns and dropped loose. One of the stone pillars, sliced in half, broke free from the cave roof and fell like a massive tree into the lair. The resulting boom shook the stony ground beneath Jo, and made her ears ring.
“You can’t destroy it, Verdilith,” Jo shouted in agonized triumph. “Not you! Wyrmblight was forged to kill you, and it’ll stay whole until its purpose is fulfilled.”
Verdilith turned his enormous head toward her and regarded her with all the disdain he would have for an injured fly. The vast lids over his slitted eyes drew into a dubious and irritable line.
“Quiet, bitch,” he murmured, green gas spilling gently from his nostrils and rolling over her.
Choking, Johauna croaked out, “Karleah! Do something!” She clamped her eyes closed against the stinging gas and rasped, “Braddoc, attack! Fight, damn you! Fight!” Every battered muscle in her back screamed with the drawn breaths.
Unconcerned, Verdilith snagged the sword once again. He shifted his weight to his back haunches and assumed a sitting position. Only then did Jo see his wounded left arm. A jagged laceration, nearly three feet long, puckered rawly across the inner flat of the claw and up Verdilith’s forearm. Exposed white tendons, likely snapped by Wyrmblight, extruded from the claw and arm; the limb was withered and virtually useless. Somehow Jo knew the wound would never heal, though the skin surrounding it might finally pucker and close over. She grinned with evil satisfaction. “Good for you, Flinn,” Jo whispered huskily, taking shallow breaths. “You’ve maimed the bastard for life!” She gained her feet and staggered toward Karleah and Braddoc.
The dragon studied the sword, cautiously lifting it in his claws. Setting her teeth in determination, Jo inched closer to her friends. Verdilith’s eye turned distractedly toward her, and he let out a roar that reverberated through the cavern. A cloud of noxious green mist erupted from his maw, covering Jo and the statuelike forms of Karleah and Braddoc.
Jo held her breath and dropped again to her knees. Watching her, Verdilith grinned. Slowly he snaked his long, sinuous neck toward her. The beast’s ivory fangs glinted, and his gums glowed with green bile. A long, snakelike tongue flickered out, licking away the viscid fluid. The stench that rolled from his mouth nearly made Jo retch. The dragon lowered his head, a head the size of a small cottage, to Jo’s level. His golden-orange eyes gleamed moistly, and little puffs of poisonous mist plumed from his nostrils.
It was the first time Jo had ever really seen the dragon, and even the pain in her back and lungs retreated in the face of her sudden terror. Nothing could have prepared her for this sight. Nothing could have prepared her for facing Verdilith.