“Ssssooooooo,” Verdilith hissed in a long drawl, “you are the foolish successor to foolish Flinn?” An amber eye flickered to the sword, dangling in Verdilith’s good claw. Even beyond her grasp, the sword seemed to whisper have faith to Jo. Heeding the words, she tapped the anger inside her—her only hope to fight off the terror of his presence. This fiend killed Flinn! she shouted to herself. You must avenge that death, broken bones be damned!
The dragon’s tongue tested the air, and droplets of green spittle splashed at Jo’s feet. “Your magicks and your sword are too feeble to defeat me,” Verdilith continued. The words sounded clipped and strangely alien to Jo, as if they were coming from a great distance instead of the few steps that separated Jo and her foe. “Your precious Flinn proved that. Your attacks now prove that. Your comrades are dead, and so are you.” The dragon opened his jaws, revealing rows of deadly, spearlike teeth.
He dropped Wyrmblight before her.
“Go, ahead,” he seethed. “Take the sword. Kill me if you can.”
Jo grappled the blade, struggling to clutch its hilt with her weary hands. Finally securing her hold, she raised the sword and thrust it toward the dragon’s head.
With something akin to a purr, Verdilith lowered his face toward the sword and rubbed it lovingly along his jaw. The keen, hot edge of steel lightly sliced into the tender facial skin of the dragon, hissing as blood poured slowly onto it. A spark of pain appeared for a moment in Verdilith’s massive eyes, but quickly transformed into a dull glow of pleasure. Jo wrenched fiercely at the blade, trying to redirect it toward the dragon’s throat. Wyrmblight swung about, leveling toward the creature’s throat, but Verdilith caught it lightly between his massive teeth.
Without releasing his bite, the dragon murmured, “A mere shaving implement, this.” He stared mirthlessly at Johauna, his golden eyes narrowing. Despite the dragon’s words, despite his apparent lack of concern about the blade, Jo saw a moment of fear in those great, slitted eyes. He blinked it away, and the wound on his face gently dripped blood onto the stone beside her. “Why need I destroy a shaving implement?” Verdilith continued, his voice strangely tense. “Especially, when I can destroy its bearer?”
“To arms, children of stone! To arms!” came the ragged shout of Braddoc Briarblood from some distance behind the dragon. As Verdilith whirled his huge head toward the call, a thud of metal sounded.
Verdilith shrieked.
In the same moment, a roaring funnel of wind suddenly formed in the cavern. It grew rapidly, swirling to one side of the cave, some distance away. Johauna wondered if Karleah would be able to control the air elemental in time to actually threaten Verdilith.
Whether or not she could, Jo’s time was at hand.
Scrambling unsteadily to her feet, she charged the beast’s exposed breast. Her gray eyes flashed with anger and dread anticipation as she pulled Wyrmblight back for the killing blow. “For Flinn!” Jo lunged unevenly with the blade, letting her stumbling body impart its force to the attack. Still, it was a weak thrust at best, and misdirected, but the sword shone suddenly bright in its path. It glanced off the scales of the creature’s breast and dug into the dragon’s crippled left claw. White mist from the blade clung to the raw wound and turned red.
The dragon screamed again. He reared, his massive wings flapping wildly to help him keep his balance. Jo dropped to the ground, shielding herself from the buffeting wind. Karleah’s wind funnel swept closer, nullifying the winds from Verdilith’s wings.
Braddoc, axe glinting in hand, landed a solid blow on the wyrm’s wounded side. Verdilith seemed oblivious, gnawing his wounded arm in blind rage. Retreating from the creature’s thrashing tail, Karleah stepped amongst a forest of rock columns. From there she directed the wind tunnel toward the dragon. In moments, it engulfed him, pummeling him with coins and gems and dust.
With supple, wicked grace, Verdilith swung his head back toward Jo and hissed, his voice rumbling deep and low through the long, twisted neck. “You’ve earned my hatred, squire! You and that accursed blade are no more!”
Jo blinked the dust from her eyes and tried to see beyond Karleah’s tornado. One moment, he was a dim outline in the swirling storm, the next, he was gone altogether. Then, as quickly as it had come, the tornado vanished. A harsh hail of coins and gems followed for some moments afterward, leaving only a drifting cloud of sand, glittering in Karleah’s magical light.
There was no sign of the dragon.
Stunned, Karleah and Braddoc stared back at Jo from across the empty hall.
The squire slumped to the ground, the strength gone from her body. She clutched Wyrmblight in her arms. Braddoc and Karleah raced toward her, the dwarf reaching her first. He knelt by Jo’s side and smoothed tousled hair and grit from her face.
“Johauna!” Braddoc said urgently. “You’re hurt!”
Karleah knelt beside the dwarf and said testily, “Well, of course she’s hurt! She took the full effects of my most powerful missile spell—a spell, I might add, that would likely have killed Verdilith in his condition.” The old woman tapped the silver-and-gold medallion on Jo’s chest. “It’s nice to know this thing works, dear. You’d have been dead otherwise.”
Jo smiled feebly, but was too weak to respond further. I may not have died then, she thought, but I’m about to die soon. She looked at Karleah’s suddenly frowning face.
“When Wyrmblight intercepted my magic, the spell somehow rebounded on the dwarf and me,” Karleah explained. She began gently prodding Jo’s body, and every now and then Jo gasped in pain. “We couldn’t move; we were paralyzed,” Karleah continued. “We saw and heard everything, fortunately. Only after we were gassed by that behemoth were we freed.” Karleah jerked her thumb toward Braddoc, who held up his amulet, and said, “There again we were lucky.”
“How are you, Johauna?” the dwarf asked. “Where does it hurt?”
“My back … and lungs,” Jo whispered, the stabbing pains in her lungs forcing her to take shallow breaths. “Never … mind me. What … about … Verdilith?” Karleah glanced at Braddoc, who returned the old woman’s look. Then Karleah looked away, and Braddoc turned to Jo. “I’m afraid he got away, Johauna,” the dwarf said slowly. “He turned to mist and … disappeared.”
Jo closed her eyes. I’m going to die, Wyrmblight, she thought to the sword. I’m going to die, and I haven’t avenged Flinn’s death, and I won’t live to see Verdilith’s death. She pulled the blade closer to her, her fingers unconsciously seeking the four sigils. Perhaps I can fall asleep and then die without so much pain, she thought as a heavy darkness descended on her.
Jo felt consciousness begin to slip away. The pain retreated, taking with it Jo’s hopes and needs, dreams and desires. She fought against the gentle insistence surrounding her. Give up the sword, whispered her mind. Give up avenging Flinn’s death. Your time has come to depart from this world. Jo fought against the words. “No!” she shouted. In the indistinct blackness that closed around her, she ran, her soul suddenly given form. She waved her arms wildly, trying to ward off the insistent thoughts of defeat hammering at her.
“Flinn! Flinn!” she called frantically. “Wyrmblight, where are you? Where is Flinn?”
Then, somehow, he was walking toward her in a vision, a glowing figure surrounded by the blackness of death. He was whole and hale again, and seemed younger than Jo had ever seen him. A smile lingered on his lips beneath his dark moustache, and there was only a little iron streaking the black hair. The scars across his face were barely visible. Flinn held his hands out to her, palms upward. Jo looked up from them, across his broad chest now clothed in his midnight-blue tunic from the Order of the Three Suns, and on to his dark eyes. They were shining down at her, and Jo felt her heart break. He had never seemed more beautiful or more majestic.