“She says,” Zeb panted, “that we should get away from here and regroup in the house where we camped last night. From there we will decide what to do next.”
“How far is that?” Claudja asked.
“Just across the open area. The three-story on the corner to the south and west.”
The party filed into the tower, Tilda again with her bow raised though her chest and arms were already sore. Not so much from Zeb crashing into her, but more from the score or so of bow shots she had taken in a matter of minutes.
Nothing interfered with them in the tower and Nesha-tari led the way outside again at a run, heading for the footbridge over the snaking ditch through the blasted palace grounds. The others ran with her, grouping closer together than was probably wise, but all feeling nervous.
Something dark and massive arose from the ground to the east of the party, throwing a great shadow across the morning sun. Tilda felt its touch like an icy hand and the strength went out of her legs. Party members were falling to the ground, and she was one of them.
The same titanic roar that had shaken all of Vod’Adia awake on the first night after the Opening sounded again, though this time it came from much closer, and it was aimed. A heavy wave of sound pressed Tilda into the dirt and dust and she lay beneath it shuddering, for surely nothing could stand in the face of it.
Chapter Forty-One
The noxious stench of Danavod’s breath washed over Nesha-tari Hrilamae, flapping her cloak and the tattered legs of her trousers. Dust blew over her bare feet but the servant of Blue Akroya leaned into the maelstrom. At least it was not the Dragon’s full breath weapon, for just as Akroya could cast lightning from his maw Danavod could spit acid. Probably enough to turn the party and the ground around them to a soupy puddle.
The party would have been unable to avoid it, for apart from Nesha-tari and Uriako Shikashe everyone had flattened to the ground. Even the samurai had stumbled to one knee. Nesha-tari kept her feet only because this was not her first time in the presence of Greatness.
“Danavod!” she cried when the wind subsided. The Black Dragon was a mountain before her, an even darker black than the stone city all around. “I am Nesha-tari Hrilamae, the favored servant of your Brother, the Azure One! Desist!”
Danavod growled from deep in her stomach, the rumble oozing out of her maw along with tendrils of smoke. Her voice came from no particular location.
“Your affiliation avails you not, if you have come against me on Akroya’s orders.”
Nesha-tari’s blue eyes blinked. “I have not. Nor am I against you at all! I came only for these people.” Nesha-tari threw out a hand toward where the Circle Wizard and the Duchess huddled on the ground in the midst of the party, the lot of them cringing like mice. “It was your own Shugak who sent me to stop this Wizard, while Akroya sent me to slay an Ayonite who sought the capture of this woman.”
“You did not stop the Wizard,” Danavod’s disembodied voice boomed. “He has been unto the Node, and it is disturbed.”
There was a grunt from Uriako Shikashe. The samurai was back on his feet, though still hunched over in the Dragon’s shadow. His two swords were in his two hands.
“Shikashe, sit!” Nesha-tari shouted at him, but he either did not understand or just chose to remain swaying on his feet. Fortunately Danavod was not paying him any heed. The Dragon lowered her great head to fill the space in front of Nesha-tari.
“Do you deny helping this Wizard come unto the Node?” Danavod growled, both in her words and from the wall of swords that were her poniard teeth. Nesha-tari shuddered but stood her ground.
“I do,” she said through her own clenched teeth. “I dragged him away from the place before he had cast any spell, or worked any sort of magic.”
Danavod’s lifeless black eyes were like huge pearls, yet there was a knowingness within them.
“Then I shall not slay thee myself, Nesha-tari Hrilamae. Though I shall not make the same promise for others.”
The Dragon rose on her hind legs, spread her wings, and released another shattering roar. Uriako went flat on his back and Nesha-tari sat down hard. The massive Dragon threw herself high into the air and the sun was blocked out by a gray hurricane of dust raised by her beating wings. Nesha-tari still heard the Dragon’s voice though she could no longer see her.
“Leave this place if you can Nesha-tari, and return to your Master. Your fate is in your own hands, and your blood is not on mine.”
The Dragon rose high over the palace and rent a hole in the mist high above as she left Vod’Adia. Nesha-tari saw a patch of blue sky for only a moment, before the vaporous seal closed around it.
The ground was ringing under hobnailed boots, and hobgoblins sounded horns. Nesha-tari peered through the settling dust and saw two groups of them, one coming through the tower from the palace, and another charging across the open ground from the west. There were dozens of the hulking Magdetchoi in either band.
Nesha-tari got back to her feet and she was the only one to do so yet, for the others were only starting to shake themselves from under blankets of thick gray dust, hacking and spitting. Nesha-tari could have left them, and made her own way for the gate. Not long ago, that is exactly what she would have done. But she looked at Heggenauer, the human priest that had stood for her against a grinning devil. She hated the man thoroughly at the moment, cursed him under her breath, then summoned her magic to her hands and unleashed crackling blue lightning from them both, one bolt arcing toward either group of onrushing hobgoblins.
*
Balan stood atop the dais with his arms folded and a deep frown on his face, sparks clicking off the floor as he tapped his silver-shod hoof. Poltus hovered in the air, drifting from one curving platinum pillar to the next, red eyes sharp and focused.
“Well?” Balan asked, speaking loudly as there was a good deal of groaning from the wounded hobgoblins spread around the room as they tried to staunch wounds and bandage themselves. It was going to take a number of Spiny Devils quite some time to clean up in here.
“I cannot tell, my Lord,” Poltus admitted. “The gate appears no different than it ever has.”
“Poltus, we both saw that bushy-headed monkey disappear and reappear. And these things have never made a noise like that before.”
“Clearly it did work for that particular human,” Poltus acknowledged. “I am saying that, as far as I can tell, the condition of the gate does not seem to have changed, despite being used.”
Wide wings beat the air and Balan turned to see Uella soar into the central tower from the hall by which Nesha-tari and her band had fled. Unlike the little Spiny Devils the wings of the succubus were not ornamental, and Uella pumped hers fiercely as she skimmed the floor, pulled sharply up, and settled on the dais next to Balan.
“Did she kill them?” Balan asked. Uella blinked for a moment.
“Danavod? No, she flew away. Out of the city. Her hobgoblins are still chasing them, though.”
“What was all the roaring then?”
Uella shrugged, glancing with little interest at Poltus as the devil studied the gate posts while rubbing its sharp little chin.
“She yelled at your girlfriend for a while, but then she just flew away. So can we use this gate for anything?”
Uella stepped to one pillar and rapped her knuckles against it, getting only a dull sound from the metal. Balan sighed, put his hoof on Uella’s hip, and shoved her between the pillars. Uella squealed and went down on the other side in a flurry of silk brocade and leathery wings.
“It would not appear so,” Poltus said.
Uella glared red murder after Balan but he was already walking for the hall. Poltus hovered beside him as he descended the dais stairs.