Whisper of Venom

But as soon as it ended, the red dragon spewed a blast of flame. It cracked some of Alasklerbanbastos’s naked bones, sent chips of them flying, and jolted the dracolich backward.

Tchazzar instantly sprang high and lashed his wings. He plainly meant to pounce on top of his foe before the Great Bone Wyrm recovered.

Unfortunately, Alasklerbanbastos was more resilient than expected. He lifted his head, stared at Tchazzar, and the glow in his eye sockets flared.

Aoth remembered how the dracolich’s gaze had paralyzed him. Tchazzar merely seemed to twitch in midleap. But perhaps that was enough to impair his agility, for Alasklerbanbastos dodged out from under his adversary’s claws. And when the war hero came down, the dracolich met him with a clattering sweep of his bony tail.

The blow caught Tchazzar across the side of the head and bashed him stumbling to the side. Alasklerbanbastos backed away, opening up the distance, and hissed words of power.

A web of shadows seethed into being. It covered Tchazzar like a net, and wherever it touched him, scales sloughed away and the flesh beneath them withered.

With all his might, he should have been able to break free. But as he gathered himself to try, Alasklerbanbastos snarled another spell.

Tchazzar roared, then thrashed wildly, as a beast would struggle against a net without truly comprehending what it was. Without intellect to guide it, raw strength wasn’t enough to snap the strands, and they rotted their way deeper into his body.

Like the paralysis, the red dragon’s frenzied confusion only lasted a heartbeat. Then he stopped his useless flailing. But at the same moment, Alasklerbanbastos spat another bolt of lightning.

Tchazzar went rigid, then slumped when the flare blinked out of existence. He kept on fighting the web, but seemed dazed and too weakened to have any hope of escaping.

Alasklerbanbastos started another spell.

Aoth looked around. Jaxanaedegor and his minions were nowhere near the Great Bone Wyrm. Maybe they hadn’t expected the dracolich to gain the upper hand so quickly and completely. Aoth hadn’t expected it either, even though every soldier knew combat was often like that. A duel between even the greatest warriors could start and end with a single cut.

Anyway, one thing was clear. If Jaxanaedegor hadn’t already started maneuvering to attack, he certainly wasn’t going to do it now.

Aoth supposed he should order the Brotherhood to retreat. Try to get them off the battlefield and out of Chessenta without taking any more casualties.

But then they’d have lost again and further tarnished their reputation. He might never see Cera again. And he could guess what fate awaited a priestess of the sun in a land newly conquered by an undead monstrosity.

To the Abyss with it. It was as reckless as anything Aoth had ever done in Thay, madder than anything he’d ever wanted to do again. But he aimed his spear and sent Jet swooping at the dracolich.

Skuthosiin spewed vapor. Balasar held his breath and squinched his eyes shut. His exposed skin stung even so, but his precautions-or the protective amulet Biri, the pretty young white-scaled mage, had for some reason given him-kept the vapor from rotting his lungs or blinding him.

His poor horse wasn’t as lucky. He felt the animal toppling beneath him. He opened his eyes, dropped his lance, dived out of the saddle, and rolled to his feet. At once he had to jump to keep his mount’s spasmodic legs from kicking him. To either side, other horses lay or rolled convulsing. As did some of their riders. Other dragonborn coughed and retched or swiped tears from their streaming eyes.

Balasar realized he needed to keep Skuthosiin’s attention fixed on him until his fellow survivors recovered the capacity to defend themselves. “I’m still here!” he called to the hideous creature. “You just can’t do anything right, can you?”

Skuthosiin snarled and clawed. Balasar dodged left and then, as the dragon’s foot smashed down and jolted the earth, glimpsed motion at the edge of his vision. He pivoted to find Skuthosiin’s tail whipping at him. By avoiding what amounted to a feint, he’d stepped right into the true attack.

He leaped and folded his legs underneath him. He felt the breeze as the tail whipped by. The blow slammed into his still-thrashing horse, smashing it into shapelessness and smearing parts of it across the ground.

As the tail completed its arc, Khouryn was there to intercept it. Bellowing, he jammed his spear straight down through the tip, nailing it to the ground.

Skuthosiin jerked his extremity free, snapping the point off the weapon in the process. The shaft remained in the wound and wobbled as the tail swirled around.

Many wearing the badges and colors of the Platinum Cadre, other spearmen scrambled after the dwarf. They formed up to attack and fall back as he and the Beast had taught them.

Balasar felt a surge of pride. Skuthosiin was deadly, slaughtering an opponent with almost every moment that passed, but his comrades kept attacking anyway. They came from a race of dragon-killers and were proving themselves worthy descendants of their forebears.

Unfortunately, valor alone didn’t guarantee a victory. Their chances would have been better if Medrash were still in the fight, but something-Balasar hadn’t seen what-had struck his clan brother down an instant after they charged.

Hoping Medrash was still alive, Balasar drew his sword, lifted his battered targe into a high guard, and advanced on Skuthosiin.

Aoth rattled off words of power. A shaft of sunlight that would have done Cera proud shot from the head of his spear. It slashed across Alasklerbanbastos’s skull and stabbed into his eye sockets.

It was powerful magic. Yet the dracolich didn’t even look up, any more than Aoth would have reacted to a buzzing fly when intent on fighting a foe. Still staring at Tchazzar, the Great Bone Wyrm kept on hissing and growling his own incantation.

Aoth’s neck muscles tightened in anger. He cursed, then unlocked the most powerful spell currently stored inside the spear, poured extra force into it, and sent the results streaking from the point in a stream of sparks.

The sparks detonated in rapid succession as they hit the Bone Wyrm’s wings and spine. Each booming, fiery blast jolted him downward like a gigantic boot stamping on his back. A couple of small bones and pieces of bone fell away from his body. He stumbled over the words of his incantation, and Aoth felt the accumulating power dissipate in a useless sizzle.

Let’s see you ignore that, he thought. Then Alasklerbanbastos raised his head and spread his jaws.

Jet lashed his wings, and then the world turned into glare and a pounding bang. It took Aoth an instant to understand that in fact the thunderbolt hadn’t hit them. The griffon had dodged it.

Alasklerbanbastos spread his own wings, gave them a clattering flap, and climbed into the air.

Keep away from him! said Aoth.

Obviously! Jet snapped. He veered, and darts of blue-white light crackled past them.

As they dodged back and forth across the sky, Aoth hurled fire, acid, and every other force that seemed like it might be capable of hurting an undead blue dragon. More often than not, the attacks hit their target. But none of them made Alasklerbanbastos falter for even a heartbeat.

Whereas he only has to hit me once, said Jet.

I know. Aoth looked for Jaxanaedegor and found him hovering far from the action. He peered down at Tchazzar. The red dragon was still writhing under the web of shadows.

A boom jolted him and tumbled Jet end over end, like the griffon was somersaulting. Only his buckled harness held Aoth in the saddle. For a moment, the mind meshed with his own was dull and oblivious, and then, with a screech, the familiar snapped back to full wakefulness. He beat his wings and somehow regained control of his trajectory.