Whisper of Venom

Yet Medrash’s instincts told him it wasn’t going to be enough. Skuthosiin had gashes and punctures all over his prodigious body, but they weren’t slowing him down. He seemed to fell an adversary with every snap of his fangs, snatch of his talons, or swing of his tail, and when he managed another burst of poison breath, he was apt to kill several at once. To make the situation even more dire, a couple of the ash giant shamans had shaken off their debility, some of the hulking barbarian warriors had retreated into the heart of Ashhold, and they were all making a stand with their dragon chieftain.

Medrash reached out to Torm. As on his previous attempts, he failed to make contact. Even though he felt like his thoughts had cleared, his injury seemed to hinder his spiritual gifts just as it had paralyzed his body.

It occurred to him that he was likely dying. In other circumstances, that might not have dismayed him. But now it felt like failure. Like he’d be abandoning Balasar and the others.

He groped uselessly in the void. Then a familiar figure crouched over him. “Patrin?” he croaked.

The newcomer’s eyes widened in surprise, and Medrash realized he’d been mistaken. The fellow was younger and thi

“I’m … I’m not him,” the newcomer said.

“I see that now,” said Medrash. “Go. Fight. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not him,” the youth repeated, “but the wind whispered to me. It said that now the god needs me to be his champion in this place. It told me to heal you. But I don’t know how!”

Even with his body broken and useless, Medrash felt a twinge of repugnance at the thought of accepting any boon from a dragon god. But he was far too desperate to pay it any heed.

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said. “Now reach out to Bahamut with your mind. You just have to concentrate and believe the Power will come. And be ready when it does. Sometimes-”

The newly anointed paladin cried out. A cold, stinging Power burst out of his hands and surged through Medrash, sharpening his thoughts and washing the deadness out of his limbs. Which brought a certain amount of pain, because the magic didn’t entirely heal his burns and bruises. But he so rejoiced in the return of sensation that even discomfort was a kind of joy.

The dragon-worshiper’s eyes rolled up into his head. He toppled sideways.

Medrash sat up and caught the unconscious youth, then laid him gently on the ground. He wished he could put him somewhere safer, but with Skuthosiin slaughtering dragonborn every moment, there wasn’t time. Besides, nowhere in Ashhold was truly safe, nor would be until the fight was won.

He stood up and found his fallen sword, then tried to assess how much mystical Power remained to him. To his surprise, he had plenty. Bahamut had left him some blisters and scrapes, but had evidently refreshed his paladin gifts.

A Daardendrien warrior with a broken leg lay in front of Skuthosiin. Jaws open wide, the green dragon’s head arced down at him.

Medrash shouted, “Torm!” The world blurred for an instant as he switched places with his injured kinsman.

Sidestepping, he slashed at the side of the dragon’s head as it plunged by. He missed the slit-pupiled yellow eye, but his blade split the scaly hide beneath.

Skuthosiin whipped his head up high, almost snatching the sword from Medrash’s grip. But he held on tight, and, slinging drops of gore, the blade pulled out of the wound instead.

Skuthosiin glared down at him, and the spiritual deformity that made him profoundly if indefinably hideous seemed to concentrate in his gaze. Perhaps it was supposed to make Medrash avert his eyes, or to churn his guts with nausea, but it did neither. It only made him even more determined to destroy the threat to his people once and for all.

“I don’t care how many little gods you have propping you up!” the dragon snarled. “My lady is the only one that matters!”

“Prove it,” Medrash said. He raised his sword, and white light blazed from the blade. Skuthosiin recoiled. Medrash dashed forward to strike while the wyrm was still dazzled. Other warriors did the same.

Aoth had tattoos to blunt pain and avert shock. To keep him awake and active even when wounded. Sprawled inside Alasklerbanbastos’s rib cage, he released their power.

And that was all he did. He didn’t know how badly he was hurt-badly, he suspected-but he was sure he couldn’t withstand another blast of the dracolich’s breath. His only hope was to lie motionless and convince Alasklerbanbastos he was dead already.

Just look away, he thought, watching the Great Bone Wyrm through slitted eyes. There are dozens of people beating on you and trying to kill you. Look around at them.

Alasklerbanbastos’s head whipped away. Then Tchazzar crashed down on him like an avalanche.

Nala tried to avoid conflict as she skulked around the edges of the battle. It wasn’t too difficult. With Skuthosiin and various giants to fight, her fellow dragonborn tended to overlook her. Which was fortunate, because she needed to make haste.

Impossible though it seemed, she could tell that the tide had turned against her master. Probably realizing it, he had at one point spread his wings to take to the air. But, chanting in unison, three of the vanquisher’s wizards had created a web of blue light that covered the center of Ashhold like a lid on a jar.

The barrier at least kept the Lance Defenders on their bats from harrying Skuthosiin any further. But in Nala’s judgment, they weren’t really the problem. Nor, for all their power, were the mages. Nor the common warriors, jabbing and hacking with dogged determination. It was Medrash. The paladin was exalted, fighting like one of the dragon-killing rebels in the tales of treason and blasphemy that made up the history of their people.

Nala had to strike him down and make it stick. Then Skuthosiin could still prevail, and would unquestionably know whom to reward for his victory.

She could smite Medrash with the Five Breaths as she had the redspawn devastator. He wouldn’t get back up from that. She just needed a clear path between them, but with combatants scrambling and pushing one another back and forth, that wasn’t easy to come by.

Yet finally she found it. Wishing she still had the wyrmkeeper regalia she’d discarded-she didn’t actually need it, but it would have made the magic easier-she raised her shadow-wood staff, focused her thoughts, and took a deep breath.

Then a jolt stabbed through her torso from back to front. She looked down and saw a finger-length of bloody blade protruding from her chest.

The pointed steel jerked backward and disappeared. She crumpled to her knees. Balasar stepped into view and gri

“My feelings are hurt,” he said. “Why would you think you ought to kill Medrash ahead of me? I’m the clever one. I tricked you into letting me into your filthy cult, didn’t I? And I spotted you slinking around tonight and did a little sneaking of my own.”

She struggled to wheeze out a curse, but couldn’t manage it.

“Ah well,” he continued, “I forgive you the injury to my pride. And now, much as I’d like to stay and chat with such a lovely lady, I have a dragon to butcher.”

Yes, she thought, go. She’d find the strength to heal herself. She’d rise up like Medrash did. And how he, his clan brother, and all Tymanther would regret it when she did!

Then Balasar aimed his point at her heart, and she realized he had no intention of leaving her alive.

Aoth had been in many bizarre and dangerous places in his hundred years of life, but few stranger or more perilous than inside the body of one dragon when it was fighting another.