The Spectral Blaze

For his part, Khouryn was happy to escape baking in the late-summer sun and to enjoy the stately, glittering pageant of the moon and stars. It could be his last chance if Tchazzar reacted poorly when they reached Luthcheq.

He contemplated the constellation dwarves knew as the Serpent, with its bright eye, long fangs, and twisting tail. Then someone blew a brassy, long note and a short one on a horn. It was the signal to descend, probably so they could all confer since that was all but impossible in the air. Winged steeds needed too much space between them.

Khouryn sent Iron fluttering down toward an open field. The bat gave a squeal of a

They touched down with a final flutter of leathery wings, then waited for everyone else to do the same. Prax was the next to land, with Medrash and Biri on his back.

Khouryn didn’t know why the paladin had chosen to ride the quicksilver dragon. Maybe he still feared treachery and wanted to be ideally placed to retaliate. The white-scaled wizard was perched behind him because she wasn’t an experienced flyer. No doubt she would have preferred to ride behind Balasar, but it would exhaust a bat to carry two riders over long distances.

When everyone was on the ground, Perra looked to Medrash. “You gave the signal,” she said.

“Yes,” Medrash replied. “I sensed something up ahead. By which I mean, Torm enabled me to sense it.”

“Here we go,” Balasar groaned.

To Khouryn’s surprise, Medrash smiled. “I could almost share your irritation because I used to hope for signs and portents, but they never turn out to be good news, do they?” His face and tone turned serious again. “Something bad is going to happen in Luthcheq very soon. If our goal is to avert a calamity, we need to get there as fast as possible.”

“Our goal is to avert the invasion of Tymanther,” Perra said, “and a disaster in Luthcheq might accomplish that. Still, I take your point.”

“We nearly are to Luthcheq,” Khouryn said. He’d paid attention when he and the dragonborn had marched in the opposite direction.

“I know a spell or two to help us travel faster,” Biri said.

“As do I,” said Prax. He shifted his wings, and they gleamed in the moonlight. “But I can’t cast mine on the entire company, and I imagine yours are the same.”

Perra scowled for a moment, pondering. Then she said, “Sir Medrash, you’ll go on ahead. It’s your premonition, after all. Lady Biri and Sir Praxasalandos will accompany you to speed you on your way. And if the magic can manage so many, Khouryn and Balasar will ride with you as well. The rest of us will catch up as soon as we can.”

Balasar gave Khouryn a look of mock disgust. “I knew we wouldn’t dodge this either,” he said.

Cera kissed Aoth, then stepped far enough away from Jet to give him room to unfurl his wings. The griffon trotted with the uneven gait of his kind and then leaped upward. He and his master vanished into the night sky.

Cera took a long breath and turned toward the Keeper’s temple with its enormous sundial and colo

Then she stepped through the doorway and hands reached out to grab her from either side.

The assailant on her right had her arm gripped tightly, immobilizing her mace. But the one on her left didn’t achieve quite as firm a hold. She screamed, tore free, spun, and hit the man on the right in the teeth with her buckler, putting all her weight behind the blow.

The steel shield clanged. The man let go and reeled backward, and she saw he wore a badge in the shape of a wheel with five S-shaped spokes. A wyrmkeeper, then, or a warrior in their service.

His partner threw his arms around her from behind. She sensed she wouldn’t be able to break free again. But she did manage to shift sideways and jab the butt of the mace backward at groin level.

The man gasped and went rigid. She jabbed him again, and his arms jerked, loosening their hold. She yanked free, whirled, and smashed his nose with the mace. He fell back.

She glanced around, making sure neither man was about to come at her again, then looked to the interior of the temple. A fair number of men, women, and beasts were looking back at her.

It appeared that Tchazzar, Halonya, or someone else still loyal to the Red Dragon had also thought the sunlords might come out and fight. But unlike Cera, that person had moved to prevent it by dispatching wyrmkeepers, ruffians, and a pair of mastiff-sized drakes to round up Amaunator’s clergy and hold them prisoner in their own house of worship. It had likely been easy enough. The intruders had probably had surprise on their side, and while the sunlords all knew magic, including battle prayers, some had little experience in actual combat.

A wyrmkeeper snarled a sibilant word in what was almost certainly Draconic. The golden light of the lamps rippling across their olive green scales, the two drakes charged across the marble floor.

Cera called out to the Keeper, swept her mace over her head, and pointed it at the reptiles. A hedge of bright, whirling blades sprang into existence right in front of them. They were charging too rapidly to stop, and their own momentum flung them in. They tumbled out the other side, shredded and flopping in their death throes.

The blades of light blinked out of existence, and Cera advanced on the rest of her foes. “Surrender or die,” she said.

It was a bluff, of course, and a ridiculous one at that. She’d been lucky, but alone, she had no chance against so many. But if she could rivet all their attention on her, then maybe she wouldn’t be alone for long. If she distracted their captors, her brothers and sisters might seize the opportunity to act.

“Kill her!” a wyrmkeeper spit. Judging from the rings of five colors he wore on each hand, his filed, pointed teeth, and the tattooed scales that covered every inch of exposed skin, he was far advanced in the mysteries of his own order.

Warriors spread out to flank Cera. The wyrmkeeper leader started chanting. She called out to Amaunator and cloaked herself in glare. The defensive measure didn’t dazzle or hurt her own eyes, but if she was lucky, it ought to hinder every one of her foes.

The wyrmkeeper whipped his arm with a motion like a snake or dragon biting. Crackling flame leaped from his long, pointed nails. But Cera jumped sideways, and it missed her by a hair.

Two warriors rushed her. The one on the right yelled, “Tiamat!” She lunged toward them. Maybe they weren’t expecting that because she bulled her way between them without either of them stabbing or slashing her, although one short sword skated along the reinforced leather protecting her side.

She whirled and clubbed madly at their heads while they still had their backs to her. First one then the other fell. She spun back around, and her limbs locked into rigidity.

She recognized the spell and knew it would paralyze her for only a few heartbeats. But that was long enough for one of her remaining foes to drive a pick or a blade into her.

Except just then bright light flared from among the prisoners. Hands clapped to his smoking face, a wyrmkeeper fell down, screaming. Warriors made of golden shimmer appeared between captives and captors. The wyrmkeeper with the filed teeth started another prayer, and two sunlords jumped him and bore him to the ground. Their fists hammered him.

Another ruffian came at Cera, but the commotion had distracted him, and he didn’t quite make it into striking distance before her paralysis fell away. She called the Keeper’s name as she swung her mace, and the god’s power lent force to the blow. It caved in her attacker’s chest.