So it seemed. With foreknowledge of what was fated to happen, perhaps. He could feel it in his bones.
In moments the Straken Lord descended astride his dragon. The great beast seemed even larger from this new perspective, coming down like a mountainside and landing with an impact that shook the ground and reverberated across the grasslands. Its face was ruined on one side, its eye gone and the pit ragged and raw. Steam leaked from its nostrils and maw, huffing out with each breath—an indication of the intensity of the fire that burned in its inner furnace.
But it was the Straken Lord that riveted Railing Ohmsford. The boy had never seen anything like him. He was huge, even when compared with the Trolls with whom he had spent time on their quest for the missing Elfstones. As black as coal, with spikes sticking out all over his powerful body, he had the look of something conjured in a nightmare and brought to life. He was holding a huge black scepter, and his eyes were fixed on the witch wraith.
Railing could hear the calls of his companions, frantic now, warning both Mirai and himself to run, but he paid them no attention. Instead, he moved forward, skirting the hull of the airship so that he had a clear view of both the dragon and the witch. He watched as Tael Riverine slid down the dragon’s scaly hide to a carefully lifted foreleg that waited to lower him to the ground and advanced on the witch.
“I sense your presence!” he roared. “My Queen-to-be, my promised gift! Where are you?”
“I stand before you, Tael Riverine,” the ghost-white witch replied, her voice ringing out.
The Straken Lord stopped where he was, staring. “Do not lie to me, crone. Reveal her!”
“No one lies to you. No one trifles with your foolish dreams. This is what you wished for. Now you have your wish. What will you do with me?”
“You are not her! What sort of game is this? I feel her to be close! You hide her somewhere!”
The anger he was experiencing was evident in his voice, raw and edged with bitterness. He was advancing again, drawing nearer to her. Railing thought that if she spoke again with words that displeased him, he would use his iron staff to smash her into the earth.
But the witch seemed unperturbed, still standing in place, calmly watching him draw near.
“Long ago, you took me prisoner and collared me like an animal,” she hissed at him. “You tried to discover the extent of my powers. You tried to make me your Queen so that I would bear your children. You failed. I escaped. I returned to my own world and found a place in it where I could forget you and your dark plans. But even though decades have passed and things you cannot begin to comprehend have changed, you still cling to your foolish dream. You still think to make me yours.”
She gestured expansively, arms flinging wide, particles of frost and ice flying into the air about her like a miniature storm. “Well, Tael Riverine, here I am. Don’t you want me?”
“You are not Grianne Ohmsford!” The other screamed it as if it were a personal affront, as if it had been deliberately planned to thwart his purposes and deprive him of his due.
Behind him, the dragon stamped the earth and breathed fire onto the grasslands, setting patches of vegetation aflame. The Jarka Ruus surged backward in response, stumbling over one another in an effort to remain safely clear. Smoke from the dragon-fire rolled across the plains in black clouds.
“Well, in that you are both right and wrong,” replied the witch. “I am here and I am not here. The truth is beyond you, and my patience with this business is at an end. Since you do not wish for me after all, I can admit that I want nothing of you, either. But one of us must give way and I think it must be you. What I want matters most.”
Was he seeing things, Railing wondered, or was the witch wraith growing larger? “We should go,” Mirai whispered in his ear, taking hold of his arm and pulling on it.
“You beg for your life, do you?” Tael Riverine stood rock-still not six yards away from her.
The witch laughed. “I beg for nothing. What I need, I will take. And what I will take is your place as ruler of the Jarka Ruus.”
For a long few seconds, the Straken Lord stared at the apparition, attempting in vain to take her measure. In the vast sweep of the plains, where even an army of hundreds of thousands could not manage to fill the emptiness, Tael Riverine might have recognized the danger. But the demon’s life had been long and hard and filled with other dangers, and his pride convinced him that this was just one more.