The lion loosed a roar in Gabriel’s face, and Gabriel roared back, stepping cautiously to his right in an effort to draw it away from Matrick, who looked to have passed out from shock. The chimera lunged, and Gabe leapt clear of the lion’s jaws, then slashed at the dragon’s head when it came close. His sword, too dull to be effective, glanced harmlessly off the armouring scales.
Clay could see that the effort required to swing the weapon was already taking its toll. Gabriel managed to ward off another thrust of the dragon’s head, but one of the beast’s huge paws took him by surprise and sent him tumbling face-first onto the sand. He rolled onto his back, but before he could rise it pinned him down. The armour kept him from being crushed, but its wicked talons punched through. Gabriel cried out once, but then suddenly his limbs went stiff. His sword fell from fingers that could no longer grasp the hilt.
Paralyzed, Clay realized. As if this monster didn’t have enough methods of murder at its disposal, it could also leave you helpless in case it would rather murder you later.
“Aha!” Moog pulled a wand from his bag, or rather a gnarled twig wrapped in bronze wire that Clay sure as hell hoped was a wand. The chimera, having decided that Gabriel was no longer a threat, turned on the wizard. It roared and flexed its wings again. The thick cords of rope that bound them groaned, but held. By then Moog was pointing the wand, and as the beast sprang at him he shouted something incomprehensible. There was a crack that drew a silent breath from thirty-thousand people, and an arc of white lightning leapt from the bronze-wire wand. It hit the lion between the eyes, dissipating instantly. The beast shuddered, dazed but not dead. Its front legs went out from beneath it even as Clay climbed groggily to his own and stumbled toward the wizard.
Ganelon might have killed it then, but the dragon head was still alert. It belched another stream of fire, and the warrior was forced to leap away.
“Ha!” Moog made a flourish with the wand, basking for a moment in the adulation of the crowd. He did look pretty impressive, Clay supposed—resplendent in borrowed robes, his wispy white hair shimmering like sun-warmed silk. As Clay drew near, the wizard glanced over, grinning. “Watch this!” he said, and what happened next might have been extraordinarily funny were their lives not at stake.
But they were, so it wasn’t.
Chapter Twenty-three
Born to Kill
Moog levelled the wand like a knight marking a foe with the point of his sword. He spoke the words that invoked his spell, and a bolt of lightning bridged the space between the bronze-wire wand and the dragon’s head. This time the lightning crackled harmlessly over the creature’s metallic scales. The bridge remained intact, a buzzing filament linking Moog to a powerful current of conjured electricity. The wizard’s body jolted once—his fringe of long white hair blew out like the crown of a dandelion gone to seed—and then he collapsed in a heap, unconscious.
Clay slowed, then stopped. He stood dumbstruck as the absurdity of what he’d just witnessed washed over him. Three down, he thought morbidly. Two to go.
He heard Ganelon shout his name, glanced over his shoulder to see the chimera bearing down on him. With his left hand Clay slashed out, scoring the dragon’s snout with the point of his sword. He brought Blackheart to bear as the lion rushed in after. Its teeth gnashed against the face of his shield, pushing him backward. Out of instinct alone Clay turned his momentum into a roll, narrowly avoiding the swipe of a taloned paw. On his knees, he deflected another claw, then another attack by the lion. When the dragon struck he was ready, angling Blackheart so that the shield wedged itself in the serpent’s mouth. Before it could wrench itself free he jammed his sword to the hilt in the side of its neck.
The scales split with an echoing ring. Blood frothed warm over his hand. The dragon shrieked and his shield came free, but Clay lost his grip on his sword as the head retreated. Hopelessly off balance, he stumbled almost out of the chimera’s reach. But only almost.
He felt its razor claws slash through the back of his leather cuirass. There was pain for a moment, replaced quickly by an ice-cold numbness. The muscles in his legs spasmed, and Clay pitched forward onto the sand. Like Gabriel, he managed to roll onto his back, but the shadow of the beast fell upon him as he did. He saw teeth as long as his arm, a pebbled pink tongue, and beyond both, the black oblivion of the lion’s gaping maw. Its breath gusted over him, rank as a rotting carcass, and Clay kept his eyes open as death’s door yawned in welcome.
All at once the crowd went berserk; the chimera’s two remaining heads howled in anguish, and death’s door slammed shut in Clay’s face.
Ganelon had cut its tail off, or so Clay discovered as the creature spun to face the warrior and he saw the severed stalk thrashing behind it. The chimera’s claws hadn’t cut him deep, but even still his limbs felt sluggish. He could open and close his fingers, but bending his elbow, or commanding his legs to help him stand, was out of the question. It would be several minutes before he could wrest control of his extremities from the toxin’s grip, and by then it would be too late.
So he could only watch, as much a spectator as those looking on from the stands, or from the skyships wheeling like vultures in the blue sky, as Ganelon faced down the chimera alone. As is fitting, Clay supposed, since the two of them shared a similar, singular quality: They had both been born to kill.
The dragon’s head appeared unfazed by the sword in its throat. It darted in and Ganelon sidestepped, bashing it senseless with the flat of his axe, then hammered it twice more before the lion came to its rescue. The warrior ducked under the jaws and rolled beneath it, punching the pointed tip of Syrinx up into the creature’s belly. The chimera staggered away before he could do any serious damage. Ganelon pressed the attack, and the monster retreated, roaring defiantly, buying time for the dragon’s head to recover.
It did so suddenly, lunging at the warrior’s left side even as a barbed paw swatted at his right. Ganelon turned his weapon sideways, jamming the haft into the creature’s palm, while the sweeping blades kept the dragon at bay. When the lion came at him he kicked it hard in the snout, stunning it, then launched himself at the dragon’s head. He grasped one of the jutting spines at its collar and hauled himself up as if mounting a horse. From his perch the claws couldn’t reach him, nor could the lion’s teeth.
He has it, thought Clay. Ganelon’s going to kill it, and we’ll be free. Free to go and die far, far to the west. But not here. Not today.
The chimera knew it, too. The dragon screamed, the lion bellowed bloody fury—the desperate cry of a predator overcome by its prey. Its claws raked furrows in the sand as Ganelon raised his axe. Its wings strained against the ropes that bound them …
… and the ropes snapped.
Spring Maiden’s Mercy. Clay’s toxin-addled mind was having trouble reconciling what he saw. Wings like black sails unfurled against the sky, billowing once before stretching taut. There was a muted silence as the crowd grappled with the terrible implications of a chimera in flight, and an instant later their terror took shape. The flap of draconic wings sent dust swirling across the arena floor. Cloven hooves kicked free of the earth, and the beast was airborne.