Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

Persephone stole an awful glance at Arion just as Moya and the dwarfs knelt beside her body.

Persephone put her arms around Suri and held her tight, rocking with her. The mystic reached out and squeezed back, burying her face in Persephone’s chest. She wept and wailed, her body jerking violently.

Then she paused, took a breath. “I had to…” Her face still buried, her voice muffled. “It had to be a sacrifice. That’s what Arion told me. I…I…” She fell back into sobs.

Moya came running back, searching for the two of them with the glow of the stone.

“Over here,” Persephone called.

Moya ran over breathing hard. “The dragon isn’t doing as well as before. Balgargarath tossed it a couple of times like a basket of leaves. I hope this name thing works.”

“What about Arion?” Persephone asked, bracing for the news.

“Not sure,” Moya said. “She’s weak, real weak. Unconscious, but I think she’ll live. She’s exhausted, you know? Blown out. The dwarfs are carrying her over.” Moya paused and looked down at Suri. “How is she?”

“Bad.”

“What happened to her? Where did all the blood come from?” Moya asked.

Suri jerked at the sound of Moya’s words. “She loved me. She loved me, and I loved her. I loved her, and I killed her.”

Moya’s eyes narrowed. Then she looked around, shocked. She focused on Persephone and mouthed the word, No.

Persephone nodded.

“She was my best friend,” Suri cried, “my sister, and now she’s gone.”

—

Suri started a fire, and everyone placed the tips of their metal weapons into it, heating the blades. Brin lay on the floor with the tablet to one side and the wooden spears to the other. With her hands wrapped in cloth, she burned symbols onto the shafts—delicate work, requiring care to prevent the wood from catching on fire.

“Thank Mari, the name is just one row,” Brin said. Holding her tongue between her teeth, she finished the last symbol.

Roan took the shaft and compared the markings with the ones on the tablet. Then she ran a finger over the four feathered flights mounted near the rear.

Even before Roan nodded her approval, Brin busily worked on the next spear.

With the brilliant light of the fire and the eerie gleam of the glowstones, the two behemoths were clearly visible. They battled at the doorway. Balgargarath had been shoved out, and the dragon guarded the entrance. The demon’s attacks were fierce, and on two occasions, the dragon had been driven back into the Agave, but each time she managed to push Balgargarath back out.

Earlier, Persephone had thought the two creatures were mindless beasts, each obsessed with the destruction of the other. But there was no doubt the dragon was working to protect them. She found it impossible not to notice the familiar way the dragon dipped her head and hunched her shoulders. When she did, the great beast’s wings would rise slightly, like fur, then the dragon would roar and pounce. Once, when Balgargarath came too close, the dragon flew up and sank all four sets of claws into the goat-legged beast, biting at the back of the horned monster’s neck. When she had a good grip, she hauled the demon away with great gusts from her wings and then threw Balgargarath out through the crack once more. Yet for all the combat, for all the strikes and blows, Balgargarath displayed no wounds and didn’t appeared any weaker.

The dragon was a different story.

By the time Brin finished putting the symbols on the first spear, the dragon was favoring her right side, and one wing drooped lower than the other.

The weave might be indestructible, but it could fray.

“Is that all the spears we have?” Persephone asked.

“Yes,” Roan replied.

Including the little wooden javelins, Roan had everything she carried nested around her knees in neat piles for quick retrieval. Persephone noted a ball of twisted plant-fiber string, another ball of thread twisted from wool, and two tiny blades of sharpened knives held together with leather that Roan called clippers. Beside them were several strips of willow bark—the sort that fever tea was made from; a bone needle; three leaves—one oak, two maple; a handful of shriveled berries; a hat Roan never wore; three round stones; a bit of black charcoal; a short stick burned on one end and beaten on the other; and one stunningly beautiful glazed clay cup with delicate loop handles on either side. How it hadn’t been broken was a mystery to ponder on another day, assuming Persephone would see one again.

Of the six little spears, four had feathers, and two of those had rows of finished markings. The other two lacked any improvements, being just small, wooden, stone-tipped spears. The dwarfs stood beside Persephone and Moya, fixated on the battle across the room, while the mystic and the Fhrey sat together oblivious. Arion lay with her head resting on Suri’s lap. She was still breathing, but that was all.

With a vicious punch, Balgargarath knocked the dragon aside and lunged once more into the chamber. Everyone flinched, and both Frost and Flood staggered backward and nearly fell. The demon managed only two massive steps before the dragon was on it again. Teeth bit into an ankle, and the dragon jerked the demon back toward the door the way a dog might play with a rag.

“We need to hurry,” Persephone said. “Brin, how much longer?”

“Almost done.”

“Suri.” Persephone turned to the mystic. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to make a run for it. Do you think you can…is it possible to talk…can you tell Minna to draw Balgargarath away from the door?”

At the sound of the name, new tears slipped free of Suri’s eyes, but she held herself together. Suri shook her head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I can try.”

Persephone nodded, and picking up the two blank, nonfeathered shafts that lay beside Roan, she handed them to Moya, who already had the bow strung. “Here, looks like you’re only going to get four with feathers, so practice with these.”

No one questioned that Moya would do the shooting. She was the most athletic, and the bow was too tall for the dwarfs’ height and the draw too long for their shorter arms. She was also the only one with experience.

Moya nodded. Fitting the first spear, she drew it back across her chest. She made an unpleasant face, adjusted the position of the shaft on the string, and did it again—letting the tip of the spear rest on the thumb that held the bow. “Hand me Roan’s charcoal.”

Moya took it and made a mark on the string where the shaft needed to be placed to keep it level when drawn. She tossed the charcoal away, refit the little spear, drew it back, and aimed at Balgargarath.

“Don’t!” Persephone yelled. “Not yet. Shoot somewhere else. I don’t want it to know.”

“Are you serious?”