“Where are your Wyverns, great Khan?” Fletcher shouted. “Did you lose the rest of them on your way back from the ether?”
Now the Dragon was angling upward, its enormous wings throwing dust along the battlefield below. It was working. Khan spoke, his words drifting up.
“I am the redeemer,” he said, his voice tinged with religious fervor. “I am the chosen.”
“Prove it,” Fletcher bellowed back. “Fight me! Or is ‘the Chosen’ scared of a single boy?”
A roar, so loud that Fletcher felt it in his chest. And then the Dragon was flying toward them, its maw gaping wide. Within, Fletcher saw the roil of flame.
“Do it,” Fletcher whispered.
Ignatius pulled out of the dive with a howl, the speed creating a gale-force wind that nearly tore Fletcher from his perch. Then they were beating for the clouds above, Ignatius lunging with every flap of his wings. Too slow.
Khan was laughing madly now, swinging his club-sword in anticipation. Seconds raced by as the Dragon gained on them, the draft of its wing beats pulling them down. Almost there. He could feel the moisture of the clouds in the air, see the gray-white bank a stone’s throw away.
Beneath, the demon’s mouth stretched open like a snake’s. Fire pooled within, casting Ignatius in an orange glow.
“Now, Sylva!” Fletcher screamed.
Three figures burst from above, hurtling toward them. He caught a glimpse of Lovett’s Alicorn. The antlers of a Peryton. Lysander, screeching an eagle’s cry.
Light flashed over them as the flames tore through the air.
“Now,” Fletcher breathed.
Ignatius unfurled his wings, holding them dead still in the sky. Fire rushed up to meet them. Flames beat at Fletcher’s body, smashing him into Ignatius’s back. He breathed in the inferno, felt the dry heat in his chest. His shirt and jacket were torn away.
He cracked open his eyes, saw the blaze part around them and twist into the sky, blocked by Ignatius’s outstretched wings. A vortex of flame—with three demons flying down the empty tunnel in its center.
The fire stopped, the Dragon’s attack petering out. He heard the sizzle of heat on his skin. And a scream of hatred as Lovett, Sylva and Ophelia whipped over by them. Then they too were falling, Ignatius’s wings pinned back as they joined in the attack.
Already, Ophelia was gone, the Peryton limp in the Dragon’s beak, the battlemage’s body twisting as it plummeted to the ground below.
Lovett’s lance shattering on the Dragon’s cheek as she was nearly thrown from her saddle, tumbling away in a jumble of wings and hooves. And then Sylva, leaping, her falx outstretched. The Griffin snarled in the beast’s wing, tearing at the delicate membrane. A roar of pain as Sylva’s blade buried itself in the demon’s eye, and she hung on for dear life.
Time seemed to slow.
Ignatius crashed into the Dragon’s head, his claws tearing at the armored scales for purchase. Fletcher was hurled from the Drake’s back by the impact. He spun through the air, hitting Khan in a tangle of limbs.
They were falling. Spinning. He could see Vocans, rushing up to meet them. The dome of glass at its center. Shattering.
Darkness.
CHAPTER
62
THE ATRIUM SWAM IN FRONT of Fletcher’s eyes. There was so much pain, crushing his skull like a vise. Ignatius. He had to find Ignatius.
The leathery surface beneath him had tempered his fall: a broken wing, splayed across the length of the cavernous hall. He staggered to his feet, stumbling along the uneven ridges of the shattered appendage.
The Dragon was dead. Its neck was twisted back on itself at a grotesque right angle, its beak half-open, tongue lolling. And near the base of its shoulders, Fletcher saw a limp, burgundy shape.
“Ignatius,” Fletcher cried, stumbling toward him. Above, the soft echoes of the battle outside drifted down.
The Drake lifted his head as Fletcher approached. He mewled and tried to get up. Then he collapsed, the pain too much for him. The agony in Fletcher’s mind redoubled its intensity, and Fletcher fell to his knees. Shards of glass had embedded themselves in the Drake’s neck and sides, each one as wide and deep as any sword. Curled up against the demon’s chest, Fletcher saw the unconscious form of Sylva. The brave creature had protected her with his body as they fell through the dome above.
“You’re going to be okay,” Fletcher whispered, laying a hand on the demon’s side. “Sylva will wake up and heal you.”
He shook the elf, but she remained still and lifeless; the only sign of vitality was the slow rise and fall of her chest. He could see a bruise spreading along her forehead. And Ignatius’s blood dripping on the marble floor. The demon had no mana to heal himself. He was dying.
“I was wrong,” a voice spoke.
Fletcher’s heart filled with horror.
Slowly, a pale figure emerged out of the darkness. Khan.
He strode into the light of the broken dome above, his long, white hair shining like silver in the dim glow of the evening sky. He was clad in nothing more than a simple loincloth, its coloring as pale as its wearer’s skin.
The orc raised his macana sword and pointed it at Fletcher.
“My Salamander was not the one prophesied. It was yours.”
Fletcher’s eyes darted back and forth, searching for a weapon. His khopesh was nowhere to be found, lost somewhere in the depths of the atrium. Then he saw a gleam behind the enormous orc. It was Sylva’s falx, buried deep in the Dragon’s eye. He had to get to it.
“You’ve lost, Khan,” Fletcher said, trying to edge around his opponent. “The prophecy was a lie.”
The orc smiled through his tusks and cut him off with a languid step to the side. Fletcher could hardly believe how big the orc truly was. He towered above him at eight feet, and his sword was almost as tall as Fletcher himself.
“The prophecy is true,” Khan said, shaking his head. “He who holds the Salamander will win the war.”
Fletcher was distracted. Athena. He could sense her, hiding among the rafters that held up the great room’s ceiling. He forced himself to keep his eyes focused on Khan, ignoring her gliding form as she descended to the floor above them, hiding behind the metal railings.
“If that’s true, then I’ve already won,” Fletcher said.
“No,” the orc snarled. “Not if I take it from you.”
Fletcher raised his tattooed hand, and Khan flinched at the sight of it.
“Your Dragon is dead,” Fletcher bluffed. “You have no mana. I could kill you in a second.”
As the orc’s eyes focused on his fingers, Fletcher edged around again, managing to put himself a few feet closer to the sword.
“Show me,” Khan said suddenly.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Fletcher countered, uncurling the finger with the lightning tattoo. He took a few steps closer to the sword.
“I said, show me!” Khan bellowed, lunging toward Fletcher.