The Demigod Proving (64 page)

Apparently, without his brain even realizing it, his body had made the decision to play the part of a real draegon.

Bah. Forget it. He might as well get it over with.

Tossing the fear and worry aside, caring not for his own goat-gutted safety—because if he did care, he wouldn't do this—he roared and dove over the edge of the butte.

Chapter 85: A new friend

No matter how many contingencies you plan for, someone always throws in something you didn’t expect.

-Naresh

Naresh stood at the front of the Hasuken army, facing the leaders. Only the general—with the eagle-face—and two advisors had gone to the parley. All the others who’d accompanied him had been the best in the Hasuken army at using Ichor.

Not that it had done them much good. Naresh had tried to warn them.

“Your leader is slain,” Naresh said.

The cluster of armored men wearing green livery had seen how the negations had gone, and stared in solemnity at Naresh. Behind them, the ranks of the army spread out, their faces distinct to Naresh with his Ichor-enhanced vision. Most of them, from what he could tell, bore a hard resolve, a strong desire to use their newfound powers and advance on the army of paladins.

“I suggest,” Naresh said, “that you retreat and call off this ill-conceived invasion.”

The leader of the army, Ruhtchat—the new general, now that the old had been slain—shook his head. He had a low brow and bushy eyebrows that nearly covered his eyes.

“We’re all committed,” Ruhtchat said. “We won’t turn back.”

Around him, the rest of the leaders nodded and voiced their consent.

Naresh shrugged. He’d had enough of these fools. He’d done nothing but advise against this course of action for years. For that matter, he’d advised against killing their god.

“Then so be it,” Naresh said. “I leave you to your fate.”

He reached to shake Ruhtchat’s hand, but Ruhtchat did not return the offer. He gave Naresh a cold stare, as did the other men around him.

With another shrug, Naresh turned away. He still had work to do. Perhaps he could salvage the disaster Wrend had made of things.

Athanaric had proven far more powerful than Naresh had anticipated. It was probably just as well. He didn't want to kill Athanaric like he'd killed the other gods. That had only ever resulted in chaos. No, this time he wanted to do things right, ease the god out of control. Wrend was his tool for that. And his plan might have worked if only the boy hadn't developed an unusually stiff spine.

As Ruhtchat started issuing commands behind him, Naresh looked over the desert. Wrend and Athanaric moved along the desert to the west, toward the butte. Wrend led the girl, whoever she was, and Athanaric rode the draegon.

Still gripping his sword, Naresh set off over the desert, using Flux and Thew. He needed to stop Athanaric from killing Wrend and that redhead from killing Athanaric. He bounded over cacti and sage, leaping off of rocks and flying in long, arcing trajectories. At about the time Athanaric and Cuchorack started up the slope after Wrend, he caught a glimpse of a swollen Teirn lying in the dirt, and Calla bent over him.

Ahead, Cuchorack scaled the cliff, with Athanaric on its back and two little figures higher up, leaping for their lives. The draegon roared, drowning out Wrend's and the girl's cries. It half-leapt, half-scrambled up, sending a rain of dirt and rocks down.

Naresh sped up. If Wrend died, it would set Naresh's plans back by decades, perhaps leaving him no choice but to change his stance and support the Hasuken in its campaign against Athanaric. And it would be a shame. Wrend was a fine kid. A little dramatic, but sharp.

As the girl came within one jump of the top of the cliff, Naresh reached the lava stone boulders at the cliff base and started up, moving at an angle so he didn't have to endure that shower of rocks from above. What a shame he hadn't given up on the Hasuken army fifteen seconds earlier. That would have given him the time to reach Athanaric before the god caught up to the kids.

As he landed on the topmost boulder before the steeper dirt slope, a second roar drowned out the first. A second draegon come over the cliff's lip.

And what a beautiful creature it was. Long and sleek, with shiny red fur. Not the dull, dead fur of Cuchorack, but living and vibrant. It looked almost like red fire plunging down the cliff past the girl and Wrend.

It tucked its wings in against its back and ducked low, under Cuchorack's horns and sweeping the zombie's legs out from beneath it. Athanaric leapt off the saddle, straight out from the cliff face as the two draegons tumbled down the slope. They rolled in a tangle of limbs and slender necks, claws lashing out at each other and mouths snapping. The ground trembled as they bounced down.

Athanaric, losing only a little altitude, pushed himself back against the cliff. After a glance down at the draegons as they neared the black boulders, he started to leap up the cliff face. The man never gave up.

Wrend and the girl spurred back to action. She pulled him onto her little ledge, where he paused a moment to kiss her—ah, how tender—and together they jumped up to the top of the butte. They disappeared from view about the time the draegons hit the boulders and bounced down them, one level at a time.

Maybe Wrend and the girl would escape, after all.

Naresh started forward and up, to follow Athanaric, but halted as his eyes found the struggle raging below him, not a hundred feet away, at the base of the boulders. The two draegons had regained their feet and swatted at each other with claws. Cuchorack's head was bare; its horns had snapped off.

But it was bigger and faster, and as a zombie felt no pain. It attacked the sleeker draegon with abandon, slashing and clawing. They rose up on their hind legs and moved in close to each other, almost like they intended to embrace. Their roars echoed from the cliff face, filling the air with confusion. Cuchorack tackled the smaller draegon backward and pinned it down with its sheer size. The smaller draegon clawed and pushed and snapped his jaws, but it wouldn't matter. He was tired and injured, and wouldn't last long.

Above, Athanaric disappeared over the cliff.

Naresh faltered for only a moment before deciding the kids were on their own. He couldn't help them.

But he could help the draegon.

He jumped down from his perch, aiming his trajectory for the saddle on Cuchorack's shoulders, at the base of his neck, and pulling his sword back and over his head.

There was only one way to kill a zombie.

The wind rushed in his face. He pushed and pulled with Flux, adjusting his path each instant. The draegons rocked back and forth, side to side as they struggled for dominance. For a moment Naresh thought he would miss his target. But he didn't. He landed right in the saddle.

Draegon hide—especially that which had been dead for seventeen years and cured with bucket loads of nitrate—was thick and tough, and it required a great deal of Thew and Flux to push the sword through Cuchorack's neck. The first swipe, to the left, cut deep into the neck, but the sword wasn't long enough to sever the neck entirely. Another swipe, to the right, with his arm deep in the draegon's neck, did the job.

The dog spirit, freed of the draegon's body, rose into the air all around Naresh. A swirling white mist, it surrounded him, making the hair on his arms stand up, and goose bumps rise all over his flesh. The draegon neck and head tumbled away, nitrate spilling out of both ends of the stem with the sound like grain pouring onto stone. The undead body—now dead—trembled and rose up, and collapsed onto the other draegon.

Naresh jumped backward and up, out of the hovering spirit, using Flux to find a place on the black boulders as the smaller draegon roared, pushed the corpse off, and jumped to his feet. He plunged his teeth into the belly of the dead draegon, and came away with a mouthful of hair, flesh, and nitrate. Then he did it again.

The dog spirit, its hovering done, began to rise. It gathered speed, so that in only a few moments it was higher than the lip of the plateau, and diminishing as it went up to join the other souls in the firmament. By the time Naresh looked back down, the draegon had ceased its mutilation of the body, and stood staring at him. Numerous wounds matted its fur with blood, but no pain or worry shone in its eyes.

Only victory and pride.

Naresh met the gaze.

“We need,” he said, “to go save those other two, now.”

He had no idea if the draegon understood humanspeak, but it was worth a try. If he could get the draegon to carry him up to the top of the plateau, maybe he could do some good for Wrend and the girl.

The draegon cocked his head to one side. He spoke in draegonspeak.

“Then get on, fool.”

Chapter 86: No way around

At some point, words simply fail. You cannot run any further. You cannot hide anymore. All that’s left is physical conflict.

-Wrend

The plateau stretched flat for no more than a mile ahead of Wrend, and less than a quarter mile on each side. Near the far end, it narrowed nearly to a point. Wrend had no idea what they would do when they ran out of ground.

“Maybe coming up here wasn’t so smart,” he said.

They ran side by side, using Flux to leap a hundred feet at a time. If anything, the ground on the plateau was rockier, with fewer yuccas and pinions. Red, white, and black snakes slithered in abundance over the warm stones. He’d nearly crushed one as he landed on one rock. It had struck at his heel, but he moved fast enough that it had missed.

A hundred yards back, the Master bounded over the landscape, his armor clanking in the wind and each footstep sounding like a drum in Wrend’s ears. He gained on them each moment.

“We’re fine,” Leenda said. “We’ll jump off of the edge.”

Wrend doubted he could do that. Jumping parallel to the ground or leaping higher were completely different than hurling himself off of a three-hundred-foot cliff. Of course, if it meant the difference between pulverization by the Master and even another ten seconds of life as he fell to his death, the choice practically made itself.

But as he looked back again, he realized that it might not matter. The Master approached them too quickly.

“We’ve got to go faster,” he said.

“It’s up to you. I'm holding back. You need to push harder with Flux.”

He didn’t know if he could, though. He already felt at his limits. He’d only barely figured out how to use Flux, and it took great concentration not to stumble each time a foot landed. As he took a few running steps before each leap, his legs could barely move fast enough to maintain the momentum and speed, and several times he’d nearly tripped forward.

The next time he looked back, the Master seemed nearly upon them. Just fifty yards back. He towered over everything on the plateau.

“Maybe,” Wrend said, “we can trick him into going over the edge. Then we can turn around and go back the other way. To Krack.”