The Rite (9 page)

Plainly, the Rage was eating at him. At least Kara had her human guise to armor her much of the time, but Chatulio could only resist the madness by simple force of will. She was worried about him, but knew it would be useless to speak of it

All right,” she said, crouching low. “We’ll get ready.”

Dorn swung himself onto her back, and Raryn clambered onto Chatulio. The copper chanted an incantation. Rainbows rippled through the air, a tingling danced across Kara’s scales, and at the end, Chatulio and Raryn faded away.

They weren’t really gone. The master illusionist had simply veiled himself and the dwarf in invisibility. In fact, he’d done the same for Kara and Dorn, though the effect didn’t keep the song dragon and half-golem from seeing themselves.

“I’m going,” Chatulio said.

A snap of wings revealed he’d taken flight. Kara flexed her legs, leaped, and followed him.

Dorn sat on her back more easily than the first time she’d carried him. She wondered wistfully if he could ever come to love flying the way she did.

She found an updraft and rode it high above the mountains, so high the air must have been brutally cold for a human, though Dorn didn’t complain. As per the plan, Chatuho rose with her. If she listened intently, she could hear the occasional rustle of his pinions.

Once they’d ascended high enough, they winged their way toward the monastery, making their approach far above the gliding, wheeling chromatic wyrms. If they descended in a tight spiral, it might be possible to slip past them undetected—or so they hoped. A huge red peered upward. Plainly, the drake had sensed the presence of the newcomers even from far below.

Kara was bitterly disappointed, but also recognized that in a sense, she and her comrades were lucky the chromatic wyrms had detected them before they even started their descent. The fact that they were still hundreds of yards above the foe might allow them to escape unharmed.

Kara lifted one wing and dipped the other, turning, preparing to withdraw. Meanwhile, the red snarled words of power. At the spell’s conclusion, magic throbbed through the cold, thin mountain air, and Chatulio and Raryn popped into view.

Kara gasped, and Dorn cursed, but not because they could see their friends. Visible or not, Chatulio and Raryn might still have been able to get away safely. Rather, it was because, talons poised for combat, the copper was diving to engage the chromatics, carrying the dwarf helplessly along.

Malazan beat her wings, climbing, searching for an updraft. She coveted the satisfaction of killing the copper all by herself, before any of her comrades could fly high and close enough to get in on the sport.

The red needed some diversion to make her forget her frustrations. She’d initially assumed that she and the other chromatics could take the monastery in a day or two. She’d likewise expected that, since she was the oldest dragon present and manifestly the greatest in might and cunning, all the others would grovel to her and give her their unquestioning obedience. Sadly, she’d known disappointment on all counts.

Of course, time would change everything for the better. The stronghold must fall eventually, Sammaster’s human lackeys would transform her, and possessed of a dracolich’s power, she’d slaughter any wyrm who’d shown her less than absolute subservience. After that, her reputation secure, she could go home to her lair and the treasure horde she loved above all things.

Soon, she promised herself. But in the meantime, killing one of her metallic cousins might brighten her mood.

The enchantment she’d cast in the air around the monastery to keep anyone from escaping via spells of flight and concealment, didn’t allow her to see the copper’s companion, but it gave her a general sense of the creature’s location. Thus, she knew it when that wyrm dived, plummeting even faster than its comrade, and she laughed with delight. It wouldn’t matter even if the second wyrm was an ancient gold. Two metal drakes still wouldn’t be able to defeat the half dozen chromatics Malazan had in the air. Apparently the Rage had both newcomers too addled to care how gravely they were outnumbered, and so they were both going to die.

She felt less pleased, though, when the wyrm who was still invisible started to chant in a high, sweet, vibrant voice that suggested she was probably a song dragon. Malazan recognized a spell of coercion when she heard it, and realized the reptile had dived not to hurl herself into a suicidal battle but to get close enough to constrain the copper’s will.

The copper jerked as the charm sunk its claws into his mind. “Flee!” the song dragon cried. “Escape!”

He obediently pounded his wings to arrest his plunging descent.

Too late, Malazan thought. He’d already swooped too low, and so, for that matter, had the song drake. If they exerted themselves, the chromatics could catch both of them. The red roared to her subordinates, urging them to fly faster and climb higher. Then she snarled a spell to wipe away the song dragon’s concealment, bringing her slim blue-diamond body shimmering into view. The singer had a rider, too, a grotesque hulk who appeared to be half human meat and half iron.

One of Malazan’s minions sent a mote of yellow light streaking upward at the copper. He veered, dodging, and when the spark exploded into a mass of flame, he was at the periphery of the blast. It still must have seared him, but even the odd-looking white-haired, ruddy-faced dwarf on his back survived.

The crystal-blue dragon sang, holding a single throbbing note that became a prodigious thunderclap. The deafening peal drove a lance of pain through Malazan’s ears and made her flounder in the air. Some of her worthless minions swerved off course or dropped lower, losing distance they’d labored hard to gain. The red female bellowed in fury.

The copper and song dragon fled toward the mountains to the north, zigzagging in an attempt to avoid their pursuers’ conjured flares of flame and lightning, showers of acid and hailstones, and bursts of blighting darkness. Occasionally, the fugitives sent their own attack spells sizzling back to singe one of their foes, or tangle its wings in a mammoth spiderweb. For the most part, though, they wove defensive enchantments. The copper conjured several illusory images of himself to befuddle his assailants. The song drake cloaked herself in a protective aura of light.

The riders clinging precariously to the “benevolent” dragons’ backs evidently lacked the magical skills to cast any powerful spells of their own. Whenever the vertiginous chase afforded them a target, however, they loosed arrows that flew straight and pierced deep.

It didn’t matter, though. Nothing they could do mattered. Malazan and her subordinates were going to catch them. Indeed, she was nearly close enough to stop casting spells and use her fiery breath when a thick, pearly fog swirled into existence around her.

She could have dispelled the magical cloud, but she’d drawn so close that she chose to drive onward instead, trusting to hearing and scent to guide her to her prey. Then she plunged into the second sort of vapor concealed within the drifting coils of the first. Her belly twisted with nausea. Elsewhere in the mist, her lackeys retched.

Beating her wings, defying her dizziness and the cramping in her guts, she climbed above the fog bank, whereupon her sickness ended as abruptly as it had begun. Better still, she could see the copper and song dragon once more. They were only a little way ahead, and had finally dropped to the same altitude as their pursuers.

Malazan cried to her warriors, urging them forward but scarcely caring if they heeded or not. In her present savage humor, she was sure she could kill a copper and a song wyrm all by herself and enjoy the exercise.

She sucked in a breath, spewed forth her fire, and caught the copper square in the blaze. One of his wings burned away like paper. Wreathed in flame, the screaming dwarf fell from his back. She flew on and drove her talons into the copper’s body.

At that instant, his body exploded into dozens of small, darting copper-dragon masks, which laughed derisively before bursting. The song drake, her rider, and the plummeting dwarf vanished at the same time.

Illusion. A trick to divert and delay. Malazan climbed once more, cast about, and spotted the real copper and song dragon beating their way into a pass. A moment later, another mass of fog flowed into existence to hide them from view.

They’d increased their lead significantly, but perhaps not enough. If Malazan invoked the godlike anger she could summon at will, brought the blood-sweat seeping forth to glaze her scales, it would magnify her already prodigious strength and stamina. Then she could surely overtake them, and rip them to pieces when she did.

The problem was that she didn’t know how long it would take, or what might happen in her absence. Accordingly, fiercely as her instincts goaded her to pursue, she wheeled and led her subordinates back to the monastery.

A little weary from the chase, she landed on the high crag that was her customary perch. Soon, much to her displeasure, Ishenalyr came gliding to light unbidden beside her

The ancient green with the long, high crest and rows of hornlets over the eyes was smaller than Malazan, but larger than any other wyrm participating in the siege. He stank of the poison smoke he could exhale at will, and bore arcane runes and sigils carved on his scales.

Malazan had enhanced her natural abilities by learning to use the ferocity that was a fundamental part of a dragon’s nature. As she understood it, Ishenalyr had mastered certain petty tricks by walking a different path, a discipline that involved stifling one’s passions as well as self-mutilation. It sounded perverse and stupid to her, and was one reason she disliked him. The main cause, though, was the way he critiqued her strategies and second-guessed her orders, his clear though not quite openly declared conviction that Sammaster should have chosen him to command the company.

The “hidecarved” green had been on the ground when the song and copper dragons made their approach, and thus hadn’t participated in the chase. Accordingly, he appeared fresh where she was battered and winded, and that ratcheted her antipathy up yet another notch.

Still, he could prove a useful tool to crack the monastery open, and so she managed to hold back the fire warming her gullet.

“What?” she demanded.

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” said Ishenalyr in his prissy, superior way.

“Your ‘concern’ is an insult,” she spat. “What could puny creatures like that do to me?”

“Apparently,” said Ishenalyr, “outwit and evade you.”

“I would have caught them had I cared to chase them any farther, but it was sufficient to drive them off. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason we’re here is to destroy the monks and their archives.”

“Still, it’s remarkable that the dread Malazan let enemies escape. I hope frenzy isn’t rotting your faculties.”

“That’s two insults,” she said. “I beg you, puke up a third.” Rather to her regret, he prudently stood mute. “Why should I absent myself from the battleground just to kill a couple of our ‘kindly’ kin? Such creatures are doomed one and all to permanent lunacy. Isn’t that as cruel a fate as any I could give them?”

It pleased her that, for all his glibness, Ishenalyr couldn’t come up with an argument for that.

The blue dragon was dead, but its conjured storm howled on. Yagoth Devil-eye had found an overhang of rock under which he could sit, hold court, and stay relatively dry. There was only enough room for one to lounge comfortably, though. Those who came to confer with him had to stand in the cold, pelting rain, and he rather liked it that way.

At the moment, the human and halfling awaited his pleasure. Bundled up in their hoods and cloaks, their layers of “civilized” clothing, they looked puny and effete as such little vermin generally did, but they’d already demonstrated during the fight with the drake that the appearance was misleading. They were two of the rare human or demihuman bugs who might prove a match for an ogre in a one-on-one fight.

The question was, what in the name of the Great Claw did they want? Their presence surely portended something important. They’d arrived at the same time as the blue wyrm, and Yagoth had never in his life seen a dragon of that color before, hadn’t even known that they existed. The reptile must have been an omen, but of what, he wasn’t yet sure.

When he’d observed everything about the strangers that two eyes could reveal, Yagoth closed the left to peer with the blood-red one alone. His shaman powers had awakened after a manticore ripped open his face, and occasionally the blemished eye revealed secrets imperceptible to normal sight. Often enough, its unblinking stare made folk quail, and that could be useful, too. But it failed to show him anything unusual, and the human and halfling bore its regard without flinching.

Yagoth growled, “Who are you?”

“I’m Pavel Shemov,” said the human, “a servant of the Morninglord, as you already noticed. My companion is Will Turnstone.”

“My people are hungry,” said Yagoth. “Tell me why I shouldn’t ‘dump your arses in the stewpot.’ “

Will grinned. “I didn’t realize you heard that.”

Yagoth spat. “I hear everything I need to hear.”

“It would be foolish to kill us,” said Pavel, “when we can help you.”

“How?” the ogre asked.

“Do you know what a Rage of Dragons is?” the human asked.

“I’m not stupid, sun priest. Don’t hint that I am.”

“I didn’t mean any insult,” Pavel said. “If you know what a Rage is, you likely also know we’re in the middle of one., Flights of wyrms are rampaging across all Faerűn, not just Thar. What you may not know—Will and I only recently discovered it ourselves—is that this Rage is the worst ever. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s never going to end of its own accord.”

Yagoth snorted. “Ridiculous.”

“I assure you, it’s so. Perhaps you know a spell to sort truth from lies. If so, cast it. I won’t resist.”

The shaman frowned, pondering. Pavel really did sound sincere. Which didn’t necessarily mean he knew what he was talking about, but unlike many of his kind, Yagoth was too canny to dismiss the learning of human scholars and spellcasters out of hand.