The sword drove in deep. But it didn’t stop the beast, which tried to stamp on him. He dodged out from under its foot, slashed the extremity, then glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. He turned his head. Blazing jaws open wide, the creature was twisting its neck around for another bite.
Good. Maybe this time, with Bahamut’s Power hindering the saurian, he could put out one of its eyes or even reach the brain behind it.
But then, in midstrike, the creature broke free of the lethargy with which his magic had afflicted it. Suddenly its head was streaking at him twice as fast as before. Caught by surprise, he couldn’t dodge, only attempt to interpose his shield.
It was enough to save his life. But the crashing impact flung him backward and slammed him down onto his back. Flame leaping and rippling across its entire body, his foe reared over him. He lifted his sword to impale whatever part of its body came hammering down to finish him.
Then a feeling of beneficent Power, not the glory of his own deity but surely something akin to it, wrapped around him. The world blinked. Afterward, he was still lying on the ground, but his foe wasn’t right on top of him.
He sat up and looked around. The huge reptile was a little way off, and Medrash was in front of it. He’d used one of Torm’s gifts to trade places with a comrade in distress.
The beast struck. But Medrash wasn’t supine or dazed by the shock of a blow he’d just sustained. He dodged, and his blade sliced across one of the reptile’s slit-pupiled yellow eyes. It shrieked and recoiled.
But then it struck again and would have snapped Medrash’s head off if he hadn’t dropped low at the last possible instant. Patrin scrambled to his feet and charged back into the fight.
Together, he and Medrash gashed their enormous foe with cut after cut and seared it with flare after flare of holy Power. Until Patrin felt himself slowing and his link to Bahamut attenuating to a useless, hollow ache. He insisted to himself that just one more cut or prayer might finish the beast. That it wasn’t as unstoppable as it seemed.
Then sharp, sibilant words, spoken in an esoteric language that even Patrin couldn’t understand, rasped through the air. Like himself, Nala had followed when the rest of the Cadre charged. Now she’d come to help protect the vanquisher.
Swaying back and forth, gripping her staff in both hands, she spun it through a complex series of loops and arcs. Then, on the final syllable of her chant, she thrust the tip at the saurian’s head.
A blast of flame leaped from her weapon, engulfed the beast’s upper body, and flickered out … leaving it unscathed. Head cocked, the reptile regarded Nala with its remaining good eye. Though Patrin had no real idea how intelligent it was, he had the feeling it was laughing at the fool who had attacked it with an element that constituted a part of its essential nature.
If so, then it was still laughing when bright, sizzling lightning leaped from the staff to complete the obliteration of its damaged eye. It convulsed, and Patrin and Medrash scrambled back from its stamping feet and lashing tail.
Next came a burst of fumes that set it retching, and then acid that dissolved scales and ate its way into the muscle beneath. Finally, frost extinguished the last of the flames dancing on its body, painted its head and neck white, and toppled it to the ground.
Patrin watched it, making sure it wasn’t going to get up again, then turned to see if anything else was threatening Tarhun. Nothing was, and appearing essentially intact, Balasar was clambering to his feet.
Patrin realized it was a glorious moment. Torm and Bahamut sometimes battled side by side against evil gods and devils. Their earthly champions had just done the same and, by combining forces, had staved off a calamity. Then his beloved Nala had used her own divine gifts to administer the killing stroke to their foe. He gave Medrash a grin.
His fellow paladin smiled back, and Patrin judged that it was a genuine expression of good will. Medrash was incapable of withholding gratitude and camaraderie in such circumstances. But his feelings weren’t wholehearted-there was ambivalence behind his eyes as well. Dismay that they’d needed Bahamut’s Power to achieve their victory.
Curse it, why couldn’t the Daardendrien just get over his prejudice? Why couldn’t he accept that he and his fellow paladin were the same?
Maybe he just needs more time, Patrin thought. Then, as Nala stood panting and leaning on her staff, Balasar stumbled up behind her and planted a heavy hand on her shoulder.
Nala tried to slow her breathing. It wasn’t easy; her masters would have scowled to see her struggle so simply to compose herself. But the assault on the redspawn had been as taxing a feat of magic as she’d ever attempted.
Suddenly something grabbed her shoulder, transferring a goodly portion of its weight to her slumping frame. Startled, sure an ash giant or one of their minions had crept up behind her, she let out a squawk and lurched around.
The hand maintained its grip. Still, her motion brought her face to face with Balasar. Both sides of his face were bloody. The right bore its self-inflicted cut, and the left was raw where being tossed had scraped it against the ground and torn out a couple of his white button piercings.
She could tell from the lopsided way he carried himself that other portions of his body were bruised and sore as well. Good. She prayed he was injured worse than he appeared. That he’d drop dead of it.
Because she didn’t trust him. Perhaps that was unjust, for he’d passed his initiation. But there was a smug, impudent lightness to his character seldom seen in those who sought out her deity’s altar. And earlier he’d fed the hysteria simmering inside her soldiers, prompting them to disobey her command. Maybe it had been true divine inspiration impelling him to act-and granted, since the charge had resulted in Tarhun’s rescue, things had worked out fairly well. But she still didn’t like it, and he’d just compounded his other offenses by compromising her dignity.
Which didn’t change the fact that she needed Patrin, and Patrin liked him. Or the truth that she could scarcely rebuff one of the warriors who’d risked himself to save the vanquisher. Not with other people watching.
She arranged her face into a mask of concern, then asked, “Are you all right?”
“I hurt,” Balasar croaked. “But if you can spare a healing spell, I think I can get back into it.” He jerked his head at the combat raging on every side. Nala was no war leader, but it looked to her like the dragonborn and ash giants had at some point thrown just about everything they had at one another.
“Of course.” Refusing to give in to her exhaustion, murmuring a prayer, Nala reached into the void and drew stinging, bracing Power into her core. Responsive to her true feelings, or her deity’s, it tried to twist itself into poison. But she shaped it into vitality, then clasped the Daardendrien’s shoulder as he was still clasping hers.
He shivered and squinched his eyes shut as the magic flowed into him. Then he straightened up and smiled. “Thank you, my lady. Thank you more than you know.” He stooped, picked up the targe he’d evidently set on the ground, and turned to Medrash. “Kinsman, someone should get the vanquisher out of the middle of this. You could make sure he doesn’t die on us, and then pull some of your followers out of the battle to help escort him. I think they might respond to orders faster than warriors of the Cadre. Will you help me?”
Medrash frowned like he no longer wanted Balasar claiming him as kin. But then he gave a nod and said, “Of course.”
Standing guard, Balasar stayed on his feet while Medrash kneeled beside the unconscious Tarhun. On first inspection, it didn’t look like the warlord was too badly burned inside his armor. At any rate he was still breathing, and that was the main thing.