The Scourge was rising.
“Temra be merciful,” Toric said, his voice full of horror.
Maddek shook his head. He would not pray for that. That goddess only showed mercy to the dead.
“Fly to the Scourge!” he commanded. “Fly!”
As one, Maddek and his Dragon raced toward the monster that was awakening.
CHAPTER 38
YVENNE
Yvenne’s satchel spilled from her hands to the bed as foul, cold, strong magic sliced down the back of her neck.
Gasping, she braced her hands in the furs, her head swimming.
“Yvenne!” Seri hauled open the flap of the tent. “You must come see this!”
Heart pounding, Yvenne followed her outside. It was just after sunrise, but the sun was still low on the horizon, the hollow still in shadow. Only a short time ago, she’d risen from her restless sleep. The rest of the camp was still awakening, fires being stoked, breakfasts cooking. But the warriors had abandoned those fires and breakfasts.
Yvenne looked to the sky, searching for birds. High above, geese arrowed north. No others could she see.
“This way!” Seri grabbed her hand.
As fast as she could make her leg move, Yvenne followed her to the southern edge of the hollow, where Banek stood watching something in the distance. She had been warned not to climb the steep sides of the hollow, or her presence might break the illusion of unbroken plain from outside. Yet all of the warriors stood on the rim, looking southeast.
Where the Scourge was rising.
Sheer dread and horror gripped her throat. The mountainous heap of black rock shifted higher. Like a beast it was, six limbs topped by a horned head. The face resembled a skull, with gaping eye sockets and nasal cavities, the cheeks deep hollows above a jaw full of razored teeth. When the demon had lived within the monster, those cavities were filled with fire and molten rock. But now they were cold and dark.
“It is Aezil,” she whispered, staring. “He is doing this.”
In pale blue robes, one of his eyes nothing but a puckered scar. The movement of his body faintly echoed the movement of the Scourge, careful and slow. Guards surrounded him, bracing themselves as the head swayed.
“Riders from the east!”
A warrior called out the alert. Yvenne glanced east, squinting against the rising sun that was directly behind the approaching riders.
“What do you see?” Banek asked.
“I cannot . . .” Shielding her face, she tried to see through the glare of Enam’s eye. She could make out little. “Red linens at the front. Helms behind. They ride two abreast but I cannot see how many.”
“Parsatheans leading southerners?” Banek squinted, too. “Perhaps the alliance council has arrived?”
For they had heard at the camp that Gareth had reached the council and there was word of them coming north. “I cannot be certain.”
A choked noise from Seri drew her gaze back to the south, where the Scourge was rising in full. In ruins, it had lain on its side. Her brother had managed to get its legs beneath it, and it rose ever higher.
Tears standing in her eyes, Seri gave a sobbing breath. “My mother and brother are there.”
Maddek, too. With her heart a burning lump in her throat, she watched Aezil take a slow step—and the Scourge did the same.
“My lady,” Banek said in a low voice. “Wait for me in your tent. Seri, go with her. Make ready your bow and arrow, Yvenne.”
“What is it?”
The old man was watching the approach of the riders. “Parsatheans do not gallop in such close formation unless they are on a road.”
As she’d learned while crossing these plains. Better to not have dirt clods flung into the face of those riding behind.
Enam glared, so bright at their backs. Eyes watering, she shook her head. “I still cannot see.”
“It matters not. We will know soon enough if they are friend or foe,” Banek said, and she realized all of the warriors had torn their attention from the Scourge. “Go now.”
Heart thundering, Yvenne went.
CHAPTER 39
MADDEK
I wish now that those songs told us how Ran Bantik killed the Scourge!” Kelir shouted over the thunder of galloping hooves.
Maddek grinned, wind rushing his face as they raced alongside the enormous ruins. The Scourge was rising, but a slow and lumbering rise it was. “It matters not!” he yelled back.
“Because we are united?” Kelir’s exasperation came clearly through his shout.
“Because it is not the Scourge!”
Not a demon. Only a puppet, controlled by the true monster—Aezil.
Reaching the quaking mountain, Maddek swiftly climbed onto the second leg, still folded beneath the beast. The horses could not follow and with a slap to the rump, he sent his away again. The warriors scrambled after him, wolves nimbly racing up the rough surface of pitted volcanic rock and sharp obsidian.
Maddek had no time for care as he ran toward the gaping canyon that had once been the Scourge’s stomach, until silver-fingered Rani had split it open to retrieve her dragon.
“Into the belly,” Maddek called out.
Fassad sent his wolves ahead. “Are we not climbing to the head?”
“There is a better way to reach it,” Maddek told him.
Danoh and Fassad exchanged glances—Fassad from the northern Storm tribe, Danoh from the central Fist. Neither had spent any time playing among these ruins as children.
“The throat,” he said.
A dark tunnel it was, of slick obsidian. Danoh flared a stick torch and the gleaming sides threw light far up the channel. Together they raced upward.
With heaving breaths, his face dripping sweat, Kelir said, “Beginning tomorrow, I will run beside my mount more often. I am on fire.”
“It is not only that,” Ardyl said grimly. “The air is hotter.”
It was true. The air shimmered with heat.
Toric’s face blanched. “Has Aezil reignited the furnace of the heart?”
“In a Scourge that can spit fire?” Fassad said. “And we are headed for the mouth?”
“Faster,” Maddek told them, and sprinted up the throat—which was at more of an upward angle now than when they had been younger and the beast was lying on its side. Thighs burning with effort, he climbed the last stretch to the top of the throat and reached back to help his warriors up.