If she’d had so much trouble with a crack, how will she traverse a walkway across the Abyss?
Despite the horrific violence around him, Gifford couldn’t help thinking the fight was anticlimactic. He’d expected more. They were nearly to their goal, and only a few opponents remained in their way. The dire warnings had braced him for a far more desperate struggle. He smiled at Roan. She smiled back. They were going to make it.
Then the dragon came.
Not a creation of Suri, nor a manifestation of the Art, this was the real thing—or at least a deceased version. Until that moment, Orr had been a story told by a lodge’s firelight. The dragon was the embodiment of power and evil. A creature of the old world, Orr slew Gath of Odeon, and in turn the beast was slain by Gath’s Shield, Bran of Pines, in the greatest epic tale the Keepers had to tell. “The Song of Gath” was the story always recounted on the night of Wintertide, and the tale of his death often brought tears to the old and nightmares to the young. As a boy, Gifford had imagined Orr as a monster so ugly that he could never fully picture it. To him, Orr was a mass of eyes and shadows. And while Gifford had no way to know what Orr had truly been in life, in death it was terrifying.
Larger than three gilarabrywns combined, its great, dark wings swept silently over the heads of the army. With all the effort of an afterthought, Orr swept fifty souls from the field, tossing them with catlike amusement before settling itself on the causeway. Possessed of fore- and hind legs, a barbed tail, and a mouth of teeth the size of trees, the beast rose and glared down at them with eyes alight and filled with joyful malevolence.
“The queen is insane!” Fenelyus shouted as she stared at the dragon. “She’s emptied her house—but why?” Fenelyus whirled to look back at the six of them. Confusion gave way to suspicion as she focused her attention on Beatrice.
“Fen?” Mideon called excitedly.
“I can’t fight Orr!” she shouted at him. “That thing is . . .” She never finished, but in her eyes, a story of frustration and fear bloomed, and Gifford guessed she spoke from experience. “You have to summon the golem.”
The king’s eyes darkened, his lips folding up in anger.
“It’s the only way,” Fenelyus told him.
“Golem?” Brin asked.
“It’s old magic,” Beatrice explained, “from the days when our people lived closer to the stone. Those of great power could call the ground up to fight for them. My father did it once near the end of the Great War. At Neith, he called up a golem of stone that withstood Fenelyus, allowing most of our people to escape to Drumindor. Doing so nearly killed him.”
The dragon flapped its wings, knocking those closest to it to the ground, then laughed. Nothing about the horrific sound was reminiscent of laughter, but once more Gifford felt it. He sensed the glee in that sound, which was more akin to a hundred-foot-tall rabbit screaming in a snare.
“Do it!” Fenelyus shouted at Mideon. “Do it, or this is over!”
Orr took a mighty breath.
“Dammit!” Fenelyus braced herself, throwing out her arms.
Massive flames burst forth, washing over all of them.
Gifford gasped, staggered back, and fell. The world was gone, all of Nifrel lost as they were bathed in fire. He could see it brush up and over them, held only a few feet away as if by glass, the licking flames washing by in an oily smear of colors. Heat. He felt as if he were standing too near a bonfire, except this heat rolled in waves.
Fenelyus was screaming with effort, fingers splayed, hands shaking. At last, the dragon ran out of breath. The fire went out, and Fenelyus collapsed.
Again, the dragon laughed. “Such sweet fruit,” Orr said in a voice that Gifford felt more than heard. “And oh! What a banquet.”
Moya raised her bow. Beatrice touched her arm and shook her head. “Wait. Not yet.”
That’s when the ground rose up.
Deafening cracks and pops announced the shards of stone that grew from the stone floor of the valley. They coalesced and stood up. Dark rock in the general shape of a colossal man rose to face the dragon, who eyed it cautiously.
“Back! Get back!” Beatrice shouted, shooing them to give the golem a path to the dragon.
“Move that beast out of the way,” King Mideon ordered, though his voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Clear the bridge.”
Gifford never saw the initial clash, as he and nearly everyone else was scrambling to get clear, abandoning the field to the gigantic combatants. He didn’t need to see it. The impact declared itself. The ground jumped, the dragon roared, and a clap loud as thunder echoed. Both Gifford and Roan, whose hand he still held, fell and sprawled on the ground that sprang and shook with all the bounce of a stretched tarp.
Beatrice huddled them together. “Here! Stay here.” She turned to view the fighting behemoths. “Prepare to run.”
Gifford looked back and saw the hulking brutes, two shadowy mountains grappling in the dim light. One staggered—
Brin was the first to scream, but not the only one, as the stone giant grabbed hold of the dragon and pulled, taking a step toward them. One massive stone foot slammed an arm’s length away. The ground hopped, and they flew into the air, spilled once more off their feet.
“Now! Run!” Beatrice shouted. “Across the bridge! Go!”
Moya got them moving. She led off, running for the causeway. If she hadn’t, Gifford didn’t think any of them would have moved. The golem had managed to wrestle Orr off the bridge, leaving the way clear. Less a way and more a window. The dragon was none too happy about being pulled aside, and legs the size of columns danced across the path between them and the bridge.
Gifford held tightly to Roan. Too much so, he guessed, but Roan didn’t complain, probably didn’t feel it, any more than Gifford felt the ground he sprinted over. Despite the dancing giants, the war was back on as everyone saw the race to the finish. Dead Galantians fought with deceased Techylors. Iron-clad dwarf warriors clashed with bronze-covered Fhrey. And fur-wrapped spearmen fought leather-armored swordsmen. Spears flew, javelins rained, and feet charged. Shields clapped as the last of Mideon’s defenses held back the engulfing wave.
As they came to the bridge, Gifford saw Gath go down. Not by Orr this time, but by sheer numbers. Bran fought valiantly at his side, then he, too, fell to multiple blows. Only Melen remained. The huge man shooed them forward, onto the span, as he took position at the start of the bridge to stop any would-be followers.
They had made it.
The king joined Melen at the mouth of the bridge, swinging his great ax and cleaving all comers. Fenelyus, back on her feet, took up position beside Atella. The four heroes formed a wall where the Breakwaters once stood as the golem continued to wrestle with the dragon.
Gifford saw that the span across the Abyss, the path to the door to Alysin, was clear. He could see a cave on the far side, a dark opening that he guessed was the door, the exit from Nifrel. Then, as Gifford took his first step forward, Roan was ripped from his hand—pulled straight up.
It’s not broken. It’s not broken, Tesh repeated in his head.
When that didn’t work, he said it out loud. “My leg can’t be broken. I don’t have a leg!” No one heard, not even himself. He could feel the throbbing, shooting pain, which exploded from just below his knee. He shoved himself up, first on his elbows, then his palms; then Tesh crawled. He dragged his not-broken leg, the one that certainly felt fractured.