Chapter 27

“Can you do anything to help?”

Shavala stared out at the mass of bushes blocking not just the road but either side of it, having grown over the remains of a long-abandoned village. The plants—three feet tall with sprawling branches—were a form of buckbrush, she thought, though there were so many varieties it was hard to say for sure. She’d never seen it before, and all she had to go on was her memory of the descriptions passed down by other druids. The men assigned to the road crew had to kneel down and saw the plants off at the base, then drag them out of the way. At the pace they were going, it would take hours.

“I don’t think so,” she told Corec. “I could ask them to grow in a different direction, but they’re not vines—they won’t respond as quickly. And even if they were growing completely on their sides, they’d still be too tall for the carts to get past.”

Corec nodded. “Then we’ll need to send someone to scout out a way around. This is taking too long.”

“Corec!” someone shouted. Leena was running their way, followed by Ellerie and Sarette. “The dragon’s five miles out, to the southwest!”

“Five miles?” he asked, glancing at the sky. “Is it coming this way or headed back to the keep?” They’d been within Leena’s Seeking range of the keep for three days, but she hadn’t sensed the dragon since the previous afternoon.

“I don’t know yet. I need more time.”

“We’d better get ready just in case.” Corec turned to the main body of the expedition. “Everyone form up to the southwest!” he yelled. “Dragon’s five miles out! Get into position and load your weapons!”

The armsmen burst into activity, weapon crews leading their mule-drawn carts to their designated positions while the infantry flung the canvas cover off the back of the first freight wagon and started unloading pikes.

Shavala exchanged glances with Sarette. The two of them had made plans for different scenarios. With the sky as clear as it was, if they’d seen the dragon too late, there wouldn’t have been time to summon a storm and they’d have had to work with what they could manage on their own. Thanks to Leena’s warning, though, there would be enough time.

Shavala stretched her mind out as far as she could, heating the moist air nearest the ground and summoning a heavy wind to push it to the southwest. Leaves and dust blew into the air, and anyone facing the wrong direction had to shelter their eyes.

Farther from the expedition—well beyond ballista range—Sarette took over, expanding the warm air in an ever-widening circle and pulling a cold mass from miles away downward to meet it. That pushed the warm air up in a rush, and the first hint of clouds appeared.

Manipulating wind always caused a chain reaction. As air was pushed away from one spot, more air was pulled in behind it to fill the gap. With continuing effort to keep the reaction going, the result was a wind storm that grew far beyond the power of the magic involved. Shavala added to the cycle, pulling moisture from the air and warming it, then using that to strengthen the warm front. Sarette did the same at the far end of the storm.

Shavala was the stronger of the two, at least in the ways druids measured strength, but Sarette could control weather at a much greater range than any druid could. That extra range was necessary now. Shavala’s warm wind to the southwest might help the ballista bolts fly farther and faster than they otherwise could, but if the more chaotic storm winds got too close to the expedition, it would make the ballistae useless against the dragon.

While Shavala concentrated on her task, the staff—which she’d left standing upright on its own nearby—realized her intention. No, it sent, along with a jolt of pain. Life.

I don’t have time for this, she told it, grabbing it from where it stood. She couldn’t spare enough attention from her spell right now to deal with it.

“Nedley!” she called out. He was standing ready with his small squad of armsmen. “Take this and run it a hundred yards that way.” She pointed northeast, opposite the direction from which the dragon was coming. “Then throw it as far as you can.” That would get it beyond the range from which it could communicate with her—and hopefully far enough away that it wouldn’t be stepped on if there was a battle.

“Shavala,” Corec warned.

“I have to get it away from me,” she said. “Remember Tir Yadar?”

He frowned. “Do it, but hurry back,” he told Nedley.

The young man took the staff and jogged as fast as his armor would allow.

“It is coming this way!” Leena said. “It’s closer than it was, still southwest. A straight line toward us.”

“Go!” Corec told Sarette. “You’ll have to make the call.”

The stormborn woman nodded, then sprinted past Nedley’s squad and Ballista One, which had been expanded to full size by its crew. The storm clouds were far away, but as soon as Sarette was beyond the weapon crew, she summoned a lightning bolt out of the clear sky. It hit her staff-spear as she launched herself into the air.

“You should get going too,” Corec told Leena.

The Sanvari woman shot a worried glance at Ellerie. “I will, but I’ll stay nearby, in case...” She trailed off.

“Not too close,” Corec said. “If something happens to us, help the survivors make their way back to Four Roads. If there aren’t any...” He stared out at the frantic preparations and sighed. “Katrin’s got the men’s bonuses and a list of all their families and next of kin. She knows what to do.”

Leena nodded and disappeared.

The staff stopped intruding into Shavala’s mind, and she resumed feeding power into the storm.

Sarette darted through the darkening clouds, searching for any sign of the dragon. With the storm blocking everyone else’s view, it would be up to her to decide whether to start the attack. If the creature was just passing by, she would let it go in the hopes of ambushing it later at its lair. If it had decided they were a threat, though, she had to strike before it reached her companions.

Gathering her strength, she launched herself upward, into the more peaceful air above the storm clouds. The wind was still heavy, but with the chaos of the storm below her, she could see farther.

The dragon was there in the distance, far ahead but getting easier to see as it approached.

It didn’t react to her presence. Perhaps dragons weren’t accustomed to facing threats in the air, and from this distance, she would appear tiny in its eyes. It probably thought she was a bird.

That wouldn’t last long with it headed her way, though, and it was harder for Sarette to fly here, above the storm, where there was less charge in the air. She dropped back down into the clouds and hovered in place. Once the dragon had passed by, she rose again, above and behind it. Up close, the creature was massive—fifty feet long, plus another twenty feet for the tail.

How could they hope to kill something so large?

The dragon had maintained its course toward the expedition, and now it dipped lower in the sky, angling downward. Once it dropped below the cloud cover, it would see Sarette’s companions ... if it didn’t already know they were there. It had passed by the expedition at least twice—that they knew of—without attacking, but this time, its actions seemed deliberate. If Sarette delayed any longer, she was putting the entire party at risk.

It was time.

One of the tasks she’d practiced for was to slow the dragon down, giving the weapon crews time to prepare. With Leena’s timely warning, that wasn’t necessary, which meant Sarette could focus on her second task—finding some way to knock the creature out of the sky.

She waited, tense, as the dragon dropped down close to the upper reaches of the storm.

Would the creature realize who was attacking it? Corec had told Sarette to only take action if she could keep herself safe while doing so, but now that she was up here all alone with the giant beast, it was hard to imagine what safe meant—and if Sarette didn’t do her part, it would put her friends in danger.

The dragon descended into the clouds.

The storm had been building and building, the rapid change in weather increasing the conflict between the opposed charges in the air. Sarette had forced it to remain stable, but now, as she followed the dragon down, she launched her attack, unleashing the full strength of the storm.

Lightning suddenly flickered all around, dancing between clouds. The roar of thunder was overwhelming, seeming to come from all sides at once.

The dragon swayed back and forth, adjusting its course through the storm in an awkward, unnatural fashion, and somehow avoiding getting hit. It wasn’t possible to dodge lightning—it moved faster than thought—but Sarette had speculated the creature used elder magic to fly and breathe fire. Could it sense the charge building in the air the same way she did, and predict where the lightning would strike?

If so, it might only be able to detect a natural build-up. Pulling in as much of the charge around her as she could, Sarette released it all at once, launching a lightning bolt directly from her palm toward the dragon’s left haunch.

The beast dodged again, but this time not quickly enough. The bolt caught its rear leg. It roared—though whether in pain or anger, Sarette couldn’t tell. There was a scorch mark along the side of its leg, but the damage didn’t seem to have penetrated through the scales.

The dragon twisted its body, dipping its left wing down and tilting its right wing almost straight up as it turned in a tight curve. Apparently it understood lightning storms well enough to know that the bolt which had hit it wasn’t natural.

Sarette quickly shot back up into the clear sky above the storm, trying to stay out of sight. Below, the shadow of the dragon circled around twice within the clouds, like a hawk spiraling through warmer air currents, before returning to its original course.

They were near the center of the storm now. The stronger winds were slowing the creature’s flight, but not as much as Sarette had expected. Its ability to fly seemed magically enhanced, much like her own, and wasn’t wholly dependent on its wings.

The dragon continued its descent and dropped below the lowest storm clouds. Sarette followed, but it was harder for her to maintain her flight here. The expedition was visible in the distance, and the dragon stayed on course toward it, not turning away. Sarette needed another option, quickly.

Using up half the charge she still carried, she darted forward through the air, straight toward the creature’s back. Drawing close just as its wings swept up, she slashed at the thin, skin-like membrane of the left wing with the blade of her staff-spear.

The dragon shrieked, the cry audible even above the noise of rolling thunder. The creature rolled in mid-air, its other wing batting Sarette out of the way as it peered behind itself, searching for its attacker.

Sarette fell, her vision graying out.

When she came to, she was tumbling through the air, her staff-spear falling below her. Her mind was foggy, like the time Shavala had rescued her after she’d fallen into the ocean.

Falling from the sky was always the biggest danger a stormrunner faced, and this time, Shavala wasn’t close enough to save her.