Part 60 (1/2)
His form still s.h.i.+fting, the shadow steed prepared to attack.
Cabe gestured. A wall of energy appeared between Darkhorse and Toma. The shadow steed turned in confusion. ”Cabe! What do you do?”
The warlock took a deep breath. His fear and rage had not been quelled, and now that he had committed himself to his present course, the two emotions began to burn with renewed force. ”Take care of Kyl, Darkhorse. Forget Toma. He belongs to me.”
”What care have I for that traitorous young-”
Cabe cut him off. ”Kyl helped us, Darkhorse. Grath was the traitor. Now do as I say and take Kyl from here. He needs the aid of a healer badly. If you don't hurry, I'm afraid he might die.”
”But-”
”Take care of Valea and Ursa, too . . . please.” He had been about to say especially if I fail, but Cabe did not even want to acknowledge that likely possibility. ”Now.”
Toma absorbed the exchange with something approaching amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Have I given permission for thisss, human? Do you think that I will jussst let him depart with the heir?”
The warlock was grim-faced. ”Yes.”
”You are mistaken, then.”
The dragon raised a paw toward Darkhorse, who, obeying Cabe, had backed toward Kyl. Dust began to rise around the shadow steed, dust that somehow clung to the eternal's form.
”Let him be.”
The force of Cabe's blast threw the great dragon against the steps of the dais. Toma thundered in new pain, his spell dissipating as he lost control. Smoke rose from his form. There was now a gaping hole in the already injured wing.
Darkhorse paused. ”Cabe, if you and-”
”Do what I said, Darkhorse.” The mage dared not reveal just how weakened he already was. Each new a.s.sault drained him, but he could not relent. Toma was his. Toma had made himself Cabe's. He would take the dragon whatever the cost. Whether that was the right thing or the wrong thing to do, the warlock did not care. Toma was his.
”You insolent mortal!” raged the wounded leviathan. ”Who do you think you are?”
The exhausted sorcerer pulled himself up to his full height and quietly responded, ”I am Cabe Bedlam.”
His next a.s.sault forced Toma partway up the dais. The renegade drake roared. Once again Cabe was awash in a storm of flame, but this time the heat and pain were barely noticeable. He pushed his way through the inferno until Toma could maintain it no longer.
The dragon was breathing heavily when the warlock again looked him in the face. For the first time, there was uncertainty in Toma's eyes.
Cabe took the opportunity to look Darkhorse's way. He was relieved to see that the stallion had obeyed him, for both Darkhorse and Kyl were no longer there. One weight lifted from his heart. Whatever happened here, the others were safe. Kyl and the others would spread the truth about Toma if Cabe failed.
”We're all alone now,” he informed the renegade.
”A pity. Then no one will be able to die with you.”
”You'll do.”
The huge head suddenly dropped toward Cabe. The warlock belatedly noted that he had never estimated the length of Toma's neck. The world above Cabe became the wide maw of a slavering dragon.
Toma's jaws snapped shut on the place where his rival had been, but the sorcerer had been able to dive aside at the last moment despite the dragon's swiftness. The dragon tried once, twice, three times more. Cabe rolled over, bouncing again and again against the rock floor. He was bruised from head to toe, but at least he was alive to fight.
The knowledge did not much encourage him.
”Cea.s.sse hopping and bouncing, flea! You only prolong what mussst be!”
”You . . . have a . . . point there,” Cabe gasped. It was now or never. If he allowed this battle to go on, Toma would defeat him through sheer stamina. The warlock could hardly keep up his present pace much longer.
Again, the human struck, choosing force over subtlety. Toma recast his s.h.i.+eld, but while it held, the dragon was still driven to the top of the dais. Toma tried to exhale another river of flame, but only a gust of heat greeted his efforts.
Cabe pushed on, knowing that he had to be relentless. A second bolt and then a third pushed Toma nearly to the throne. The mage ascended the steps, pausing only two or three from the top.
Toma straightened, unsteady but hardly defeated.
”What does it take to put you down, warlock?”
Cabe wanted to ask him the same question, but chose to save the energy for the combat. He attacked again, and this time the dragon's s.h.i.+eld failed him.
Toma nearly fell upon the throne. His entire form crackled with the power that his adversary had unleashed on him. The dragon righted himself, but now he twitched from pain. His breathing was irregular.
”You cannot defeat me! I am Toma!”
Again, a taloned paw rose.
The steps around and beneath Cabe Bedlam sizzled. Bolts of blue lightning rose from the rock and a.s.sailed the warlock. They were not like ordinary lightning, for each one that a.s.sailed him remained attached like a parasite, drawing his power away and nearly forcing him to his knees.
”You are mine, warlock!” Toma the dragon roared his delight.
Gwendolyn, Valea, Aurim, Darkhorse, the Gryphon . . . all the faces formed before Cabe. They and others looked to him, called to him. Whether it was true or not, the warlock again felt that if he gave in to Toma, he would open the way for all their deaths at the renegade's claw.
The warlock fought the lightning, even managing another step up. Toma's cries of triumph faded as he eyed with disbelief the continued existence of his tiny bane.
Cabe drew everything he had into one last effort, aware that by doing so he might kill himself where Toma had so far failed. He met, for what he hoped was the last time, the eyes of the renegade. Cabe tried to imagine the faces of all those close to him whom Toma had already killed. Even Grath, despite the young drake's secret allegiance. Grath had saved Cabe and Valea from the duke's black blade.
”From the beginning,” he called to the sinister behemoth, ”you've desired that it be you and you alone who sat on the throne as Dragon Emperor.”
”It should have been mine! I was the most worthy! I, Toma!”
Cabe ignored the outburst. ”I can't make you emperor, Toma, but the least I can do . . . is give you the throne.”
The attack that Cabe had prepared was fueled as much by his own life force as it was by the sorcerous power at his command. He reached forward with his right hand and pointed at where he knew the dragon's heart to be. So ensnared was he by his own spell that he no longer even noticed Toma's own withered a.s.sault.
His last view before his bolt hit Toma in the chest was the dragon's absolute refusal to accept what was happening.
Toma's s.h.i.+eld was nothing to Cabe's spell. Neither was the thick, tough, scaled hide of the deadly leviathan. The bolt burned through all, piercing the dragon completely through and not dissipating until it struck the wall far behind him.
The dragon stiffened, transfixed by the lethal a.s.sault. Toma's ma.s.sive form s.h.i.+vered as Cabe continued to pour his life into the effort.
”Fall, d.a.m.n you!” he cried, unconsciously mimicking Toma from but a few moments before. ”Why don't you fall?”