Page 194 of Cast in Conflict

Kaylin immediately turned to her right. She saw a blur of melting building tops—“roofs” didn’t quite describe them—and a small burst of black dots that emerged from one of them.

“No, look up and right!”

Bakkon almost unseated them both as he leaped, his only attachment to anything solid a glistening thread of webbing; she lost any sense of direction as he spun. Mandoran didn’t have that problem. Bakkon didn’t either; he leaped, and leaped again. Kaylin briefly closed her eyes to avoid the dizziness the constant shift of visible landscape was causing, and managed to keep one hand on the Wevaran in case he got clipped—or worse—by fire again.

It didn’t happen. She realized that his frenetic hopping traced a large circle, from building top to side to street and back up, and when he’d finished, there was a literal web in the space transcribed by his leaping. He screeched and clicked what sounded like three distinct words, and then the web suddenly snapped shut—loudly—detaching its various threads from their moorings.

The black mass of what looked, at a distance, like an insect swarm was swallowed by the shuttered trap.

She looked up.

A gold Dragon was in the air, her breath a plume of constant flame aimed in its entirety at the Dragon outcaste. Bellusdeo had arrived. As lightning flew in a forked streak of light from the Dragon’s back, Kaylin understood why Mandoran had said Teela was here.

Kaylin cursed.

“Tell Teela to get Bellusdeo out of here! What in the hells is she thinking?”

Mandoran, however, said, “Bakkon, run now. And I’m not talking to Teela—to anyone—until we clear this place. I won’t take that risk!”

Kaylin was willing to bet any money that the rest of the cohort didn’t share this prohibition; they were probably screaming in his figurative ear by now.

Bakkon’s path was clear. He skittered and jumped from roof to roof, almost falling when one building collapsed, melting into the streets far beneath his feet. A spit glob of webbing prevented the fall as it attached itself to a building that wasn’t dissolving, or at least prevented their subsequent landing. The Wevaran moved.

Kaylin could see past the barrier; she could see the run-down and very mundane streets.

Just as she had when she was a child, she looked at those run-down buildings as salvation—they only had to reach them, and they would be safe.

But reaching them was going to be more of a problem, because the two Dragons were no longer the only thing in the sky above the one fief that had no Tower.

The Aerians—the shadow-melded Aerians with spears they seemed to extrude from their own bodies—had arrived. The cacophony of sound—the Dragons roaring, among others—was almost welcome. The Aerians were not.

“Incoming!” she shouted, as the much smaller flying enemies began to circle the streets and buildings across which Bakkon ran. She could see the spears; could hear their sibilant hiss as they were launched. She hadn’t heard that the first time. It was almost as if there were words in it.

They were words, she thought, that had somehow dragged both her and Mandoran here. She had no idea what would happen if those spears struck them while they were already in Ravellon. None of her best guesses were good.

No, Bakkon said, as she was still attached to him, still healing the small injuries that he’d taken. Nothing good will happen.

Can you stop them from hitting you?

Yes.

Us?

I am less certain. The noise took a back seat to Wevaran eyes as they bulged their way out of the sockets that contained them, rising on slender stalks that looked...not much different than strands of Shadow.

Wevaran legs were flexible. Far more flexible than mortal legs or midsections. The spears did fly; they simply failed to connect. She wanted—needed—time. No, wait, that was Bakkon’s thought. He wanted time. She had no way to give it to him.

Bellusdeo roared. This close, she could recognize the cadence of unintelligible draconic.

Another Dragon roared in response—not the outcaste, although his voice surged forward as if it were a shield against hers. A blue Dragon joined the fray, but it was an odd blue—metallic, almost shimmering, the color pale as clear sky. She caught a glimpse, no more; Bakkon was moving frenetically. But the glimpses—of gold, of black, and of blue—yielded a patchwork of information. The blue Dragon seemed to almost fade in the light of the sky above Ravellon. Lightning struck—this time, not the outcaste, but his small, flying squadron—and where it struck, screams followed. Screams of rage.

She saw the moment when the webbing spit from a thankfully obscured mouth came out pink, and understood what it meant; she’d seen it before. Bakkon had pushed past any reasonable, healthy limit that constrained the use of spider magic. He was continuing past those limits, and she gave up trying to catch a glimpse of the Dragons and concentrated on the healing.

Kaylin!

She thought she would never again be so grateful to hear Severn’s voice. We’re here—there are three of us. One’s like Starrante. We’re not dead. Yet. Where are you?

At the border. I cadged a ride with Emmerian. Could you not hear me until now?

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