Page 125 of Red Dragon
Was that the same tool she’d used around the fang embedded in Wreylith’s foot? To extract venom from the wound?
After removing enough droplets to fill the tool’s small reservoir, she moved it aside and dumped it out. The glowing liquid hissed and flashed and smoked when it spattered down, and Vorik jumped.
“Is that poison?” he asked. “Venom? Something else?”
Somethingworse?
“It’s acting like an acid on the floor, but it hasn’t eaten through my tool, so that’s fortunate.” Drop by drop, Syla filled the reservoir again—removing more of the liquid from the orb—and dribbling it into the smoking hole left by the first deposit. “I first tried to wipe them off with my sleeve, and the fabric not only disintegrated but went up with a burst of flame and smoke.”
The sounds of battle came from the other side of the laboratory, and Vorik glimpsed more creatures heading toward them. He strode forward to see if he could help Syla. The sooner they figured out how to remove the orb, the sooner they could escape. Or try. He well remembered that they couldn’t walk out the way they’d come in.
“We have to stay by the weapons platform,” Teyla called, an exhausted pant.
Weapons platform? She wasn’t talking about the big marble bed, was she?
“Thosethingsare staying by it,” Fel snarled back.
“They’re going wherever I am.”
“Which makes it cursed hard to defend you. Princess Syla, where are you? Can you make it back to us?”
“In a moment!” Syla called. “I’m otherwise engaged.”
“Eyes of the moon, what doesthatmean?”
“Funny he should mention the moon,” she murmured.
Yes, the orb, like the shielders themselves, not only glowed with silvery moonlike light, but the craters in the real moon were replicated on its surface.
A creature scurried out of an aisle between Syla and Vorik. Ignoring him, it rushed toward her. She squawked in surprise but grabbed a small vial from her first-aid kit and threw it between the thing’s eyes. When Vorik reached it a heartbeat later, the glass vial had shattered, spattering liquid onto its face. Halting, the creature shook its head, antennae quivering.
Vorik drove his blade twice into its back, the scaled carapace crunching as the weapon sank in. To ensure its death, he also plunged his sword into its head. The creature shuddered and collapsed.
“Do you carry magical venoms around too?” Vorik stepped around the dead creature to Syla’s side so he could more easily defend her.
“No, that was margroth tree oil. It’s an astringent.”
“That’s a weapon?”
“It stings a lot if it gets in your eyes.”
Vorik laughed, more out of relief from having reached Syla’s side than because it was a joke, but movement overhead made him pause.
Above the canyon, an orange dragon flew into view—Igliana. Her maw opened in what looked like a roar, but no sound penetrated the laboratory’s barrier to reach them.
“Healers don’t usually carryweaponsin their first-aid kits.” Syla glanced up but returned to the orb.
Maybe all that magical liquid had to be removed before they could take the thing with them. She’d also withdrawn scissors and a scalpel from her kit, as if she intended to do surgery on it. Maybe she did. It seemed to begrowing, like a plant—or acrystal—so maybe it would require a delicate touch to remove it without damaging it.
Overhead, more dragons flew into view. Vorik recognized several of them from the cavern. Igliana’s faction-allied kin.
Storm god’s wrath, had Igliana led them here?Why?Had they come all the way across the desert to try to recapture Vorik? He couldn’t bethatimportant of a prisoner.
Oh, but wait. Earlier, Agrevlari had said Sixteen Talon dragons—Vorik’s allies—were flying down the mountain range to retrieve him. To possibly invade the now-revealed faction camp?
Even as Vorik wondered if his comrades had found Chieftess Atilya and her people, Agrevlari flew into view with Wise’s Tonasketal beside him. Were Vorik’s allies chasing the faction dragons? Because Atilya had imprisoned him? Soldiers were caught and imprisoned all the time, if not killed, and a single person wasn’t that important, but… Ah.
The black dragon Ozlemar flew into view with General Jhiton on his back, grim-faced with his twin longswords in his hands, ready to slay someone. Maybe Chieftess Atilya specifically.
