Page 84 of Red Dragon
Shouts and clunks and cries of pain still came from the front of the ruins. He couldn’t even win his own battle. Like Syla, he didn’t have a weapon capable of hurting the gargoyles.
A thunderous boom came from somewhere outside, and the ground shook. Startled, Syla stared toward the hole in the ceiling, having caught a flash of light out there, but it was already gone. Only the sounds of trees and branches hitting the ground lingered.
“Fel?” she called uncertainly.
The gargoyle pursuing her had paused when the ground shook but only for a moment. Now, it continued toward her.
Syla tried to climb up the rock pile, but the moss and leaves littering it were damp and slick, and she struggled. Aware of the gargoyle’s inexorable approach, she clawed her way up, her progress painfully slow.
Somethingclinkedonto the stone roof, then bounced down the rock pile past her to land between the gargoyle’s legs. The magical creation didn’t slow, simply charging past whatever that had been, intent on reaching her. Its clawed hand reached for her, scraping her through her dress.
As she flattened herself and rolled to the side, trying to escape, a great boom came from behind the gargoyle, and white light flashed, blinding after the darkness. Raw power struck Syla, knocking her to the side and down the rock pile. Her head cracked against the stone wall, and debris tumbled down all around her, half-burying her.
Thuds sounded, the gargoyle stomping as it turned around. Still after her? Undeterred by that explosion? Or had that been a magical attack? Her head throbbed, pain stabbed her body from multiple directions, and Syla struggled to figure out what had happened.
Wings flapped as the gargoyle wobbled toward her, lopsided but still coming. Until someone jumped down through the hole in the ceiling. Fel? No, a shock of short white hair stood out on the man’s head as he landed on the gargoyle’s shoulders. With a bone blade that gleamed almost as whitely as his hair, he drove a great blow into its head.
Though dazed, Syla wanted to get up so that she wouldn’t be helpless, but she struggled to push away the rocks that had tumbled down the pile with her.
Wings flapping erratically, the gargoyle reached up, slashing its claws at its attacker. The man—was that Vorik’s comrade?—stood on its shoulders on either side of its head and jumped to evade the swipes. Again, he struck with his blade—his gargoyle-bone blade—and its magic damaged the creation in a way that Fel’s mace and Teyla’s sword had not.
The stormer slashed off the top of a wing, then slammed his sword into the gargoyle’s head. Twice more, he had to leap to avoid its counterattacks, but he did so, then jumped free when it wobbled and finally toppled. The heavy gargoyle shook the ground when it landed on its side, wings crunching under its weight. It didn’t rise again.
Sword in hand, the white-haired man looked at Syla. Her first thought was to slump in relief and be grateful, but something in his eyes told her that she wasn’t safe.
“She’s down, sir,” the man called through the great hole in the ceiling.
He walked closer, looming into Syla’s view, a view that was lopsided thanks to her crooked spectacles hanging halfway down her nose. She straightened them, but her arm hurt with the movement.Everythinghurt.
“And the dragons aren’t nearby,” the man added, still calling to someone outside. Vorik. It had to be. “This is our chance to kidnap her.”
Kidnapher?
Syla fought against the pain pulsing in her head to focus on the young man as he crept closer. He was bleeding, black riding leathers torn from the gargoyle claws, but he reached for her with determination in his eyes. Waskidnappingher part of Vorik’s mission? His words from the ship rang in her mind.Come with me.
Maybe he’d wanted it to be voluntary, but, for some reason, his people—probably his odiousgeneral—wanted her. Could they know that a moon-mark was required to access the storm god’s laboratory? Yes, of course. They had the same information that she did.
“Nobody’s kidnapping me.” Syla gritted her teeth against her pain and shoved a rock off her hip. As if to emphasize the sentiment, and certainly her feelings, her moon-mark flared.
Not answering, the white-haired stormer reached for her. If he’d meant to help her up, she would have allowed it, even thanked him, but the silver glow illuminated his features, and his set jaw and stance promised he meant to sling her over his shoulder and tote her off to his superiors. Her heart pounded at the thought, and she imagined General Jhiton somehow using her against her own people, turning her into a tool to harm the Kingdom.
He grabbed her wrist and started to pull her up. Setting her own jaw, Syla grabbedhiswrist.
Unlike with the impervious gargoyle, he was a flesh-and-blood human, and she knew his anatomy intimately. When she sent her magic coursing into him, only the fact that he was Vorik’s comrade—and her life wasn’t in immediate danger—kept her from replicating the attack she’d made on the assassin. But shedidwrap tendrils of power around his trachea, tightening his airway, as she’d done days before to another stormer. Like that enemy, this man didn’t have the power of Vorik or CaptainLesva, no means with which to combat her magic and drive it away.
Syla squeezed his airway shut completely, and he dropped to one knee. He tried to lift his sword, but with his limbs rapidly growing numb, he fumbled and almost dropped it.
The grip on her wrist loosened, and the man’s eyes widened. He’d faced the gargoyle fearlessly, but this… This was different.
Syla wouldn’t have loosened her own grip, not until he passed out, but a shadow dropped through the destroyed roof, startling her. Was that Vorik?
The white-haired man released Syla and pulled away from her. That broke her link to him, and he gasped, reaching for his throat, his eyes still bulging. He lifted his sword, as if he might strike her, but Vorik stepped between them, blocking his man from reaching her.
“Greetings, Your Highness.” Vorik leaned over her, eyes scouring her with concern. “Given your current tenuous position, I do not mean to be overly critical, but you came into the rainforest without a dragonorexplosives? Have you heard that this is a dangerous place?”
Vorik raised his eyebrows and smiled, the smile that always altered his appearance from fearsome enemy warrior to achingly handsome friend—lover. Someone she longed to have as a permanent part of her life. The blood and soot on his lean, angular face couldn’t disguise his inherent appeal.
“I thought more of bringing along food, water, clothing, and first-aid supplies than explosives,” Syla said. “Back at the temple, black powder isn’t on the packing list they give to healers heading into the field to do their work.”
