Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,254

not to show his shock. “Xiri?”

“What do we do? They won’t fight forever.”

That was debatable, based on what he knew of Melenea’s nature, but it was still important that they escape before too long. Not merely for their sakes, but for Sharissa’s.

“Can we outrun them?”

Dru shook his head, and whispered back, “They could catch us even if each of them had two broken legs and half their bodies ripped apart. Melenea knows her sorcery well. What they lack in personality and intelligence, they make up for in ability. They have reflexes a thousand times greater than the animal they resemble.”

“What do we do?” Xiri’s voice cracked for the first time that he could recall. He wanted to go to her and hold her, for both of their well-beings.

Dru looked up once more at the nearly hypnotic swaying of the towers. “We hope that it won’t take much more.”

Before she could question his statement, the familiars charged at one another. One Cabal had taken to a hill that kept crumbling. The second had opted for lower but more stable ground for its starting point. Each evidently hoped the earth itself would prove the deciding point. If the one above stumbled, it might lose its footing and fall, leaving it open to its counterpart’s attack. If it maintained its balance, it would have the opportunity to leap onto its twin, crushing the other beneath it and enabling it to reach the neck.

As the two monsters closed, Dru caught a twitch of movement from the living citadel.

With a swiftness even the wolves would have had trouble matching, the largest of the towers, so very much serpentine in movement, struck at the charging combatants. It had no mouth, though it might have thought it did, but its girth and the pointed tip were sufficient. The living tower caught both wolves, coming down upon them with a mass so great that it continued on even after meeting the ground. It withdrew almost instantly, leaving behind a deep crater.

The wolves had never even noted its coming.

Dru was already moving, hoping that the actions of the one spire would hold the others back for a moment. Xiri was on her feet even as he reached her and the two ran with all the speed they could muster. Neither dared to look back, even when they heard movement.

A powerful shock wave sent them flying forward. As Dru tumbled, he saw another of the towers retreat, its strike having fallen short by only a few yards.

There was one benefit of the second assault. Dru and Xiri had been tossed out of reach of the murderous spires. The two of them lay where they had fallen until their hearts had slowed to something approaching normal. Beyond them, the towers of the citadel started to collapse like wax candles tossed into a fire. Even still, the tallest made one token attempt to reach them. It fell far short. A moment later, the entire tower fell for a final time, its base no longer solid enough to support it. It continued to flop around for a few seconds more, a horror suffering its death throes.

“That… was…” Xiri took another breath and tried again. “That was… I cannot find a word that satisfies me!”

“Astonishing, amazing, horrible, terrible, insane, unbelievable, impossible…” Dru’s smile was wan. “Use all of them and more. It’s the only way you might ever describe it in sufficient fashion.”

She squinted, trying to locate something. “Do you think that those creatures are dead?”

“Cabal? I doubt there’s much left that could do anything to us. For a time, I was afraid it wouldn’t happen.”

Her eyes became dishes. “You knew the citadel would attack them?”

“It was watching like a snake, striking at movement. I hoped that it would attack them before they decided to make peace.”

“What if they had?”

He stood up and stared grimly back at the gaping crater that was all that remained of the wolves. “I’d rather not think about it. Let’s hope there are no more of them.”

“We should leave here,” the elf said. She did not want to have to face more of those obscene creatures if they could avoid it. “But where should we go?”

Dru was still pondering the familiars and whether Melenea had truly wanted them to kill him. He would have thought her too possessive to let others, even bits of her own personality, do it for her. That was verification enough that she was not here.

“She could only be in my lands… as I said