Shadowrealm - By Paul S. Kemp Page 0,94
Furlinastis passed through some of the undead, as did Cale and Riven, and cold leaked into his bones.
“Leave him, Cale!” Riven shouted.
But Furlinstastis’s uncontrolled descent was taking them toward the battlefield where the Lathanderians, many of them aglow with rosy light, fought an army of shadow giants.
“I can’t,” he said. “Look! Steer clear of them, dragon!”
But Furlinastis, lost in rage and pain, showed no sign of having heard Cale’s words and his mountainous form plummeted toward the battle.
With nothing else for it, Cale tried to shadowstep himself, Riven, and the dragon to ground. He deepened the darkness around them, tried to eliminate their momentum while at the same time moving them safely down to the plains.
He felt the lurch of movement but they did not materialize on the plains. They appeared in mid-air, slowed not stopped, and immediately began falling at full speed again.
Cale cursed, tried again, but had the same result. He was stepping them down toward the ground, but doing little to change the dragon’s trajectory or speed.
Rivalen stepped from the darkness around him to the darkness around Kesson Rel. Kesson grunted with surprise, but recovered quickly. He reached for Rivalen with his left hand, still charged with energy, still incorporeal. His hand passed through Rivalen’s forearm, the energy discharged, and agony lit Rivalen. He felt his arm withering from the shoulder down, disintegrating into desicated flesh and hollowed-out bones.
Enduring the pain, he spoke the trigger word to the spell he had prepared and a field of anti-magic surrounded him, surrounded Kesson.
All of Rivalen’s magic items went inert. All of the spells affecting both of them ceased functioning. Kesson turned corporeal. Rivalen grabbed Kesson’s wrist with his one good hand and they fell together, leaking shadows.
Rivalen squeezed Kesson’s wrist with all of his shadow borne strength, with enough force to snap the bones of ordinary men. But Kesson’s bones did not snap, and he matched Rivalen’s strength with his own.
“We will see who is the stronger,” Rivalen hissed into his face as they flipped and tumbled earthward.
Flapping his wings, Kesson tried to right himself, but Rivalen’s weight made it impossible.
Regg deflected a giant’s slash with his shield, slipped on the wet grass, but managed to drive his blade into the huge creature’s thigh. It roared, grunted, fell. Regaining his balance, Regg beat back an awkward thrust of the giant’s sword and drove his blade into the creature’s throat. It gurgled as he withdrew the blade, and it fell face down on the plains.
All around him men and women shouted, cried out in pain, roared. Light from Roen’s priests kept the field awash in a rosy hue, preventing the giants from using the darkness to their advantage.
A roar from above drew his attention. He looked up to see Furinastis tumbling like a falling star toward the battle. The wyrm’s form filled the sky, a cloud of scales and shadows. Uncontrolled and roaring, the enormous creature was plummetting straight for the field where Regg’s company fought the shadow giants. It winked in and out as it fell, tracing an irregular line through the sky.
Regg unleashed a flurry of blows on the giant attacking Trewe, managed in his fury to drive the large creature backward.
“Sound the retreat, Trewe! Now! Now!”
Trewe sounded a blast but it was too late.
Cale grabbed Riven and shadowstepped off Furlinastis’s back the moment before the dragon hit the earth. They materialized off to the side of the battlefield and watched the dragon hit.
Men and giants saw the falling dragon, shouted, scrambled to get clear as the wyrm crashed to earth, causing the ground to shake as much as had Kesson Rel’s earthquake, crushing men and giants, cutting a chasm in the plain and pushing huge, wet chunks of soil, grass, and trees before his huge form. Bones, metal, and scales shattered under the impact.
Kesson and Rivalen, clasping one another, twisted and tumbled earthward. Rivalen, with only one arm and surrounded by a field of anti-magic, could do nothing but hold on. Kesson shouted the lengthy incantation to a spell that could disjoin the anti-magic field, the only spell that could affect it, while with his free hand he tore at Rivalen’s face with nails like claws.
Rivalen endured the pain, felt blood flow warm and sticky over his cheeks and jaw, and tried to maneuver Kesson underneath him. But there was no way to control their fall.
Through gritted teeth, he answered Kesson’s disjunction by reciting one of the Thirteen Truths, spraying Kesson with the blood leaking into his