The swords smashed with superhuman force. Lukasz used both hands, but still the glass shuddered under the effort. For a moment, it looked like the glass blade might shatter. But then it shivered, glowed a little brighter, and held. They broke apart. Circled like wolves.
Koszmar was too strong. He was too fast. He had evil on his side, in his blood. The next time the saber hacked down, Lukasz could barely raise the glass sword in time to stop it. Lukasz fell back. Koszmar grinned, long teeth gleaming.
Lukasz fell back again. Koszmar swung hard and seized the advantage. He brought the hilt down, hard, on Lukasz’s wrist. Pain shuddered up his arm, as the sword clattered out of his hand and spun across the glass.
Lukasz skidded after it. His bad leg twisted and gave way. He half fell, half lunged after the sword, but it skittered out of his fingers. Off the edge of the Mountaintop. Lukasz crashed to his knees. Watching, helpless, as the glass blade glittered and spun away, disappearing into the gray clouds below.
The voice was soft, musical. From lips that had once blown smoke rings at dark skies and shaped words of admiration.
“I’m curious, Lukasz.”
Lukasz could hear every one of Koszmar’s footfalls.
Looking over the edge of the Mountain, trying to wish the sword back, Lukasz watched the gray shifting and sparkling. The swirling fog gathered weight, gathered darkness. A dark shadow loomed, growing bigger by the second.
“How does it feel, Lukasz?” crooned Koszmar. “To have failed so completely?”
. . . sparkling?
Lukasz flipped onto his back. Koszmar loomed over him. The wild animal look was back. He snarled, the muscles of his face arranging, rearranging, drawing back from his teeth.
“Your queen is dead.”
Koszmar had been utterly destroyed, from the toes of his scuffed boots to the last, unnaturally silver hair. Lukasz felt the saber’s point slide up his chest to settle at the hollow of his throat. He could hear his breathing coming hard and fast.
Koszmar grinned down at him. The ice-cold, animal grin. Made worse by the rips in his cheeks, by the long fangs. By the blood slipping, unheeded, over his chin.
“Your brother is dead.”
Thud. It was faint. Thud. Almost imperceptible. Thud.
But Lukasz had spent a lifetime in pursuit of one thing. And as Koszmar laughed, he couldn’t help grinning, not even when Koszmar whispered, in that sweet, slightly nasal voice:
“You couldn’t even kill the Dragon.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“You’re right,” said Lukasz.
Koszmar hesitated, as if he could see the grin on Lukasz’s face. That open-jawed, crooked-toothed, half-laughing grin. The grin a hundred other monsters had seen before they died.
Koszmar’s head twitched to the side, almost quizzically. Water and blood dripped from his hair, down his wrists, ran down the length of the saber. The blade at Lukasz’s throat wavered, for the barest instant.
“You’re right,” Lukasz repeated. “I never killed the Dragon.”
56
THE GOLDEN DRAGON ROARED.
The Mountain shook. Lukasz watched as, reflected in its glow, Koszmar’s face turned from triumph to shock, before transforming to terror. He stumbled backward.
Lukasz felt the rush of wingbeats behind him, sensed the shadow falling over him. The Dragon shot straight past the Mountain’s edge. Lukasz glimpsed dead black eyes and six-foot black teeth. Then they were gone. He caught the underside of the Dragon’s jaw, covered in serrated, armor-like scales. Then the expanse of pale gold belly, racing past, as if forever, punctuated twice by sets of legs and claws, before giving way to a long, tapered tail.
For a moment, the Golden Dragon blocked out the sky.
Lukasz raised himself on his elbows, looking past Koszmar. Queen Dagmara was walking toward them. The glass sleeves of her gown shimmered like dragon wings as she raised her arms. Koszmar was gaping at the sky. Then, as if in a dream, Lukasz watched him turn back to Queen Dagmara.
“This is for your soul,” she said, in a voice that carried over the expanse. “And this is for my daughter.”
She dropped her arms.
And, like an eagle, the Dragon dived.
Koszmar was fast. He dodged out of the way. The Dragon’s teeth closed over air, its claws scraping the glass. Koszmar shot back to his feet, eyeless face twisting into a smile. He still had his saber.
Koszmar laughed.
Lukasz started to get to his feet, then stopped.
The Dragon’s tail swung across the mountaintop. It cleared a path through the golden trees, splintering the trunks as it came. Lukasz watched the explosion of gold and glass. Still laughing, Koszmar turned around too late.