They needed Will’s help, but he could smell a plan in the works. The lich was holding his lieutenants in reserve, waiting for the dragon to appear and finish off the diminishing vampires. Will wondered what the two wizards could do that would save them once Lognion showed up, though. That part of the puzzle was still missing.

  If things continued for too long, Grim Talek would have to face his nemesis without any soldiers at all, and from what Will could see, not a single egg had been damaged. Their shells seemed impervious. Numerous times they were struck by the combatants around them, but it didn’t seem to matter. Whether it was a dragonkin thrown against them, a vampire’s claws as it scrabbled for balance, or even a direct hit from a demon-steel weapon, the eggs were unmarked.

  Will saw Tiny go down and started to intervene, but Laina warned him, Don’t do it. Wait for the dragon!

  He clenched his fists, but didn’t move, hating himself even though he knew she was right. I can’t save everyone, and if the dragon doesn’t die, I won’t save anyone. Bile rose in his throat as he imagined the egg guardians pulling Tiny out of his armor and tearing the flesh from the warrior’s bones.

  Impossibly, the black-clad knight rose from the cavern floor, throwing off enemies and reclaiming his fallen poleaxe. Blood and scales flew as he silently cut through his foes, stopping to drive the butt of his weapon through the heart of any dragonkin that fell in front of him. A juggernaut that wouldn’t be stopped, John Shaw continued to fight, showing no signs of weariness or wounds.

  Even the dragon-heart potions wouldn’t let him do that, Will mused, wondering what trick they had used. He lost the thought then, for a jagged rip appeared on the far side of the cavern, a tear in reality. It widened, showing a sunlit field on the other side, but the view was quickly eclipsed as the dragon stepped through.

  The battle was moving to its final stage.

  Chapter 47

  Without preamble or introduction, Lognion’s vast jaws opened, and white-hot flames poured forth, bathing the world in fire. Will was on the farthest side of the area, but the dragon fire extended all the way from Lognion’s position to the archway, and as it billowed forth it expanded to fill the place from top to bottom, leaving nowhere to hide. The nest had been purpose built with dragon’s breath in mind.

  The nest was still too wide, but the dragon’s breath showed no signs of tapering off. Lognion began on one side and slowly swept the incinerating blaze across until the entire nest had been bathed in purifying fire. Will had several seconds before the cone of fire reached him, and he saw Tiny hit by the blast. The massive knight hit the ground and rolled behind one of the eggs, and then Will had to take care of himself.

  He cast the cooling spell while simultaneously clapping his hands together, and the sonic barrier sprang up instantly. His practice hadn’t been in vain, and Will’s defense flawlessly diverted the flames. Despite his cooling spell, the air around him rose in temperature until it reached the point he thought his skin might begin to blister, before at last the flames passed on.

  Will stared out at a room that was beyond anything he’d seen in Hell. Nothing had withstood the flames, except the dragon eggs, and even those showed the beginnings of cracks. A sense of horror washed over him then. The chamber had been made to allow a dragon to bathe the entire nest in dragon-fire for more than one reason. Defense was one purpose, but now that Will knew how impregnable the shells were, he understood why Lognion’s eggs had remained dormant for uncounted centuries. The hatchlings needed dragon-fire to weaken the shells.

  The vampires were gone, rendered to ash, and though the egg guardians resisted the flames, they had still succumbed. Their massive bodies lay scorched and still across the entire cavern. Some of them might still be alive, but they would need considerable time to recover, and Will had a sickening feeling he knew what their ultimate fate would be.

  Once the hatchlings emerged, they would doubtless be hungry.

  Tiny’s armored form was still intact. While the demon-steel spearheads of the vampires had melted to slag, his armor had been sheltered enough by the lee of an egg to retain its shape. It glowed a dull orange from the heat while simultaneously blazing with ebon flames, trying to vent the excess turyn it had accumulated. Immune to the demonic turyn or not, if a man had been under that armor, his body would have been cooked to black char. Smoke was rising from every crevice.

  If I’d been next to him, I could have saved him, thought Will sadly.

  Lognion’s voice echoed through the air. “For a moment I thought I was alone. That would have been a disappointing ending.”

  Will thought the dragon meant him, but a dark shadow rose from behind one of the eggs. Grim Talek had somehow survived unscathed. “I wouldn’t dream of missing our reunion, old friend.” The lich’s body floated up from the ground to face his nemesis.

  “Coming here was your last mistake,” Lognion declared. “My children are beginning to hatch. The end you strove so impotently to prevent has come to pass anyway.”

  “You needn’t have waited for me to release them.”

  The dragon showed its teeth. “I wanted you to see it, so you could taste your failure. Everything you’ve done has been a waste. If I can’t kill you, I will instead savor your despair.”

  “Your brood may hatch, but I will at least see your ending, wyrm!” Another of his black, spinning spell-blades shot toward Lognion.

  Will wondered why the lich bothered, for he’d seen what the spell did against the egg guardians, and he knew it would be less than an annoyance to a beast the size of Lognion. His eyes widened in surprise when the spinning turyn cut deeply into the dragon’s chest, sinking in several feet before dissipating. Blood and bits of flesh were thrown out and fell to the floor, while the dragon screamed at the unexpected pain.

  Grim Talek lifted his hands, and two more spinning blades appeared on either side, arcing out and sweeping toward his enemy from either side. A triumphant smile formed on his face. “You want to savor my despair? You cannot fathom it, but I will let you learn. Feel my pain first and eventually I’ll teach you the final lesson, death itself!” Lognion tried to dodge, but he was struck by both blades, opening deep cuts on either side.

  The power being drawn from the ley lines outside the nest was incredible, as much or more than Will had ever attempted to use himself, and considering the things he’d done, he found it almost unbelievable. Grim Talek shouldn’t have been able to manipulate that much power, yet he did it with ease, weaving spells and sending them at Lognion from every direction.

  Roaring in fury, the dragon breathed out another blast of dragon-fire, forcing the lich to relocate. Grim Talek teleported to the opposite side of the dragon, but kept his attacks spiraling inward. Will noticed that this time they failed to do more than superficial damage. Something had changed.

  Lognion turned, but not before the lich’s newest attack cut deeply into one of his wings. He breathed again, and the lich teleported away. Again, the following attacks failed to draw blood.

  The power being wielded by the lich made no sense either. From what Will could see, only half of the enormous flow was being used for the black blade spell. The rest was going…nowhere? Will shifted his vision. Even an artificial pocket dimension would have an ethereal counterpart, else the dragon and its children wouldn’t be able to enter. A ghostly version of the room appeared, overlaying everything else. The eggs, the stone floor and walls, the dragon, and Grim Talek—existed in both. Tiny’s body was the only exception, as an ordinary man made of ordinary matter, his body and the demon-steel covering it only existed on the normal plane. Will blinked. Grim Talek existed in both.

  What?

  As the battle continued, the lich teleported again, and Will saw the trick then. His ethereal self didn’t teleport until a split second later, and when it did, it went elsewhere. The lich’s ethereal counterpart had to teleport a second time to rejoin the spot Grim Talek had decided to move to.

  The lich didn’t exist on both planes. His lieutenant, Mahak, was in the ethereal, mimicking his master’s moves. Somehow, the two of them were coordinating the black blade spell exactly, casting it in unison so that it struck the dragon in the same place and the same way on both planes. The result was that it did the sort of damage it would have done against a more ordinary target. The two wizards weren’t able to time their teleports exactly, so with each escape, they were forced to match up again before they could successfully time their attacks.

  The attack spell he’s using must be designed in some way to let them work synchronously, but only while they’re in the exact same place. Even knowing how it was done, Will felt considerable admiration for the lich’s skill and planning. The attacks they were using might take a while, given the dragon’s immense size, but eventually they would cut him down to size. Even a dragon couldn’t lose blood forever.

  Roaring and spinning in place, Lognion began sidestepping now and then, trying to dodge his attackers. The only thing he could do now was summon his elementals, at least in Will’s opinion. If enough earth elementals started tossing boulders, they’d be able to disrupt the lich’s tactics completely.

  But Lognion didn’t do so, though he seemed sure to lose if he didn’t. Will had already taught him the folly of using elementals against a true wizard, when he’d stolen power from them and turned it against the king. Was that what the dragon feared? It hardly mattered with a ley-line nexus in the adjacent room. The wizards already had access to more power than they could use.

  Stumbling to one side, the dragon seemed to trip, coming within reach of the archway, then he lashed out with his back leg, ripping away the edge of the arch. The access point to the nest collapsed, and the pocket dimension sealed itself. The archway vanished, and with it the power of the ley lines on the other side.

  Lognion laughed, unleashing sporadic belches of flame. Grim Talek and Mahak continued attacking, but without access to the ley lines, their power was limited. Being undead, neither had a source, and once the turyn within the nest was exhausted, they would be powerless. The dragon had done something similar to what Will intended—he would starve them of magic. Lognion’s wounds were ugly, but not enough to finish him, and the turyn left to them wouldn’t last anywhere close to long enough to complete the job. “You think yourself clever?” screamed the dragon. “I have destroyed countless worlds, hatched many nests! This is only one of many battles I have fought. Before me, you are less than an insect.”

  Grim Talek snapped his fingers, and a bright light flashed, filling the cavern for a split second. It disappeared harmlessly, but as Will saw a moment later, it was only a signal. Tiny’s still-cooling body lay close to Lognion’s left front leg, and he suddenly surged up from the ground. His weapon wasn’t in hand, but he held a black metal sphere in his fist. In spite of his size and the weight of his armor, he leapt seven feet from the ground and drove the metal ball into the cut Grim Talek’s first spell had caused, right in the middle of Lognion’s chest.

  The dragon swatted him away, but it was too late. The metal sphere had ruptured, releasing a steady glow of turyn. Seconds later, a rock outcropping melted into the floor. It was close to where Will was hidden, and as the stone flowed away, he saw Theravan standing beside a massive ballista. During the early battle, they’d somehow gotten the weapon inside and hidden it with solid stone, along with its operator, who thankfully didn’t need to breathe. The siege weapon was apparently enchanted, for when Theravan uttered a command word, the weapon fired, sending a demon-steel bolt into the air. Lognion turned, trying to avoid it, but the glow from his cut acted as a homing beacon for the runes engraved into the ballista bolt. It veered in mid-air and hit the mark. Eight solid feet of demon-steel, led by a massive, barbed head, buried itself into the dragon’s chest.

  Lognion screamed in pain, shaking the chamber, then collapsed to one side. Blood erupted from his jaws, and his body began to twitch.

  Will stared in amazement. He hadn’t been needed at all, and Grim Talek hadn’t suffered even a scratch. He’d assumed he would have to help, and he’d intended to take the lich down afterward, assuming Grim Talek was vulnerable, but Mahak had emerged from the ethereal and Theravan was approaching. Guarded by the two vampire wizards, Will didn’t face good odds.

  I’ll have to wait for another day. He started to step forward and congratulate them, but something clamped down on the chainmail behind one leg. Will almost jumped, then saw it was Evie. He tried to pull away, but she stubbornly held on, and since she was the size of a pony, she was hard to overcome. “What’s wrong?”

  Her appearance, along with his question, alerted the other wizards to his presence, so Will dropped his camouflage. As they turned to look in his direction the dragon’s eye turned to focus on them, and then Lognion’s jaws opened. Dragon-fire raged out, sweeping over all three and continuing on toward Will.

  Everything happened in a split second. Theravan must have heard movement, and he reacted first, erecting a force-dome around them, but it failed without even slowing the onslaught. White-hot fire washed over them, and the two vampires became ash. The lich was smarter, and rather than raise a shield, he teleported, but his reflexes weren’t quick enough. He reappeared a hundred feet away, blazing like a bonfire. He’d only received the slightest touch of dragon-fire, but it was enough to burn away his clothes and flesh, leaving only a loose pile of charred bones.

  Will’s sonic barrier snapped up to divert the flames as they reached him, and he made sure to include enough space for Evie as well. How she had survived the earlier blasts without him, he had no idea. When the fire vanished, Will stepped forward, sweating profusely, and started walking toward the lich’s dwindling pyre. His two foes had done the work for him; he only had to finish the job. He needed to hurry before Grim Talek abandoned his body.

  To his horror, Lognion’s head lifted from the floor, and slowly, the dragon got back onto its feet. “I thought you were dead, William. What a pleasant surprise!”

  A cracking noise echoed through the room, and Will saw claws pulling apart one of the eggs nearby. Turning his head, he saw similar movement in hundreds of other spots across the cavern. The repeated waves of dragon-fire had weakened the eggs even further, and the hatchlings were about to emerge.

  It was time to run, but Will had already been to the deepest pit in Hell and returned. Something like this was what he’d been expecting from the beginning; he just hadn’t known the exact form it would take. “Funny thing,” he answered. “I could have sworn you were dead as well. What are the chances?”

  Lognion was sitting on his hindquarters now, and he spit to clear the blood from his mouth. His spittle sizzled when it struck the ground. Reaching up with one foreleg, he clawed at the wound in his chest until he caught hold of the end of the bolt. Tugging, he tried to pull it free. The demon-steel emerged about two feet, bringing a gout of blood, before he stopped. “Damn it! Why the barbs? If they thought it would kill me, why make it so hard to extract?”

  Will waved one hand. “Hello? I’m still here. You might want to wait and see if I finish you off before wasting time on such an unpleasant chore.”

  Lognion laughed, spitting blood and cursing as the wound caused him more pain. “William, I’ve missed your humor.”

  The dragon’s head lashed forward suddenly, and Will reflexively teleported, placing himself twenty yards to the left. His eyes widened when he saw that the dragon’s jaws held a struggling hatchling. They snapped several times, and Lognion swallowed the hapless whelp. His voice rang out again. “Now children, behave. Daddy’s talking to a guest.”

  Will gaped at him, while taking a second to make sure the area around himself was still clear. “You just ate your own child!”

  “Not the first, nor the last,” said the dragon. “I think of you as a son as well. As you humans like to say, there’s no meal as good as one filled with your mother’s blood. The same holds true for other family members.”

  “Filled with a mother’s love, you sick bastard!” swore Will. He was done talking, but he needed power to work. The turyn remaining in the chamber was too sparse for the magics he wanted to use. “Aislinn, Aislinn, Aislinn,” he whispered under his breath.

  “Same difference,” replied Lognion, worrying at the ballista bolt again. “You should escape now if you have the power to do so. I prefer a chase.” The dragon blew a quick blast of flame in Will’s direction, and he created a barrier to deflect it. Lognion stared in wonder. “That’s new. No magic or matter I’ve seen before could resist dragon-fire. How did you do that?”

  “Tell me why you’re alive and I’ll tell you how it’s done,” snapped Will.

  “Your idiot lich didn’t know where my heart was. How many have seen the insides of a dragon?” Lognion chuckled. “The answer is no one. I planted the false information with the elves more than ten thousand years ago, and that crusty pile of bones believed what they told him.”

  “Why would they lie?”

  “To save themselves, William. Everything in this universe quails before the presence of my kind. Now explain yourself!” Lognion had the ballista bolt halfway out now.

  “I use sound. With focused vibrations, I can divert the flame. Your flames don’t burn my barrier because there’s nothing there to burn.” Lognion sent another wave of flames at him, and Will diverted it again. “See?” Inside, he was beginning to worry, though. His sonic barrier used up almost as much turyn as teleporting, and he’d used up most of the energy he had.

  Inside a pocket dimension, he would need a gate to exit, so he was both trapped and nearly out of power. What’s taking her so long? Another blast of flame and his turyn dwindled even further.

  “Waiting for something, William?” asked the dragon, still fussing with his chest. “Perhaps you have a secret plan as well? Maybe you think your so-called grandmother will open a gate from some other ley line nexus? That would be terribly convenient. With all that power at hand, you could fight—or flee if you’ve gained some wisdom.”