Thanks for the heads-up, Black Bard; I try to avoid similar-sounding names for just this reason but when I created the Harper agents way back in Book IV, I had no idea that Gorath and the shifty Guthan would end up in the same plotline together!
And now we have Guthan, Gorath, and Goran, all mucking around in the same plotline! No more "G" characters from here on out!
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Book VII, Part 29
The dracolich breathed, searing Gorath with a cloud of poison gas that he could not hope to escape. The half-orc screamed in agony, a sound that was broken off by the gurgle of failing breath and the crunch of snapping bones as the creature bit down once more before tossing his jerking body aside. The brave Harper agent fell in a limp heap upon the hard ground nearby.
The dracolich added its own roar, a grim sound that was both mocking and triumphant. But it soon found itself facing new adversaries, as Zev charged toward it, spear at the ready, while from the sky above Dana streaked down, glowing with the aura of Selûne’s divine power.
“EACH OF YOU WILL SHARE HIS FATE,” the dracolich said, its voice sounding like a disembodied chorus within its skull. Ignoring the druid, it leapt into the air to meet Dana, its wings spreading out as if to engulf the woman.
They met in a collision twenty feet off the ground, the woman thrusting her spear into the undead dragon’s chest even as its sinuous neck snapped its vicious jaws at her. She screamed as the jaws tore her side, locking on her hip and jerking her roughly aside before she could pull free, trailing blood. Its deadly chill settled on her, but the power of her goddess flowed through her, granting her the power to resist the fell effects of its touch. She dove low to gain distance from it, moving close to the ground, but the dracolich caught her with a swipe of its tail before she could win fully clear, slamming her painfully into the earth.
The dracolich spun and descended atop her, its rear claws opened to crush her.
“Get away from her, you monster.”
Benzan, still half-covered by the tortoise shell, his face a ruin from the effects of the dracolich’s first breath attack, released an arrow that flew in a fiery streak to strike the creature on the side of its armored skull. The missile penetrated, scorching its essence with eager flame. The dracolich roared and turned toward him, its fiery eyes blazing.
“AH, THE LITTLE SPAWN HAS FINALLY CONQUERED HIS FEAR. COME, COWARD, EMBRACE THE TERROR ONCE MORE...”
Benzan’s hands fumbled as he grabbed another arrow and fitted it to his bow. He looked up, and his eyes were filled with the dracolich coming toward him, closing the gap that separated him. Already, it seemed to loom over him, those eyes swallowing him up into their depths once again.
Frozen, bow and arrow fell from nerveless fingers to land at his feet. The dracolich’s laughter shook the world around him, and he could not look away from the death that came for him.
As the draconic monstrosity moved toward Benzan, Cal stepped out from behind the shelter of the stone pillar once more. Every magical protection he could yet muster lay about him, from a cascade of mirror images to the glowing outline of a magical shield, and finally a protective ward against evil from his wand. He had not turned himself invisible, however; his current plan depended on the dragon being able to see him.
He shouted at the passing dracolich, and his voice, amplified by a spell to several times its normal timbre, boomed throughout the area.
“Dragon! If we speak of cowards, what cowardice is it to give up one’s own life, for a pathetic non-existence as one of the undead!”
The dracolich shifted, its head coming around toward the gnome, and as it did Cal summoned his final illusion. An image shimmered and took form in the air, resolving into the three-dimensional form of a flying dragon. Even in simulation the creature appeared impressive, sunlight glinting off of its green scales, its muscular wings beating through the air as it flew in a tight spiral.
Cal knotted his brows as he concentrated on his silent image. He had never seen a green dragon in the flesh, but he’d seen enough depicted in books that he hoped his version was realistic enough to attain his goal.
“YOU ARE A FOOL, IF YOU THINK TO TAUNT ME WITH WHAT I ONCE WAS. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER I NOW COMMAND... BUT I WILL INSTRUCT YOU. YOU WILL ALL BEG FOR DEATH...”
“The death you yourself embraced?” Cal shouted. He focused again on his illusion, and the scene shifted. The dragon was still there, but now it was eagerly tearing into a giant mastodon, then engaged in furious battle with a smaller bronze, and then again diving in a sinuous, violence dance with another green...
“A poor bargain, if you ask me,” the gnome said. “Never again to feel, knowing that you will exist forever, but only as a lifeless husk, stripped of all of life’s most basic joys...”
The dracolich roared, and its terrible visage appeared as it thrust through the hovering illusion, its jaws snapping as it came toward Cal.
Suddenly a streak of light cut through the sky, glancing off of the dracolich’s armored skull. Lariel, healed earlier by Dana, had finally shaken off the paralysis of the undead dragon’s touch, and the few hundred paces that separated him from his target did not trouble his expert aim. And a few moments later another arrow clattered against its spine from the right, as Lok rejoined the fray with a missile of his own, his incredible strength used to great effect by his mighty bow. Meanwhile, behind the creature Dana had gotten back up and recovered her spear, and was already lifting back into the air, gaining altitude for another charge. Zev was also there, but the gnoll druid had fallen to his knees, his eyes vacant. Perhaps he too had fallen prey once more to the dracolich’s foul touch, although he did not seem to have taken another hit.
Utharax hesitated. Already his skeletal frame had suffered damage that likely would have slain him, had he still been of the living flesh that the gnome illusionist had tried to depict. His undead form could absorb a good deal more punishment, especially of the sort of slashing and piercing weapons used by his adversaries, but collectively the tiny hits he had suffered added up to considerable damage. He knew that he was invulnerable, that even physical destruction would not end him, but he remembered feeling the cold chill of approaching death from another time long ago, and doubted. The dracolich turned its gaze back toward the fog bank, seeking out his ally, the one that bore his phylactery, the Cult sorcerer who had grown suddenly quiet in the recent moments of the battle.
He had empowered himself to see invisible creatures earlier, but there was nothing there, only the fog. He had been abandoned.
Another arrow glanced off his skull, doing no damage but drawing his attention back to the battle. He looked down at the gnome, who was moving his hands, conjuring yet another pathetic spell in an attempt to distract him.
Lariel ran toward the battle, his already long strides enhanced by the potency of his magic, doubling his speed. His quiver was empty, but he’d managed to score at least one more telling hit with his final shots. Despite the healing from the cleric of Selûne and the potion he’d drunk on recovering from the paralysis, he was still gravely injured, the marks of the dracolich’s claws forming harsh red scars across his torso. But he could not retreat, realizing like the others that their only chance for survival lay in defeat of this terrible adversary. He cried in dismay as the dracolich dove at the gnome—a brave comrade, despite his small stature—slashing through mirror images with his claws, driving the gnome back against the pillar. Cal—the real one, now shorn of his sheltering images—fell back and crawled desperately around the edge of the stone column, trying to escape a foe that would not be denied its kill.
Dana dove down from above, her spear glowing with flashes of electrical energy along the length of its foot-long steel head. The divine power that she had called upon earlier still filled her, added strength to her thrust as she plunged the spear into a gap in the thick vertebrae of the dragon’s neck. The thrust would have severed the spine of a living creature, but the dracolich only reared and snapped around, catching the woman solidly across the torso with a thick wing-bone, knocking her roughly aside with the force of the impact.
“YOU MORTALS ARE TENACIOUS,” it said, anger beginning to cloud the cold tones of its voice. “I WILL TEAR YOU ALL TO PIECES...”
The dracolich’s rant was interrupted as several more images appeared in the air, rough outlines of man-sized forms hovering in a ring around it, ten paces off the ground.
“ANOTHER ILLUSION? NOW YOU DISAPPOINT ME...”
The shadowy shapes began to resolve, taking on recognizable forms. Their ranks included a elderly human, his face wrinkled with age. A tall elf, his features wild, his hair falling in a chaotic flow over his shoulders and down his back. An orc shamaness, her muscular frame wrapped in a fur pelt, scars crossing her face, a totem drawn across the bald pate of her skull. Others that remained indistinct, vague outlines.
“Not an illusion, foul thing, corruption of the darkness,” the human spoke. The elf added, “It is you who are the shadow, dragon.” And the orc snarled, “Thine presence is an abomination upon the Land.”
The dracolich snarled. “I DESTROYED ALL OF YOU. YOU CANNOT THREATEN ME HERE—THIS IS MY PLACE, NOW, YOUR PRECIOUS NATURE TORN UP BY THE ROOTS AND BLASTED INTO DEATH.”
“Our roots lie deeper than you think,” the shade of the old human said.
Dana hovered in the air, having recovered from the powerful blow she’d taken from the dracolich. Lariel had reached the battle with his quickened strides, and came around the far side of the stele to where Benzan still stood, paralyzed. “I hope you don’t mind if I borrow this for a moment,” he said quietly to the helpless tiefling, taking his bow and a handful of arrows from his quiver. Lok, as well, had closed, still hefting his mighty bow, though his axe was close at hand at his belt. All of them waited, however, caught up in the confrontation between the dracolich and the former guardians of the Wood.
“BAH, GHOSTS CANNOT HARM ME,” the dracolich said. As if to emphasize its claim, it spread its wings in a broad arc, slashing through the empty outlines of the spectral forms hovering around it.
The shades drew back, but instead of retreating from the undead dragon’s anger, they drifted together to where Zev still knelt alone in a patch of blasted ground. One by one the ghostly forms drifted into the body of their still-living brethren, vanishing inside of him. Finally the last, the old human, disappeared into him, and the gnoll’s head came up, his eyes shining with a glow of iron determination.
The dracolich lifted into the air with a powerful sweep of its skeletal wings, issuing a loud cry that shook the area like a dirge sounded by a hundred bells. Arrows tore at it, fiery missiles shot by Lariel and powerful arrows from Lok’s bow, but the dracolich ignored those that were able to pierce its defenses. Its attention was on the druid, on the foes it had defeated once before and would now do so again, even if it had to tear down the entire forest to complete the task.
Zev raised a hand, and the clouds high above parted, revealing the cold orb of the distant sun, shedding its pale radiance into the Wood.
“I DO NOT FEAR THE LIGHT OF THE SUN,” the dracolich intoned. “BUT I WILL SCOUR YOU WITH THE COLD PAIN OF DEATH.”
The dracolich hovered directly above the druid, its skeletal form framing the sun, its jaws opening to unleash its deadly breath once more.
The sun flared, a light that shone in the sky and seemed to stretch out toward earth. A pillar of liquid fire streamed down from the heavens, engulfing the dracolich in a storm of flames. The flame strike, empowered by the combined essences of the slain druids, tore through the defenses of the undead creature, driving it down, into the waiting embrace of the earth. Zev made no effort to escape, only stood there drawing more of nature’s power into him as the burning carcass of the dracolich came crashing down onto him.
Silence returned once more to the forest clearing, broken only by the cackle of flames as they consumed the form of the undead dragon.
