They weren’t like the ones from the old books and renderings. From the tales he’d been told.
Instead, they were decomposing. Their dull scales sloughed away with every movement, falling to the ground liked hurled supper plates and scattering in wisps of black shadow. The same deathly grey as the dreadbeast from the chasm.
And the sleek bodies of the terrible and magnificent creatures depicted on nearly every surface of the Horned City certainly hadn’t possessed fuckinglegs.
They’d been crudely patched on, jutting out and sharply angling back in like centipedes, the same talons supporting them.
“That’s fucking great,” Faldir growled. “Foul bloody dreadwyrms.”
Hedda pointed above them with her axe in hand, her voice choked. “The Solyr Stone.”
Sure enough, there was the twelfth. It was camouflaged against the night sky and the obelisk’s endless obsidian, wrapped and wrapped around it, trying to break it apart.
“Lyriat!” Brand bellowed, pointing himself. “Bring it down!”
Their king swooped down and shot upwards, his dual greatswords glinting. Vann went up too, in the dark side of his power, nearly disappearing himself as his blackened body followed on a wingless flight.
And so it began.
The dreadwyrm tumbled down into the square in front of them, flopping as it shrieked, and Brand commanded the ground to wrap up around it. Others followed suit, replenishing the stone entrapments as it broke them apart.
“Find the weak spot!”
Those with him searched the colossal body, shadows lashing out from between scales and teeth.
“There!” Luna scrambled forward in his hold.
He followed her finger—straight into the dreadwyrm’s gaping maw.
“Roof of the mouth!” His voice carried across the square, to where his brethren and brothers were locked in their own battles.
Putting Luna down, he pinched her stunning face between two of his fingers. “Remember, you never leave my side.”
“Never leave your sight.” She nodded. “I understand.”
Brand flipped the talon in his hand and called to the stone. Rocky claws rose up around the dreadwyrm’s head, funneling into its mouth and wrenching it apart. With a lunging heave, he buried the the talon in its hard upper pallet.
The dreadwyrm’s death throes were almost more destructive than any of the intentional attacks. Leftover stands and canopies were destroyed, a quarter of the surrounding storefronts and homes obliterated. He tried to limit its movements, to keep it trapped, but the damage was done.
Warriors rushed in to pull victims from the wreckage, stone melting to sand beneath their power.
“The talons!” Luna shouted. “Take them!”
The ones who weren’t helping obeyed without hesitation, hacking away at the bony appendages. Victorious cries sounded from another part of the city, a pair of howls rising above them. Again from his other side, Vann’s echoing laugh floating by on the breeze.
The next dreadwyrm went down in much the same way—in a fit of earth and shadow and screams, the talon of its hideous cousin embedded in its house-sized head.
And the next.
Brand rested his hands on his knees mere feet from his third kill, catching his breath and gathering strength as hope flared within him.
They could do it. They could win.
“Brand!”
Face twisted in terror, Luna shot one of her taloned whips past his head, a wave of his hair caught in its current. He spun around as she hauled back, her body bowing with effort. A dreadwyrm had snuck up behind them from a tight alley and was rearing back, arched and towering a dozen stories above him with her magical weapon embedded in its eye socket.
He reached out to take the whip from her, but his fingers passed right through the glowing rope as if nothing was there.
