You seize the rope from your belt and fling the grapnel. The grapnel catches on something atop Red Dragon Tower, and you swing around the Tower’s curve, your boots skidding and scraping against the crimson stone. Finally you come to a halt, the rope digging into your palms.
It is a long way down.
Fortunately, the Tower’s top is no more than sixty or seventy feet above you. You haul yourself hand over hand over the rope, the scabbard of your rapier bouncing off your leg. As you climb, a flare of green light bursts in the sky overhead, and a tremor goes through the Tower.
You reach the Tower’s crown, and crouch for a moment behind the low battlements to take in the situation.
Lady Miranda Aventine lies upon a stone slab, conscious but apparently frozen with some sort of spell. Malureon stands over her, a dagger in his hand, his black robes streaming in the wind. His shadow also billows behind him like a loose cloak, or perhaps the wings of a hunting dragon.
As you watch, he slashes the dagger across his palm, and lets some of his black, slime-like blood spatter into a silver goblet.
“Hear me, Great Dragon!” Malureon bellows into the sky. “By my Power and my blood, hear my words! Long have you lain slumbering beneath Cintarra. Let now my power rouse you, let now this spell bring you from sleep! Behold, I bring the blood of King Aventine, he who bound you! Let this blood bring you to life once more. Let your heart pound with life and fury again! Let the blood rush through your veins! Let the blast of your nostrils summon the hurricane! And let your fire, Great Dragon, set all the world aflame!”
Malureon sets the goblet on the altar, next to Lady Miranda. In the distance, you see a glimmer of silver light against the clouds.
Ankylon’s sword.
But even as you see the light, Malureon raises the dagger over his head, the blade pointed at Lady Miranda’s heart. He’s going to kill Miranda and use her blood to summon the Great Dragon out of its sleep.
And if you don’t think of a clever way to stop him – right now – you are going to die, along with a few hundred thousand other people.
