You seize Ankylon’s sword, the silver flame burning brighter as you lift the blade, and bring it down upon Malureon’s writhing shadow. You feel a shock of resistance as the sword strikes the shadow, as if you just swung it into a log, accompanied by a horrible straining noise, like two plates of steel rubbing together.
Malureon’s enraged eyes turn towards you. “Fool!” he snarls. “That sword was consecrated by the elven gods themselves. And I am their champion, I am their avenger, it is I who shall burn away the blight of the lesser races that corrupts their world. That sword cannot harm me!” Green fire crackles around his fingers, and he points a hand at you. “And you shall watch as I burn…”
Malureon’s shadow snaps like an overstretched cord, lines of silver flame erupting from the sword and soaking into the shadow. The end of the shadow holding Sidorna frays into nothingness, and she falls to her knees, coughing and wheezing. The other end of the shadow, still rimmed in silver flame, snaps back into Malureon’s chest, the impact flinging him against the parapet.
He’s right. The silver fire does not harm him.
It does, however, set the black veins beneath his skin ablaze.
Malureon screams as silver fire bursts from his skin, erupts from his eyes and nose and mouth. He stumbles, loses his balance, and topples backwards over the battlements. You see him plummet towards the earth, streaming silver fire like a comet, screaming all the way down, until he strikes the roof of the Prince’s palace, a long, long way below, and the silver flame winks out.
You look at the burning sword in your hand. Apparently the elven gods did not share Malureon’s opinion of himself.
On the altar, Lady Miranda shivers, stirs, and sits up.
“I say,” she says to no one in particular. “I have a terrific headache.”
As you go to help Sidorna up, you hear something rasp against the battlements, and to your astonishment you see Ankylon haul himself up. Your rope and grapnel, you realize. It’s still attached to the parapet, and Ankylon must have grabbed it after Malureon knocked him from the griffin’s back.
“Lady Miranda,” says Ankylon. “Are you all right?”
“I am,” she says. “Thank to you. And to Sidorna. And this clever thief here.”
You hand Ankylon his sword back.
“That was clever work,” he says, sliding the blade into its scabbard. “Stabbing his shadow like that. And you, master bard. That song…how could you have known?”
Sidorna shrugs and rubs at her throat. “Well I know the power of song to soften even the hardest of hearts. But since that seemed unlikely, I was hoping to distract him until you could take him.”
“Malureon’s wife used to sing it, in the days before the elven kingdom fell.” Ankylon shakes his head, eyes distant. “So long ago…”
A thunderclap interrupts his reverie. Green lightning leaps from cloud to cloud overhead, each stroke louder than before, and the clouds begin to rotate faster and faster. The wind whips to a gale, and it is all you can do to keep your balance.
“What’s happening?” shouts Miranda.
“Malureon’s ritual!” says Ankylon. “He summoned vast power to release the Great Dragon, but now that he’s dead, it’s spinning out of control. It’s going to discharge, explosively.”
That sounds bad.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” says Sidorna.
Ankylon nods, lifts his hand to his mouth, and whistles, the shrill sound clear even over the howling wind. A moment later his griffin and Sidorna’s griffin appear, fighting against the wind, and perch upon the battlements.
“Go!” says Ankylon, and he helps Lady Miranda onto his griffin, and swings up after her. You are only a few steps from Sidorna’s griffin when a blast of green lightning arcs down, shattering the stone altar, spraying hot rubble in all directions. The blast knocks you against the parapet, and for a terrifying instant you think you’re going to follow Malureon over the edge, but you recover your balance.
The griffins, however, panic, rising into the air with a shriek. You hear Lady Miranda shouting, see Ankylon fight against his griffin, but the panicked beasts pay no heed, fleeing towards the city below.
The wind speeds even faster, and a pulsing green light begins to shine from the writhing clouds.
“Jaeger!” shouts Sidorna. “What now?”
You might be able to race down the Tower’s stairs, but you doubt that you and Sidorna will get far enough away to escape the impending blast.
But your rope and grapnel are still attached to the battlements, and the rope is just long enough to reach one of the lower towers of the Prince’s palace. If you and Sidorna jump, and swing around Red Dragon Tower to absorb your momentum, you might be able to land neatly atop the lower tower.
Or you’ll miscalculate, and splatter yourself all over the cobblestones of the street.
