<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"> <style type="text/css" style="display:none;"></style> </head> <body dir="ltr"> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size:12pt;color:#000000;background-color:#FFFFFF;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A short dragon flight later (including an apology to the mighty dragon Keepers for using them as running horses) found them a good position: an uneven, rocky clearing strewn with boulders that provided cover for them and hindrance for the Beast's speed and mobility. It was nearer the Murk, Lilith's dark forest, than Misha would have preferred, but it was the best defensive ground available for miles. Merai located two nymphs nearby, both aligned with Lilith, but both so eager to avoid the fate of their sisters to the east that Misha privately wondered if they would have helped even without the presence of Lilith's ankh of safe passage as an incentive. They gladly agreed to clear any other servants of Lilith from the area, then hunker down in their trees and leave the Beast of Revonos to the Metamorians. They even provided dead wood for the fire that was the centerpiece of Misha's plan. Their defense was tiered, one layer upon another. Wolfram carved Long Scout symbols into the trees on the edges of the clearing, pressing his hand on the bark next to each to leave a familiar scent should Drift have forgotten the meaning of the symbols. Misha assembled the pieces of Drift's battlestaff, Whirlwind, and wedged it into a cleft in one of the rocks. After the fight in the storm the staff had been too damaged to repair but Misha had brought it anyway. Charles hung a Metamor banner on it and Saroth asked a gentle breeze to keep the rampant stallion insignia visible. Merai and Tychicus prepared more forceful surprises in case the memory jog went badly. In the middle of it all, a pan sizzled… Finally, they needed to draw the Beast's attention, to bring him to them on their timetable rather than his own. Once they had finished their preparations, Wolfram had the answer to that: a curving ram's horn plated with brass on the inside. Misha's brow furrowed as he looked from it to its mirrored twin on Wolfram's head. "Is that, by any chance, your own horn?" he asked. "The one Drift broke off, yes. Pascal repaired it for me." "And you didn't get it 'repaired' back onto your head?" Wolfram shrugged. "Waste not, want not. It'll grow back, and I get a story and a battle horn out of the bargain." "I'm beginning to believe some of the stories George has told me about your grandfather, Wolfram." "Thank you, sir," Wolfram replied with a smirk, then lifted the horn to his lips and blew. A brazen note lofted across the woods and hills. Merai gasped in instant response. "He heard that! Artela's grace, he's fast!" Faint crashes in the deep forest heralded the approach of the Beast, growing louder with alarming rapidity. Charles flicked out his Sondeshike and moved closer to Merai. His ears lowered and his whiskers backed. "I hope this plan works, Misha. I only survived my last fight against him because I had... help. If he does not remember, this will not end well." Turning his back to the clearing and the fire, Charles watched their backs should the approaching beast circle around to come at their flanks. Treetops started vanishing on a straight-line approach from the northeast, clouds of leaves and limbs erupting into the air as their trunks were shattered or smashed down. Misha tightened his grip on Whisper and bit back the 'me, too' in his mind from becoming anything more than a heartfelt prayer. "Here we go, people. Stay focused and work together.” Everyone’s turned, save the rat, toward the path of destruction rapidly approaching. Misha saw even Charles glance back over his shoulder briefly. The fox took a breath and tightened his hands upon the haft of his axe. “Saroth? Now." With a gesture from the weather dragon a breeze uncoiled itself from around the fire and raced out to meet the onrushing beast. It carried a message, a very simple message, yet one that stopped the Beast in his tracks; the smell of cooking trail-biscuit. Silence settled on the forest like an uneasy fog. Ten of the longest seconds of Misha's life followed before Merai broke in. "He's moving again, slowly this time. I think he's circling." Elemacil lowered, its point tracking on the Beast, and a moment later Merai amended an affirmative, pivoting in place to maintain her facing. {Should I have the wind follow him, Misha?} Saroth asked. "Not just yet. Wolfram? Your turn." The ram banged a pan against his shield. "Hey, Drift!" he yelled. "Yes, you, out in the forest! Stop sneaking around and get in here! Dinner's-" A cavernous growl interrupted him. In the shadows of the forest, a pair of golden lights appeared. A red mouth opened into a snarl beneath them, lined with darkly gleaming teeth and a tongue stained black with lutin blood. The head of a monstrous wolf resolved itself from the darkness, its glowing golden eyes showing neither pupil nor white. A crimson paw the size of a draft horse's hoof emerged into the light, followed by its fellow. With the arrogant hauteur of a conquering king and the narrow-eyed suspicion of a combat veteran, the War Wolf of Revonos strode into the clearing. This was a creature that expected an attack at any moment, expected to utterly destroy those who tried, and dripped with the blood of his enemies to prove his capability. Exchanging a glance between them, Saroth and Tychicus began to applaud. This had been Charles' addition to the plan. If Drift felt like he was still in the arena it would be the spectators who applauded, not the combatants. There was no contest of might to be had from spectators. It worked; the wolf froze in confusion with one paw lifted mid-stride. The two dragons were the only ones with hands free to clap but, unasked for, Wolfram let out a whoop worthy of the Summer Festival. The beast's head snapped around, locking on Wolfram like a lodestone to iron. Golden eyes bored into the ram for a long moment, then opened suddenly wide. Ears rose, pulling its head upward out of an aggressive snarl. Its jaw sagged open and its lifted forepaw dropped back to the ground, bracing as if the earth had suddenly begun to shift like a swaying ship deck underneath it. Silence descended on the clearing as the applause faltered. "Drift?" Misha spoke quietly. He hadn't meant to, but the name slipped past his lips before he could stop it. The effect was instant. Ears flashing straight backwards, the Beast flinched as if from a blow, then froze as every muscle in his body went iron-taut. For a moment, nothing moved in the clearing except the faint wafts of frost that passed for the Beast's breath. Then slowly, as slowly as an iron statue being dragged over barren rock, the wolf's head turned from Wolfram. Tychicus and Saroth passed under its scrutiny with barely a flicker. Merai warranted a tightening of the eyes, a strangled, agonized whimper. Charles evoked a snarl and a shiver of pelt as muscle fought muscle. And then… Kill him. To the end of his days, Misha could never say how he dodged that first strike. All he knew for certain was that one moment he had been staring into the wolf's eyes from across the clearing, and in the next heartbeat Whisper rang in his hands as its flat smashed across the leading edge of a red blur. The axe rang in his head, too, a cacophony of warning tones that he had no time to process. He had sidestepped, but not enough: even with those deadly jaws diverted, the huge war-wolf's shoulder sent Misha spinning to the ground, just barely missing a disemboweling sweep of a massive paw already coated in the gore of countless creatures. The fox tumbled a few feet onto his back, the world swimming briefly out of focus before a huge, black-toothed maw loomed over him, teeth bared for the kill. The sound of shifting armor and scrambling paws joined the angry snarl of the wolf as everyone began moving at once; all too slowly. "Eyes!" Merai cried warning. Misha had already brought up an arm to ward his face from those huge jaws, merely shifting it slightly higher as he clamped his eyes closed. A blinding flash drove the Beast back, pawing at its face, its fur smoking. A moment later a thrown rock the size of Misha's head, ripped from the earth by dragon talons, caromed off the wolf's skull just above its left eye with a meaty crunch. The Beast bounded away with an enraged snarl, but not before Misha caught a glimpse of its crumpled brow already restoring itself to wholeness. Gloved hands jerked Misha to his feet. "On- on your feet, sir." Shock stumbled Wolfram's words, but Misha paid him no attention. Drift had slalomed through the holy wards and weakened patches of ground that Merai and Tychicus had made as if he could see them. How- ? The wolf wheeled around, paws splaying, and Misha's eyes widened. He'd seen dragons take that stance before. "Cover!" he yelled, and tackled Wolfram to the ground as the Beast's maw opened. As the rest of the party scattered, Tychicus mirrored the beast's stance, robe dropping away as he grew. His chest ballooned with indrawn breath until the moment the war wolf's stomach tensed, and then dragon's fire and hell-born ice crashed together between them like the fists of giants. With a thunderous, ground-shaking roar, each nullified the other. Fog exploded from the collision of extremes, the roiling cloud instantly whiting out visibility to a bare handful of strides. The evenly matched contest lasted only a second before Tychicus' fire blasted suddenly unopposed, coring a hole through the cloud and lighting distant trees on fire. The wolf had vanished. From the thick mist to the dragon's right came three loud chuffs, like a blowgun firing in rapid succession. Three massive, rough chunks of ice slammed into Tychicus' side before he could react: one at the wing base, the second into his shoulder, and the third finding its mark on the dragon's brow as he turned to face the attack. Tychicus' head snapped back from the impact, his jaw falling open, before he crumpled senseless to the ground. Tychicus' plight was not immediately apparent, however, for the fog closed around them thick and impenetrable, instantly isolating them from each other. "Saroth!" Misha yelled into the blinding white, pushing Wolfram one way and rolling to his feet in another. "Get rid of this fog! We're sitting-" A chain rattled, and the head of the Long Scouts ducked to one knee just ahead of flashing claws and lunging teeth. As he dropped, he slammed the butt of Whisper's haft into the ground, the axe end coming up like a pike to catch his attacker in the chest. The impact nearly ripped Whisper out of his hands as the Beast, moving far faster than should have been possible, catapulted up and over Misha's head, a startled whuff of air displaced from its lungs. Black, dully gleaming claws and teeth sliced the air just short of Misha's ear and the Beast landed tumbling, head over tail, before vanishing back into the fog. "Saroth, now!" Kill him! The weather dragon took the fastest route he knew, launching into the air and bidding the newborn cloud follow him. The fog lifted, chasing the dragon, and revealing the Beast circling for another strike. With a snarl of frustration, the war wolf gouged the claws of one forepaw into the rocky soil, a dragging anchor to slew it around into a head-on charge. Recognizing that the party needed time to regather itself, Misha deliberately took a deep stance and wound up for a big strike. He wanted Drift's focus kept on- Misha's ear flipped back as the oncoming Beast shimmered and split into seven perfect copies, fanning out to swarm him. Charles had warned him about this, and his ear flipped forward again as he focused all of his scout-tuned perceptions on deciphering which wolf was- The stub of chain hanging from the Beast's collar flared white-hot, then detonated in a shower of sparks. The real wolf reeled smoking out of the closing half-circle of images, choking and gasping as if he'd run unawares into an airless vacuum. The other wolves shattered into wisps of snow a moment later, and their departure gave the monster its breath back. Limbs shaking and chest heaving, sucking in air like a man nearly drowned, golden eyes wide and wild, the beast staggered to a halt. "Drift? Are you-" Kill him! The Beast roared an earth-shaking challenge, daring any to close with him in his moment of vulnerability: a sanity-raking blend of howl and roar and scream. Misha's ears backed and his fingers clutched around the haft of his axe, but its greatest effect washed unfelt around him, Charles, and Wolfram. Tychicus was unconscious and Saroth out of range, but Merai buckled as nameless terror and dread hacked at her mind. Gasping a prayer to Velena, goddess of peace, she fought to regain her equilibrium. Misha moved to guard her while she recovered, but the Beast pinned him with a furious golden glare the moment he started. Before Misha could register that its next swift breath was more than just another panting gasp, another blizzard engulfed him. In an instant, Misha's world went white. A wedge of Longfugos force slashed through the air a fraction of a second too late to intercept the blast, but it drew the Beast's attention. "Merai! Wolfram!" Charles yelled as he ran into the assault path. "Get Misha out of that ice before he suffocates!" Spinning up his Sondeshike as a shield, he turned his full focus on the beast before him. Filling his lungs as full as he could make them, he shouted, "Drift Edward Snow! You know me! You know who I am! We met in the Arena of Blood, where you saved my life! Now help me save yours!" The Beast snarled. Was this tiny creature a fool? He faced Carcarak! The Beast of Revonos! The foremost servant and chosen champion of the Lord of the Sundered Shield! Not even the lowest, most witless of imps would dare to bring a shield into his presence, and this... this... Rat... The Beast hesitated, attention flickering from Charles to the developing cluster around Misha and back again. He swayed slightly as if pulled in multiple directions at once, unable or unwilling to move, ears flicking into uncertainty. Emotions flashed wild and chaotic through him like waves in a storm-tossed sea. Two diametrically opposed torrents of rage built and converged. "You don't need to fight anymore- we are both free! Our chains are broken! Come back to us as family! Come home!" With a deafening roar, the Beast erupted into sudden, brutal violence. Thrashing about like a hooked fish, he slammed his head against nearby boulders hard enough to crack stone, bit his own limbs until bone gleamed, and churned a bloody circle into the earth around him. Tattered flesh and shattered bone healed as quickly as Charles remembered, only to be torn and broken anew in a mad paroxysm of self-destructive fury, and Charles backed away in shock in spite of himself. His shielding spin faltered. At the same moment, Wolfram yelled and dropped his sword, backing away as it froze to the ground. He had used the pommel to try to break through the ice encasing Misha, forgetting for a moment the frosty results Charles had gained earlier with his Sondeshike, and hastily shucked off his gloves before they could freeze to his hands. Merai, arm raised in midcast, adjusted her aim slightly. "Nai nuva yaja!" she incanted, and a cone of glowing warmth washed over Misha and Wolfram. The ice around Misha began to steam, and the frost threatening Wolfram's hands evaporated instantly. Without waiting for instruction, Wolfram bashed the edge of his shield against the ice, opening a wide crack through which Misha gasped for air. Kill him!! Had Charles' reactions been any slower, he would not have caught the sudden shift from thrashing to strike. The flurry of force punches he hurled into the Beast's path split the wolf into three directions as it dodged, but the ones that sprinted left and right shattered into snow spray almost immediately. Only the one who had leaped skyward landed whole, staggering and panting. Many of the hits had landed, but it only seemed to make the beast, if possible, even angrier. Gathering his feet back under him in a bound, the war wolf hurled himself, jaws agape, at Charles.... and at the same time held back, inhaling for another blizzard. With only a fraction of a second to deduce which threat was real, and the tattletale chain obliterated in the earlier explosion, Charles set himself for a Longfugos air slash to counter the blizzard. The farther wolf looked solid and real, while the leaping one flickered and shimmered as if not able to fully solidify. He guessed correctly: the pouncing beast passed right through him with barely a chill. But then the far one, mid-breath, flickered and faded and Charles had just enough time to hear movement behind him before two massive hindpaws slammed into his shoulders. Adamantite-coated claws knifed into his back, lifting him from the ground and hurling him across the clearing. Saroth, returning to the fray, swerved out of a swooping side attack to pluck Charles from midair, unconscious and bleeding. He winged away, getting the rat to safety, but the Beast's open maw tracked on them, preparing to blast the bronze weather dragon from the sky. Then a glowing shield of light smashed into the wolf's muzzle, slamming it aside. "Get Misha out of that ice, Wolfram!" Merai directed. "I'll keep the Beast busy." That got Carcarak's attention. His complete, undivided attention. Shadows all over the clearing pulled toward him, rippling up his legs and over his body like phantom flames. His teeth bared. His tail wagged. Once. Merai lifted a hand in a warding gesture, a glowing barrier sphere rising up around her, but the shadow-wreathed servant of the Lord of the Sundered Shield cleaved through it with contemptuous ease. Arriving in a blur of speed, darkly gleaming claws carved apart the light like swords, shadow and light tangling and dissipating in smoky swirls and eddies. Frosted teeth bared to bite, but Merai and Elemacil were waiting. The holy sword flashed, forcing the hellbeast to flinch away, and Merai swung with all her strength, guided by the sword's spirit toward a decapitating strike. At the last moment, Carcarak twisted aside and Elemacil rebounded with a numbing clang, stopped short by the spiked collar of hell-forged iron around the monstrous wolf's neck. Though blocked, it still left a deep gouge in the collar, gleaming red with internal heat: another strike might break through. Carcarak, however, was not about to allow another. His head snapped back around with the speed of a striking snake, a blast of ice coating the blade and the hand wielding it and dragging both earthward with the weight. Buckling to her knees and gasping from the pain, Merai raised her un-iced hand, intending to blast the beast with holy fire, but found to her horror that she was only putting her arm into already closing jaws. Wolfram charged into their midst, bulling shield-first into the Beast's shoulder. Teeth snapped shut on air instead of priestess, and white fire furrowed the wolf's cheek and ear rather than spearing through his brain. Carcarak rolled with the tackle, snarling over his stolen kill, and launched Wolfram into the air with all four paws. As the swordless fighter land in a clanking sprawl, the Beast turned away with a dismissive snort. It was a mistake he would regret only seconds later. As Carcarak inhaled to freeze Merai and Misha in one blow, Wolfram's hooved foot slammed upward between the Beast's hind legs. The building icy blast choked off in an anguished spray of frozen shards. In instant response, one hind foot lashed out, catching the frantically backpedaling ram across the shield like a thunderstroke. With that much power behind it, even a glancing blow smashed Wolfram off his feet, nearly wrenching his shoulder out of socket. The Beast followed a moment later, whirling and pouncing with a murderous roar. Metal-clad teeth cleaved into the ram's upraised shield, crumpling it around his arm like cheap tin foil. His blazing eyes promised to cleave that arm apart and then rip out the stump, then do the same to the other arm, then each of the legs, and then... He didn't get the time. Wolfram gritted his teeth against the pain, seized Carcarak's ear with his left hand, and slammed his horned head against the beast's brow. It didn't do any damage, but the forgotten familiarity of the move bought the ram a moment's pause. He put it to best use. "Payback for when you kicked me there, Drift," Wolfram growled, his face dripping with blood from the Beast's gory fur. "Back in training when we first met. Remember?" Something shifted in the creature's face, and the massive wolf loosened its bite. Backing away, it pawed first at its head, then at its collar, metal claws raking fruitlessly against metal spikes in an ever-increasing frenzy. Another self-destructive explosion seemed imminent. Then Misha broke free of his fast-disintegrating ice prison. He hefted Whisper into a crossing block. "Drift-" KILL HI- Drift whirled, death in his eyes, and slammed his jaws shut on the black axe's shaft. The runic weapon struck back instantly, ripping life energy from the beast like a wolverine eviscerating a rabbit. Carcarak, desperate to stay alive, pulled every last drop of daedra energy from the broken linking spell embedded in the collar around his neck, devouring every spell and enchantment ever woven into it or through it. The collar, overstrained far beyond anything for which it had ever been designed, flared white-hot for a tenth of a second before detonating, hurling Misha, Whisper, and the War Wolf in three separate directions. Silence fell, broken only by the TCHOKK of Whisper burying itself two feet into a boulder as it landed. Cradling his right arm carefully across his stomach to avoid all of the sheared and crumpled edges of the destroyed shield wrapped around it, Wolfram struggled to his feet, muttering something he'd probably have to confess to Father Hough later. His body ached and his shoulder screamed at him with every nudge or shift, but it still compared favorably to getting thrown through a wall. Merai dropped the energy shield she had re-raised around her, her arm nearly finished thawing, and Misha levered himself upright, both looking about as bruised as Wolfram felt. "I'm getting too old for this," the fox grumbled as he pulled Whisper cleanly from the rock. Saroth landed in a whirl of wings, still carrying Charles. The rat wobbled drunkenly when the dragon set him down, but gestured that he would be okay. His mail would need to be replaced, as would the padded undershirt, but together they had taken the brunt of the claw strike: the rat Sondeckis had been too light for the wolf's double back-kick. Only Tychicus remained insensate, and even his eyelids were beginning to flutter. And in the middle of them all, his blood-soaked fur charred and blackened where the collar had been, the mighty Beast of Revonos lay sprawled in limp-limbed oblivion. <div tabindex="0" class="_pe_9 _pe_u1"></div> </div> </body> </html>