“Where is Erisay?” Draeken demanded.
“She fled with her daughter,” Serak shouted. “I’m trying to hold the Gate together but her charm is still building!”
Serak’s features were drawn, sweat beading his forehead. He grimaced and then reached for the Dark Gate, holding it together by force of will. Draeken leapt into the air and soared over the conflict, ignoring the fragments and the others. Several launched weapons in his directions but he swatted them aside, his gaze searching the battlements for his target.
He spotted the two dark elves on the battlements, Erisay fighting a group of Order guards as she ushered her daughter towards safety. Draeken dropped into their midst, sending the Order members scattering.
“It’s time your magic came to an end,” he said, advancing on the queen.
The dark elf queen conjured two daggers of sound magic, the orange blades shimmering in the light. “You cannot stop it,” she said.
“But you can,” Draeken said.
The shadows behind the two woman reached out, muscled arms wrapping around Melora and Erisay. Wounded as she was, Melora could not evade, but Erisay sliced at the hands and twisted out of reach. Then she sent a dagger spinning at Draeken’s chest.
Draeken swatted the weapon aside, but the dagger burst apart, and turned into a piercing wail. He grimaced at the assault on his senses and she threw another dagger, and then another, the weapons hurtling at his body. He knocked two aside but the sound just got louder. Then the fourth plunged into his body, and the sound magnified tenfold.
He laughed as he used his mind magic to focus his hearing. The din of battle, the shouts of the dying, the roars of dragons, all became muted, like he were listening from underwater. Then he began to advance again, causally pulling the daggers from his body. They clattered on the stone at his feet.
“End your magic on the Dark Gate,” he said. “Or I will end you.”
“I’m not afraid to die,” she said.
“You should be,” Draeken said. “For I am not a normal death.”
He used a spark of fire and snapped it like a whip. Erisay leapt back but the fire coiled around her leg and then fastened to the stone at her feet. Draeken sent three more, the ropes holding her fast. Then they began to pull her apart. The dark elf queen cried out as the fire bonds pulled, lifted her off the parapet.
“Do you have any idea how much pain I can cause you?” Draeken demanded. “End your magic, and I’ll spare your life.”
“My life does not belong to me,” Erisay spoke through clenched teeth. “It belongs to my people.”
“Mother,” Melora shouted, still bound in arms of shadow. “Just do what he asks!”
“I give my life for my people,” Erisay said.
“But would you give your daughter’s life?” Draeken asked.
He raised his arm and a trident of light formed in his hands. He pointed it at Melora and leaned into the blow. The three points turned as sharp as broken glass and he pointed them at the woman’s heart.
“End it now!” Draeken barked.
The whine from the Dark Gate continued to mount and Serak’s scream was audible as he fought to hold the Dark Gate from shattering. Melora called to Erisay but Draeken saw the truth on her face. She would not do it even to save her daughter.
“She clearly means nothing to you,” Draeken snarled, and then leaned into the killing blow.
Erisay cast a dagger and sliced the bonds on her arms. As she fell, she twisted her body, and fell between the trident and her daughter, the trident piercing her heart instead of Melora’s. Surprised, Draeken retreated, the bonds holding both women evaporating.
“Mother!” Melora cried, falling to her knees to cradle Erisay’s head. “Why would you do that?”
“I give my life for my people,” Erisay said. “And my daughter.”
“You would die for her?” Draeken asked, struck by the sacrifice. “Even after all the times she betrayed you?”
“A family is worth any sacrifice,” Erisay said.
She reached up and touched her daughter’s cheek. Then she smiled, and her body relaxed in death. Draeken stared as Melora cried her anguish, unable to pull his eyes from the sight of Erisay’s final act. Then another sound touched his ears and on instinct he turned.
The Dark Gate trembled, the cracks expanding across the arch. Serak abandoned his efforts and leapt back, just as the silver light shimmered to purple, and then sparked into thousands of tiny shards.
And the Dark Gate shattered.
Chapter 21: Fallen
Fire fought for his life on the summit of Xshaltheria, fiends dying on all sides. The Dark Gate lay in ruins, shattered into oblivion, but forty thousand fiends had exited before it had been broken, and Fire roared his challenge as the waves of dark creatures crashed against him. With fireflesh wrapped around his body, he charged through the horde and picked up Lira. In his other hand he picked up one of the dwarves. Rearing back, he hurled them to the outer wall, where Water caught them.
“We have to go!” he bellowed.
“What about Rynda?” Water shouted back.
The attempt to destroy the Gate had succeeded, but the fiends were already pouring down the mountain. Shouts and screams came from the valley, barely audible over the sounds of combat on top of the hanging fortress.
Rynda had lost most of her trolls, and both of Erisay’s guards were dead. She’d managed to get her daughter to the outer wall, but the second dwarven engineer had been torn apart by the fiends. Rynda and Mox fought with unsurpassed valor, their weapons cleaving through the fiends as they raced for the gates. Then Gorewrathian dropped behind them and his jaws snapped over Mox. One moment the First Blade was sprinting and fighting, the next he was inside the dragon’s maw.
Rynda snarled her hatred and turned, but Fire struck the stone, sending a blast of flames outward, knocking fiends away and allowing him to reach Rynda. He rushed to her and grabbed her arm. Wrapped in spitting and damaged fireflesh, he was as large as she was, but she was stronger.
