Read The Ruin for Free Online

animal and its rider onto the ground. Jivex dazed several attackers with a jet of his sparkling breath, Taegan, likewise on the wing, dodged a lance thrust and bashed his opponent with the flat of his elven sword, while Raryn parried a scimitar stroke with the shaft of his harpoon.
    That was much as Will had time to take in before Pavel rode in the opposite direction from the battle.
    “Aren’t we going to help the others?” the halfling asked.,
    “They’ll be fine,” Pavel said. “If the Nars push her to it, Kara can slaughter the lot of them, all by herself. But perhaps we can spare her the necessity.”
    “How?”
    “By stopping Brimstone.”
    “He’s the one who attacked the Nars? How do you know?”
    “Because I can feel him lurking somewhere nearby, as you’d feel the pangs of a broken tooth. Now stop blathering and look for him.”
    Brimstone, Will reflected. It made a certain amount of sense. Since he and his comrades traveled by day, the
    vampiric smoke drake couldn’t journey with them. Accordingly, he was exploring Narfell on his own, but made contact with his partners periodically. They’d actually been expecting him to turn up for a while, and certainly the wyrm would have no qualms about massacring a company of Nars for any number of reasons.
    Blood dripped down Will’s face. He swiped at it, then caught an acrid smell of smoke and combustion, and spotted a long, sinuous shadow.
    “There he is!” he said. “Swing left!”
    Pavel tugged on the reins, and in another moment, Brimstone came into clear view.
    Red eyes glowing like hot coals, rubyand diamondstudded platinum collar gleaming, a couple arrows jutting from his dark scales, Brimstone crouched among the shattered bodies of horses and men, with one living Nar squirming helplessly beneath each forefoot and another flopping in his jaws, impaled on the elongated fangs. The vampire’s throat worked, and he made a gulping sound, as he sucked his current victim dry of blood,
    The mare balked at approaching the wyrm any closer. His features taut, Pavel simply dismounted and let go of the reins. Will had to jump off quickly to keep the horse from running away with him.
    Pavel raised his amulet above his head. “You know,” said Will, “Brimstone is our ally. We could try just talking to—”
    Warm golden light shined from the sun symbol. To Will, it felt pleasant. But Brimstone squinched his eyes shut and twisted his head away until the glow faded.
    He didn’t recoil sufficiently to release his prisoners, though. Rather, he pulled the corpse from his fangs with a flick of his forked tongue, spat the body out, and sneered, in his eerie, sibilant whisper, “Sun priest.”
    “Let them go,” Pavel said.
    “Have you gone mad?” Brimstone asked. “I saw you lying in wait for the savages as Karasendrieth’s music lured them in for the kill, and I decided to make your task that much easier
    by slaying some of them myself. Which is to say, I’m helping you.”
    “Well, actually—” began Will. The drake’s shining eyes shifted to him, and despite himself, he faltered. Even for a seasoned hunter of wyrms and other dangerous creatures, there was something particularly horrible about Brimstone, something Pavel, Lathander’s agent and thus a sworn foe of the undead, felt even more intensely.
    Will took a breath and began again. “Really, we hoped Kara’s song would lull the Nars into being friendly. We were only ‘lying in wait’ to protect her if it didn’t work out.”
    Brimstone snorted, suffusing the air more strongly with the hot, bitter stench of his breath. “Be that as it may, they meant to kill you. They’re enemies, and their deaths needn’t concern you.”
    “You know,” said Will, looking up at Pavel, “at this point, it probably is too late—”
    “Quiet,” Pavel rapped, without taking his unblinking eyes off the drake for even an instant. “Set them free, abomination.”
    “I weary of the blood of hobgoblins and