The Nonman's laughter rose clear as sunlight from the booming echoes.
"And now look at you! Blind! Hidden in the dirt! Curled about the shit of dead ages!"
A cry like the blast of many waters. "BECAUSE THIS WORLD YET LIVES!" the undead beast roared. "BECAUSE THIS WORLD REFUSES TO DIE!"
Teetering above the monstrosity, Achamian shouted his Cant, a skinny old man hollering in a skinny old voice. The Noviratic Spike, a Gnostic War-Cant contrived to batter through great city gates.
Light balled in Achamian's outstretched palms. The mighty Wracu lashed its head from side to panicked side, raised its smoking snout at the instant of the Cant's completion. Lines of light snapped in and out, deflecting and intersecting, forming a flying sheet of triangles, reproducing tip to tip, base to base, flashing down as swift as any bolt or arrow…
A noise that struck blood from the skin.
The Spike exploded against the creature's left shoulder, hammered it squealing down the side of its mound. Thrashing, Wutteat howled fire into the air. A brilliant geyser jetted up through the ceiling pit, a rooster's tail of brilliance washed across the cavern roof. Cascades of raw stone came crashing down.
Achamian crouched low on the lintel, muttered Ward after Ward.
A thunderclap from below.
And he heard it through the dragon's mewling shriek: the sound of a Nonman Quya singing his world-breaking song. The sound of a famed Ishroi, a hero of dead ages, closing with his ancient foe.
The old Wizard stood firm on his perch, cried out another Noviratic Cant. Below him, the Father of Dragons coiled in defence, spewed fire into looms of Quyan incandescence. Light flared from the Wizard's palms, made crimson glass of his hands…
But the dragon had coiled to leap, not to shield. The Wizard's Spike gouged slopes of treasure and rubble. Mouldered and wretched, the dragon vaulted into the underworld attic, stretched forth its diseased wings. For a crazed heartbeat, Achamian found himself standing frail and astonished beneath the plated monstrosity. Light from the conflagration below illuminated its undersides, gleamed across horns and scaled flanges. Wings scooped dark air…
It knew, Achamian realized. The beast drew back its battered skull, yanked open its maw in a feline hiss.
It knew precisely where he stood.
Fire.
Wards dissolving like egg whites in a stream. Concussions. Blistering skin. The triggering of incipient Wards…
The pier of stone collapsed beneath his feet.
"YEARS UNCOUNTED!" it boomed from the cavern attic. "TEN THOUSAND