Page 89 of Spellcast
The others scurry to get out of the way, too, hugging the walls of the cave like ants avoiding a tidal wave.
Tage and Cyphus are everywhere at once...a blur of onyx hides—a streak of black iridescent paint on the air.
A roar cleaves the cave.
Bone grinds on bone. Flesh squelches. Purple sprays like rain.
They’re moving too fast. It’s impossible to identify which one of them bleeds, but the taste of metal fills my mouth.
They’re fighting to the death—to kill. Only one is going to make it.Profa.A legitimate way to kill the alpha and take his place. I understand it now.
I know I should be worrying about myself, about what this could mean for me, about what will happen to me if Tage fails, but I can only lean forward in fear and anxiety, trying to mark Tage, willing him to win, tolive. And that means killing Cyphus.
Because that’s the reality...what needs to happen.
For Tage to live, another must die.
This is the truth...the violence of this world. I swallow the cold lump in my throat. Isn’t that everywhere? Not just among dragonkind, but in Penterra, too.
Tage is the sleeker of the two, all speed and fluid grace while Cyphus is a bull, a mountain of brawn.
Claws fly, teeth snap, blood flows, thick as syrup.
Flesh flexes and pulls over the bulge of muscle and sinew. The horned spikes on the frills surrounding their faces are not merely decorative. They turn their heads, swiveling, stabbing, trying to score one another to ribbons with the sharp tips.
Locked in a deadly embrace, they spin through the air, flying up, up, up toward the stalactites, the long spears waiting and ready.
I cry out, seeing it coming, knowing the fate of one of them...
Don’t let it be Tage. Don’t let it be Tage.
As they near those deadly points, a cry fills my ears. Only dimly do I realize it’s me.
Cyphus has Tage in a stranglehold, holding and driving him directly into those rock teeth, ready to impale him.
At the last possible moment, Tage twists. Foreclaws and hindclaws digging and holding tight, he thrusts Cyphus upward, impaling him onto several stalactites.
Cyphus bellows like a gutted animal.
I gag and swallow back bile as blood showers down from his body.
Tage unsheathes his claws and lets go. Cyphus slides free of the stalactites with a great sucking sound, his giant body dropping like lead, kicking up a storm of dirt and blood and mist where he lands.
Danhy blows out a shuddering sob. Viggo wraps an arm around her, murmuring comfort. “He made his choice.”
Tage sets down on his feet beside Cyphus.
I remember what they said about dragons. They cannot easily be killed. Only dragon bone can do it, and stalactites, however lethal they appear, are not that.
Cyphus’s pain-glazed eyes shift slightly, moving to lock on Tage. He stares up at him, nostrils flaring beneath the ridges of his long nose.
Words pass unspoken between them. Cyphus’s monstrous head, square and blockish, gives a single nod.
Tage huffs out a breath and lifts an arm. His claws with their razor nails glint on the air before he brings them down in the blur of a single swipe, delivering a deathblow across his throat.
Cyphus’s body goes limp.
I must have made a sound. Viggo shoots me a look. “Profa ends with one dead, one alive. That’s the law.”
