Rynn allowed her legs to collapse and dropped to her knees, breathing hard. She looked up from the rocks when she realised she could no longer hear the sounds of struggling, and saw Arokh pinning the war giant to the ground. The monster was obviously dead; Arokh's jaws clamped around its neck in a deathly, bloody grip.
Wincing, she sat back and examined her leg. Some spell or other of Navaros' had eaten through her armour below the back of the knee, and her skin there was raw and blistered. She touched the sore with a bare hand and hissed, eyes watering at the painful coolness.
"Navaros?" Arokh's subdued voice asked.
Rynn glanced up again, then at the body sprawled in front of her.
"Did it work?"
She crawled over to the body, hesitated a few seconds, then rolled it onto its back with a groan as her shoulders burned.
It moved flaccidly, and Delon's face stared without expression at the sky. Rynn watched, hardly daring to hope, as a thin vein pulsed in her brother's neck and his chest rose and fell. He even blinked.
"He's alive," she whispered. "I think..." her eyes flicked to the Jewels, still throbbing with green light. "I think he's gone."
Arokh limped down from his kill, one wing held awkwardly and bleeding at the shoulder. His eyes burned. "We can't chance this on a thought, Rynn. Is he gone? Did the Jewels work?"
Rynn prised away the fingers gripping Runeblade and rook the sword back. She held it and glanced briefly at Delon's body, then the Jewels. Ether flowed in her mind...
She knew.
"It worked."
Arokh sighed in relief and Rynn herself let out a deep breath, lowering her head again.
There was a faint, crystalline cracking sound.
"What was that?" Arokh asked sharply.
Rynn didn't move and listened hard.
It came again. Stress lines forming on glass? She glanced breathlessly up at the dome. Was it breaking?
No...
She jerked her eyes disbelievingly down to the Jewels.
One of them trembled and a fine crack split one of its facets. Something like orange smoke puffed up from it.
"They're too strong!" Arokh exclaimed. "Kaeros and Navaros must be too powerful to be contained!"
Rynn scooped the Jewels into her hands as quickly as she could. "Signal the others to end the Spell!" she shouted, and stumbled away, heading for the broken wall of the crater that stood as a dry waterfall, the Jewels held awkwardly in her cupped hands. Her only thought was to get the things as far away from her brother as possible.
If she could throw them off...
Another one cracked.
She abandonned caution and ran.
Arokh struggled up the rocky slope, hindclaws scrabbling for purchase as he pulled himself higher. He'd never seen any use for a dragon learning how to climb, all things considered. Biting off a savage curse as his injured wing flailed uselessly and his swinging tail almost jerked him off-balance, he clawed his way up the steep edge. He only hoped that, if he did falter, his wing would be strong enough to support a glide to safety.
For now, speed was the key. If those Jewels weren't gone before they broke then Navaros and Kaeros' mixed soul essences would surely find a way to get back into Delon. Then he and Rynn would be back where they'd started.
Albeit, in much worse straits.
He reached the jagged ledge, barely able to fit himself onto it without being up against the wall of the dome. Peering through the shifting blue field he knew he'd guessed the right side of the crater to climb. Far below he could see the dragons fighting, the black dots of wartoks swarming up the mountain.
"Let them see me," Arokh whispered, and reared back on his hind legs, spreading his wings and ignoring the near-crippling pain. Then he raised his head and breathed fire.
Star jumped back with the heavy stone axe he'd filched from a dead wartok and cursed, wiping blood from his chin. In all his years of longevity he'd never seen fit to practice a little hand-to-hand combat, let alone get himself a weapon other than his bow or dagger?
Idiot!
Glaive had leaped to take Star's place, his bladed staff shearing through studded leather armour and wartok hide. Ebontyne was a dark blue beside him with her shadowshiv. The wartoks had been pushed back to this narrow pass in the rocks, wide enough for two to fight abreast, after Morghus' initial attack, but since the dragon had returned to aid Nashiva and Kang-shi in the air the Dark Union's foot-soldiers had been steadily gaining ground.
Soon there would be room enough for three to fight. Then they'd be in the 'clearing' where the symbol was, dark since the activation of the Spell.
Still catching his breath, Star looked up.
"They did it!" he blurted, seeing Arokh's steady line of flame. "Ebontyne, Glaive - they did it! We can lower the dome!"
"Good," Ebontyne shouted over her shoulder. "Unfortunately, we're a bit busy right now."
"If Navaros has been defeated, they're fine," Glaive added. He lunged, his weapon driving up into a wartok's throat with a crunch. "They can wait."
Star nevertheless dashed back to the symbol and replaced his prisms, then returned to the fight. "We could use their help," he pointed out.
Rynn braced herself against the dry wall of the falls with one elbow and peered over the edge. It was a long way down... but not that far when the dome was considered. The field curved under and cut into the cliffs about ten feet below her.
More orange smoke drifted up from the splitting Jewels and she started to feel a definite sense of vertigo.
Why isn't the Spell down yet?
She looked for Arokh, who paused for breath where he stood high ont he other side of the crater, then let out another stream of fire.
Rynn stared down at the Jewels, each one sewn with orange cracks. The Jewels themselves pulsed rapidly with a bright green light.
After a second, she realised they were keeping perfect time with her heartbeat.
The dizziness increased, but not before Rynn made her choice.
She flung both hands outwards and the Jewels formed a glittering arc as they dropped down the side of Mount Tibor. As Rynn watched, holding tight to the rocks, there was a sharp crackling noise and a puff of orange smoke... then a ripple or incandescence as the Jewels of Eternity shattered.