Read Online Dragon Age: Last Flight by Liane Merciel - Free Book Online Page A

thermal, but she shut her thoughts to what it meant. The Archdemon was all that mattered now.
    They were closing on it rapidly. A thousand feet. Five hundred. Its shadow engulfed them; its tattered wings rose like cliffs above Revas’s head. Isseya could see every grisly detail of the blood-smeared spikes that erupted through the dragon’s hide like crystals of corruption in its flesh.
    A hundred feet. Into the lethal zone. It was close enough to destroy them with a breath, if only it turned its head and loosed its jaws.
    But it paid them no mind. The Archdemon’s attention remained locked on the brindle-and-white griffon and his riders, who were now veering to the left in an attempt to draw it away from the surviving Wardens’ retreat.
    Bracing herself against the saddle, Isseya raised her staff and reached for the Fade. She had just enough time to pull a wisp of magic into the world and hurl it at the Archdemon in a burst of inchoate lavender-edged energy before Revas swerved sharply to the right. The mage’s spirit bolt slammed into the dragon’s bone-spiked side, coruscating across the plate-size scales in hissing arcs of energy, but the Archdemon didn’t even notice.
    It noticed when Revas hit it a second later, though. The griffon sank her talons deep into the Archdemon’s flank, tearing out a double fistful of scales and spikes. Thick, cold blood showered the rainless clouds as the griffon pulled away. The dragon screamed, a soul-rending sound, and snapped its tail like a bullwhip through the air.
    Folding her wings tight against her body, Revas plummeted to dodge it. Isseya’s stomach dropped with the griffon, and a knot of panic swelled in her throat. Beside her, Amadis screamed.
    The Archdemon’s tail slashed over their heads, close enough to entangle and rip out a few strands of Isseya’s hair on its spikes. Its enormous head swung around, fixing them with an eye that burned like a cauldron of black flames. It didn’t quite have the angle it needed to catch them in the sweep of its ruinous breath, but that wasn’t likely to stop it for long.
    Abandoning its pursuit of Crookytail, the dragon swerved its whole body through the sky toward them.
    Revas danced along with it, adjusting her position with furious wingbeats and occasional claw-grabs at the dragon’s flank to keep herself shielded by the Archdemon’s own body. Massive as the creature was, its bulk constituted a formidable obstacle. As long as the griffon stayed close enough to use it, they were safe.
    They might be able to keep it up for another two minutes. The other Wardens were out of sight; Isseya had to assume they were safe beyond the storm. Garahel had an opportunity to save himself, too … but he wasn’t taking it. He was coming back on a wide-angled approach. Crookytail veered around a bulwark of dark gray cloud, his furry ears flattened by the speed of their flight.
    At the very outermost range of his magic, Garahel’s passenger, Calien, raised his serpent-twined staff to the heavens and called a fireball from the Fade. It hurtled straight toward the Archdemon, picking up speed and substance as it streaked through the air.
    Even muffled by the dragon’s body, the force of the fireball’s impact ruffled Revas’s fur and washed over them in a tide of heat. It seared through the corrupted Old God’s hide, eliciting another roar of fury.
    The Archdemon heaved itself upward, contorting its sinuous length in an attempt to face both of its foes at once, but no matter how it twisted in the sky, it could not catch them in a single sweep. Nor could it reach Crookytail and his riders without turning its back to Revas.
    Instead of trying, the Archdemon drew in a breath so powerful that it sucked clouds into its gullet and pulled the griffons’ flight feathers forward on their wings. Revas screamed, fighting back from the pull of the Archdemon’s inhalation. Crookytail might have too, but Isseya couldn’t hear him over the inward rush