Lon followed Sasha due east toward The Tower. He’d heard rumors about the vault, everyone had. A place where the high sorcerers kept dark artifacts too powerful to be destroyed alongside equally dangerous divine items that might be of use one day. He’d assumed the rumors were just that, Tower gossip spread from one year to the next. Nervous as he was to be transporting the urn Lon was looking forward to seeing the vault.

Lon flew through the clear blue sky, his every sense alert for potential trouble. He found it two hours out from port. A familiar, corrupt darkness he never wanted to experience again. Ahead of them a black speck floated in the sky.

“Run for The Tower!” Sasha raced to engage the darkness.

Lon swung out wide of the combat zone as fast as he could manage. Once he escaped, Sasha could disengage and flee. He’d seen the black knight’s power before and held no illusions about their combined ability to defeat him.

A stream of black flames brought Lon up short. He tried to dive under them, but the fire shifted to block him. So much for running. It appeared he’d have to fight after all. Lon spun his griffin toward Mikhail and raced to back up Sasha.

The blue dragon lunged toward Mikhail, jaws wide enough to swallow him and his mount whole. A single swing of the black sword followed by a burst of hellfire blasted Sasha’s construct to glittering shards. Lon clenched his jaw. She’d put a lot of her power into that dragon and Mikhail had destroyed it in seconds.

Sasha sent a dozen beams of golden soul force hammering into Mikhail. Some he deflected with his sword and others he let bounce off his armor. None of the blasts so much as made him flinch.

One of Mikhail’s arms had been replaced by a black-scaled demon limb ending in rending talons. Sasha attacked again and Lon added his own power to the effort with explosive orbs that detonated against Mikhail’s armored back with no more effect than Sasha’s beams.

Mikhail was a nightmare and Lon had no idea how to end him.

The black knight swept his sword through the air and a wave of hellfire hammered Sasha back. The attack left her body red and smoking. It looked like it was all she could do to stay in the air.

They couldn’t stop Mikhail and they couldn’t flee. Lon saw only one option that didn’t end with him and Sasha dead. The archmage wasn’t going to be happy.

Lon brought the urn up where Mikhail could see it. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Give it to me and I’ll kill you quick.”

“Catch!” Lon hurled the urn away with so much force it looked like a comet.

“No!” Mikhail raced after the urn, his enemies temporarily forgotten.

Heaven’s mercy, that was close. Lon gathered up Sasha and flew toward The Tower at full speed. When the black knight caught up to the urn Lon wanted to have a thick stone wall between them.