The Ruin

by Richard Lee Byers

The wyrm killed a spearman with a twitch of its tail, another man with a flick of its talons, and whirled toward Stival. As he tried and failed to stay ahead of the jaws and foreclaws, he saw that he and Madislak were the only ones left.

  The dracolich leaped upward, snapping its wings to carry it higher. As it plunged toward the ground, Stival realized he didn’t have time to dodge out from underneath. He shouted and raised his sword high, hoping that, as it crushed him, the wyrm would drive the blade deep into its own belly.

  Then Madislak rattled off an incantation, and power burned through Stival’s body. Wind shrieked and scooped him up as though he weighed no more than a feather.

  It whisked him out from beneath the plummeting wyrm, then up above the treetops and into the sky. As he hurtled along, he saw that his form was vague and gray, though from the inside it felt as solid as before. He peered about and discerned the misty form of Madislak streaking through the dark alongside him.

  Stival wondered if they could speak in that altered state, and decided it was worth a try. “You saved me,” he said, his voice faint, ghostly, but audible. “Thank you.”

  “I hoped to save some of the others,” Madislak replied. “But the dracolich killed them so quickly, and I knew the other druids needed more time.” He shook his head.

  “You did the right thing,” Stival said. “You wise ones had to survive, to deal with that.”

  He gestured toward the phantom in the west. She was still smiling, a smile of hateful satisfaction, and as if in response to her delight, snow began to fall from the summer sky.

  Zethrindor contemplated his kill and thought how strange it was to feel no desire to eat it. But the need and taste for meat had left him when he passed from life into undeath.

  Fortunately, the exultation of slaughter itself endured, as did the joy of victory.

  As far as he was concerned, he was victorious, even if most of the druids had thus far eluded him. He’d massacred their retainers, seized their place of power, and put them to flight. Not bad for what was only the initial move in the game he’d come to play.

  Ssalangan came racing into the glade, cast about, realized the fight was over, hesitated, then turned toward one of sod huts where the druids had made their homes. Zethrindor hissed, and the living white cowered. The older wyrm would have had no difficulty establishing dominance even before his ascension. As a dracolich, with the others still awaiting their own transformations, his control was absolute.

  “Mielikki’s servants fled,” Zethrindor said, “some in the guises of bats and night birds. You and Rinxalabax need to hunt them down. Hop to it!”

  Ssalangan wheeled and scuttled away.

  The dracolich doubted his minions would actually catch anyone. Human spellcasters were tricky, you had to give them that, and by and large, whites were less cunning than the general run of dragonkind. It was only with the advanced age Zethrindor had reached that they attained true wisdom and guile.

  Still, it was worth trying. One never knew, the whites might prove lucky, and in any case, the effort would keep them away from the druids’ possessions while Zethrindor looked for treasure. Perhaps, if he felt generous later on, he’d allow the other wyrms to scavenge coins, rings, and such from the bodies of the men-at-arms.

  As he stalked toward the huts, he reflected that it would be nice to gain some sort of tangible benefit for himself. Sammaster had vowed that by transforming the various races of chromatic dragons—the whites, reds, blues, greens, blacks, and their lesser kin—he’d change the face of Faerûn itself. In the world to come, dracoliches would rule as emperors. As veritable gods.

  It was a splendid dream, but so far, reality had fallen short of expectations. Shortly after Zethrindor’s metamorphosis, Sammaster had prevailed on him to serve another. A mere human. Even when living, the white had never stooped to such an indignity, and naturally he had at first refused. But the undead wizard kept cajoling, promising it would only be for a little while and was vital to the success of all their schemes, until, in the end, Zethrindor grudgingly acquiesced.

  Perhaps Sammaster imagined he’d agreed because he was grateful for his transformation, thankful to achieve power and immortality and to escape the eternal madness threatened by the Rage. Maybe, to some degree, he was. But it was also clear that the magician, though indisputably a benefactor to the wyrms he purported to worship, was likewise keeping secrets from them. The present situation was a case in point. Why did he think it important that the tyrant to the west have dragons to aid her? How was it relevant to his own grand design?

  Zethrindor suspected knowing the answers to such questions might provide the key to ultimate power in the world to come, and he knew his best hope of discovering them lay in complying with the lich’s wishes.

  Even if he never did find out, his present endeavors still might prove worthwhile. Many a warlord had conquered in the name of a king—or queen—then found it expedient to keep the spoils of war for himself.

  Starting small, for the time being, with the druids’ possessions. Zethrindor stuck his head through the doorway of a hut and discovered an iron cauldron positioned beneath the smoke hole. Magic throbbed like a heartbeat inside the black iron. With the tip of a claw, he scratched a rune in the earth, beginning a divination to discover its purpose.

  12 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons

  Floating on the breeze with Jivex hovering nearby, Taegan Nightwind scrutinized the riders approaching across the steppe. He assumed they’d spotted him and the faerie dragon as well. That was the trade-off a flying lookout represented. He could spot trouble coming a long way off, but might also serve as a beacon to lure it on.

  Were the horsemen trouble, though? Some of the nomadic tribesmen were friendly to outlanders. Indeed, it was to confer with such folk that the black-winged elf and his comrades had come to Narfell, while the majority of Kara’s “rogue dragons,” better able to travel long distances and bear extreme conditions, sought the secret source of the Rage in even less hospitable lands farther to the north.

  “Shall we take a closer look?” Taegan asked.

  “Why not?” Jivex said. Sinking rapidly in the west, the sun had already softened from blazing white to bloody red, but the small wyrm’s silvery scales still rippled with rainbows. “I doubt they’ll dare to bother us, not once they recognize me.”

  Taegan smiled. “I suspect word of your prowess has yet to reach this remote corner of the world. Still, I imagine that with a modicum of caution, we’ll fare all right.”

  Pinions pounding, the flyers beat their way closer to the riders. Essentially, the nomads looked like all the other Nars Taegan had seen since entering this wilderness of scraggly grass and wandering herds of reindeer. Armed with lances, bows, and scimitars, they were lean, swarthy, and wore their long raven hair pulled back into horsetails. Thanks to their proud bearing and fondness for gaudy clothes and jewelry, the barbarians bore a strange resemblance to the rakes of Lyrabar, one that had surprised and amused Taegan on first acquaintance. Each bestrode one of the hardy, long-legged Nar steeds prized throughout the northlands.

  Still, it seemed to Taegan that something was different about that group, but at first inspection, he couldn’t say what. But in the meantime he supposed the important thing was that they weren’t making any hostile moves. Possibly they were too busy gawking. Avariels were rare everywhere, and faerie dragons were equally a marvel to the common run of men.

  He swooped lower, and Jivex followed him down. “Hello!” Taegan called. “My friends and I are emissaries, bearing tokens from Dragonsbane, King of Damara. We seek information to benefit all folk, Nars included. To that end, we would very much like to speak with you.”

  The brawny, coarse-featured chieftain at the head of the procession pointed the tip of his lance at the patch of ground in front of him, signaling for the flyers to land. Taegan had received more gracious invitations in his time. Still, he furled his wings and dropped lower. Once again, Jivex followed his lead.


  Then, from the corner of his eye, Taegan glimpsed a small, sharp-featured rider behind the chieftain lifting a polished ebony rod with gold caps on the ends. The avariel drew breath to shout for Jivex to beware, but by then, green and turquoise light was already swirling from the tip of the wand. The radiance spun and twined around itself, creating a pattern enthralling and numbing at the same time. All Taegan wanted to do—all he could do—was hover and stare at it.

  But as his friend Rilitar Shadow-water had told him, it was hard to shackle the will of an elf, and from somewhere deep inside him there surged a wave of wrath and revulsion that enabled him to tear his gaze away from the seething lights. When he did, he saw that the riders had already lifted their short, deeply curved bows, and drawn the cords back to their ears.

  He couldn’t dodge so many arrows in any conventional way, nor did he have time to cast a spell. He lashed his wings and dived at the ground with every iota of speed he could muster.

  The cloud of arrows thrummed over his head. At once, he tried to climb again, but gravity and momentum had him in their clutches, and it was no use. He slammed down hard—from the stab of pain, possibly hard enough to break an ankle—and fell forward onto his knees. At the same moment, he realized what had seemed odd about the Nars. They didn’t have any children riding with them, nor any women save those who’d opted to follow the way of the bow and lance. They were obviously a war party, if only he’d had the wit to realize it.

  But he could berate himself later. For the time being, he had to cope with the tactical situation. It had its good aspect—the riders in the front rank currently shielded him from the archers in the rear—and its bad: Those lead warriors were only a few yards away, and were even then aiming their lances and kicking their mounts into motion.

  Taegan scrambled up. His ankle throbbed, but supported him. He still lacked sufficient time for a spell, so he simply yanked his sword from its scabbard, and the Nars were upon him.

  He sidestepped one lance and beat another out of line with his blade. His second attacker—the chieftain—snarled and tried to ride him down. Taegan jumped left, and the tall chestnut horse thundered past, missing him by inches.

  Only two Nars had charged straight at him. Had the rest attempted it, they would have collided with one another as they converged. But they wheeled their mounts to encircle him, and gripped their lances overhand to thrust and jab.

  Fortunately, the envelopment took a few moments. Taegan could have used the time to cast a spell to whisk himself to safety, except that it would mean abandoning Jivex. He looked around for the faerie dragon, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Meanwhile, the Nars had nearly finished surrounding him. He snatched a loop of tanned hide from the pouch on his belt, twirled it through a mystic pass, and declaimed an incantation.

  A lance leaped forward—but the Nar’s aim was off, and Taegan didn’t even have to twitch to avoid it. Thanks to his magic, the riders saw him standing a step away from his actual location.

  It was a good defense, but not a perfect one. In a moment or two, clever attackers would figure out the trick and attempt to compensate, and meanwhile, even oblivious ones might strike with faulty aim, and spit their target by sheer luck. Taegan had to pivot repeatedly to keep someone from stabbing him in the flank or back. Doing his best to block out the pain in his ankle, he dodged, ducked, parried, and when practical, chopped right through the shafts of the long spears. Thanks to the enchantments Rilitar had cast on it, his deceptively slender elven sword was equal to the task.

  He also shouted: “Jivex! Where are you?”

  No answer.

  The tribal wizard guided his mount into the ring of lancers. He no longer held the ebony wand. Apparently, since Taegan had resisted its power once, he thought it better to assail him with a different sort of magic. He shouted words in some grating arcane tongue and lashed his left hand through a triangular figure.

  Taegan couldn’t tell what effect the warlock intended to create. But he suspected it was likely to kill or cripple him, and that the subtle illusion that had thus far frustrated the lancers wouldn’t hinder it in the slightest. Unfurling his wings, he gathered himself for a desperate spring at the magician. A sword stroke, even if it failed to connect, might rattle the Nar and spoil his conjuring.

  Unfortunately, the nomads to either side of the wizard discerned Taegan’s intent and angled their lances to protect their comrade. If the avariel made the leap, he would only impale himself on the tips of the spears.

  A plume of glittering vapor swept upward from the ground and in an arc from right to left. Caught in the fumes, the mage, his protectors, and even their mounts swayed drunkenly. Smirking, chortling, the spellcaster broke off his incantation, from the sound of it just a syllable or two short of the conclusion.

  Jivex popped into view. By making an attack, he’d forfeited the veil of invisibility that had shielded him before. The arrow stuck in his back, where one platinum butterfly wing joined the torso, revealed why he was crawling instead of flying.

  Jivex scurried toward Taegan. Other Nars, who’d avoided a whiff of the faerie dragon’s breath weapon, kicked their mounts forward and lowered their spears to stick him.

  Jivex whinnied as if he were a horse himself, and most of the mounts shied. Taegan lunged at the one that kept coming, hacked the head off the rider’s lance, then balked the steed with a slash to the shoulder. The animal screamed and floundered backward.

  Jivex leaped onto Taegan’s back and clung between the roots of his pinions. The avariel hadn’t expected it, and the sudden weight sent a twinge of bright agony through his ankle and knocked him staggering.

  “Stop clowning!” Jivex said. “Get us out of here.”

  Taegan began the spell, dodged one lance and parried another. Jivex stared and by dint of his innate magical abilities, produced coils of thin gray mist. When the stuff touched a tribesman or his mount, they faltered as if it had abruptly become difficult to remember what they were supposed to be doing.

  Taegan reached the end of his incantation. The world shattered into spinning light, then formed itself anew. But the milling Nars were hundreds of yards away. Taegan threw himself down in the grass so the barbarians wouldn’t spot him.

  “Ouch!” said Jivex, still clinging to his back. “Be careful! When you fling yourself around, it hurts my wing!”

  “As you’re rending my shoulders,” Taegan replied. “Was it truly necessary to sink your claws in?”

  The dragon sniffed. “Don’t whine so much. You sound like a hatchling.”

  Taegan sighed. “Hop off and let me inspect your wound.”

  Pavel scanned the darkening sky, looking for some sign of Taegan and Jivex, who’d flown off to the north, then descended behind a rise. According to Raryn, it had been to make contact with a column of horsemen. Pavel had no idea how the squat, ruddy-skinned arctic dwarf knew that, but had no doubt his friend was correct.

  “Kara and I could go after them,” said Dorn, standing beside the wagon, his enormous iron arm and leg black and vague in the failing light. “We could fly there in just a minute or two.”

  “But only if I take dragon form,” Kara said. At the moment, she wore her more customary shape of a slender woman with violet eyes and moon-blond hair. “And if the Nars see a wyrm approaching, they’re likely to panic.”

  “Particularly with an ogre-ish thing made half of metal mounted on your back,” conceded Dorn, but without so much of the old bitterness. Since he and Kara had become lovers, his capacity for self-loathing had diminished. “Still, if our friends are in trouble—”

  “Here comes Taegan, anyway!” exclaimed Will, standing in the wagon bed amid the bundled gifts they carried to ingratiate themselves with the tribesmen. Curling black lovelocks framed the halfling’s face, and his curved hunting sword, seemingly oversized for a member of a race the size of half-grown human children, hung at his side. “But where’s Jivex?”

  Raryn peered, blue eyes squinting beneat
h bushy white brows. “Taegan’s carrying him. They did have trouble, and we’d best be ready for more.” He removed his bow from the wagon and strung it with one smooth, seemingly effortless motion.

  Taegan touched down, wincing as his feet received his weight, favoring the right one. He set Jivex gently on the ground, and the faerie dragon rewarded him with a hiss.

  “Jivex needs your help, Master Shemov,” the avariel said, “and afterwards, I’ll be most appreciative if you can look at my ankle.”

  “Of course,” Pavel said. He kneeled down to examine the dragon’s wound.

  Will ostentatiously turned away. “I won’t watch the charlatan butcher another victim. My heart can’t bear it.”

  “Quiet,” snapped Dorn. He pivoted toward Taegan. “What happened out there?”

  “About what you’d imagine,” said Taegan. He sat down on the ground and massaged his ankle through his oxblood leather boot, which he still kept polished to a gleaming shine even after tendays on the trail. “We approached a few dozen Nars, not realizing they were a war party. They gave us some trifling trouble before we won clear.”

  The broadhead arrow had driven deep into muscle. Pavel knew his magic could mend the wound, but only after he extracted the shaft. “I need to cut this out,” he murmured, “and it’s going to hurt. It will help if you can remain still.”

  “Of course I can,” the faerie dragon said. “I am Jivex, after all.”

  “Were the Nars hunting us in particular?” asked Dorn.

  Taegan shrugged, a gesture performed by the gleaming raven wings as well as the shoulders. “I can’t say. But now that they’ve found us, indeed, skirmished with a pair of us, I’m reasonably certain we’ll see more of them. They don’t seem the sort of fellows to leave a quarrel unresolved.”

  Pavel opened his pouch of surgical instruments and purified the steel scalpels, probes, and tongs with a pulse of conjured red-gold radiance.

  “Where are they, then?” asked Will, scanning the horizons, his warsling dangling in his hand. “They must know where we are, if only by watching where Taegan landed, and those Nar horses are fast. It shouldn’t take them this much time to gallop over here.”