“Let me explain this once again, Nath. All that is evil in Nalzambor is looking for you. There is a bounty on your head higher than those mountains. They want you. Alive. Wars are going on everywhere. The good fight and the good die, all because the evil want you.” He scooped some water out of the stream and drank. “According to Bayzog, you are the catalyst for the next Dragon War. Perhaps the last war of all time.”
“That would be a good thing,” Nath said.
“Not if the other side wins. Not if we lose you. Everyone needs you.”
“Why?” Nath said. His stomach growled. “I’m starving.” He sloshed into the stream, hunkered down, and spread his arms over the water that rushed past his legs. Fish, big and small, darted between his legs. “Ah, there’s a meal.”
Nath jabbed his hand into the water and pulled out a large, wriggling, black-spotted fish. He gutted it, scaled it, torched it with his breath, and swallowed the rest down whole. He tapped his fist with his chest.
Buurrp!
One of the dwarves applauded.
“Pah!” Brenwar said. “Let’s go. As for why they want you, I can only assume it is to turn you.”
“It won’t happen,” Nath said through a clenched jaw. “Ever.”
“Don’t say that. Come on.”
Nath snatched another fish and gutted, scaled, torched, and ate in on the way.
Hours later, dusk had returned when they happened upon a broken and overgrown village. He stopped, looking down at hundreds of stone markers. They were simple stones with names carved in them, noting all who had fallen but not been recovered. The layout of the village was familiar, and Nath knew that he’d passed through here before, maybe a hundred years ago.
“It’s like this all over,” Pilpin said. “Some save themselves, some are saved by others, but we can’t save all of them. The peace in the land is gone.” He nudged Nath. “Come.”
Pilpin led him to a half-sunken stone building that looked like it was being consumed by the ground. Nath ducked under a doorway that was tall enough for a dwarf and followed him down into a tunnel. All the dwarves funneled inside save for two, who remained outside with their battle axes crossed over their chests.
At the end of the tunnel, they emerged into a large room, like a barracks, lit by smokeless torches. In the middle, a table large enough to feed twenty was stacked with bread cakes and littered with jars of jam and honey and slabs of dried meat. The dwarves sat and dug in, while a pair emerged from another entrance with an oaken barrel between them and set it on the table.
“Welcome,” a dwarf with a white curly beard said, teetering in. “I see we have a visitor.”
“No,” Brenwar said, “we have the visitor, Gorlee.” Brenwar made his way out of the room.
“Ah,” Gorlee said, stroking his beard. He pulled out a chair. “Then I imagine he is hungry. Come, have a seat. Eat.”
Gorlee might have been the most pleasant dwarf Nath ever encountered. He was rugged, but robed in grey, without a stich of metal showing. The rest of the dwarves were coated in steel, sharp and dull, and armored in thick leather and dull metal. They all ate like they’d never eaten before and guzzled down tankard after tankard.
“Help yourself,” Gorlee said. “It won’t be there forever.”
Nath tore off a hunk of beef and grabbed a roll of bread. He stuffed it in his mouth. The dwarves weren’t known for their cooking, but what they made sustained you.
Gorlee eyed him intently. The dwarf seemed to be counting each and every scale.
“How many are in here?”
“Forty-eight,” Gorlee said.
“And you’ve all been watching over me?” Nath said. “All these years?”
“It’s what we’re sworn to do.”
“And now that I’m awake, what will you do?”
“I don’t know,” Gorlee said, scratching his beard. “But now that you’re awake, things will be a lot more exciting around here.” He clapped his hands, and a jar of honey slid down the table. “Put some honey on that bread. It doesn’t taste so good without it.”
Nath waggled his hunk of bread in Gorlee’s wizened face. “I wish more dwarves were like you.”
Gorlee laughed a little. “Me too, but then I wouldn’t be so special. You see, I’m not really a dwarf.”
“You look like a dwarf to me,” Nath said. “Even with all those teeth in your smile.”
Gorlee laughed. “Watch this.” The old dwarf began to stretch and thin.
Nath felt the scales on his arms tingle. A few seconds later he found himself staring at―himself.
Gorlee showed a mouthful of bright white teeth. “I’m a Chameleon.”
CHAPTER 32
“The hair’s wrong,” Nath said. “It’s supposed to be parted in the middle, not the side.” He rubbed his chin, staring the Gorlee version of himself in the face. “I’ve never seen myself bearded before. It’s really handsome.”
“Agreed,” Gorlee said, helping himself to a tankard. “You might be the finest creature I’ve ever mimicked.”
“But can you do this?” Nath said. He huffed out a ring of fire.
Gorlee’s face bunched up and he shook his head. “No, but I can cast some wizard spells. Watch this,” he said, pointing at a chair and twiddling his dragon claws. “Tweeedleee Ickle Steeeezzz!”
The chair turned into a goblin with wild and savage eyes, wielding a spear. Four dwarves pounced on it with their fists hammering and mouths yelling. One by one they popped up with a piece of wood in their hands or teeth.
“What’s all the clamor?” Brenwar said, bursting back in the room. “Aw, cut it out, Gorlee, and quit looking like that, will you? One Nath is bad enough around here, let alone two. Blast my beard.” He dropped onto a seat at the table.
Gorlee resumed his dwarven form and shrugged. “They don’t much like my other visages, so for the past two decades I’ve been mostly stuck in this one.”
“That must be frustrating,” Nath said.
“Well, I do get out sometimes. I’m the supplier. I can travel the world without notice. The dwarves can’t go much of anywhere as they aren’t very popular right now. Unless they’re in Morgdon, they aren’t anywhere else. So I get the food and whatever other needs might be met. I also pick up any information that might be pertinent.”
“Such as?”
Nath could sense that as friendly as the Chameleon seemed, he was nothing short of dangerous. Why Brenwar trusted him he’d have to ask later.
Gorlee said, “Dragons, Nath. The Clerics of Barnabus search for you and not the good dragons but the bad ones. The turned ones. They aid Barnabus. Their frustration grows, and they take it out on the weak.” Gorlee dipped a piece of bread in the honey. “Sure, the cities and towns are getting by, but the pressure is great. The people no longer smile. They frown instead, as if waiting for the entire world to explode.”
“I can’t run and hide forever,” Nath said, “and I won’t. Before I slept, the plan was to take the fight straight at them and end them. Destroy the snake before it got too big.” He looked at Brenwar.
“We tried that,” Brenwar said, “but it turns out the snake was too big already.”
“And now it’s bigger?” Nath said.
“Much,” Gorlee said.
“I want to see this,” Nath said, rising from his chair.
“Sit down,” Brenwar said, slapping the table. “We’ve got to wait for the wizard.”
Nath made for the tunnel, but three dwarves barred his path.
“See?” Brenwar said to Gorlee. “I told you he’d try to run off again. He always does. Thinks he can fix the world by himself. Hah.”
Gorlee nodded.
“I’m just going outside to get some fresh air,” Nath said, hunching down under the low ceiling. “My wardens can come along. I’m not going to sit here until Bayzog shows. I’ve been asleep long enough already. I need to fill my lungs and stretch my limbs. I need to run.”
Brenwar huffed and left the r
oom, but no one else moved.
“Give it some time, Nath,” Gorlee said. “After all, we’ve been waiting a score of years. You can at least give us a few days.”
Nath folded his arms over his chest and plopped down in a chair.
“Fine.”
***
Over the next few days, Gorlee did his best to entertain Nath. He changed his appearance from one dwarf to another. He animated the food and made it dance while the dwarves sang merry songs.
But not too loud.
Brenwar wouldn’t allow it. He swore eyes and ears were everywhere, and he went outside now and again.
Gorlee said most of his kind were good and that they’d chosen him to aid the dwarves and the elves when the world began to change. He said he was glad to do it, that he’d already known the stories about Nath Dragon as much as anyone. He said time wasn’t a factor, either, that the lifetime of a Chameleon was as long as a dwarf’s or an elf’s, maybe longer, but that he was young, the same as Nath.
“The dragons are turned or killed,” Gorlee said. “And they change. Many have black stripes and tails. Some even take riders now.”
“Riders?” Nath said. He thought back to his time as a boy, riding on his father’s back. He hadn’t flown since. Thinking on that, a great emptiness filled him.
“Just like the paintings you’ve certainly seen. Some of the dragons even perch on the spires of the cities, watching every little thing. It’s scary,” Gorlee said. “The people practically dart from one street to the other, and the strange ones set up places of worship. The dragons that were once reviled are now being embraced.”
“But the dragons were reviled for all the wrong reasons before,” Nath said. “They were good and made out to be evil and now you’re saying the evil ones are being made out to be good.”
Gorlee shrugged. “I suppose.”
Nath rapped his fist on the table. “That’s sick.” He clenched his teeth and rubbed his temples. “I have to stop this.”
“We have to stop this.”
“Huh?”
It wasn’t Gorlee that spoke but someone else.
Nath turned.
There stood Bayzog. The part-elf wizard’s black hair was streaked in white, and his violet eyes were hard. A white scar ran from his eye and over his lip to his chin, and his robes were in tatters. He held a gray staff of wood with a twisted metal tip at the end. He looked tired but strong.
Nath clasped Bayzog’s hands. The grip was much firmer than before.
“Then we need to get moving,” Nath said. “I’ll do anything to get out of this mole hole, and I’m more than ready to stop all this madness.”
Brenwar bustled forward and looked up at Bayzog. “Is it safe to go out?”
“Yes, but the hunters are close.” Bayzog released Nath’s hands. “We need to get the jump on them.”
“Why’s that?” Brenwar said.
“Come.”
Nath was all too happy to be outside again.
It was dusk, and the dwarves that guarded the door were not alone. They had company much taller than them, but they were also looking down at something.
Bayzog made his way over, and they parted, revealing a small dragon, little bigger than a cat. It was white. On its wings were strange black streaks Nath had never seen before.
Nath pushed his way through and fell to his knees beside it. It wasn’t breathing, and something had pierced its side.
“Who did this?” Nath said, angry and eyeing the others.
“Nath,” Bayzog said. “This dragon was a spy for Barnabus. It had to be put down. We’re fortunate we got it before it disclosed our location―”
Nath rose to his feet, towering over Bayzog, and pushed him in the chest. “Who did this? Was it you?”
“Does it look like something I did?” Bayzog said. He held his ground. “Do you want to push me again?”
“I did it,” a deep voice replied. A big man stepped forward. His face was short bearded, and his eyes were hard as stone. He had a bow slung over his shoulder and dwarven leather plate that covered his chest but not his sinewy arms. “Do you want to shove me too, Dragon?”
Nath balled up his fist. “No, I think I’m just going to punch a hole in you.”
Brenwar stepped between the two. “Not through dwarven plate, you won’t. Now settle yourself down, Nath. Can’t you see who this is?”
The man didn’t seem familiar at all. His features were hard and his body was scarred like that of a veteran soldier. His brown beard was salted with grey. A fine longsword hung on the man’s hips and a pair of daggers too. He had the look of a seasoned fighter.
The man shook his head and turned toward Bayzog. “We don’t have time for all this. We need to move. The Pool of the Dragons can’t wait. But I’m not so sure we need to bring him.” He eyed Nath. “Seeing how he’s the one they’re after.”
“I don’t think it matters now,” Bayzog said. “The next stage has begun. Sooner or later they will know that he has awakened. In the meantime, we need to properly bury this dragon. No offense, Nath.”
“Ben?” Nath said, taking a closer look at the man. “Are you Ben?”
Ben turned to face him. “Yes, do I look so different to you?”
“Well, yes,” Nath said. “You have a beard and muscles like an old warrior now. It’s strange to see you. What have you been doing?”
Ben huffed. His expression was agitated.
“What have I been doing? I’ve been protecting you.”
CHAPTER 33
They spent the next several days traipsing with discretion through the small towns and villages, making their way to the Pool of the Dragons. It was there that Bayzog said they had allies and information. They traveled on foot, but the dwarves towed a couple of pack mules. Nath spent the time catching up on things with Bayzog and Ben. Even Brenwar began to warm up to him. Gorlee played a big part in that.
“Many of the wild dragons have been turned,” Gorlee had said. “The rest, I’m certain, are back in Dragon Home. The poachers no longer hunt them for profit. They turn them into soldiers. Well, the clerics do that.”
The news got worse and worse. It gave Nath a headache, and the guilt consumed him. He should have been awake all this time. He could have saved many of them. Most of them.
“Sometimes they have to save themselves,” Bayzog said.
But Nath couldn’t live with that. Not another day longer, now that he was awake again and feeling stronger than ever. He wanted to sink his claws―or a blade―into something.
“Say, Brenwar, what happened to Akron and Fang?”
Brenwar growled in his throat and signaled to the rear.
Pilpin rummaged through the mule packs, brought over a rugged-looking bag, and dropped it at Nath’s clawed feet. The little dwarf eyed him with suspicion and strutted away.
Nath reached into the bag and found the quiver.
“Some of the arrows are missing,” he said. “Exploding ones at that. How did that happen?”
“Are you really worried about a missing arrow?” Brenwar said. “It’s not like you made the thing.”
“Well, I was just surprised is all,” he said, slinging it over his shoulder. He took out the compact form of Akron.
Snap. Clatch. Snap.
The string coiled right into place. Nath stuck his chin out and smiled. He reached over his shoulder to hook it when he realized he no longer had the armor to latch it onto.
Brenwar rolled his eyes and walked away. “That’s a problem.”
Nath did have clothes on, however. A jerkin covered his chest and most of his arms, and a pair of trousers covered his legs. Bayzog said that was best in case any distant eyes were spying. The wizard had tried to get Nath to cover his head, too, but he’d flat-out refused. “One should never hide something as beautiful as this,” he’d argued.
The last remaining item was Fang. The beautiful weapon with twin dragons on the hilt sent a charge of energy through him.
“Have
you missed me, old friend?” he said, wrapping his clawed fingers around the hilt. “Ow!” He jerked his hand away.
Every eye in the party fell on him. Bayzog’s expression filled with worry.
But Nath didn’t pay attention.
“Fang, what’s wrong with you? Do you not know me? It’s Nath.” Slowly, he wrapped his hand around the hilt once more and gently pulled the blade from the sheath. “That’s better, Fang. It’s me.”
The mystic blade throbbed in his palm and was hot in his hand. Nath made sure he didn’t grimace. Stop it, Fang! It’s me! The hilt got hotter and a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead. Fang! It’s me, your master!
“Problem, Nath?” Bayzog said.
“No,” he shot back. The sword began to cool in his palm. “I just think Fang was a little uncertain.” He pulled the great blade out to its full length, smiled, then slid it back in. “We’re fine now.” He buckled the blade over his shoulders. “Shouldn’t we get moving?”
***
Troghlin the Harbor Town. It was one of dozens that circled the Pool of the Dragons, and it was under siege.
“Is this where you were taking me?” Nath said to Bayzog. “It doesn’t look to be as safe as I presumed.”
Bayzog stood silent, peering through a spyglass that Pilpin had handed him, shaking his head.
“No, we’ve another hideout, but this town is full of friends. I fear the worst; there’s no doubt someone in there is bound to give us up.” He shut the spyglass and handed it over to Ben. “We’re going to have to find another place to hide. Again.”
Nath’s eyes were sharper than they’d ever been. He couldn’t say for sure, but he felt like he could see five times farther than he had been able to before, and that was pretty far. Troghlin was burning in some places, and the people that weren’t fleeing were hiding in boarded-up stores and apartments. The enemy marched prisoners through the streets, and some were dead already. Nath’s dragon heart pumped faster.
“I see that look in yer eye,” Brenwar said. “Settle it down.”
The Chronicles of Dragon Collection (Series 1 Omnibus, Books 1-10) Page 60
