But he didn’t permit his discomfort—or his annoyance—to show in his expression. He might be the most accomplished human spellcaster on Tan, but even so, he wouldn’t wager a copper on his chances if the red opted to chastise him for what he interpreted as a show of disrespect.
“Sacred One,” the wearer of purple said, “may I ask what you’re doing?”
Eshcaz twisted his neck to sneer down at him. “What does it look like?”
“It looks as if you’re rallying your troops for battle. But I wonder if you’ve considered that you’re sending them forth from a strong defensive position into the open.”
“I’m sending them where the enemy is.”
“If that’s the strategy you’ve chosen, so be it. But it might work all the better if you conducted a proper reconnaissance first. Or at least gave your servants time to form up properly.”
“To what end?” Eshcaz replied. “Odds are they won’t even have to do any real fighting. The other wyrms and I will annihilate the intruders all by ourselves. I just want you worthless mites to witness our wrath and to kill any nits on the other side who might otherwise scatter and hide well enough to escape our notice.”
With that, he wheeled toward an exit large enough to admit his colossal frame. Diero had to scramble to avoid being pulped by his swinging tail. The red rushed forward, occluding the stars framed in the natural arch as he passed through, then leaped up into the sky.
Diero took a long breath, struggling to quell his irritation.
It wasn’t that Eshcaz was stupid. That might actually have made his attitude less irksome, but in fact, like all mature dragons, he was cunning. Yet he was also impatient, reckless, and possessed of a fundamental wildness that made him favor boldness, instinct, and improvisation over caution, system, and analysis.
Olna sauntered up to Diero. Her straw-colored hair gathered in an intricate braid, the witch was slim and rather pretty, with bright eyes and a generous mouth made for laughter and frivolity. When he’d first met her, it had rather surprised Diero to learn she’d committed a magical atrocity so heinous she’d had to flee hundreds of miles from her native Damara to escape retribution.
“Well, this is a mess,” she said.
Over the course of the past few months, they’d learned they could speak candidly to one another, for neither suffered from an inability to distinguish wyrms from gods, or the delusion that Sammaster’s interpretation of a cryptic prophecy necessarily constituted the final word on the destiny of the world. Rather, they’d each reasoned their way to the conviction that dracoliches, if produced in sufficient numbers, might well conquer a significant portion of Faerûn, and when it happened, their supporters would reap rich rewards.
“It’s ridiculous,” Diero agreed. “The dragons see no need for strategy or tactics. They assume their sheer might will suffice to obliterate any threat.”
“Well,” said Olna, “to be fair, they’re almost certainly right.”
He felt his lips quirk into a grudging smile. “I suppose you have a point.”
“So, do we go outside, too?”
“Mist and stars, no. There are still dragonkin and such in the tunnels. Perhaps enough to defend the key entry points, and if things go wrong outside, the dragons will be glad we stayed inside. Let’s get to it.”
Sharkskin satchel bouncing at her hip, Tu’ala’keth drove her trident into a human’s chest. Another man fell with a ixitxachitl covering him like a rippling mantle, fangs buried in his throat.
That finished clearing the way … to a granite wall. Yzil scowled in irritation and started to turn away from the carnage.
“Wait,” said Tu’ala’keth.
“Why? It’s a dead end.”
“Perhaps not. This passage is large enough for one of the smaller wyrms to negotiate, and it appears to me that the stone at the end displays a less intricate grain and texture than the granite to either side.”
She walked forward and probed with the trident. The coral tines sank into the rock without the slightest resistance. She stuck her face into the illusion and found it to be no thicker than a fish scale. Beyond it stars gleamed, surf boomed and hissed at the base of the island, and the deep, rough voices of koalinths shouted and shrieked somewhere closer at hand.
She turned back around. “It is an entrance. Someone has simply concealed it with a phantasm.”
“You have a keen eye.” Yzil turned to one of his fellow ’chitls. “You and your company will defend this place. If any humans or dragonkin happen along, you’ll need to kill them, but your primary concern is to destroy any wyrm that tries to pass through in either direction. Hide as best you can, and hit it hard the instant you see it, before it senses you. Use your most damaging spells, and some of you, get your teeth in it. With Ilxendren’s help, your bites may cripple even a dragon.”
The ’chitl curled itself smaller. “Yes, Devitan,” it said glumly.
“Buck up,” Yzil snapped. “You drew the desirable chore. Some of us are venturing onward to kill the big dragon.”
“It’s just a little farther,” Anton said.
But up ahead, in the lamp-lit darkness, the passage forked, and dragonkin abruptly shambled out of the right-hand branch. The caves were so noisy now, the stone bouncing echoes to and fro, that he hadn’t heard them coming.
The ogre-sized reptiles gawked at the humans. They were rushing to fight invaders, not slaves who’d escaped their confinement, and the unexpected sight made them hesitate.
It gave Anton time to rattle off an incantation and brandish the three gray pebbles he’d found and painstakingly polished after Tu’ala’keth took his original set of talismans away from him. Power whined, and vapor billowed into being around the dragonkin. They staggered, retching.
The fumes faded as quickly as they’d appeared. “Get the bastards!” Anton cried. “Now! While they’re off balance!”
Some screaming with fury, fear, or a mixture of the two, his fellow captives charged. He jabbered the charm that made his hand into a blade then sprinted after them.
Jamark rammed his knife into a dragonkin’s groin, and the creature’s knees buckled.
Stabbing madly, two humans swarmed on a second reptile and drove it reeling backward.
But otherwise, the enemy quickly took back the advantage. A dragonkin aimed and braced its spear. An onrushing captive failed to react quickly enough to evade the threat. The point punched all the way through his body and, covered in gore, popped out his back. Unwilling to take the time to pull the corpse from the end of the weapon, the reptile simply dropped it and shredded another victim with its claws. Meanwhile, hissing and snarling, its comrades speared and slashed the puny creatures who’d dared to challenge them.
Anton wondered grimly if he and his allies could possibly prevail. Then he spied the dragonkin leader, and the long, straight sword it was just starting to draw from its scabbard. Shadow swirled inside the forte of the blade.
Unfortunately, the reptile stood toward the rear of its squad. Anton veered away from the warrior he’d intended to attack and plunged into the mass of frenzied combatants.
Some of the dragonkin struck at him as he raced by, and he dodged as best he could without slowing down. Another inch of dark blade cleared the sheath, and eager to start killing, the sword itself jumped, assisting the process and emerging fast.
Anton dived under a jabbing spear then leaped into the air. His first blow had to kill. Otherwise, the greatsword’s fury was likely to prop up the leader long enough for it to retaliate, and to say the least, he doubted his ability to withstand the assault.
The dragonkin saw him coming, and took a hasty retreat that didn’t quite carry it out of reach. It lifted the sword and scabbard to block but not quickly enough. He chopped at its neck with all his strength.
Blood gushed, and partially severed, its head flopped. It toppled backward.
He dropped to the floor, scrambled forward, and finished drawing the greatsword. No doubt the weapon had
been eager to butcher him only a moment before, but now it welcomed him with a thrill of delight. For one set of hands on the hilt was as good as another.
As before, he loathed the touch of its mind, its bloodlust and gloating cruelty oozing in to contaminate his own thoughts. But he opened himself up to them anyway, and the sword rewarded him. It washed aches, weakness, and fatigue away, as if his hours on the rack and all the subsequent abuse had never happened.
Grinning, he pivoted and hacked a dragonkin’s legs out from under it then split its skull as it went down. He turned again and buried the greatsword in a reptile’s spine.
At that point, the other dragonkin realized a significant threat had materialized behind them. Several moved to encircle him.
Even with the greatsword, he might not have withstood that tactic for any length of time. But by riveting the reptiles’ attention on himself, he’d taken the pressure off his surviving comrades. They seized the opportunity to snatch the spears of fallen enemies from the floor and, adequately armed for the first time, assailed the dragonkin once more.
Somehow, it proved enough. The last dragonkin fell, and the greatsword jerked Anton around toward Stedd. “No!” he told it, just as Shandri had, silently adding, be patient. I have plenty of foes left to kill.
The blade quieted, humoring his quaint, irrational notion that some people ought not to be slaughtered.
Oblivious to his argument with the weapon, Jamark shot him a grin. “Nice sword,” the scarred man said.
So it was, in its repellent way. Anton had assumed it lay amid Eshcaz’s hoard but now reckoned he understood why it didn’t. Tu’ala’keth hadn’t presented the weapon to the red with the rest of her tribute, and lacking gems in the hilt or similar ornamentation, it looked like just an ordinary if well-made greatsword until someone pulled it from the scabbard. Eshcaz hadn’t deigned to take any notice of it where it lay on the floor, enabling a dragonkin to claim it for itself.
Still it was remarkable luck that it had returned to Anton just when he needed it most. Tu’ala’keth, in her daft and arbitrary way, had decided the sword bore Umberlee’s blessing, and if she were here, she’d doubtless tell him to thank the goddess or prattle of divine will manifesting itself in pattern and coincidence. He mulled such notions over for an instant then put them from his mind. He had more urgent things to think about.
“You were right,” Stedd panted, blood seeping from a graze on his shoulder, “this is worth doing. Let’s raid that armory then kill some more of them.”
As Wraxzala wheeled about the sky, casting her few remaining spells, shouting orders to the slaves in a voice worn hoarse and raw, she marveled at how quickly an army’s fortunes could shift.
She and her comrades had sneaked up the mountainside, to guard outposts, and small fields and gardens tucked away in pockets in the escarpment. They’d slaughtered dragonkin, cultists, and penned slaves—who might otherwise raise a commotion sufficient to rouse the rest of the enclave—wherever they found them. As long as the ixitxachitls had numbers and surprise on their side, it was relatively easy.
But at some point, one of the enemy, a dragonkin on the wing, perhaps, or a mage shifting himself instantly through space, had evidently escaped to raise the alarm. For in time, wyrms and a horde of their minions exploded from rifts in the rock.
The minions, though they made a reasonable effort to kill invaders, were virtually superfluous. It was the dragons who immediately started slaying their foes by the dozens, like the limitless might and malice of the Demon Ray himself embodied in gigantic snapping wings, roaring jaws, and slashing talons.
The largest wyrm wheeled, vomited flames, and burned ixitxachitls to drifting sparks and wisps of ash. A second dragon, its countenance studded with hornlets, spewed fumes, and a squad of locathahs dropped, skin dissolving, fins riddled with sizzling holes. A third conjured a glowing orb that hurtled down like a crossbow quarrel then exploded into leaping, dazzling arcs of lightning when it hit the ground. Transfixed by one or another of the radiating flares of power, koalinths danced spastically and withered to smoking husks. Perhaps lacking breath weapons and wizardry, the smallest drakes—which were still far bigger than the largest of their foes—ravaged them with fang and claw. Some were content to smash down into a mass of opponents, crushing some in the process, and fight on the ground until they wiped that cluster out. Others swooped, seized an opponent, carried it aloft to tear apart or simply drop from on high, and dived to catch another.
Wraxzala had participated in savage battles before and watched significant numbers of her allies perish. The difference this time was that they scarcely seemed to be inflicting any damage in return. Most of the drakes had crossbow bolts jutting from their scaly hides. Some bore puncture wounds from the slaves’ spears and tridents. Now and again, one even faltered or convulsed when a vampire ’chitl swooped in and bit it, or an attack spell pierced its mystical defenses.
Yet nothing balked them for more than a moment. After which they assailed the invaders as fiercely as before.
She realized bitterly that nonetheless, she and her comrades were accomplishing all Yzil expected of them. They were keeping the wyrms busy and enticing them to exhaust their breath weapons and sorcerous capabilities. They were softening them up for the confrontation to come.
In her folly, Wraxzala had dared to hope the diversionary force might somehow accomplish more, might actually defeat the foes counterattacking down the mountain, or failing that, that she might at least outlive the struggle. Now, however, it was clear just how unlikely that was to happen.
In her eyes, the contest became absolutely, incontrovertibly hopeless when the colossal red dragon conjured eight orbs of seething, crackling lightning, which then streaked down to strike and blast every third thrall in a ragged formation of koalinths.
The reptile then oriented on a squad of locathah crossbowmen, ostentatiously sucked in a breath, swelled its throat, and cocked back its head. The warriors discerned that the red’s snout was pointing a little to the left, so they madly scrambled right. Most of them escaped the booming flare and kept right on running until the dragon furled its wings, slammed down immediately in front of them with a thud that started loose stone clattering down the mountainside, and roared into their terrified faces. The locathahs blundered about and fled in exactly the opposite direction.
The red was so certain of victory, and so contemptuous of its foes, that it was playing with them.
Enough of this! Wraxzala thought. If she disobeyed her devitan—and he survived to condemn her for it—her rank and life were forfeit, and that was why she’d lingered as long as she had. But it was plain she would surely die if she didn’t get away.
Fortunately, she’d had the foresight to save a spell for the purpose. She declaimed the prayer, and darkness swirled and whispered into being all around her. For an instant the touch of it chilled her skin.
By day, a blot of inky shadow would itself be conspicuous against the sky, but by night, it would make Wraxzala effectively invisible. It was inconvenient that she couldn’t see through it either, but that wouldn’t be necessary just to distance herself from the island. She’d flee until she heard and smelled water below her; then she’d dive for the safety of the depths.
She wheeled, sped away, and a rhythmic flapping sounded somewhere above her. She wondered if she should change course, or dodge, but how, when she couldn’t tell exactly where the dragon was in relation to herself? She was still trying to determine its exact position when gigantic claws punched through her body. Dazed with the shock of it, she dully remembered hearing that all a dragon’s senses were acute, and the wyrm pulled her apart as if she were no more substantial than a jellyfish.
It took a lot of killing just to reach the enormous chamber at the top of the mountain. Tu’ala’keth observed that by the time they cleared it of enemies, most of Yzil’s thralls were dead. But that was all right. They’d served their purpose.
Weary from fighting, she cast
about, making sure the cave was as she remembered it. Then she pointed, noticing as she did so that her hand was spattered and tacky with gore. Fighting on land was a filthy business.
“Eshcaz has to come in either there,” she said, “or over there. Those are the only holes big enough to admit him. So we’ll set up by that wall, as far as possible from both of them.”
Hovering, body rippling, Yzil studied the corner in question. Blood oozed down from a superficial cut above his eyes, and he blinked and swiped it away with a flick of his tail. “We’ll be boxed in,” he said.
“It does not matter,” she replied. “Either we will kill the red, or he will kill us. It is unlikely we could retreat and get away.”
“I suppose so.” The devitan raised his voice. “Follow me, warriors of Ixzethlin, and be quick about it. We may have very little time in which to prepare.”
The other ’chitls, who’d been either gliding about, investigating the chamber, or feeding on dead or crippled cultists and dragonkin, obeyed him. When everyone was in position, Tu’ala’keth opened her satchel and pulled out the book inside.
The heavy volume consisted of plates of horn inlaid with characters of onyx, agate, and obsidian, and perforated on one edge so a chain of worked coral like her silverweave could bind them together. It was plain from the construction that someone other than ’chitls had made it. They were literate, but books of the sort employed by shalarins and sea-elves were awkward for them. For an instant she wondered again where and how her allies had obtained the precious thing then put the irrelevant question aside.
Straining, she snapped the coral chain, gave one page to each ’chitl cleric, and kept the remainder for herself. Perhaps some of ’chitls resented a “slave creature” retaining most of the magic, but it was in accordance with Yzil’s orders. He understood that just as she, by virtue of her anatomy, had been best suited to carry the tome, so she, possessed of hands, would be best able to flip from one leaf to another as circumstances required.
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