The villagers murmured at this. Swiftraven beamed with pride, then turned to his father.
“Go,” Nightshade said simply.
His smile growing even wider, the young warrior dropped to his knees before Riverwind. The arrows in his quiver rattled. “I accept, my lord.”
Riverwind nodded, his face troubled, then walked to the Honored Ones. He moved down the line, clasping arms with each man in turn. There was doubt and worry in the elders’ eyes, but none spoke against him. No matter how grave their misgivings were, he was their chieftain, and his word was law. When Riverwind reached Far-Runner, though, the ancient man bowed his head and began to cry softly.
“What is this, lorekeeper?” Riverwind asked gently. “Why do you weep?”
“My chief,” Far-Runner murmured. “I weep because my heart is heavy I have wronged you in the past, when I let Chief Arrowthorn use the Courting Quest to keep you from his daughter. I would be doing you wrong again if I did not ask you to reconsider, and stay with us on the Plains.”
Riverwind smiled. “You have long been loyal to me, Far-Runner,” he said. “If I had not gone on Arrowthorn’s impossible quest, the gods might have remained lost. The dragonarmies might have won the war-and Chaos might have won the next. If you hadn’t wronged me, so many years ago, we might not be here today. I forgive you-but I cannot stay. I have given my word, and I will not break it.”
Far-Runner nodded slowly, looking up at Riverwind. “Farewell, my chief,” he murmured.
“Farewell, lorekeeper,” Riverwind said, resting a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulder.
He walked onward, to Wanderer, and father and son embraced in silence. Riverwind met his eyes. “I will tell my son of you,” Wanderer murmured, his face dark.
Moonsong, who had remained stoic thus far, broke down completely, sobbing as she threw her arms around her father. She clutched him tightly, refusing to let go, and in the end it took both Swiftraven and old Hartbow to pull her away. No sooner did she release Riverwind than she fell upon her sister. Both twins’ faces shone with tears when at last they parted.
The stableboy strode through the gates leading three horses and two ponies. Catt and Kronn climbed into their saddles, then Brightdawn and Swiftraven, but Riverwind made no move toward his bay stallion-a gift bestowed upon him by Chief Graywinter when the Que-Kiri joined the allied tribes. Instead, he turned toward Goldmoon, his heart in his eyes. He dropped to one knee before her. Mud soaked through his pantleg, but he paid it no heed.
“Kan-tokah,” he said, choking. “My beloved.”
Smiling serenely, she bent down and kissed him on the forehead. Then she cupped his chin with her hand and raised his head so he looked into her bright, blue eyes. “Why so solemn, my hero?” she asked. “We have been separated before.”
He nodded, unable to find his voice.
“You have always followed your heart,” she said, smiling. “It is an arrow that flies straight and true. I will await your return.”
Taking his hand, she pressed something into his palm, then kissed his fingers, turned, and walked away.
He watched her go, his gaze seeking her as she approached the chieftain’s lodge. He could feel eyes on him-the villagers, the Honored Ones, his children-but he did not rise. Instead, he opened his hand, and his face lit with wonder at what his wife had given him.
It was a simple chain, shaped of common brass. The charm that hung from it was crafted of shining, silver-blue steel. It was shaped like two teardrops, touching tip-to-tip-the symbol of Mishakal.
He had given her the medallion many years ago, so long it seemed another man’s life. It was called a Forever Charm, and it was both a sign of the goddess and a token of his neverending love. She had never given it to him before. He looked up through clouding eyes to ask her, “Why?” But she had already disappeared into the chieftain’s lodge.
While the rest of the villagers watched their chieftain ride out through the gates, Goldmoon sat alone in the chieftain’s lodge. She did not cry, but rather picked up an old, worn lute, nestled it gently in her arms, and set her fingers to her strings.
She played an old song, laden with memory. She had sung it for the first time many years ago, at the Inn of the Last Home. She sang it today, for what she hoped would not be the last time.
o Riverwind, where have you gone?
o Riverwind, autumn comes on.
I sit by the river
And look to the sunrise,
But the sun rises over the mountains alone.
Chapter 7
The eastern tip of the Goodlund peninsula had never been what humans and their ilk would call hospitable. Only the most stubborn trees and bushes had clung to the barren, gravelly steppes. Dry, dusty wind had gusted through its narrow canyons. Water had been hard to come by, save for the Heartsblood River, and even that had been tainted, stained rusty red in grotesque mimicry of the sea to the north.
To Kurthak’s people, it had long been home. The grasslands to the south had provided livestock and slaves for plundering, as had the Kenderwood to the west. The steppes were shot through with veins of copper, iron, and silver, ripe for mining. Sometimes, when a ship foundered on the rocky outcroppings along the coast-a treacherous stretch of shoreline mariners called Land’s End-the ogres had waded out to them through the surf, to slaughter their crews and loot their holds.
Kurthak and Tragor stood at the edge of the Heartsblood, in a place where it had once flowed quick, wide, and deep. Now, though, it was nothing but a meager, muddy trickle, seeping down the middle of what had been its bed. The Black-Gazer stared hard at the feeble rill, his brow furrowing as if he could will the flow to return to its former strength. His champion scratched his pockmarked jawline, confused.
“The land’s changed,” Tragor said.
Slowly, as if reluctant to do so, the Black-Gazer nodded. “I’d thought I was imagining it. It’s been many weeks since Lord Ruog led us west, to the kender lands.”
“You imagine nothing,” Tragor declared, shaking his head. “I have forded the Heartsblood here many times. The current was nearly strong enough to drag me off my feet.”
Kurthak considered the muddy creek a moment longer, then looked around. “The river’s not the only thing that’s changed. Speargrass and eaghon trees used to grow here.” He glanced around, looking for some sign of the sharp-thorned plants that once had clustered thirstily along the riverbanks. The earth, though, was barren. He looked up, squinting north, and pointed a hairy finger. “Do you know what lies ahead there?”
Tragor followed the gesture, past the Heartsblood toward the far-off, dust-cloaked horizon. Some five leagues away, a mass of jagged, stony crags groped toward the sky. Above them hung a black, hazy pall, as might swathe a burning city.
“Mountains,” Tragor said.
“Mmm. But that isn’t what should be there.” Kurthak regarded his companion, his single eye boring deep. “Think, Tragor. Do you recall what the humans call the lands beyond the Heartsblood?”
“I don’t-” Tragor began; then his jutting brows lifted. “The Hollowlands!” he exclaimed, his eyes on the towering peaks. “They called that place the Hollowlands.”
Kurthak nodded gravely. “Not so hollow now, are they?”
“Black-Gazer!”
Both ogres looked toward the voice, which came from the far side of the riverbed. The black-cloaked form of Yovanna emerged from a cleft in the rocks there. Her hood was up again, hiding her blasted face from the glaring red sun-and from the ogres’ eyes.
Reflexively Tragor scowled, reaching up to probe his face with thick fingers. He touched the great, swollen knot where her knee had smashed his nose, then growled, his hand straying toward the hilt of his sword.
Kurthak saw this, and laid a staying hand on Tragor’s arm. His champion hesitated, then relented.
Yovanna had followed Kurthak’s band and its captive kender back from Myrtledew to the valley where Lord Ruog’s horde camped. Once they were there,
she had come to Kurthak’s tent at midnight, night’s shadows forming a second cloak about her.
“Malystryx awaits,” she had said.
Kurthak had wasted no time. Gathering his traveling gear, he summoned Tragor and followed Yovanna into the night. He had told Lord Ruog nothing, and the hetman was doubtless ready to gut him by now for abandoning his post.
They had walked for nearly a week through the wasteland. Yovanna would disappear ahead of them, moving swiftly and surely among the crags and boulders, then would reappear a short time later, beckoning the ogres urgently on. Now she called them forward, over the river’s drying bones, toward the towering mountains of the Hollowlands.
“Quickly,” she urged. “The place for meeting my mistress is not far. Come!”
Kurthak gave the river and the peaks beyond it One last suspicious glance, then turned to Tragor and nodded ahead. They slogged on, over the dying Heartsblood, red mud sucking at their boots as they went.
They walked for hours, not even slowing their pace when the sky began to darken with dusk. Yovanna had not so much as paused before leading them into the towering crags. Both ogres, who knew much about highlands, had noticed how new these mountains appeared. They showed no sign of weathering or erosion. Instead, they were all sharp angles and deep cracks, as though someone had pulled them up from the earth’s bones.
The crags were all around them now, stretching leagues in all directions. In the distance, one peak loomed above the rest. Its tip was burning.
“Is that Blood Watch?” Kurthak asked.
Yovanna did not look at him, nor did she break stride.
“It is,” she answered, her voice cool and toneless as ever. “Though the ruins that gave it its name are long since gone. Now it is my mistress’s lair. She has chosen to keep the name.”
They clambered up a razorback ridge, Yovanna moving nimbly from rock to rock. The ogres climbed with greater care, sending rocks the size of their massive fists clattering down the steep slope behind them. When they crested the top, they saw that the ridge was the edge of a great, bowl-like crater. The bowl’s sides were streaked with yellow dust, and the stench of brimstone hung heavy in the air. A black cleft in the crater’s center hissed unclean-looking, brownish steam that rose in a column hundreds of feet high. The ground rumbled faintly beneath their feet.
Wrinkling his nose, Tragor shrugged and started to pick his way down into the crater. Before he could take two steps, though, Yovanna’s black-gloved hand shot out and clamped tight on his wrist. Though her arm was like a reed next to his own, oaklike limbs, he still winced at the tightness of her grasp. He stopped.
“Go no farther,” Yovanna said, releasing him. “We wait for her here.”
“Here?” Kurthak repeated, surprised. “I thought we were bound for Blood Watch.”
She shook her hooded head. “You thought wrong, then, Black-Gazer,” she told him. “Do not worry. My mistress will not be long.”
The ogres looked around. Kurthak squinted at the burning spire to the north. He could see the red glow of lava oozing down its sides.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Yovanna asked. “Malystryx is proud of her work here. Soon these peaks will dwarf the Lords of Doom themselves. After that-”
She stopped, her body stiffening suddenly. For a moment she was silent, then she swept her arm forward and up, her sleeve fluttering in the hot, fetid wind.
“She comes,” she hissed.
Kurthak didn’t see the dragon until she was almost upon them, so heavy was the pall of smoke and ash that hung over the Hollowlands. When she emerged from the haze at last, he could do little but hold his breath and stare, while dragonfear clamped around his innards like a vise.
Malystryx the Red was larger than any dragon either ogre had seen before. She stretched more than three hundred feet long, nearly half of that a sinuous, snaking tail; her wingspan was similarly huge, blocking out half the sky as she dipped through the smoke toward the crater. The air howled with the rush of her passing. She banked sharply as she passed overhead, then began to circle the caldera, scanning the ground with eyes like forge-fired steel. If she saw the three tiny figures atop the ridge, she gave no sign.
Beside Kurthak, Tragor moaned and began to tremble. Kurthak glanced at him harshly, but said nothing, afraid of revealing his own terror.
At that moment, the dragon threw back her head and roared. The ogres clamped their hands over their ears, wincing at the sound. The rock beneath their feet shivered. The shriek carried on for nearly a minute, and when it ended Kurthak wiped tears from his eyes, wondering if the ringing sound that lingered after it would ever go away.
“Mistress!” Yovanna cried, exulting.
The great scaly head whipped around, and Malystryx stared straight at them, her eyes smoldering. Smoke curled from her nostrils, and her lips curled into a vicious leer. She circled once more, then set down on the floor of the caldera. The beating of her wings as she landed whipped stinging chips of stone in the ogres’ faces; when they could see again, the dragon had curled around the sulfur-steaming cleft in the crater’s midst. She studied them, her head angling from side to side.
“Good,” hissed the dragon. “Very good, Yovanna. You may leave us now. Go to Blood Watch and await me there.”
The black-cloaked figure bowed. “Yes, mistress,” Yovanna said. Without even a sidelong glance at the ogres, she turned and walked away, disappearing down the lip of the crater. Kurthak and Tragor watched her go.
Malys stretched lazily, writhing around the warm steam vent. Her claws flexed, cracking stones. A sigh of contentment escaped her lips, accompanied by a puff of flame that could have reduced both ogres to ashes. When she was done, she looked at Kurthak. He stared back, wide-eyed.
“Black-Gazer,” she purred. “Yovanna has watched you for some time now. She has told me great things about you.”
Kurthak goggled for a moment, then bowed abruptly. “I’ve heard far greater things about you,” he responded. Despite his efforts to control it, his voice shook as he spoke.
The dragon chuckled. “Indeed.” Her gaze flicked to Tragor, and her scaly brows knitted. “This one I do not recognize.”
Tragor swallowed, shuddering.
“This is Tragor,” Kurthak stated. “He is my champion.”
“A warrior?” Malys asked, her voice mocking. Her great forked tongue flicked in and out of her mouth. “You wouldn’t use that mighty blade against me, would you, Tragor?”
The champion fell to his knees, weeping. “No,” he whimpered. “Please..
With a snort of amusement and disgust, Malys turned back to Kurthak. “I hope Yovanna did not… disturb you too greatly,” she said.
He shook his head. In truth, though, he had seen the woman’s disfigured face in his nightmares.
“You want to know what she is,” Malystryx declared. “Don’t you?”
Kurthak nodded wordlessly.
The dragon grinned, flames crackling between her tree-trunk fangs. “Call her an experiment,” she said. “When I first came to these lands, I laid waste to a village. Ran-Khal, I believe, was its name. Most of the barbarians living there died, but when the flames abated I found Yovanna still alive, though badly scarred… as I’m sure she has shown you. I took her back to Blood Watch and remade her as my servant. The spells I cast upon her destroyed the peasant girl she once was. Now she is strong and cunning, and she would leap from the top of one of these peaks if I wished it.”
“Spells?” Kurthak asked. “But magic is gone. The moons-”
Malystryx laughed. Her breath smelled like burning metal, making the ogres’ nostrils sting.
“Perhaps to you mortals there is no magic,” she said. “Dragons need no moons for their power.” She raised a long-taloned claw, pointed it at Tragor, and spoke several guttural words. Tragor gaped in horror, and Kurthak took a quick step away, expecting him to explode or rot before his eyes. Instead, though, Tragor rose from the ground and floated through the air toward th
e dragon. His terrified cries ended abruptly as he fainted dead away.
Sneering, Malys lowered her claw and turned back to Kurthak. Tragor continued to hang in midair, his feet dangling a hundred feet or more above the stony ground.
“Now,” Malystryx said, “enough idle talk. I have chosen you for a reason, Black-Gazer.”
With effort, Kurthak tore his gaze away from the hovering, limp form of his champion and focused on Malys. “Very well,” he said, trying to sound as though he were somehow on even footing with the gigantic wyrm. “Your servant sought me out. She said you had a bargain to make-my people’s allegiance in exchange for Kendermore.”
Malystryx’s head bobbed. “That is indeed what I intend to offer you,” she said. “I have watched your people for some time, Black-Gazer, and I see great promise in you-promise I did not see in the puny humans who dwelt in this land.”
Kurthak didn’t miss the carefully chosen word-dwelt. There had been thousands of humans in the Dairly Plains to the south of the ogres’ lands.
“They are mostly gone now,” Malys hissed, guessing his thoughts. “Many are dead, though some of them fled. I could have destroyed your people with no more effort than I crushed the humans, but I have chosen not to. Do you know why, Black-Gazer?”
“Because you wish to ally with us instead?”
“Precisely. I mean to turn my attention to the kender next.”
He swallowed. “To destroy them?”
“If I must,” she said. “But the kender are not very filling and I find simple slaughter somewhat boring. I like to… play with and savor my food. That is where I need your help.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have been attacking the kender,” she explained, her tone that of a patient parent speaking to a dull-witted child. “Your chief-Ruog-has sent you and others to destroy villages along their eastern border. But you aren’t content with simple slaughter either, are you? No, instead you take them prisoner. Why?”
“We want them as slaves,” Kurthak said.
“Slaves!” Malystryx laughed. “Of course. But who would buy one? I am still somewhat new to this land, but I’ve learned enough about the kender to know they are not well-respected. Most of the other races consider them nuisances, I understand.”
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