Unperturbed, Rhonin pushed on. Deathwing wanted him to reach the mountain, and with this the mage agreed. Somehow, Rhonin would make it there.
As he climbed along the ever more treacherous terrain, his thoughts could not help but return to Vereesa. The elf had shown a tenacious dedication to her duty, but surely now she had turned back . . . providing that she, too, had survived the attack. The notion that the ranger might not have survived formed a sudden lump in Rhonin’s throat and caused him to stumble. No, surely she had survived, and common sense had dictated that she return to Lordaeron and her own kind.
Surely so . . .
Rhonin paused, suddenly filled with the urge to turn around. He had the great suspicion that Vereesa had not followed common sense, but rather had insisted on going on, possibly even convincing the unconvincible Falstad into flying her toward Grim Batol. Even now, assuming nothing else had befallen her, Vereesa might well be on his trail, slowly closing in on him.
The wizard took a step toward the west—
Human. . .
Rhonin bit back a curse as Deathwing’s voice filled his head. How had the dragon known so quickly? Could he read the mage’s thoughts after all?
Human . . . it is time you refreshed yourself and ate. . . .
“What—what do you mean?”
You paused. You were looking for water and food, were you not?
“Yes.” No sense telling the dragon the truth.
You are but a short distance from such. Turn east again and journey a few minutes more. I will guide you.
His opportunity lost, Rhonin obeyed. Stumbling along the jagged path, he gradually came to a small patch of trees in the middle of nowhere. Amazing how even in the worst stretches of Khaz Modan life thrust forth. For the shade alone Rhonin actually gave thanks to his undesired ally.
In the center of the copse will you find what you desire. . . .
Not all he desired, although the wizard could not tell Deathwing that. Nonetheless, he moved with some eagerness. More and more, food and water appealed to him. A few minutes’ rest would certainly help, too.
The trees were short for their kind, only twelve feet in height, but they offered good shade. Rhonin entered the copse and immediately looked around. Surely there had to be a brook here and possibly some fruit. What other repast could Deathwing offer from a distance?
A feast, apparently. There, in the very center of the wooded area, sat a small display of food and drink such as Rhonin could not have imagined finding. Roasted rabbit, fresh bread, cut fruit, and—he touched the flask with some awe—chilled water.
Eat, murmured the voice of the dragon.
Rhonin obeyed with gusto, digging into the meal. The rabbit had been freshly cooked and seasoned to perfection; the bread retained the pleasant scent of the oven. Foregoing manners, he drank directly from the flask . . . and discovered that, although the container should have been half-empty after that, it remained full. Thereafter, Rhonin drank his fill without concern, knowing that Deathwing wanted him well . . . if only until the wizard reached the mountain.
With his magic he could have conjured something of his own, but that would have drawn strength from him that he might need for more drastic times. In addition, Rhonin doubted that even he could have created such a repast, at least not without much effort.
Sooner than he hoped, Deathwing’s voice came again. You are satiated?
“Yes . . . yes, I am. Thank you.”
It is time to move on. You know the way.
Rhonin did know the way. In fact, he could picture the entire route the dragon had shown him. Deathwing had apparently wanted to make certain that his pawn did not wander off in the wrong direction.
With no other choice, the wizard obeyed. He paused only long enough to take one more glance behind him, hoping against hope that he might see the familiar silver hair even in the distance, and yet also wanting neither Vereesa nor even Falstad to follow him. Duncan and Molok had already perished because of his quest; too many deaths weighed now on Rhonin’s shoulders.
The day aged. With the sun having descended nearly to the horizon, Rhonin began questioning Deathwing’s path. Not once had he seen, much less confronted an orc sentry, and surely Grim Batol still had those. In fact, he had not even seen a single dragon. Either they no longer patrolled the skies here or the wizard had wandered so far afield that he had gone outside their range.
The sun sank lower. Even a second meal, apparently magicked into being by Deathwing, did not assuage Rhonin. As the last light of day disappeared, he paused and tried to make out the landscape ahead. So far, the only mountains he could see stood much too far away in the distance. It would take him several days just to reach them, much less the peak where the orcs kept the dragons.
Well, Deathwing had brought him to this point; Deathwing could explain now how he thought the human could possibly reach his destination.
Clutching the medallion, Rhonin, his eyes still on the distant mountains, spoke to the empty air. “I need to talk with you.”
Speak . . .
He had not entirely expected the method to work. So far, it had always been the dragon who had contacted him, not the other way around. “You said this path would take me to the mountain, but if so, it’ll take far longer than I’ve time. I don’t know how you expected me to reach the peak so quickly on foot.”
As I said earlier, you were not meant to travel the entire way by so primitive a method. The vision I sent of the path was so that you would ever remain secure in the knowledge that you had not become lost.
“Then how am I supposed to reach it?”
Patience. They should be with you soon.
They?
Remain where you are. That would be the best.
“But—” Rhonin realized that Deathwing no longer spoke with him. The wizard once again contemplated tearing the medallion from his throat and tossing it among the rocks, but where would that leave him? Rhonin still had to get to the orcs’ domain.
Who did Deathwing mean?
And then he heard the sound, a sound like no other he had ever encountered. His initial thought was that it might be a dragon, but, if so, a dragon with a terrible case of indigestion. Rhonin gazed into the darkening sky, initially seeing nothing.
A brief flash of light caught his attention, a flash of light from above.
Rhonin swore, thinking that Deathwing had set him up to be captured by the orcs. Surely the light had been some sort of torch or crystal in the hand of a dragon-rider. The wizard summoned up a spell; he would not go without a fight, however futile it might prove.
Then the light flashed again, this time longer. Rhonin briefly found himself illuminated, a perfect target for whatever belching monster lurked in the dark heavens.
“Told you he was here!”
“I knew it all the time! I just wanted to see if you really did!”
“Liar! I knew and you didn’t! I knew and you didn’t!”
A frown formed on the young spellcaster’s lips. What sort of dragon argued with itself in such inane, high-pitched tones?
“Watch that lamp!” cursed one of the voices.
The light suddenly flipped away from Rhonin and darted up. The beam briefly shone on a huge oval form—a point at the front—before flickering on to the rear, where the wizard made out a smoking, belching device that turned a propeller at the end of the oval.
A balloon! Rhonin realized. A zeppelin!
He had actually seen one of the remarkable creations before, during the height of the war. Astonishing, gas-filled sacks so massive in size that they could actually lift an open carriage containing two or three riders. In the war, they had been utilized for observation of enemy forces on both land and sea, yet what amazed Rhonin most about them had not been their existence, but that they had been powered by resources other than magic—by oil and water. A machine neither built by nor requiring spells drove the balloon, a remarkable device that turned the propeller without the aid of manpower.