“Fine,” the sea barbarian said with supreme annoyance. “We don’t have any rope. It’s miles to the next village—which might be deserted. And we don’t have any horses. Yours and mine ran off. Feril’s is buzzard food.”
The Kagonesti shot her a vexed look.
“We’ll use our belts to tie it,” Dhamon suggested. “Brilliant,” Shaon retorted. “Don’t you think it’s strong enough to snap them?”
“I have an idea.” Feril knelt on the ground by the creature and thrust her fingers into her pouch. She pulled out a dried bean seed. “I don’t know if I have enough energy, but I’ll try.” “Try what?” Blister wondered aloud. The kender stepped away from the spawn and stood behind the elf, where she could take in the whole show.
Feril held the seed above the creature’s mud-covered chest. “As tiny as this seed is, so shall you be.” She made a small impression in the mud with her thumb, placed the seed gently inside, and brushed a bit of mud over the top to cover it.
Then she rocked back on her heels, closed her eyes, and sang. The words were elvish, something Dhamon, Blister, and Shaon couldn’t make out. Throaty and rich, the song’s melody was soft and slow, and the breeze that rustled their tattered clothes seemed an apt accompaniment to it. As the tempo increased, Feril’s skin took on a soft sheen, practically glowing. Her fingertips glistened, and she moved them over the spawn’s form.
She drew her hands together, as if she were praying, and the glow intensified. Then she separated them and placed her palms a few inches above the seed. The glow spread to the mud, centered on the spot where the bean was buried.
Blister gasped. The seed began to sprout, a small green nub emerging from the earth. Beneath it, the spawn struggled more fiercely. The nub grew longer, a thin tendril rose toward Peril’s hands. When it was several inches long, the Kagonesti withdrew her hands. In that instant, the green shoot curled over and plunged into the mud near to where its seed had been planted.
Feril continued singing. She pictured the thing shrinking, folding in on itself. But it wasn’t working quite correctly. She had to stop her song, and as she did so, the shoot began to wither. “It’s no use.”
“Try again,” Dhamon urged. “Please.”
She sighed and resumed her song, which seemed much sadder now. Again she held her palms over the bean seed. Fury came over next to her. But the red wolf wasn’t lending morale support. It yawned, stretched and lay down, resting its head on her leg and idly watching what she was doing.
“As tiny as this seed is, so shall you be.” Again she closed her eyes. This time the energy was there. She felt it pulsing all around her. It ran from her toes to her fingertips. She sang louder, and the small plant grew a darker green and burrowed deeper toward the blue spawn.
“Look!” the kender exclaimed. “The creature’s getting smaller.”
A surprised look crossed the spawn’s lizardlike visage. It renewed its struggles, thrashing about in vain as it slowly disappeared beneath the mound of mud. Dhamon dropped his sword and started digging. Shaon joined him.
Within moments, the mud had been cleared away, and a spawn no taller than a man’s hand was uncovered. The thing furiously flapped its wings, and shot upward. But the sea barbarian was quicker, and her fingers closed about its tiny legs.
Lightning exploded from its mouth and bounced across her arm, but it only stung her with the force of a spider bite. Shaon laughed and shook the thing. It feebly clawed at her hand, scratching it no worse than a small cat.
“Are you going to carry it all the way to Palin’s?” Blister asked.
“Only if you give me your net bag,” Shaon returned.
The kender’s eyes opened wide. “Of course! My unbreakable bag. My magic seaweed bag.” She hooked the chapak to her belt and tugged free the bag. When she upended it, several of Raph’s spoons, a couple of spools of thread, a handful of marbles, a pair of lime-green gloves, and a ball of yarn fell out. She proudly handed the bag to the sea barbarian, then fell to the task of collecting her dropped belongings into another bag.
Shaon thrust the struggling spawn inside, then held the drawstring bag up to her face. The green weave was tight, but she could see its eyes gleaming dully through a small gap. The bag wiggled, and she saw it glow with light as the creature attempted to use its lightning breath to break free.
“What do you know, Blister,” Shaon grinned. “I think this really is magical. It can’t get out.”
Dhamon helped the Kagonesti to her feet. “Are you all right?”
Feril nodded. “A little sore, but I think I fared better than you and Shaon. You two need some serious tending.”
The kender, finished with her task, sat back and sighed. Her fingers ached terribly. But she glanced up at the sea barbarian and Dhamon and giggled. “You’re a mess!” she chuckled. “I wouldn’t dress a scarecrow like either one of you!”
Dhamon’s shirt hung on him in strips, as did Shaon’s. Their pants were ripped, and mud and scorch marks dotted their exposed skin.
Dhamon had to smile. He had no more coins. No horse. No food. But there was the spare shirt beneath the saddle of Feril’s dead horse. He retrieved it and passed it to Shaon.
“Maybe Palin’s got some extra clothes in the Lonely Refuge,” Blister added.
“It was going to be a long ride by horse,” Shaon grumbled. “Now your Lonely Refuge is going to be a very long walk.” Under her breath she added, “Rig had better wait for me.”
“I can find us food and water along the way,” Feril volunteered. She fussed over Dhamon and Shaon for the next several minutes, binding their wounds with the tattered remnants of Dhamon’s shirt.
“To the Lonely Refuge, then,” Dhamon said. He sheathed his sword, motioned to Feril, and started north. Fury walked at his side. “Hopefully we’ll come across another village and can send someone for the boy in Dolor. We’ll travel by night. I don’t want to be sleeping when these things are around.”
“Who said they only come out at night?” Blister asked, as she hurried to catch up. “It can storm during the daytime, too.”
“Wonderful,” the sea barbarian said. Shaon held the net bag close to her face and watched a tiny grin spread across the creature’s sapphire visage. She shivered and fell in step with the others.
27
Blue Spy
Khellendros had watered from the bowels of his lair deep beneath the desert. He had watched as one of his children was slain in midair by an audacious human who refused to give in to its sharp claws and lightning. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, with wheat-colored hair that blew in the breeze about his intense face.
Khellendros had watched the man repeatedly drive a blade into the blue spawn’s chest. The spawn was in an agony that Khellendros shared. He had felt the lifeblood of his first successful creation ebb away. He had felt his child gasp for breath and discover blood, not air, in its lungs.
The dragon had pulled himself back, detached his senses—not wanting to feel his first offspring’s death, not wanting to know what death was like, what Kitiara experienced so long ago when he had failed her and her body died.
But his concentration had been interrupted by the death of another blue spawn, this also at the hands of the wheathaired man.
“No!” the dragon had shouted. The walls of his cavern shook and grains of sand had rained down like falling snow through the cracks in the stone ceiling overhead. The wyvern sentries had stared blankly at him.
“Do what?” the larger had asked.
“Do nothing,” the other had suggested.
The Blue’s ranting and raving had gone on for several minutes.
Now more than two dozen spawn watched and waited behind the wyverns. They looked past the dull-witted guards, watched their master, but kept wisely silent and did nothing as the sand continued to rain down.