Raistlin untied the packs, set them to one side, then took up a position near the entrance, hiding himself behind a boulder so that if the draconians came out, he could take them by surprise. Caramon, Tas and Sturm began their descent.
Sturm climbed down hand over hand with practiced ease. Tasslehoff found out that scaling rock walls was, indeed, fun. Shoving off the rock wall with his feet sent him flying out into the air, then he’d come sailing back. He did this with great glee, bouncing over the rock face, until Caramon ordered him gruffly to cut out the nonsense and get himself to solid ground. Caramon moved slowly, nervous about trusting his weight to the rope and clumsy with the placement of his feet. He was the last one down and landed with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Compared to that, the climb down the pile of rubble was relatively simple. They were gathering up their possessions when Raistlin rose up from his hiding place and hissed at them to be quiet.
“Someone’s coming!”
Caramon looked up in alarm at the three ropes dangling from the opening. Seen from this vantage point, he understood how the fortress had come by its name. It bore an uncanny resemblance to a skull. The air shaft formed one of the eyes. Another air shaft opposite formed the other eye. The entrance to the fortress was the skull’s mouth, with rows of jagged stalagmite and stalactite teeth. The ropes, trailing down from an eye socket, told all the world they were here. Caramon considered hiding in the thick vapors of the swamp, but the draconians would come after them, and if that happened, he’d rather fight them on dry land.
Caramon drew his sword. Tasslehoff, mourning the absence of Rabbitslayer, hefted his hoopak. Sturm drew his sword as well. Caramon hoped that Prince Grallen was as a skilled a warrior as Sturm Brightblade. Raistlin, hidden behind the boulder, readied his magic spells. The bozak and his five baaz bodyguards walked out of the fortress entrance, intending to have a private search through the loot the baaz had left behind to see if any of them had been holding out on him. Planning to loot the looters, the bozak was not prepared for a fight. He and the others were extremely startled to find themselves facing armed foes.
Draconians were born and bred to battle, however, and the bozak was quick to recover from the shock. He used his magic first, casting a spell on the warrior who appeared to be the greatest threat. A beam of blinding light shot from the bozak’s clawed hand and struck Sturm, who cried out, clutched his chest, and crumpled to the ground, groaning.
Seeing the knight down, the bozak turned to Caramon. The creature extended his huge wings, making the bozak seem even bigger, and charged, snarling and swinging his sword in powerful, slashing arcs. Caramon parried the first blow with his sword; the force of the attack jarring his arm to the elbow.
Before Caramon could recover, the bozak flipped around and struck Caramon with his massive tail, knocking his feet out from under him and sending Caramon to his knees. As he tried frantically to scramble to his feet, he looked up to see the bozak rounding on him, sword raised. Caramon raised his own sword and the two came together with a crash.
Raistlin crouched unseen in his hiding place near the entrance. Scattering his rose petals, he cast a spell of enchanted sleep on the three baaz who were nearest. He was not particularly confident of the results, for he’d tried this and other spells on draconians before and they had been able to resist the magic’s influence.
Two of the baaz stumbled, and one gaped and lowered his sword, but only for a moment. He managed to shake off sleep and charged into the fray. The other two remained on their feet, and worse, they realized a wizard had tried to spellbind them. They turned around, swords in hand, and saw Raistlin.
Raistlin was about to hurl fiery death at them when he found, to his horror, that the magical words to the spell eluded him. Frantically, he searched his memory, but the words were not there. He bitterly cursed his own folly. He had been more intent on watching Tika and his brother last night than he had been on studying his spells.
By now, one of the draconians was on him, swinging his sword in a vicious attack. Raistlin, desperate, lifted his staff to block the blow, praying that the staff did not shatter. As the sword hit the staff, there came a flash, a crackling sound, and a howl. The baaz dropped his sword and danced about, snarling and wringing his hand in pain. Seeing the fate that had befallen his comrade, the other baaz approached Raistlin and the staff with caution, but he kept on coming. Raistlin put his back against the rocks and held his staff before him. None of the draconians had bothered with the kender, thinking he was not a threat and they could leave him for last. One of the baaz ran over to Sturm, either to finish him off, or to loot the body, or both.
“Hey, lizard-lips!” yelled Tasslehoff, and, dashing up, he struck the baaz in the back of the head with his hoopak.
The blow did little to the thick-skulled draconian except annoy him. Sword in hand, he turned around to gut the kender, but he couldn’t seem to catch him. Tasslehoff leaped first here, then there, taunting the baaz, and daring him to try to hit him.
The baaz swung his sword time and again, but wherever he was, the kender was always somewhere else, calling him names and thwacking him with the hoopak. Between the jumping and the ducking, and name-calling that included “scaly butt” and “dragon turd,” the baaz lost all reason and gave chase.
Tasslehoff led the draconian away from Sturm, but unfortunately, in his excitement, the kender did not watch where he was going and found himself perilously near the swamp. Making one last jump to avoid being sliced in half by the enraged baaz, Tas slipped on a rock, and after much arm-flailing and flapping, he toppled with a cry and a splash into the swamp water. The baaz was about to wade in after him, when a sharp command from the bozak recalled the draconian to his senses. After a moment’s hesitation, the baaz left the kender, who had disappeared in the murk, and ran to help his comrade finish the magic-user.
Caramon and the bozak exchanged a series of furious blows that caused sparks to fly from their blades. The two were evenly matched, and Caramon might have prevailed in the end, for the bozak had been up carousing all night and was in sorry shape. Fear for his brother and his desperate need to finish this battle made Caramon reckless. He thought he saw an opening and charged in, only to realize too late that it had been a feint. His sword went flying and landed in the water behind him with a heart-rending splash. Caramon cast an anguished glance at his twin and then leaped to one side and went rolling on the ground as the bozak came at him. Caramon kicked out with his boot and caught the bozak in the knee. The bozak gave a pain-filled grunt and kicked Caramon in turn, right in the gut, driving the air out of Caramon’s lungs and leaving him momentarily helpless. The bozak raised his sword and was about to deal the death blow when a hideous, agonized scream coming from behind him caused the bozak to check his swing and look around.
Caramon lifted his head to see. Both he and the bozak stared in horror.
Pale, cold eyes cloaked in the shredded tatters of night hovered near Raistlin. One draconian lay on the ground, already crumbling to ashes. The other baaz was screaming horribly as a hand as pale and cold as the disembodied eyes twisted the creature’s arm. The baaz shriveled beneath the wraith’s fell touch and then toppled over in its stony death throes.
Caramon struggled to try to regain his feet, certain that his brother would be the next victim of the wraiths. To his astonishment, the wraiths paid no attention to Raistlin, who was flattened against the rocks, his staff held out before him. The lifeless eyes and the trailing darkness dropped like an awful cloud over the bozak. Shrieking in agony, the bozak writhed in the deadly grasp. He twisted and fought to escape but was held fast.