In her other hand the naga carried an impressive polearm with an axe edge that caught the light from the dragon’s eyes. A few years past, a bronze dragon had presented this weapon to Dhamon to aid him in his struggles against the overlords. A magical artifact, the glaive cut through metal armor. Dhamon had nearly killed Goldmoon with the glaive, back when he was under Malys’ control. He’d wanted no part of it thereafter. Dhamon had tossed it aside, and Rig was quick to claim the magical glaive. The mariner had loved exquisite weapons. The glaive, too, had disappeared during Dhamon’s tests.
Now Nura thrust the glaive at him, nodding when he reluctantly accepted the magical weapon. The dragon meanwhile plucked a small scale off its body and passed it to Maldred. “When the deed is finished,” the dragon said, “use this to return here.”
“What about him?” Nura asked the dragon, indicating Ragh.
“I don’t need anything,” the draconian snorted quickly, before the dragon could say anything. “I go where Dhamon goes, and I have my own special… resources.”
Maldred tucked the scale under his tunic and motioned for Dhamon and his companions to follow Nura Bint-Drax.
“What if Sable kills us?” Dhamon thought to ask the shadow dragon before leaving the cave.
“You should make sure Sable does not,” came the low-rumbling reply. “But… for trying I will spare your child. Only the child, however.”
“You’d better make sure you’re successful, Dhamon Grimwulf,” Nura hissed.
Dhamon took one last glance at the shadow dragon, trying to read the obscure meaning in his film-covered eyes. Then he walked out behind the others.
“I hope you know we’ll get ourselves killed going up against Sable,” Ragh muttered, as they stepped out of the cave into the night-drenched swamp.
“Everyone dies,” Fiona said indifferently. She sheathed the sword in her belt and reached for Dhamon, slipping into the crook of his arm and staring admiringly up at the glaive’s blade. It caught the moonlight that spilled in through a gap in the branches. She smiled warmly. “It is good to be together again. I’ve missed you so very much, Rig.”
Chapter Nine
The Skin of Shrentak
Dhamon stood on a rise bordering the eastern edge of the sprawling city ruled by the black dragon overlord Sable. Fiona leaned against him, staring up at his sweat-streaked face. Below them, a mist covered the streets, cloaking some of its filth and decay. Its rising tendrils helped to soften the appearance of the crumbling towers that reached like gnarled fingers into a pale, gray-orange sky.
Dhamon tried to look past the ugly surface of the place—seeing men and women shuffling about, as they walked about in any other city on Krynn. There was joy here, somewhere. He heard a child laugh, a man offering a pleasant greeting, a dog barking excitedly. People eked out a living, loved each other, raised families just as they did in Palanthas or Winterholm or Solanthus. Just like any city. Except this city belonged to Sable, the black dragon overlord, and it lay smack in the middle of a swamp teeming with spawn, giant crocodiles, and all manner of other horrors. While some of the frightful denizens of this place crawled beneath the streets, others walked freely around the city.
He noted a pair of spawn trudging past a woodworker’s shop, dragging the carcass of something large covered in hide. A dozen or so spawn milled about on corners and under building overhangs in the merchant’s quarter. There were a number of conspicuous abominations, grotesqueries mixed from draconian blood, dragon magic, the husks of elves and dwarves, and perhaps even kender. These were not as sleek as their spawn brothers and had corrupt bodies—extra limbs, misshapen wings, snakelike tails, and more. Dhamon believed he was turning into such an abomination, and he believed that when the transformation was complete his human brain would be displaced by… some otherworldly intelligence. The new being would be loyal to its creator, the shadow dragon.
As Dhamon continued to observe the city, he saw a sivak draconian leap from a blackened spire and spread its wings, lazily circling the center of the city before diving and losing itself in a tangled of ruined buildings and swirling mist.
The city stank of the swamp, of human waste and rotting corpses. The scent of evening meals cooking was faint amid the foulness. They’d eaten very little since leaving the lair of the shadow dragon. He knew Fiona and Ragh were hungry—he could care less about the welfare of Maldred and Nura Bint-Drax.
Perhaps he could find something reasonably edible at an inn. It was important Fiona and Ragh keep their strength for whatever challenge was to come.
He listened to screams and growls from the creatures kept in pens for display and sale in the central marketplace. It was there that he’d wreaked so much havoc when he freed Fiona and other prisoners from below the city and in the process also released the marketplace menagerie. All that seemed like a lifetime ago.
He also heard soft music emanating from a building he suspected—judging by the trio of men stumbling out—was a tavern. It was a pleasant tune, carried by a flute and some sort of horn, which in one moment sounded like the sad cry of a sea bird and in the next subtly angry as it gained tempo.
Dhamon stood staring at the buildings and the spawn and abominations and listening to the unusual tune and thinking at least he had discovered one iota of beauty beneath Shrentak’s ugly skin. All of a sudden the music ended, and he let out a deep breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Are we going into that city, Rig?” Fiona tugged gently on Dhamon’s arm. “It looks strangely familiar. I think I’d rather stop somewhere else.”
“So would I,” Dhamon answered sincerely. During the two-day journey here, Fiona frequently addressed him as Rig. He was certain it was because he carried the glaive that Rig used to wield. With Ragh’s help, he tried repeatedly to convince her Rig was dead and that Dhamon looked nothing like the mariner. Fiona did have momentary bouts of sanity, recognizing Dhamon and making it clear she loathed him.
“I’d rather be tracking Riki and my child,” Dhamon said more to himself. “I’d rather not be going back into Shrentak either.”
“Ugly name for an ugly city,” Ragh said.
Nura Bint-Drax chuckled. “I think Shrentak is beautiful.”
She and Maldred were several paces behind them. They had been engrossed in some hushed conversation. All the way here Dhamon had looked for an opportunity to go against the naga and the ogre-mage, but they were always prepared, always watching him, and Nura had constantly threatened Fiona and Ragh, recognizing Dhamon’s companions as a weakness to be exploited. The naga, like Dhamon, hadn’t slept, and he was certain she was as exhausted as he was, but she had magically blanketed her reptilian form with the guise of a comely Ergothian and was somehow concealing her fatigue.
Maldred clearly looked exhausted, and he made no attempt to hide it. He had approached Dhamon several times, endlessly trying to explain his actions and rekindle their friendship. Each time Dhamon rebuked him. Maldred would be easier to overcome than the naga, Dhamon decided. Tired and feeling guilty, Maldred could be bested somewhere down a dark alley. Dhamon doubted murder was considered much of a crime in Shrentak. Defeating Nura Bint-Drax would be another matter. He’d have to create an opportunity, call on Ragh’s help somehow. Dhamon and the draconian had been exchanging glances, and he hoped Fiona could be counted on when the time came.