“We will pass the rest of the night up here,” the naga announced, as she stared into the setting sun.
“We will wait until the morning to go into the city and look for Sable.”
“I thought you served Sable, too,” Dhamon said. “Don’t you know where she is?”
She ignored him and made a show of stretching and studying a trio of sivaks that rose in flight from the center of town. “We will wait, I say. In the morning, or perhaps the morning after that, we will go down into the city. It is up to me when we act, and I say, for the moment, we wait.”
“Wait?” Dhamon made no effort to conceal his surprise.
“Yes. I want to make sure the overlord does not have too many minions about. We must determine the best time to strike.”
“Well, I’m in a hurry. I’m not waiting.” I’m dying, he thought, and I won’t spend my last hours waiting on a whim. Before the naga could say or do anything, Dhamon grabbed Fiona by the hand and hurried down the rise. Ragh followed quickly on their heels. If the naga wanted to dally, there must be a secret reason, Dhamon thought. Easier to deal with her later if he kept her unsettled and upset.
“Keep him in sight,” Nura hissed to Maldred. The naga shoved the ogre-mage after them. “Don’t lose him again—or you’ll fast be a dead man! I’ve allies in the city who won’t let him—or you—escape. He’s your responsibility!”
Maldred glowered at her but said nothing, and in a few long strides he caught up to Dhamon. He drew his sword as a precaution, though he didn’t dare use it against Dhamon—not if the shadow dragon’s plan was to proceed. You’re a dead man, Maldred, if you don’t keep track of him! he heard Nura repeat inside his head.
“Dhamon, wait,” Maldred pleaded. “Nura’s right about this city. It’s better that she finds out if Sable—”
“I can’t defeat the damn dragon no matter when or where I strike,” Dhamon said tersely. “Not with all of your help and magic. You know it, Maldred. It doesn’t matter if the dragon has ten minions here or ten thousand.”
“You can beat her,” Maldred argued. “We can. We have to.”
“To save the ogre lands,” Dhamon snarled. “Right? To save your damnable people’s dry patch of ground.” He increased his pace. I need to save my child and Fiona before I save the ogre race. And before I die.
Dhamon wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew the naga could keep track of them, with or without Maldred. He sensed her rivalry with his onetime friend and would take advantage of it. A glance behind him showed her perched on the rise. He didn’t slow until she was out of sight and he found himself amidst a throng of battered-looking men who were leaving a building site, heading home from the day’s work. He listened to the clack of their heels against scattered bricks in the street, listened to their conversations about work and family, about how tired they all were, about the swamp they all hated. He clasped Fiona’s hand to keep her close, and he scanned for alleyways, ones that were dark and empty where he could lure Maldred. So far the only ones he saw were in one fashion or another occupied. In one, two young women flanked an older man in a guard’s uniform. He was happily pressing coins into their palms. In another, men were curled into balls, sleeping against walls and in doorways. In the next, a few men huddled against a precariously leaning building, thick fingers passing a heavy clay jug back and forth between them, as they pleasantly poisoned themselves.
Dhamon found himself envying them. He had poisoned himself often enough during the past months, drinking anything strong enough to help cloud his senses when the pain from the scale began. He’d numb himself after each episode, relishing the oblivion the alcohol granted, never minding the headache and gut-ache he had when he sobered, not caring that he was tearing up his insides. He was dying anyway.
But he’d had not a swallow since setting foot in Shrentak the last time—when he had sought the help of a mad old woman who tried to remove the scale, when bedlam erupted after he freed Fiona and the rest of the prisoners. He’d had no opportunity to drink since he’d fled from this city on the manticore’s back. No chance on the Chaos wight’s island. It was only now that he thought of how long it had been since he’d had a drink. Dhamon paused to stare at the huddled men and wondered at the taste of their particular poison. He thought about the steel pieces in the pouch at his waist and at how much potent alcohol that could buy.
“It’ll only muddle your mind,” Ragh whispered, perhaps reading his thoughts. “We need to be sharp, look for an opportunity to—”
“Aye, you’re right.” Dhamon testily turned away and kept to the middle of the street, still searching for an appropriate alley. “I am looking for an opportunity all right.” Hearing him, Fiona sneered and suddenly disentangled herself from him, apparently looking at him with fresh eyes and realizing he was not Rig.
“I should be with Rig,” the female Knight snapped, tilting her chin defiantly to the darkening sky. “I shouldn’t be with you, Dhamon Grimwulf. I should be getting a new assignment from my Order. There is so much evil in this world to fight.” She ran her fingers along the collar of her tunic. “My armor…. Where is Rig? Why are we here? What do you plan to do here, Dhamon?”
We’re here to save my child, he answered to himself. “We’re on an errand, Fiona,” he said softly.
“Remember, the shadow dragon sent us?”
She nodded, her eyes bright and her expression distant. “To slay the overlord. Sable’s evil.” The notion seemed to quiet her.
Dhamon led them deeper into the city, unconsciously heading toward the stunted tower where he’d found the old sage. Maldred fell back a little. Dhamon looked at the faces as he went. Most of them were sad and weary, most of the people were human. A few bore faint smiles suggesting they were dreaming of a life far from here. There were wizened ones with pale, watery eyes, men with weathered skin and vacuous looks. A lone, cheerful woman clutched a child to her breast.
“Riki,” Dhamon whispered to himself. Did the half-elf and her young husband know that the village they were in was surrounded by the shadow dragon’s hobgoblins? That Dhamon’s child was endangered?
“Dhamon.” Ragh had said his name several times before Dhamon heard and acknowledged him.
The draconian bobbed his head toward a row of buildings, their entrances and the walkway in front of them shadowed from the setting sun. “Do you think we ought to be strutting about so much in the open?
Someone might recognize us.” He indicated a pair of haggard-looking humans who’d been lagging behind them the past two blocks.
Dhamon kept an eye on the two, but they soon cut away and ducked into a leatherworker’s shop.
“Recognize us?” He stifled an uncharacteristic chuckle. The draconian was singular—a sivak without wings, and Dhamon flaunted a bunch of scales on his leg where the shadow dragon had sliced his trousers. There were even a few scales on his neck now, too, which he had tried unsuccessfully to tear free.
“It was dark, Ragh, when we escaped this place. I doubt anyone who’s still alive got a good look at us.”
Still, rather than take the chance, he accepted the draconian’s advice. The shadows offered a better opportunity to get rid of Maldred, anyway. Dhamon glanced behind him again, seeing the ogre-mage eyeing them. There was no sign of Nura Bint-Drax in any of her guises. He guessed she could look like anyone she wanted and that she might very well be close by. Shuddering at the thought, he pressed on and ignored Ragh’s and Fiona’s questions about where precisely they were going. At the moment, Dhamon didn’t really know.
On the rise east of Shrentak, Nura Bint-Drax shrugged off her Ergothian form. Easing back on a comfortably thick coil, her coppery hair fanning away from her face in a graceful hood, she closed her eyes and pictured the shadow dragon. The last of the sun’s rays warmed her face and struck her scales, setting them to glimmering, save for a shadowed patch near her tail. The scales looked like the small ones on Dhamon’s leg, but there were only a handful—and they hadn’t spread much since the day the shadow dragon stuck them there. The dragon’s magic hadn’t taken as firm a hold on the naga, who was naturally resistant to his spell, and so she expected that no more of his scales would grow. For this she was jealous of and embittered about Dhamon Grimwulf.