Working fast, Riverwind lopped off two stalks and snapped the flowering heads off the reeds. He pushed Di An down into the soft, muddy clot of roots. “Put this end in your mouth,” he explained hurriedly. “Breathe through it. And don't move until I tell you, all right?”
Riverwind made sure she had the reed in her mouth. He eased her down into the black gruel of mud, then lay down beside her and submerged himself. Warm mud trickled in his ears. Reed roots poked him in the sides and back. Riverwind lay very still, listening, listening-
He distinctly heard the whoosh as the dragon passed over. Khisanth screeched, “Where are you, worms? You cannot hide from me!”
The dragon flew back and forth over the swamp, crying maledictions and spewing acid on anything that moved. An hour passed. Then two. The creatures of the swamp returned to their habits even as Riverwind and Di An lay embedded in their home. Slithery things slipped over and around him; crawling things with many legs marched up and down his motionless body. He wanted to yell, to scrape the itchy, filthy mud from his skin, but he knew that Khisanth was waiting, watching, circling, ready to tear them both to pieces.
The dragon eventually ceased its frustrated crying and kept watch silently, tempting her prey to reveal themselves. But Riverwind's resolve never weakened. He waited for what seemed like half the night before raising himself to the surface. Foul water ran off his face. He opened his eyes. A glistening green face was only inches from his.
He puckered his lips, blew hard, and the frog hopped away. The two bright moons of Krynn were up, their combined light casting a pinkish aura over the swamp. The sky was clear of clouds and the dragon. Riverwind sat up. Gobs of gray mud slid off his chest. He reached over and roused Di An. She was slow to respond. He shook her. Di An sat up, mudbugs scurrying off her shoulders and neck. “Hello, Father,” she said. “I'm hungry.”
“I know. I'm hungry, too.” He turned his head slowly, listening and looking. “I think the dragon has gone.” River-wind stood. Di An gave a mild exclamation. “What is it?” he asked.
“You have warts.”
“Warts? What?” Riverwind ran a hand down the back of one leg and felt soft lumps on his skin. He twisted around to see.
“Filthy leeches!” he cried. Nearly a dozen spotted the backs of his legs. Di An rose. She hadn't a one. Apparently Hestite blood didn't appeal to them.
“My eye for a crock of salt!” he groaned. “Or a heated brand!”
“Shall I make a fire, Father?” the elf girl asked.
“No!” Riverwind said sharply. “The dragon might see it.” Shivering with disgust, Riverwind used his sword to scrape the nasty creatures off. When he was done, his legs were streaked with blood. He looked as if he'd been in a fearsome battle.
“We've got to get out of this swamp,” he said. “We'll be better off in the highlands even if the dragon does continue to hunt us.” Di An's answer was dreamy and nonsensical.
With the stars to guide him, Riverwind chose a path that led due west. It took them through the black heart of the Cursed Lands, Fever Lake. They tramped all night in slimy water up to Riverwind's thighs. He remembered the leeches and shook with revulsion. Di An hummed a repetitive tune.
“Do you have to do that?” he asked through chattering teeth. She paid him no heed, and he turned on her in a quick blaze of fury. “Be quiet!”
Di An stared blankly at him, unmindful of the flies and gnats that crawled across her face.
Riverwind passed a hand across his forehead. The heat of his dry brow was evident. “I've got the fever,” he said. “And no wonder. Lying in the mud all night, and those damned bloodsuckers-” Di An aroused such pity in him that his anger went away as quickly as it had arisen. “I'm sorry I shouted,” Riverwind said. A chill swept over him. “It's- ahh-not your fault.”
“You are kind.” She pushed a strand of mud-caked hair behind her high-pointed ear. “Mors, are you certain this is the right tunnel?”
Riverwind looked west across the flat, marshy plain and sighed. “It's the only tunnel we've got,” he said. He hooked his arm in hers. “Come. Let's not waste the darkness.”
Shanz and his remaining draconian soldiers stood on a dry spit of sand not far from the temple of Mishakal. Hulking large above them was the upright form of Khisanth.
“They have entered Fever Lake,” Shanz said. His reptilian eyes could pierce the dark of night and follow Riverwind and Di An by the heat of their trail. From where he stood now, he could see their path twisting dimly away.
“No warm-blood has ever crossed the lake and lived,” the dragon said smugly.
“What is your bidding, Great One?” Shanz asked.
Khisanth's massive foreclaw rested lightly on the dracon-ian's bare head. She petted Shanz as a woman would stroke a cat. “We have much work to do here. In a few days, go out and recover that staff. I cannot allow so powerful a talisman to fall into human hands.”
“It shall be done, Great One.”
“Excellent. Then I shall see to the enlargement of your garrison. Prepare for the arrival of more troops.”
Shanz asked, “The end of Krago's plan does not distress you?”
“Not overly much, little Shanz. Like all humans, Krago imagined he could seize hold of the elemental forces with his soft, bare hands. Only the race of dragons can achieve such things.” Khisanth opened her wings prior to leaping into flight. “Our armies will conquer Krynn without help from humans,” she said.
“They will be fodder for our swords!” Shanz declared.
“As I expect.” Khisanth sprang into the air, made one lazy circle, and flew back to Xak Tsaroth. Shanz and his officers remained a few moments. The captain stared out at the darkness and watched the faint traces of scarlet dim and disappear into the sickly miasma rising out of Fever Lake.
The sun struck their backs when it first cleared the horizon. A gray mist rose from the shallow waters of the lake. Frogs and water bugs ceased their night songs with the coming of the light, so an eerie silence fell over the swamp.
Riverwind ached from head to toe from the poisoning of his blood by the fever. Chills and shakes came upon him in great surges, often so strong that he had to stop walking. His eyes burned, and his throat was raw. He did not have the strength or concentration to hunt, fish, or even gather wild grasses to eat.
The fever had come to Di An, too. Her teeth rattled when the chills racked her slim body, and when the fever burned her face, Di An's breath came in short, hard gasps. Throughout it all she remained in her lost dream of home, the familiar caverns of Hest.
Still they slogged forward. There was no place to rest except in the stinking boggy water. Riverwind couldn't believe the dragon would forget and let them go, if only because she wouldn't want word of her presence in Xak Tsaroth to spread. It was this idea that drove him on. That and the Staff of Mishakal, which he never let leave his fevered grip.
“I return in triumph,” he whispered. “I have fulfilled Ar-rowthorn's impossible quest.” Riverwind smiled over chattering teeth. “All of Que-Shu will watch as I hand the Staff of Mishakal to my beloved. She will hold it proudly aloft. She will know how to use it. The villagers will cheer, and Arrowthorn will have to agree to our joining. Our joining, Goldmoon. Our joining…”
Riverwind moved doggedly through the swamp, the imagined cheers of his people still ringing in his ears.
The sun burned away the mist, and in the distance the plainsman saw something that cheered his heart enormously. Rising like blue shadows from the marshy plain were the mountains. They were not forsaken to him, but a glorious sight.
“Do you see?” he said excitedly to Di An. “The mountains! Beautiful, wonderful mountains! Clear, cold streams, game, fish.”
“Slice of bread… a pear… a peach…,” Di An murmured. “ 'Neath the golden waterfall. Strange. I feel strange.”