He finally returned the spyglass to Jester-somewhat reluctantly, Sabira couldn’t help but notice-and spent a few more moments scribbling on the crate. Then he circled a number several times, nodding in satisfaction.
“That’s what I thought.”
“ What’s what you thought?” Sabira asked impatiently.
When Greddark turned so he could address everyone in the back of the wagon, Sabira knew they’d have to endure a lecture before getting an answer. She repressed an annoyed sigh. She’d been through enough training talks as she’d worked her way up the ranks in House Deneith to know that any sign of apathy would only make the lecturer go on that much longer. She’d become passably good at feigning interest over the years, but it was a skill she still hadn’t fully mastered. She wondered briefly if the trick with the shard axe would work a second time, to encourage the dwarf to get to the point faster, but she decided against it. If he was anything like the other tinkerers she’d known, she’d wind up having to actually impale him to get him to stop talking. It wasn’t worth wasting a healing potion over.
“I don’t know how familiar you all are with prevailing wind patterns…”
Sabira nearly groaned. Maybe it was worth it, after all.
“… winds in this part of Xen’drik should be from east to west, so any storm powered by those winds would also follow that route. We are traveling southwest at the moment, so the wind should be coming at us predominantly from behind, on the left. And, indeed, if you look outside, you’ll see that the various ropes, tails, and robes are being blown to the right.”
“So… what’s so noteworthy about that?”
“Well, my dear Marshal, if you look at the dust cloud, you’ll notice that it is not approaching us from the left, but from the right. In other words, it’s moving against the prevailing wind. And making headway.”
Sabira looked. The dwarf was right.
“It’s not a natural dust storm.” It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Greddark replied. “I’m not sure it’s a storm at all.”
“Well, what else could it be?”
The answer came from the back of the caravan, a series of metallic cries carried up the line of wagons on the unnatural wind.
“ ’Ware the dragon!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mol, Barrakas 9, 998 YK
The Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.
Jester dug his spyglass out again and handed it over to Sabira without being asked. She held the instrument up to her eye and was momentarily disoriented as the leading edge of the dust storm zoomed into focus so sharply she would swear she could make out individual grains of sand as they sped through the air. She blinked twice, then began scanning the sky.
“Low and to the left.”
That didn’t bode well. It meant the dragon was smart, creating the storm to distract them while it approached from another direction to avoid detection. Likely not a juvenile, then. So they’d have to deal with spells in addition to the dragon’s breath weapon and other physical attacks. Wonderful.
Sabira ran through a mental list of dragons that would be most comfortable in this hot, dry environment. It was short, but sobering. Copper, brass, red, maybe blue. But any dragon could live anywhere; the Blademarks drove that into the head of every recruit during their long hours of training. You had to be prepared for anything when dealing with one of the magical flying reptiles.
She’d never faced one herself, though she’d been drilled in how best to defeat those most likely to be found on Khorvaire. The closest she’d come had been her battle with those yrthaks over the Thunder Sea just two months ago. A lot of good men had fallen that day. If they had to fight off a true dragon, a lot more would fall on this one.
Sabira finally caught sight of the dragon, skimming low over the dunes as it approached.
It was nothing like the dragons in the books she’d studied during her training. The reptile was covered in brownish-gray scales everywhere except for its head, which was covered in a mass of thick, short horns and resembled nothing so much as a lamprey, or perhaps a morning star crafted by an overeager smith. Winglike membranes stretched between two parallel lines of spines that ran along the length of the creature’s back, from the base of its spiked head to the tip of its tail.
“What in the name of Olladra’s larder is that?” she asked as she handed the spyglass back to Jester, vaguely repulsed.
“A sand dragon,” Brannan answered. He’d given the controls over to Xujil and climbed into the back of the wagon, rummaging around in one of the crates. He came up with a handful of green-fletched bolts and a crossbow, which he held out expectantly. “Well? I certainly can’t operate the thing.”
Sabira took the weapon impatiently from him and selected a bolt. But before she could load it into the groove, Greddark snatched it out of her hand.
“What the-?”
The dwarf ignored her exclamation, instead examining the bolt with a furrowed brow. Then he turned a baleful eye on the Wayfinder.
“You just happen to have bolts enchanted to pierce dragon scales?”
“Actually, I happen to have bolts enchanted to pierce any number of things. This crate alone holds silver bolts, bolts blessed by practitioners of every known religion on Eberron-and some unknown ones-and bolts that will bring a giant to its knees… probably even some that might do the same to a dwarf, if I dig deep enough.” The Wayfinder flashed that perfect smile. “You never know what you might face on an expedition. It pays to be prepared for every eventuality, no matter how unlikely. It’s kept me in business this long.”
Greddark harrumphed and grudgingly handed the quarrel back to Sabira, who quickly loaded it into the crossbow and moved into position, using the feed trough at the back of the wagon to steady her aim.
She could see the dragon without the spyglass now, a dark speck rapidly growing in size as it approached from the north. As it glided through the air, Sabira could see it wasn’t quite as large as she’d been expecting-the size of two of the wagons shoved together, maybe. She revised her estimate of the creature’s age-no more than a young adult, if the facts she’d learned as a Blademark could be applied to dragons she’d never seen in any of their libraries.
Hopefully, that should mean the reptile would rely less on magic and more on mundane attacks. But without knowing what sort of breath weapon the creature had, she wasn’t sure if that was a benefit or not.
“So,” she asked over her shoulder as she tried to keep the crossbow level while the wagon bumped along over the desert floor, “sand dragons. What do you know about them?”
“Not much,” Brannan answered from behind her. “I’ve never encountered one out here before, but I’ve heard stories.”
“Stories?” Jester asked, and Sabira could just imagine the red-armored warforged leaning forward eagerly on his bench.
“I’ve heard they can create sandstorms-a tale I think we can safely confirm-and that they prefer to attack from underneath the sand. Not much else.”
Wait. If sand dragons preferred to come at their prey from beneath the sand, then why-?
Sabira didn’t even have time to finish thinking the question. As the dragon came within bowshot of the rearmost wagons, it suddenly veered up and over the caravan, well out of range of both arrow and quarrel. As it crossed above their wagon, Sabira scrambled forward to the front, poking her head out beside a startled Xujil. She watched as the dragon swooped down behind a row of high dunes ahead of the caravan and disappeared. Though she scanned the horizon in front of them, she didn’t see it reappear.
“Stop the caravan!” she shouted to Brannan without turning.
There was utter silence behind her.