“Spells?” Kurthak asked. “But magic is gone. The moons-”
Malystryx laughed. Her breath smelled like burning metal, making the ogres’ nostrils sting.
“Perhaps to you mortals there is no magic,” she said. “Dragons need no moons for their power.” She raised a long-taloned claw, pointed it at Tragor, and spoke several guttural words. Tragor gaped in horror, and Kurthak took a quick step away, expecting him to explode or rot before his eyes. Instead, though, Tragor rose from the ground and floated through the air toward the dragon. His terrified cries ended abruptly as he fainted dead away.
Sneering, Malys lowered her claw and turned back to Kurthak. Tragor continued to hang in midair, his feet dangling a hundred feet or more above the stony ground.
“Now,” Malystryx said, “enough idle talk. I have chosen you for a reason, Black-Gazer.”
With effort, Kurthak tore his gaze away from the hovering, limp form of his champion and focused on Malys. “Very well,” he said, trying to sound as though he were somehow on even footing with the gigantic wyrm. “Your servant sought me out. She said you had a bargain to make-my people’s allegiance in exchange for Kendermore.”
Malystryx’s head bobbed. “That is indeed what I intend to offer you,” she said. “I have watched your people for some time, Black-Gazer, and I see great promise in you-promise I did not see in the puny humans who dwelt in this land.”
Kurthak didn’t miss the carefully chosen word-dwelt. There had been thousands of humans in the Dairly Plains to the south of the ogres’ lands.
“They are mostly gone now,” Malys hissed, guessing his thoughts. “Many are dead, though some of them fled. I could have destroyed your people with no more effort than I crushed the humans, but I have chosen not to. Do you know why, Black-Gazer?”
“Because you wish to ally with us instead?”
“Precisely. I mean to turn my attention to the kender next.”
He swallowed. “To destroy them?”
“If I must,” she said. “But the kender are not very filling and I find simple slaughter somewhat boring. I like to… play with and savor my food. That is where I need your help.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have been attacking the kender,” she explained, her tone that of a patient parent speaking to a dull-witted child. “Your chief-Ruog-has sent you and others to destroy villages along their eastern border. But you aren’t content with simple slaughter either, are you? No, instead you take them prisoner. Why?”
“We want them as slaves,” Kurthak said.
“Slaves!” Malystryx laughed. “Of course. But who would buy one? I am still somewhat new to this land, but I’ve learned enough about the kender to know they are not well-respected. Most of the other races consider them nuisances, I understand.”
“We don’t mean to sell them,” Kurthak said. “We mean to keep them.”
“To what end?”
He pursed his lips, hesitating.
“Oh, come now, Black-Gazer,” Malys purred. “Don’t be so reluctant. I can always use my magic to pluck the answer from your mind-something you’d find quite uncomfortable.”
She twitched another claw, and instantly Kurthak’s brain flooded with agony. He staggered, gagging, but the pain ebbed as quickly as it had risen. For a moment he stood silently, fighting to keep his gorge from rising. Then he wiped cold sweat from his forehead. “Th-the mines,” he stammered. “Our people have found many new lodes of ore. Narrow, cramped, dangerous work. Lord Ruog wants to use the small kender to dig them out.”
“Ah,” the dragon declared, smiling. “I see. And when the ore is gone… you will kill them then?”
“Yes.”
“Very clever. Put them to use before they die. But you’re having trouble, aren’t you?”
Kurthak scowled, his face darkening. “They’re trickier than Lord Ruog expected,” he admitted. “They elude us constantly. We’ve captured more than a thousand of them, but-”
“But you want more,” Malys interrupted. Her smile widened. “I think I can help you with that, Black-Gazer.”
“In exchange for my people’s allegiance?” Kurthak asked.
The dragon’s head bobbed, her smile never wavering.
“What could we possibly do for you that you can’t do yourself?”
“A good question,” Malys hissed. “For an ogre, you’re terribly bright, Black-Gazer. I like that. It is true, I am mighty, but I am only one being. Shaping the land into this Desolation requires great concentration, and it draws attention. I need your people to patrol and police my conquered lands. In return, I will let them have plenty of slaves.”
“What about me?” Kurthak asked. “We’ve spoken of what you want and what my people have to gain. You must have something to offer me, too, or you’d have approached Lord Ruog directly.”
She barked a harsh laugh. “So daring, too. You’re right, of course, Black-Gazer. I did not approach Lord Ruog because he is a fool. He could conquer the kender with ease, but instead he picks meaninglessly at their borders. You, however, are everything I had hoped you would be.”
She made a swift gesture, and Tragor floated back to Kurthak’s side. The champion’s feet touched the stone of the ridge; then he collapsed in a heap.
“So, my new friend,” purred Malystryx, “let us speak of what you shall gain.”
The black stain of the ogre horde grew darker still as night settled over the land. In a series of shallow, barren valleys to the east of the kender lands, thousands of ogres gathered around flickering campfires. Gray, greasy smoke drifted up toward the clear, violet sky, where the pale moon waned and the first evening stars flickered. Sounds, too, rose above the camp: a ghastly din of snarls, shouts and guttural laughter, mixed with the thundering roll of war drums and the fierce blare of horns. The ogres roasted fresh meat over their fires-venison, boar, and other things best left unmentioned-and devoured it when it was still pink and sizzling. They washed it down with copious amounts of beer, both their own sour brew and kegs of kender lager plundered from Myrtledew and several other towns. Drunken skirmishes soon followed, rival war bands attacking each other with fists and blades. Blood was spilled, skulls were cracked, and a few of the brutish creatures were crippled or killed before their clan chiefs could break up the brawling. Once the fighting was done, the ogres turned to other sport. A few captive kender, deemed too weak or sickly to be useful as slaves, were brought forth from their cages, and led to where the drunken ogres waited with axes, knives, and iron stakes heated in the fires until they glowed golden-hot. The kender’s screams soon joined the ogres’ wild howls in a chorus of despair.
It was a night like any other in the war camp of Lord Ruog, hetman of the ogres of Goodlund.
In a narrow dale in the camp’s midst, the hetman and his warlords had gathered about a huge, roaring bonfire for some sport of their own. They roared with approving laughter at the sound of bones breaking, and Ruog leaned forward on his makeshift stone throne, pounding his great fist against his knee.
Between the hetman and the raging fire, two of the ogre horde’s finest warriors were wrestling. It was not wrestling as humans knew it, since there were no rules of propriety: vicious bites and gouged eyes were commonplace, and fights were not called because of injury. Such was the case now, for one of the wrestlers, a shaggy brute named Grul, had just finished crushing his opponent’s wrist. The wounded ogre, a wiry hairless creature named Baloth, howled with pain, madly frying to pry his opponent’s fingers from around his arm, but Grul only smirked and tightened his grip. Popping, snapping sounds filled the air, and Baloth’s cries grew louder.