The hairless ogre grinned, understanding the tone of the Black-Gazer’s voice. He brought down his great axe, cleaving the scout’s head from behind. As the slain scout crumpled to the ground, Kurthak turned and stormed urgently away through the forest. Baloth hurried to follow.
Chapter 18
Malystryx slumbered in her nest deep within Blood Watch, her serpentine form shuddering and twisting as she dreamt of carnage. Her breath came in great snorting rushes, a massive bellows that fed the forge-fires in her belly. Smoke hung around her, swirling and eddying with the twitching of her wings. Her claws scratched the floor, scoring the stone with long, jagged furrows.
“Mistress.”
Even in the depths of sleep, she heard Yovanna’s voice. Angrily, she hauled herself back to wakefulness, her bloody dreams forgotten. She cracked open a golden eye, glaring at the black-cloaked form on the balcony above her. Yovanna met her baleful gaze calmly from within the dark depths of her hood.
“I have told you about waking me,” Malys hissed.
Yovanna nodded. “I would not do so, Mistress, if it did not seem urgent to me. The Black-Gazer has come.”
A jet of flame erupted from Malystryx’s maw, scorching the stone. She raised her head to look straight at the black-cloaked figure. “Kurthak?” she demanded. “Why has he left Kendermore?”
“He would not tell me, Mistress. He insisted that he speak with you.”
With an impatient snort, Malystryx slowly uncoiled and stretched her sinuous form. “You shouldn’t have disturbed me, Yovanna. The fool could have waited until I woke.”
“That was my thinking, Mistress,” Yovanna replied carefully. “But he came here three days ago, and you have been asleep the whole time. I thought you would prefer to see him now, so he can go back where he belongs.”
The dragon unfolded her wings, fanning them slowly to work out the stiffness of slumber. “Very well,” she rasped. “Where is he? Not within this mountain, I hope.”
Yovanna shook her head. “I left him and his companion on a ridge, a league west of here.”
Malystryx said nothing more to her servant. She tensed, then leaped almost straight upward, her legs launching her like coiled springs. Her wings beat slowly as she streaked up past Yovanna and caught the stony edge of the shaft with her clutching claws. With practised ease she pulled herself up into the cleft, then squirmed up through the rock, away from her nest. It was a tight fit, the shaft’s rough walls scraping her hide as she slithered along. It had not been so when she’d first claimed Blood Watch as her lair, but that had been quite some time ago. Malys had grown a great deal since then. There had been many other dragons to feed upon.
Daylight shone above her, a spot of blue amid the blackness of the stone. She heaved herself toward that light, her tail thrashing behind her. Then she was free, emerging from a vent in the side of the volcano like some terrible butterfly leaving its chrysalis. She sprang from the hole, away from the mountain, and her membranous wings caught the hot wind that gusted among the jagged hills that surrounded Blood Watch.
As she flew, she surveyed the Desolation she had shaped. It continued to grow more barren with the passage of time-even now, after only a few days of sleep, she could see how the land had changed. Flats of hot mud had dried and cracked. The last stubbornly hardy grasses had finally withered and fallen to dust. To the east, a thick plume of smoke and ash marked the birth of a new volcano. She regarded the Desolation proudly, soaring high above it. Then with an exultant screech she angled downward again, toward a narrow ridge of brown rock that stretched between two looming, fanglike peaks. She swooped in, the hot wind buffeting her body, and saw two tall figures standing atop the balk. Her lips curling back from her massive fangs, she dove.
The two ogres watched her descend, shock registering in their faces as she streaked straight toward them. She screamed, and the towering brutes covered their ears. They ducked as she swept over their heads, skimming barely ten feet above the stone of the ridge. Malys laughed mockingly and banked, watching them struggle to their feet again. She came around, spotted a large outcropping of rock on the nearest peak, and winged mightily toward it. She settled onto the perch gingerly, testing it first to see if it would bear her enormous weight. It held, and she folded her wings, glaring down at the ogres.
They were nearly half a mile away. She could have flown across the distance in little more than a heartbeat, but she let them come to her instead. A few minutes later, Kurthak and Baloth knelt before her.
“Wretch,” she snarled at the hetman. “Have you forgotten your place? I should burn you where you stand.” She sucked in a long, slow breath, flames crackling in her throat.
Baloth quailed, his face stiff with terror, but Kurthak the Black-Gazer mastered the almost overwhelming force of her dragonfear and returned her gaze. “You’d be wise not to do that,” he told her. “I bear news you must hear.”
Malys angled her head, her forked tongue flicking between her teeth. “Do you, now?” she asked. “What news could be so important that you would abandon your own army to bring it to me? Who did you leave in charge? That lackwit of a champion? I see you brought a new dog to skulk at your side,” she added, her gaze falling heavily upon the hairless ogre.
Baloth fell back a pace, unsteadily, but Kurthak grabbed his arm, stopping him from running away. ‘‘Tragor leads the horde, yes,” the Black-Gazer answered evenly. “He only needs to hold them where they are until I return. As to the word I bring, it is this. Riverwind of Que-Shu is among the kender.”
A silence descended over the ridge, broken only by the moan of the hot wind among the crags, and the rumblings of the restless earth beneath their feet. Ogre and dragon faced each other, neither speaking a word. Then Malys arrogantly tilted up her chin, her lip curling once more.
“Who?” she asked.
Kurthak blinked, surprised. “Riverwind of Que-Shu,” he repeated.
Malys thumped the mountainside with her tail. The impact knocked stones loose from the peak, sending them bounding down its slopes. “I do not know this man,” she said evenly. “Who is he that his presence in Kendermore would make you leave your place?”
“He’s a Hero of the Lance,” Kurthak said.
“A what?”
The Black-Gazer stared, dumbfounded; then his eyes narrowed as he tried to understand the dragon’s joke. He soon realized, however, that Malys was serious. “You haven’t heard of the Heroes of the Lance?” he asked. “But they’re known everywhere in Ansalon!”
“I am not from Ansalon,” Malystryx replied. “And I care little for the legends of mortals. This Riverwind is one man. He is of no concern to me. You should not have left your army, Black-Gazer. You will not leave it again, even if more of your precious ‘Heroes’ arrive in Kendermore.”
Stunned by her intransigence, Kurthak could do nothing but bow his head obediently. “Yes, Malystryx.”
“Very good,” she said to him. “Now come here, Black-Gazer. I have a gift for you.”
Kurthak walked forward, his legs moving against his will. He tried to stop himself, but he kept on moving until he was less than ten yards from Malystryx. He winced at the heat that emanated from her immense body.
“Kneel,” she breathed.
The word lodged in his mind, driving out all thoughts of resistance. He knelt. Gracefully, she extended a long, taloned finger and touched its tip to the middle of his forehead. Back along the ridge, Baloth winced and turned away, waiting for the dragon’s claw to plunge through Kurthak’s skull.
Malys’s touch, however, was gentle, almost a caress. She held her talon against him, and whispered words in a strange language the ogre didn’t understand. The air seethed with unseen energies. The Black-Gazer tensed as magic coursed both around and within him.