“This may seem like a game,” Riverwind added, “but it’s not. You’ve got to do things right, or you’ll end up dead when the ogres attack.”
The kender stared at their shoes. Beside Riverwind, Brimble groaned in exasperation. The Plainsman rested a silencing hand on the old veteran’s shoulder.
He waved his arm behind him, out across the meadow. “All of Kendermore is depending on you to stop that horde out there. There’s no room for mistakes or sloppiness. Now, everyone can rest for an hour, and then we’ll do this again.”
Exhausted groans rose all around him as Riverwind turned and strode away along the battlements, following the catwalk to where Kronn and Paxina stood. He was pale and haggard, his white hair pasted to his forehead with sweat. Involuntarily, he pressed his hand against his stomach.
“Are you all right, Riverwind?” Paxina asked.
The Plainsman looked at her sharply, moving his hand away from his belly as he drew up to them.
“I’m fine,” he murmured.
Concern flashed in their eyes, and he looked away irritably, staring out toward the Kenderwood. Across the meadow, the towering figures of the ogres moved restlessly about their camps. Their snarling, bestial voices carried across the field.
“They’re certainly taking their time,” Kronn observed. “Are all sieges this blasted boring?”
“Most of them,” Riverwind replied, smiling. “The battle was over quickly at Kalaman, but I’ve heard of sieges that lasted for months-even years.”
“Years,” Paxina echoed, wondering. “We can’t hold out that long. We’ve barely enough food stocked to last us the winter, even if we ration.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Riverwind replied. “I doubt the ogres have that kind of patience. They’ll come soon enough. I just hope there’s enough time to get ready.” He turned, glancing back along the wall. Brimble Redfeather was berating the other kender, trying to get them to set up for the next drill. Riverwind heaved a leaden sigh.
“They’ll be ready,” Kronn told the Plainsman. “I’ve been watching them, especially the past few days. They really are improving-just not very quickly, is all.”
“Plus those drills you’re doing aren’t completely fair,” Paxina chimed in. “The melons make good rocks, and the water in the cauldrons is all right, but we’ll have them, too.” She nodded down toward the base of the wall, where a makeshift archery range was set up. Kender took turns firing arrows at straw dummies. More often than not, the shafts struck them in places that would kill a man-or an ogre. Watching them shoot, Riverwind marveled at the archers’ skill.
Down a few blocks, a second group of kender stood in line, facing a row of catapults. Riverwind watched as they loaded slingstones into the pouches of their hoopaks, then held them poised. A moment passed, then the catapults’ arms sprang forward, launching a volley of clay discs into the air. One by one they swung their hoopaks forward, flinging their stones at the discs. The targets shattered, raining down on the ground in pieces.
The old Plainsman nodded pensively, watching the slingers whoop in exultation as the catapult operators prepared their engines for another volley. “True,” he said. “The archers and slingers will kill many ogres before they even get near the wall. But even so…” He shrugged, looking away toward the Kenderwood once more.
“You don’t think we can hold them back?” Kronn asked.
Riverwind didn’t reply. He gazed out across the meadow. “The forest will be dead soon,” he observed.
Over the weeks since his arrival, the weather had continued to worsen. The heat had become even more intense and dry as an oven. The winds that swept over the town were much closer to the siroccos that scoured the sands of Khur than the damp, rainy gusts Paxina said were normal for autumn in Goodlund. Last year, she had said, it had rained for two-thirds of the month of Bleakcold, including a stretch of nine days without sunshine. Now, though, Bleakcold was nearly done, and not a drop had fallen.
Gradually, as the drought continued, the grassy meadow beyond the wall had turned from golden to the gray-brown hue of ashes. Then the grass had withered, leaving behind nothing but bald, barren earth. Stones pushed up through the soil where none had been before. Once the grass was gone, the trees had begun to change. Silver and green leaves had changed color-turning not red and gold, as was normal for autumn in the Kenderwood, but rather becoming brown and shriveled, many of them crumbling to dust before they had a chance to fall. Now many trees stood bald and gray, dead or nearly so.
And the stench of brimstone was stronger than ever.
“The dragon’s magic,” Paxina murmured, her face dark with emotion as she regarded the wasted husk of the Kenderwood. “I’ve heard the Dairly Plains became like this, when Malystryx started attacking the humans there. Now, from what I hear, there are no Dairly Plains any more-just mountains and badlands.”
“Desolation,” Riverwind murmured.
Kronn nodded, his eyes grim. “Even if we do beat the ogres when we attack, how can we stop this?”
“Defeat the dragon,” the Plainsman said.
“But how?” Paxina said. “You told Kronn that you never slew a dragon in your life!”
“And Malys is more than ‘just another dragon,’ you know,” Kronn put in. “I saw her when she burned Woodsedge-and killed our father. She’s incredibly huge.”
“From the stories told by Weavewillow survivors,” Paxina added, “she’s almost four hundred feet long. How can we hope to slay any creature that big?”
“I didn’t say ‘slay,’ ” Riverwind answered, his brow furrowed with thought. “I said ‘defeat.’ There must be some way to beat her even if we can’t kill her. We just need to discover her weakness.”
“Oh,” Kronn said. “But how are we going to figure out what-”
Before he could finish his question, though, a commotion rose in the courtyard below. Someone was running toward them, waving his arms. Looking down, the Plainsman and the Thistleknots saw it was Giffel Birdwhistle.
“Riverwind!” the tall kender shouted, his pouches flapping with every loping stride. “Kronn! Pax!” He sprinted toward the wall and bounded up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.
“Giff?” Kronn asked. “What’s the matter? Has something happened in the tunnels?”
“No,” the tall kender replied, puffing with exertion as he finally reached the top of the stairs. He leaned heavily against a merlon. “I mean, yes. Something’s happened.” He looked at Riverwind, with a pitying expression that made the white hairs on the Plainsman’s arms stand on end. “You’ve got to come to Arlie’s place,” he said.
Riverwind walked so swiftly through Kendermore’s twisty streets that the kender had to jog to keep pace. For every step he took, they took three. The crowds of kender, who usually made it so hard to move quickly through the city, hurried out of his way to keep from getting trampled. Somehow, though he was still unfamiliar with the tangled layout of the city, Riverwind made his way without having to stop or double back even once. Mere minutes after leaving Brimble to oversee the next wall-defense drill, the Plainsman strode up the path to Arlie Longfinger’s house, past the parched earth that was all that remained of the herbalist’s garden. He stepped up onto the porch, pushed past several kender who waited outside the shop, and pounded on the door with his fist.
For a moment, no one answered. Then, as Riverwind tensed to knock again, the door swung open. Catt stood inside. Her injured arm was still in its sling, but the bandages that had covered her head were gone. She looked up at the Plainsman, then quickly stepped aside.
“That was quick,” she said as Riverwind and the others hurried in.
“What’s going on, Call?” Kronn asked.
“Is it Brightdawn?” Riverwind demanded impatiently, giving voice to the terrible fear that had been welling inside him since they had left the battlements. “Has something happened to her?”