“I will never see you again, else I will see you destroyed.”
Urshula’s words echoed and rebounded, and it seemed as if their vibrations shook the image of Zhengyi to nothingness.
The black dragon remained crouching for some time, still as a statue, listening for any indication that Zhengyi or his minions were within the chamber or the corridors beyond.
Many hours later, the great black curled back up to sleep.
The Witch-King stood on a high, flat stone, looking north to his kingdom of Vaasa, his skeletal fingers balled into fists of rage at his sides.
The campaign had been going well He had pressed deep into Damara, conquering enemies and enlisting new allies-many of them the rotting corpses of the men his army had just slaughtered. His enemies remained divided, often too concerned with one another to pay sufficient heed to the true darkness that had come to their land.
Gareth Dragonsbane and his friends worked furiously to remedy that, to unite Damara’s many lords under a single banner and stand strong against Zhengyi, but they had acted too late, so Zhengyi believed, and his victory seemed assured.
But then a small but powerful force had swept into Vaasa in his own army’s wake. They had broken the siege at Palishchuk and gathered the remnants of refugees from across the wasteland into a single, formidable force. Several caravans of supplies from Castle Perilous had not reached Bloodstone Pass in the Galenas. Zhengyi’s main supply route had been interrupted.
The Witch-King understood that he should not be looking north at so critical an hour. He had not the time to chase a splinter group of rebels with Gareth Dragonsbane rising to prominence before him.
“Where are you, Byphast?” he asked the cold northern breeze.
He had sent the dragon back to her glacial home with instructions to put down the rebels and their Damaran supporters, but the news coming back to him had been less than promising.
He stood there a while longer, then snapped his black robes and gray cape around him in a swift, angry turn. He strode back down the mountainside, his undead form easily gliding over the treacherous descent, and soon he walked among the rear guard of his army again, appearing once more as he had in life. The living humans who slavishly followed him would not have suffered the terrible sight of his true form.
He waited out the night in his command tent, perusing the reports and maps that were coming in from the battle fronts in the south. Truly Zhengyi’s preparation for the campaign would have garnered the appreciation of the greatest generals throughout Faerun. Information was power, Zhengyi knew, and his command tent, with its tables full of maps and miniatures of various strategic stretches of the Bloodstone Lands’ terrain, and markers depicting the relative size and strength of the armies doing battle, was a testament to that knowledge. There, Zhengyi could plot his army’s movements, his defensive positions, and those areas most vulnerable to attack. In that tent, the grand strategy-including the decision not to throw his weight fully against Palishchuk-had been formulated and continually refined.
The Witch-King didn’t like surprises.
Despite his preparation and confidence, Zhengyi’s firelight eyes often glanced back over his shoulder, to the north, in the hope of word from the white dragon. Splinter groups of powerful heroes were harder to keep track of and often more trouble than regiments of common soldiers.
The long night passed without incident. It wasn’t until the next morning that Byphast, in her elf form, came walking down the trail. Zhengyi spotted her some distance off, and first sight told him that the news from the north was not good. Byphast limped, and even from a distance, she appeared more disheveled than Zhengyi had ever seen her.
The Witch-King’s robes fluttered out behind him as he strode through his camp, determined to meet the white dragon on the trail beyond the hearing of his guards and soldiers.
“The rumors are true,” Zhengyi said as he approached. “A band of heroes reached Palishchuk.”
“To the cheers of the half-orcs,” Byphast replied. “That city is more fortified than ever. Their preparations do not cease. They have thickened their walls and set out crates of stinging arrows.”
Her use of that particular adjective told Zhengyi that the dragon had personally tested those defenses.
“And they have constructed greater engines of defense, catapults and ballistae that can be quickly swiveled toward the sky to strike back against airborne creatures. When I flew over the city, barbed chains rose to impede me, and I only narrowly avoided giant spears hurled my way.”
“Palishchuk will be dealt with in time,” Zhengyi promised.
“Without the aid of Byphast, and without any other dragons, I would guess,” the white dragon replied. “The treasures of Palishchuk are not worth the risk to wing and limb.”
Zhengyi nodded, still not overly concerned with the half-orc city. Once Damara had been conquered, Palishchuk would become a tiny oasis of resistance with no help forthcoming from anywhere in the Bloodstone Lands. They would not hold out for long, and Zhengyi had not yet given up hope that the half-orcs would ultimately throw in with him. They were half-orcs, after all, and would not likely be as deterred by moral issues as were the weak humans, halflings, and others of Damara.
“These heroes hid within the city?” Zhengyi asked, getting back to the problem at hand.
“Nay, they came forth quite willingly. When I escaped the chains and the spears and flew off to the north, they burst out of Palishchuk’s gate in pursuit.”
“And you killed them?”
Byphast’s twisted expression gave him the answer before the dragon began to speak. “They are accompanied by mighty wizards and priests. Their knights glow with wards to defeat my deadly breath; their armor sings with magic to deter the rake of my claws.”
“A small band?”
“Fifty strong and well designed to do battle with dragons.”
“Byphast would not normally flee from such a group.” Zhengyi did nothing to keep the contempt out of his voice, nor from his expression, as he narrowed his eyes and sneered.
“If forced to do battle with them-if ever they happened upon my lair-then I would surely destroy them,” the dragon replied without hesitation. “But scars would accompany that win, I am sure, and in that place, at this time, they were not worth the trouble.”
“You serve Zhengyi.” Even as the Witch-King took the conversation in that direction, Byphast’s statement, if ever they happened upon my lair, resonated in his thoughts.
“I agreed to fight beside Zhengyi’s forces,” the dragon replied. “I did not agree to wage such battles alone in the bogs of Vaasa.”
Zhengyi produced a phylactery, the one to which Byphast had attuned herself. If the dragon was slain, her energy and life-force would transfer to the phylactery, and she would become undead, a dracolich.
“You forget?” the lich said.
“It is a final safeguard, but not one I am anxious to use. If in the course of events I am slain, then so be it. That is the risk my kind need take whenever we come forth into the world of lesser creatures. But I’ll not chase after the undeath you offer.”
“Ah, Byphast, it is a piteous thing to see a creature of your reputation reduced to such fear.”
Lizardlike eyes narrowed, and a low growl escaped the dragon’s elf lips.
“Very well, then,” said Zhengyi. “I will deal with the intruders myself. I’ll not have them nipping at my heels all the way through Damara. Go and rejoin the commanders at the front. Lay waste to the foolish Damarans who stand in our way.”
Byphast didn’t move, nor did her expression change from the hateful look she shot Zhengyi’s way.
If that threat bothered the Witch-King at all, though, he didn’t show it. He turned his back on the wyrm in elf’s clothing and stalked back to his vast encampment.