A perfectly capable minion, though, he thought.
"It will take all of our talents melded together," Lysalis was saying, "and it will not be quick, but I believe we can channel sufficient power into the dweomers to disrupt them and stir the Everfire to life."
Vhok was pleased. He looked past Lysalis's shoulder to the handful of other fey'ri gathered there. They were the most competent, the most powerful among all who served in Vhok's Scourged Legion. He would need every last scrap of their talents.
"Excellent," he said. "Have them begin. We shall return in a while to see how they fare."
Lysalis nodded and turned to the fey'ri. She gathered the handful of them together and issued instructions. Soon, the sorcerers were deeply involved in their preparations. None paid the slightest heed to Vhok.
The cambion peered over the edge of the tower once again. Far below, glowing ruddy in the light of the eternal furnace of the Everfire, he could see a handful of dwarves moving around. Whether they were patrols of Vigilant or craftsmen immersed in their work, he could not tell. It did not matter. Soon, he imagined, they would all be scrambling to escape the expanding inferno. The image made him smile.
Once Lysalis was satisfied that her compatriots had preparations well in hand, she and Kaanyr Vhok took their leave and began to make their way down a wide spiral staircase leading deep into the tower. When they were well out of both earshot and view, the half-fiend stopped.
"We must pay Nahaunglaroth another visit," he said. "It is time to offer more enticement."
Lysalis smirked, her elf's eyebrows arching in bemusement, but she said nothing. She passed her hands before herself and muttered an incantation. Instantly, the pair was whisked far from the dwarven stronghold.
Vhok took a steadying breath as he found himself standing upon a stone balcony exposed to the crisp night air of the mountains. He had expected the change, but it still unsettled him. Lysalis stood right beside him, and her own gasp confirmed to the cambion that the sudden shift in location and temperature startled her, too.
Behind the pair, the glow of torches cast orange light in a corona around them, throwing their shadows upon the balustrade of the balcony. Beyond that railing, the blackness of night cloaked the world like a velvet cape. The gibbous moon was low on the horizon, and filmy clouds crossed it like gauzy ribbons.
A hoarse growl chorused with a clank of metal, and Vhok turned in time to spy a pair of unusual creatures snarling and pointing. They were of a similar height as he, though more muscular and stocky, and their features were brutish and ferocious, with exposed canines and thick, prominent noses. Vhok would have considered them hobgoblins but for a few bizarre features. They both sported wide, leathery wings that fanned out to either side as they advanced. Their skin was pale blue, rather than the usual tan or yellowish of hobgoblins. Vhok knew of them, the Blood of Morueme, sired in the mating of a blue dragon and a hobgoblin slave.
The two draconic guards, dressed in heavy chain shirts and brandishing blackened battle-axes, loped forward, twirling their razorlike weapons overhead.
"You trespass!" one of them snarled.
Vhok fought the urge to yank Burnblood, his ancient elven long sword, free of its scabbard on his hip. Beside him, he noted that Lysalis clenched her fists, as though she, too, were resisting the urge to blast the two oafs with fell magic. Taking a calming breath, Vhok kept his hands out, showing that he remained unarmed, and said, "We have come to see Master Nahaunglaroth, and we bear him gifts of gold and jewels."
At the mention of their lord-and quite possibly their father-the two half-dragons slowed their advance. The one who had spoken cocked his head to one side and asked, "Where is this treasure? I see no chests or sacks of coins and gems. I think you're lying."
Vhok rolled his eyes ever so slightly but smiled and replied, "There is too much to carry-it would be too heavy. We bring it magically and will present it once we have an audience with Master Nahaunglaroth."
The draconic hobgoblin considered the cambion's words for a moment, perhaps trying to puzzle out how much he should trust the half-fiend.
After a lengthy pause, the guard nodded and said, "You wait here. I will find out if the masters will see you." The half-dragon spun on his heel and marched through a doorway into the interior of the building, leaving the other guard to watch the two interlopers. The second draconic hobgoblin stood mutely, eyeing the pair with undisguised suspicion.
Vhok gave the brutish creature a deprecating smile and turned to stroll toward the edge of the balcony, intent on enjoying the view while he was forced to wait.
Lysalis had brought the two of them to Doomspire, a great castle perched on the side of Dragondoom Mountain, in the far eastern end of the Nether range. It was not the first time the cambion and his sorceress had visited the mountain fortress. Vhok had begun negotiating with the dragon lords some time before, hoping to forge better relations with the Morueme clan. It had been a slow process. The history between the wyrms of Dragondoom and the fiends of Hellgate Keep had been unpleasant.
"You leave all your weapons out here, and you can come inside," the guard said upon returning.
The routine was familiar to Vhok and Lysalis, who had been made to disarm each time they had come to visit. The cambion thought that Nahaunglaroth was being paranoid, considering all the wondrous gifts he had brought the great dragon in the past, but he wasn't about to strain the fragile peace he had managed to establish with the clan over something as trivial as a sword.
After leaving their blades and other gear in a pile on the balcony, the two half-fiends followed their escort into the interior of the castle, leaving the other guard to stand watch over their belongings. The route through the passages of the castle was long and circuitous, descending several flights of stone stairs and winding down through numerous corridors into the deeper levels. Vhok paid little attention to their journey. The fortress was a crude thing in his estimation, built by the earliest hobgoblin thralls serving the great dragons of Clan Morueme. Despite the considerable magic and dragon ingenuity that had subsequently been spent to improve the castle's defenses, it still bore the unmistakable coarseness of its original makers.
Vhok noted that the stones forming the walls were rough and uneven, and in many cases, walls leaned or slanted at inexact angles. Doorways were not of consistent heights, and hallways often ended with no destination. The whole place had a foul odor, something akin to a mixture of bad meat and an overabundance of stable dung. Vhok often wondered just how close to collapse the place might be were it not for the dragons' will.
As they walked, the trio passed numerous other half-dragon, half-hobgoblin denizens. They also spied a handful of pure-blood hobgoblins, all of them female and appearing sullen and craven in the extreme. Some hurried to one unseen destination or another, but a few simply lurked in doorways or large open halls. Some loitered with young draconic offspring at their feet. The entire place reminded Vhok of a rundown festhall in a city slum.
At last, the decor shifted to something more opulent. The path their escort followed widened into a broad hallway that angled downward and changed from worked block walls to natural stone, shaped smooth and carved with imagery of great winged wyrms inciting terror across the land.
Vhok leaned close to Lysalis and whispered, "Next time we come for a visit, bring us directly here. That festhall overhead is anything but festive."
"So long as you can convince all of them not to behead us on sight," the sorceress replied, nodding toward the ranks of guards who flanked the hall every ten paces or so. "I rather value mine."