“You’ll have other chances,” the dragon growled softly, so that only the faintest tremor rippled through the ground beneath the sivak’s feet. “As you know, this wasn’t the first force sent against me, and it won’t be the last, but yes, next time, I’ll try to remember to save a few of the stupid bakali just for you.”
“Disgusting beasts they are.”
The sivak prodded one of the dead bodies with his foot before stepping over it, and he unsuccessfully tried to conceal a shiver as he paused near an uprooted sapling a few yards from the dragon’s snout. The dragon recognized the sivak’s discomfort and again suppressed its fear aura.
The sivak quit trembling and nodded his thanks. He pulled a leather satchel off the back of one bakali and put the coin pouches and a few other trinkets inside it. Then he drew closer to the dragon, keeping himself from gagging at the great stench. Though he was large for a draconian and much larger than a man, his broad shoulders barely came up to the dragon’s dewclaw. He put the satchel on his own back, looked up into the dragon’s monstrous black eyes, and shook his head wearily.
“Dhamon, I well know that won’t be the last army to come for a visit. There’ll be another and another. Each one has been larger. First, men, a handful, then practically a whole army led by a Knight of Neraka with braids and medals on his chest and a sorcerer in tow. Now bakali, next spawn and abominations I reckon, maybe something worse, and all of them loyal to that demon of a dragon Sable.”
“Maybe,” the dragon said after a moment. He lowered his head until the barbels that hung from his jaw grazed the ground. A slimy rope of spittle edged over his lower lip. “Maybe, Ragh. Maybe she’ll send something to surprise us one of these days…something worse.”
“Oh, I think you can very definitely count on worse coming our way.” The sivak let out a deep breath. “I keep telling you, it’s not safe around here, Dhamon.”
The dragon cast his gaze about the marshy landscape, taking in the broken bodies of the bakali and the pools of blood that glimmered darkly in the light of the moons Solinari and Lunitari. The air was still, and everything was eerily silent; not even the insects were chirping in the aftermath of the fight.
“Not safe here, Ragh? Not safe for the bakali, don’t you mean? Or any spawn. Sable’s minions are not welcome in my lands.”
“These aren’t your lands, Dhamon,” the sivak muttered under his breath. “Sable certainly doesn’t see it that way. She thinks this whole swamp is hers. She created it, after all.”
The dragon pretended to ignore him, turned and started west, careful not to trample the sivak in the process or disturb the prized chokeberry. The sivak was quick to follow, pausing only to grab at a few bakali corpses where the moonlight glinted off valuables. Here a well-made halberd, there some matched throwing daggers and another coin pouch, a small bag filled with ivory belt buckles, another pouch filled with pearls—all things the bakali had no doubt taken off hapless victims. After several minutes there was a flutter overhead, the birds finally returning to the trees. From somewhere along the shores of the lake behind them came a series of splashes, likely large alligators and gar getting busy feeding on the bakali remains.
The dragon’s course took them through a stand of ancient locusts and water hickories, the canopy so dense that the bright moonlight was reduced to haunting, infrequent beams. The cattails and marsh bulrushes were thick between the trunks, and there was a sizeable patch of pickerel weed stalks and tall switch grass. Salt-marsh fleabane was growing nearby. The camphor scent its purple flowers gave off was heavy in the humid air. Beneath it was the sweet odor of wild azaleas.
In spite of Dhamon’s size, he was able to slip through the maze of swampland. Though neither he nor the draconian were attempting to be quiet, the animals that made their homes in this desolate area, mainly snakes and lizards that lounged on the high branches, barely gave the odd pair passing notice. A king snake wrapped around the base of a green ash only half-opened its eyes. The creatures were used to the draconian and the dragon by now and knew they were irrelevant to the pair.
The canopy thinned where the dragon crossed a wide stream, and the moonlight spilled down on a clearing circled predominantly by weeping cedars and black oaks. In the center was a bog patch swarming with craneflies and mosquitoes. The dragon and sivak skirted the bog on their way to a hoary shagbark, one of the giants of the swamp. Dhamon pressed against the trunk as he went, letting the uneven knobs scratch his side. Behind the tree lay an even denser weave of branches. Though a man would be blind here, the dragon could make out a small rise and further a cave opening that was well masked by a cascade of vines. Dhamon exhaled, his breath fluttering the vines and effectively parting before him. He stepped through, then listened for the sivak to follow.
The draconian’s claws clicked lightly against the stone floor, which was smooth from the frequent passage of the dragon. One hand brushed against the side of the cave. Here the darkness was so black that neither of them could see, and shortly, the sivak took his hand from the wall and mumbled sing-song words that caused a globe of pale blue light to settle in his open palm. It was one of the small number of modest spells he had learned by studying under sorcerers he’d met and later killed during his centuries on Krynn. It was a spell he found exceedingly useful in this swamp, and in particular, in Dhamon’s dark lair.
The magic light revealed moisture-slick walls of gray granite that sparkled with crystals and veins of minerals, surrounding a floor that sloped down at a relatively steep angle. The sivak hurried past the dragon and took the lead, holding the light high, and with a few arcane words, coaxing an even brighter illumination. The wide passage narrowed as it plunged, and Dhamon could barely squeeze through the entrance. Then it opened into a massive chamber, one side of which was filled with mountains of coins, piles of decorative weapons, and mounds of other shiny baubles the dragon had collected during the past several months. The sivak added the halberd and the bag of ivory belt buckles to a pile.
The air in the cave was warm and suffocating, filled with the malodorous scent of the dragon. Ragh fought against the bile he felt rising in his throat and breathed shallowly as he concentrated. After a few minutes he was able to inure himself to the awful smell.
“Sable will find this place eventually and send her force right into our lair,” the draconian said. “She’s looking for it now. I spent enough years under her claw to know how she thinks, and don’t think she won’t discover this place, Dhamon. She will. She makes it a point of pride to know about everything in this damnable swamp.”
The dragon stretched out on the far side of the chamber and rested his head on a large mound of steel pieces. He snaked a claw forward and with a talon drew a crystal ball toward him. It was a souvenir from a Knight of Neraka sorcerer he’d bested and brutally killed, who had been among the most recent attackers.
“Well, Sable hasn’t found out about my lair yet, Ragh, or she’d have sent the bakali here tonight. Why send them to the lake? The advantage was mine out in the open. Here they might have trapped me. No, Sable doesn’t have a clue…yet.”
Dhamon began tapping on the crystal until silvery wisps of fog appeared inside it.
The draconian thought a moment and scratched at his chin. “Maybe she didn’t send a force here because you’re rarely here, Dhamon. Because…because you’re usually out prowling around the lowlands. Because you like the marsh that’s by the lake, and you spend most of your time there. You’re almost peaceful by that marsh; you drop your guard. Maybe that’s why the bakali attacked there.”
“I don’t drop my guard,” Dhamon growled softly, an old memory tugging at his mind, “and I don’t care much for the water. Even the bakali must know that.”