“Higher races,” Kithri said drolly. “Speak for yourself.”
“Wonder if there’s anything to be gained from having a look around for that ruin,” Lucan said.
“Depends,” Biri-Daar said. “Are you taking our mission to Karga Kul seriously, or are you adventuring?”
“You say adventuring like it’s a bad thing,” Kithri said.
“Wait,” Remy said. He was having trouble following everything they said; it seemed like he was still feeling the effects of the venom. “I have to get to Toradan,” he said.
“It’s that way,” Kithri said, pointing down the road. “Maybe five day on foot. Not that it matters. If you go walking alone in this desert, you won’t live a day.”
“My errand is urgent. I-I thank you for saving me, but the vizier of Avankil will-”
“String you up by your thumbs? Run a ring through your nose and lead you around his chambers? Put you to work in the kitchen?” Kithri winked, but Remy had no time or patience for jokes. He was frightened and confused and very conscious of the time he had lost on his task for Philomen.
“Please,” Remy said. “I have to take this to Toradan.” He showed her the box. Reflexively his fingers traced the runes carved into its lid.
“What exactly is the errand?” Keverel asked. His fingers traced the outline of his holy symbol, a silver pendant worked in the gear-and-sunburst motif of Erathis. “What does the box contain?”
“I don’t know,” Remy said.
“No one told you?”
Lucan tsked. “Never take anything anywhere for anyone unless you know what it is,” he said.
“And why they want it to go where they want it to go,” Kithri added.
“I already did,” Remy said. “And now that I’ve said it, I have to do it.”
“Admirable,” said Biri-Daar. “It is too rare that one finds that kind of commitment. But unless you want to walk the rest of the way by yourself,” the dragonborn went on, “you’re going to be traveling with us for a while. And scorpions are hardly the worst things you’re going to find out here.”
Having no choice, Remy went, at least until he could think of a better plan. He wasn’t going to get a horse from them unless he stole it, and he didn’t think that he could steal a horse. When he was a child, he’d stolen things here and there, but to steal a horse from a party of adventurers in the wilderness… for one thing, they would hunt him down and kill him if they could. For another, it was wrong.
So, with the option of theft removed, Remy turned with Biri-Daar’s group-it was clear that the dragonborn, a paladin of Bahamut, was the leader of the group-and followed the road back toward Crow Fork. The sun burned down and morning haze lifted, replaced by the glimmer of mirage at the horizon. “Sometimes,” Iriani said, “you can see the mountains in a mirage. Then when you see them with your own eyes, you fear that it’s magic.”
Remy guessed that he wouldn’t mind seeing the mountains whether by magic or other means. Anything to get him out of the wastes. Around them, flat, salt-stained sand stretched to the horizon, broken only by the occasional small heave of a hill or protruding stone. No bird sang, no lizard crept. If life was there, it kept to itself.
Like stormclaw scorpions, perhaps, hiding under the earth until they emerged from their ruined lair in the cool and darkening evenings.
The welts left by their stingers still puckered angry and red on Remy’s legs and the back of his left hand. He had survived. He felt stronger, not just because of his five companions but because he had fought off stormclaw scorpions. They had not killed him. Whatever came next on the road-before he could finally get to Toradan with Philomen’s box-Remy felt that he was ready for it.
After the first day of travel, trying to keep up with a party on horseback, Remy was also more than ready to get a horse again. Biri-Daar’s idea was that they would see what was on offer at Crow Fork Market, which they would reach the next morning-“If you can keep your pace up,” she added with what on a dragonborn’s face passed for a smile. “If not, it’ll be two days.”
As night fell they built a fire. “Just like last night, except this time you’re not rolling around sweating in your sleep,” Kithri joked to Remy. The evening meal was dried fruit, cheese, and bread; they’d had meat that morning, and would again the following morning. Then, with any luck, they’d arrive at Crow Fork Market and replenish their supplies before continuing the trek.
“Where are you going again?” Remy asked at the end of the meal.
“Karga Kul,” Lucan said. “The great cork stuck in the bottle that would pour the Abyss out into this world.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Remy said with a grin.
“It is,” Biri-Daar said. “I was hatched there. It is the city of my dreams, the city I would grow old in. The city I would die in, if I had to die somewhere.”
“Listen to Biri-Daar talk about dying,” Iriani chuckled. “She’s yet to meet the foe that can nick her sword, and yet she thinks about dying. You dragonborn.”
“Bahamut will decide,” Biri-Daar said.
At the mention of the god’s name, Remy caught a gleam of pale light beyond the glow of the campfire.
“You better hope something interesting happens between now and Karga Kul,” Kithri said. “And by interesting, I mean something that ends with some kind of booty. Otherwise you’re going to owe Biri-Daar for a horse. She’s not forgiving when it comes to debt.”
“I’m not going to Karga Kul,” Remy protested. “I must get to Toradan.”
“Then go right ahead back the way we came. Give the stormclaws and the hobgoblins our greetings,” Kithri said.
Remy stewed. He knew he wouldn’t survive the road to Toradan on his own. Kithri was right about the hobgoblins. They controlled everything on the map between the few points of civilization, of which Avankil and Karga Kul were the largest. Even the substantial towns such as Toradan were on constant alert against hobgoblin incursions, and the roads between settlements were heavily preyed upon by the creatures native to the wastes.
“Erathis has brought us together, Remy,” Keverel said. “Whatever worldly errand you contemplate, remember that the gods dispose and we must follow.”
Again, as Keverel mentioned the god’s name, something shone briefly just beyond the light. “Did you see that?” Remy asked. He pointed into the dark, in the direction of the gleam.
The others looked that way. “See what?” The elf-blooded had better night vision; Lucan stiffened as he caught sight of something.
“Stay close to the fire,” he said, as a chilling cackle came out of the darkness.
“Hyena,” Keverel said. He was shoulder to shoulder with Remy. “How did you see it?”
“There was a gleam when you said the god’s name,” Remy answered. He had the presence of mind not to use the name, since he was not a worshiper. Some gods looked dimly on hearing their names in the mouths of unbelievers.
The leather grip of Keverel’s mace creaked as he brought it up. “Then it’s no ordinary hyena,” he said over the cackling, which got louder and seemed to come from several directions at once. “It’s a cacklefiend. There will be gnolls with it as well, and perhaps worse than gnolls. Erathis!” he called out, holding up his holy symbol.
Light washed out from the symbol, washing over the hulking shape of a cacklefiend hyena. It was nearly man-high at the shoulder, with a row of serrated spines where an ordinary hyena had bristles down its back. Its fur was mottled green, gray, and black. Behind it loomed the hyenalike humanoid silhouettes of gnolls.
“This is why I hate the desert,” Kithri said.
“Me too.” Lucan unsheathed his sword, which gave off a silvery light similar to the glow of Keverel’s talisman. Iriani too created light, with a complicated pattern of snapping fingers that popped small flares into life over their heads. The cacklefiend ducked its head and chuckled demoniacally, swaying its head back and forth as the gnolls skirted the perimeter of light, timing their rush to the cue the cacklefiend would give.