The dragonne spun around, spraying water so hard that it splashed all the way up the nearby wall and into the faces of the throng watching from high above. There was more cheering, but the crowd’s mood had sobered somewhat. It was strange entertainment, a kender fighting a dragonne that flopped around as though it were confused.
Star tensed, his muscles bunching up, drawing himself back on his haunches. His wings spread wide and angled upward, as a bat’s might before it propels itself forward to snare an insect from the air. Theo gulped. Star was big enough that he could swallow the gnome in one bite if he wanted to.
Theodenes felt rather than saw the stirring of the sellsword beside him in the mud. Vanderjack was trying to pull himself up into a sitting position, but he looked terrible.
“No good,” said the sellsword. “May as well say whatever prayers you gnomes have to whatever gods you have, Theo. Star’s-”
Theo finished the sentence. “Charging right at us,” he said, gritting his teeth. He thrust the butt end of the polearm into the thick clay and braced himself for the impact. He thought of closing his eyes, afraid to look, but something made them stay open. Gnome curiosity, perhaps?
The dragonne beat his wings and launched himself up and into a swift and deadly arc, claws outstretched on the way down, wings pushing him halfway across the arena in the direction of the gnome and the Ergothian, jaws opening. Then, at the moment of impending collision, the wings beat once feverishly, and Star flew past overhead.
“He missed!” said Vanderjack, seized by a coughing fit.
“No, he didn’t,” said Theo, smiling. “Look!”
Star was flying around in a lazy arc over the stands of spectators. There were screams and cries of “The beast is loose!” and “Call for the guard!” and “It’s all the kender’s fault!” Then, without any signs of wrath or madness, he landed before the gnome and breathed a warm, wet greeting in his face.
“I apologize,” said Star. “It took me this long to overcome the enchantments the bozaks placed on me.”
“No apologies necessary, Star. We are simply glad that you have come to your senses.”
Star looked at Vanderjack, who was kneeling and trying to stand up all the way. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Never felt better,” said Vanderjack. “Feel like I could go a few more rounds with those gladiators.”
Star suddenly whirled around, and the large feline eyes widened. “Be ready!” he bellowed. “Cazuvel comes!”
“Is that Etharion talking to you? Are the Sword Chorus here?” asked Vanderjack, using Theodenes as support. “Where’s Cazuvel?”
Star looked down at the ground. With a thunderous rumble like the sound of a hundred chariots clattering over rock, a colossal mechanism beneath the arena began its work. The puddles and lakes of water on the surface trembled, ripples disturbing their surfaces. The crowd fell into a hush, and the rain had stopped for the time being. Star said simply, “Cazuvel rises.”
The sucking sound of mud disgorging its contents followed as enormous doors in the arena floor lifted and slid open. Hundreds of gallons of water drained around the doors, but from inside the dark cavity, the rumbling noise grew even louder. A stone platform, clearly designed to lift large numbers of people or animals into the arena, rose from the new opening at the center of the arena. Underneath it, four columns of stone rose, forming a solid foundation for the structure as it climbed into the air above the arena with surprising speed and stability.
Upon the platform was what appeared to be an elaborate cage fashioned from iron. It was the same cage that Star had been locked up in at Castle Glayward. Even from that distance, Theodenes could see that on one inside wall of the cage a woman’s body was chained up; her wrists and ankles had been secured to the bars.
“Gredchen!” said Vanderjack, pointing. “What in blazes has Cazuvel done to her?
On the opposite wall of the cage was a rectangular object that both Theo and Vanderjack recognized as the painting of the baron’s beautiful daughter.
Cazuvel himself, still dressed in black robes, his hood thrown back and gaunt albino features boasting an exultant grin, stood on top of the cage. His arms were raised in the air. All of the crowd’s eyes were on him, having left Vanderjack, Theodenes, and Star for the magnetic appeal of the new surprise.
“People of Wulfgar!” screamed the wizard, his voice unnaturally loud. “Your time to bear witness has come!”
Theo suddenly remembered the highmaster. His gaze shifted to the balcony. He saw her there, a figure in black and red with a billowing cape and that hideous armored mask she wore. Her gauntlets gripped the balcony railing. Her two thugs were by her side. Theo wondered where her red dragon was, but only moments later, he saw the enormous bulk of Cear ascending the roof of the palace, squatting there with wings folded by his sides, waiting.
“Now that you have reveled in your blood sports and cried out for death, it is time to reflect on the future of Krynn!”
Vanderjack said, “He’s going to give a speech?”
“We need to get onto Star. You have to get up there!”
The sellsword nodded wearily. He looked pretty grimy and bloodied and bruised, from the gnome’s analytic point of view.
But Vanderjack climbed quickly onto Star’s back, joined by Theo. “I have a plan,” said Vanderjack.
“I have a better one,” said Theodenes.
“Would you shut up for once and listen to my idea? Trust me, for once.”
The gnome sighed. “All right.”
“Star,” he said, bending over and whispering instructions to the dragonne. “That was going to be my plan,” said Theo sulkily as Star sprang up from the floor of the arena and sped toward Cazuvel and the cage.
The crowd cheered. Theo cringed. The wizard looked down at the approaching dragonne and laughed maniacally.
“People of Wulfgar!” crowed Cazuvel, gleefully pointing at the dragonne and his riders. “See how even now, facing certain doom, the brave heroes ride upon their mighty winged steed to the rescue of the fair maiden!”
The wizard reached into his robes and withdrew something long and sharp. The heavy clouds above the arena, which had until then permitted only a watery gray sunlight to filter through the rain, split apart. The object in Cazuvel’s hand shone brightly, almost dazzling.
“Lifecleaver!” said Vanderjack. “There’s my sword! Star, where are the ghosts? What’s he planning?”
Star rumbled, “I fear they are not present. There are dark forces I do not fathom at work up on that pedestal.”
Cazuvel was still pontificating. “Behold, people of Wulfgar! You will be the first to see the power of the Abyss made manifest!” With a single swift motion, the wizard drove the sword into the top of the cage, midway between the chained figure of Gredchen and the painting. The sound of metal scraping against metal rang throughout the arena.
Cazuvel intoned, “Cermindaya, cermindaya, saya memanggil anda dan mengikat anda!” Almost immediately afterward, a burst of vivid blue and orange light flashed from inside the cage as ribbons of energy began to dance between Gredchen, the sword, and the painting.
They were almost there. Theo gripped his polearm for an attack, but just as they swung close, to his surprise, Vanderjack shouted, “Take Theo clear, Star!” The sellsword leaped off with nothing but a battered shield.
“No! Vanderjack! Wait for me! Wait!”
“Trust him,” said Star, winging away from the platform. “Vanderjack knows what he is doing.”
Theodenes, looking over his shoulder as the sell-sword closed on the wizard, fumed … and feared for Vanderjack’s fate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Vanderjack leaped toward certain doom.
The fetch in Cazuvel’s form stood amid a storm of energy, a storm that linked Gredchen and the painting, holding the sword Vanderjack had inherited from his mother, the queen of the pirates. His sword-one of the fabled nine-lives stealers and fashioned from unbreakable star metal ore-was undoubtedly the lynchpin of magic holding the storm together.