“You look troubled,” Kassur said, coming closer and fingering the round, gold medallion he wore on a chain. A goldsmith had engraved little sigils around the rim. Hasos didn’t recognize any of them, and their odd, vaguely disquieting shapes served to remind him that his companion wasn’t just a king but some sort of sorcerer as well.
“Somewhat,” Hasos said.
“I certainly am,” Kassur said. “I kneeled to another overlord besides Alasklerbanbastos. The lich was gone, and I had no choice. But still, it’s not something he’ll forgive.”
“And you believe Tchazzar won’t protect you?”
“Does it seem to you that he’s greatly concerned about any of his human vassals at present? If not, then perhaps it’s time for said vassals to consider protecting themselves.”
“I’m not a traitor,” Hasos said. Indeed, the mere thought of being called such a thing was sickening. To a true follower of the code of chivalry, there was no fouler insult.
Except, perhaps, for coward.
“If I thought you anything other than a brave and decent man,” Kassur said, “I wouldn’t confide in you in a time of need.”
“I’m not,” Hasos insisted, and only belatedly realized that he was talking more to himself than to the king. He drew a long, steadying breath. “And I don’t understand more than a fraction of what’s going on here tonight or, really, for the past few months. But I do think we Chessentans need to stop dancing to any dragon’s tune before the creatures dance us right off a cliff. And I may know how to stop the music. Will you help me?”
The older man nodded. “If I can.”
Next Hasos collected ten of his most loyal retainers. They were good men, but he would have hesitated to take them into a fight with spellcasters without a magus or priest of his own. Fortunately he didn’t have to for this fight.
When they reached the narrows steps that descended to the dungeon, Kassur drew a bronze wand from his sleeve. It was as thin as a straw and scarcely gleamed in the gloom, yet paradoxically it hurt the eye to look directly at it, as if it were reflecting the light of the noonday sun. The Threskelan flicked it back and forth then led his companions down to a door that proved to be unlocked, although that likely hadn’t been the case a moment before.
The turnkeys jerked in surprise when the company stalked in. But they didn’t snatch for their weapons because they recognized Hasos.
Still, that didn’t mean it was safe to leave them behind. “We’re freeing Shala Karanok,” Hasos told them. “You can help, you can let us lock you in a cell, or you can resist and die.”
The two men looked at each other. Then the heavier one, a fellow with a drooping mustache and a round, stubbly chin, growled an obscenity. “We’ll help, my lord,” he said. “It’s not right down here. It hasn’t been for a while.”
Hasos could tell that from the stink and the echoing moans, and he felt a pang of shame to think just how many “traitors” and “blasphemers” were locked away in those vaults. Still, all but one would have to wait a while longer. He gestured for the turnkeys to lead the way.
They did, to another descending staircase. “I don’t know what’s down there, Lord,” the stout turnkey whispered. “I mean, I know the layout, but not anything the wyrmkeepers have done.”
“Tell me the layout,” Hasos replied.
“It’s a ring, basically.”
“Then we’ll split up at the bottom of the steps. Wherever they’re keeping Shala Karanok, we’ll come at it, and them, from two sides. Quietly now.”
Hasos took the lead, and they all descended. The passages above were poorly lit, but the darkness below was deeper still, although still less than absolute. A soft, sibilant chanting echoed, and the air smelled of bitter incense.
At the bottom of the stairs, a straight corridor ran to a place where light shined from half a dozen doorways. Another passage twisted away to the left. Hasos prowled onward with Kassur whispering charms at his back. The men-at-arms started to divide into two groups as he’d directed.
Then a blast of vapor enveloped them all. Eyes burning, half blind with tears, Hasos doubled over, coughing. His comrades choked and retched behind him.
Its enchantment of concealment falling away, a drake the size of a donkey appeared immediately in front of Hasos. It instantly followed up on its breath attack with a lunge, its jaws agape to strike and tear.
Hasos could see it only as a blur amid the gloom, and he hadn’t yet managed to inhale anything but stinging, strangling filth. Still, he sprang to meet the reptile, and perhaps that tactic caught it by surprise. He cut and his sword bit deep into its skull.
The drake went down, thrashing. In its spasms, it nearly clawed Hasos’s leg out from under him, but he jumped away just in time.
Someone screamed. Hasos pivoted. Somewhat smaller than the one he’d just dropped, a second drake had one of his men down and was tearing lengths of gut out of his midsection. Arterial spray spurted upward.
Hasos drove his sword into the second drake’s flank. Another warrior stabbed it in the neck with a spear. It collapsed, although not in time to save the man it had eviscerated.
Hasos realized there were snarls and cries behind him too, which meant there’d been at least one drake in the branching corridor. But before he could even consider trying to do anything about it, a pair of shadowy figures stepped out of the lit doorways ahead of him. Alternately twirling and making chopping motions with their picks, they started chanting.
Kassur Jedea stepped up beside Hasos, jabbed with his wand, and rasped a word of power. The pool of light at the end of the passage seemed to swirl in a way that Hasos couldn’t quite see but that made his eyes ache and his stomach turn over nonetheless. The wyrmkeepers vanished and reappeared in slightly different places. The dislocations sent them staggering off balance.
Intent on closing the distance before the priests could attempt any more magic of their own, Hasos charged. Another warrior sprinted after him. And perhaps closing the distance kept the wyrmkeepers from using their most formidable powers. But they had time to come on guard and wake the enchantments bound in their weapons. The head of one pick burst into flame, while a coating of frost flowed across the other.
Hasos was on the same side of the corridor as the priest with the burning weapon. He sidestepped the wyrmkeeper’s chop at his head then lunged. His point drove into the priest’s torso.
A voice said, “Here.” Hasos turned in that direction, toward a wyrmkeeper standing behind a doorway. The dragon worshiper’s gaze stabbed into him, and he froze in sudden fear. The priest sprang and swung a pick whose head dripped with steaming vitriol.
Hasos broke free of his paralysis just in time to parry. The weapons clanged together. The shock jolted his arm and nearly knocked his hilt out of his grip but not quite. He riposted with a slash to the throat, and his opponent fell backward.
Hasos rushed on into the room and looked around for the next foe. There wasn’t one. And when he rejoined his comrades in the hall, he couldn’t find one there either. It appeared that he and his allies had killed all the priests and drakes, although they’d lost half their number in the process.
Hasos took a breath to steady himself. He’d known some of the men who’d just died since he was a child. But there’d be time to mourn later, or at least he hoped so.
“I see a barracks, a torture chamber, and a shrine,” said Kassur, looking into the various lit doorways. “But no Shala Karanok.”
“Keep looking,” Hasos replied. “She has to be here.”
And she was, locked in a bare cell not much farther along. Her captors simply hadn’t seen fit to give her a source of light, which meant Hasos couldn’t estimate the full extent of her injuries until he hauled her semiconscious form out into the passage.