“I think I’m surprised you’d even bother to inquire,” Balasar said. “You despise the very idea of dragon worship, remember? Our elders raised us to despise it. And since these people are still flying their banners, they still are wyrm-worshipers. They’re just trying to renounce Tiamat and give their devotion back to the real Bahamut. From a rational, decent perspective, what’s the difference?”
“We said we were trying to save them as much as everyone else,” said Medrash.
“You and Khouryn said that,” Balasar said. “I was busy trying to figure out where the cart had gone and keeping an eye out for trouble.”
“How have we saved them if they die on Black Ash Plain or at the hands of their own people before they even get there?” asked Medrash.
“We saved them from Nala’s lies,” said Balasar. “If they turn right around and commit suicide, that’s their problem.”
“Even if we could convince them to stay home, what sort of lives would they have?” Medrash asked. “People have always scorned them. They’ll hate and persecute them now. Unless they can redeem themselves.”
“Is this about you feeling guilty over Patrin?” said Balasar. “Because you’re a warrior from a warlike clan. It looks stupid if you feel bad just because you killed somebody.”
“I keep remembering how he said that Bahamut and Torm were friends, and we should be too,” Medrash said. “I remember that it felt … right to fight alongside him. And in the end, even though he realized I’d given him his death, he saved us from the mob.”
“I liked him too,” Balasar said. “But shepherding his fellow idiots won’t bring him back.”
“You’re the one who spent time with them. So tell me, are they deranged or depraved beyond all hope of redemption?”
Balasar sighed. “No. Nala dirtied them up a little, but essentially they’re just people. They joined the Cadre because they were unhappy. It’s not all that different from when you pledged yourself to Torm.”
Medrash smiled a crooked smile. “I don’t like the comparison, but we can save that for another time.” Sunlight glinting on the white studs in his face, mail clinking, he urged his horse back toward the cultists. Balasar clucked, bumped his mount with his heels, and rode after him.
Medrash raked the dragon-worshipers with a stern gaze. “You claim you want to atone,” he said. “But you still carry Nala’s taint. Right now, even as you’re asking for our help, some of you are swaying back and forth.”
“Can you cleanse us?” Vishva replied. “Nothing would please us more.”
“Are you sure?” Medrash said. “If I break your ties to Tiamat, you’ll lose her gifts. You won’t be able to use your breath attacks more often than any other dragonborn. You won’t feel the fury that fills you with strength and burns away your fear. As far as Balasar and I are concerned, that … weakening is necessary. We won’t sponsor warriors who fight like rabid beasts and gorge on the raw flesh of the fallen. But it means that for you, battle will be more dangerous than before.”
“We want to be clean,” Vishva said. Other cultists called out in agreement.
“Then you will be.” Medrash slid his lance back into the sheath attached to his saddle, then raised high his hand in its steel gauntlet. He whispered something too softly for Balasar to make out the words.
Brightness pulsed from the gauntlet like the slow, steady beats of a heart at rest. Each pulse gave Balasar a kind of pleasant, invigorating jolt, like a plunge into cold water on a hot day.
But the cultists didn’t look invigorated. They grimaced and cringed away from the light.
Medrash whispered faster, and the glow throbbed faster too. The distinct shocks of exhilaration Balasar had been experiencing blurred into a continual soaring elation.
The cultists fell to the ground and thrashed. Dark fumes rose from their bodies, five from each. The strands of vapor coiled and twisted around one another like serpentine necks supporting heads that wanted to peer in all directions at once.
The smoke, if that was the proper term for it, looked filthy. Poisonous. Even Balasar’s euphoria didn’t prevent a pang of loathing. If I’d let it in during my initiation, he thought, that stuff would be inside me too.
As they pulled free of the cultists’ bodies, the lengths of vapor whipped one way and another as if they too were convulsing in pain. Some looped around and struck like serpents, seemingly trying to stab their way back inside the flesh that had hitherto sheltered them. But each glanced off like a sword skipping off a shield.
Then, all at once, they leaped at Medrash. Balasar opened his mouth to shout a warning. A final burst of brilliance flared from the paladin’s gauntlet, and the vapors frayed to nothing midway to their target.
The light went out of Medrash’s hand, and his arm flopped down at his side. His body slumped as if he was about to collapse onto his horse’s neck.
Trying for a better look at his clan brother’s face, Balasar leaned down. “Are you all right?”
Medrash swallowed. “Yes,” he rasped, and then, with a visible effort, sat up straight. “It’s just that that was … taxing.”
“I don’t see why,” Balasar said. “All you did was the break the hold of a goddess on dozens of people at once. A hatchling could have done it.”
Medrash smiled slightly. “Next time we’ll find that particular hatchling and give the job to him.”
The members of the Cadre started slowly and shakily drawing themselves to their feet.
“Is everyone all right?” Medrash asked.
“I … think so,” Vishva quavered. “That hurt. It really hurt. But it’s better now.”
“Better than better,” said a fellow with umber scales. A grin lit up his face.
“I was so sick,” said a female-astonishment, revulsion, and relief all tangled together in her tone, “so ugly. And I didn’t even know!”
In another moment, a dozen of the cultists were clamoring all at once.
“Thank you,” shouted Vishva, making herself heard above the din, “and thank Torm, who lent you his glory! Thank Bahamut, who led us to you!”
Medrash looked like he didn’t know to respond. In the end, he settled on gruffness, perhaps to hide whatever he was feeling.
“Now comes the hard part,” he said. “Stripped of your powers, you’re nothing special. We can only hope that some hard training will make you marginally useful. As spearmen.” He turned to Balasar. “Khouryn doesn’t have a prejudice against Bahamut worshipers. Do you think he’ll teach them, and lead them into battle when the times comes?”
Balasar grinned. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be as thrilled as I am.”
Studying the rolling scrubland beneath them, Aoth and Jet floated on the night wind. Jaxanaedegor could shift the companies under his command as he saw fit. But he couldn’t neglect dispatching scouts to range across the countryside, or officers loyal to Alasklerbanbastos would realize something was amiss. Someone had to keep those scouts from reporting that reinforcements were reaching the Chessentan army.
Aoth spotted four kobolds skulking along the lee of a low rise. He kindled light in the point of his spear, swept the weapon down to point at the scouts, then extinguished the glow. He hoped that if the kobolds even noticed, they’d think they’d merely seen a shooting star.
Jet furled his wings and plunged at the kobold at the back of the line. Rising in the stirrups, Aoth braced for the jolt to come.
Jet’s talons stabbed home, and his momentum smashed the kobold to the ground beneath him. The scaly little creature likely died without ever even realizing he was in danger, and the thud of his demise was relatively quiet.
But not quiet enough. The other three kobolds spun around.
Jet yanked his gory claws out of the dead scout’s body, then pounced. He slammed another kobold down on the ground, raked with his leonine hind legs, and tore lengths of gut out of the warrior’s belly.
A third kobold hissed rhyming words and jerked a length of carved bone through a zigzag pass. Hoping to blast the shaman before he finished his spell, Aoth aimed his spear at him.