His sudden appearance drew a yip of surprise from Sistree. His apprentice threw himself onto his scaly belly before Tiktag. “The Great One remains quiet, wyrmpriest!”
Tiktag rewarded him with a poke from the butt of his staff. Not too hard—Sistree was useful and fairly reliable. If he remembered his place, he might live to become a wyrmpriest in his own right. Tiktag had picked him out from among the other kobolds, declared that he bore the signs of a servant of the Great One, and put him to work watching over Vestapalk when Tiktag’s own weariness overcame him.
“Prepare,” he instructed him. Sistree rose to his feet and darted away into the shadows. Tiktag continued on through the litter of the nest to the base of the chasm walls, where the clutch-guardians and hatchlings swarmed in excitement. They gave way before him, falling silent before the priest who had led them out of fear and into the protection of the Great One. Tiktag raised his head, shaking it so that the feathers and cast-off scales that decorated the bony plates of his skull headdress rustled. The nearest clutch-guardians cooed softly and reached out to stroke the ornaments reverently. One even caught Tiktag’s tail and dragged claws along its length, scratching at loosened and dulled scales. Tiktag allowed them a moment, then swatted them all away and looked up the height of the chasm wall.
Far overhead, beyond the top of the chasm and up in the ceiling of the cavern above, the broken gap that opened to the outside world was glowing pink with the coming dawn. That distant glow made silhouettes of the hunters, a full dozen of the fastest and most cunning of the tribe’s adults, as they climbed down the ropes that had been laid against the ragged stone face.
A hump distorted the back of each hunter. Tiktag caught the smell of fresh, bloody meat. Saliva ran inside his mouth, but he swallowed. At his side, a hatchling whimpered and shifted, reaching up with tiny arms. Tiktag knocked it back with his staff. “The master eats first!” he snapped. The hatchling mewled and ducked behind a clutch-guardian, but she pushed it away, too.
One by one, the hunters dropped to the floor of the chasm. Each came and knelt before Tiktag, unstrapping the burden they carried on their back and holding out enormous chunks of dark red flesh. The day had brought a deer into the hunters’ traps. The tribe whistled their admiration. Steeped in poison—a substitute for the taint of Vestapalk’s own poisonous breath—it would provide tempting sustenance for their draconic master.
The whistles fell silent, however, as the last hunter leaped from the ropes—and did not approach Tiktag. The wyrmpriest’s twitching nostrils told him that her bundle contained the tender and delectable organs of the deer. But the hunter didn’t move. Her eyes swept the waiting tribe. Tiktag saw a few of the other kobolds twitch as they met her gaze.
He banged his staff on the ground then shook it at her. “Knaknak! Present your offering for the Great One!”
The hunter raised her snout defiantly. “No.”
With a collective hiss, the tribe pulled away from her blasphemy. Some kobolds didn’t pull away quite as quickly. Knaknak seemed to draw strength from this hesitant show of support. She faced Tiktag. “The tribe is hungry.”
“The Great One honors you by accepting your worship!”
“He eats the food we gather,” said Knaknak. “Where is the honor in that? What else has he done for us?”
“He protects the tribe with his presence.”
Knaknak pointed up. “There is a cavern full of tombs between us and the surface. If anything knew we were here, fear of the sleeping undead would frighten them off more than a wounded dragon. We haven’t even seen Vestapalk since you convinced us to follow you here a moon’s passage ago!”
The tribe hissed again at the hunter’s flagrant use of the dragon’s name, but Tiktag’s tail stiffened.
It hadn’t taken him long after he’d given Vestapalk his oath of protection to realize that one kobold wouldn’t be able to nurse a dragon back to health. The task of protecting and providing food for his master as he lay broken and vulnerable at the bottom of the chasm would challenge an entire tribe of kobolds. Tiktag had such a tribe at his command—halfway across the Nentir Vale in the hills of the Gardbury Downs. But fortunately his people thrived in scattered niches across the land, making their way in the shadow of greater creatures. Praying that Vestapalk would be all right for a day or two on his own, Tiktag had drawn up his courage and climbed back up the wall of the chasm. He’d ventured among the ancient tombs of the cavern above and found a narrow passage back to the surface.
From there, it didn’t take long for him to find a tribe of kobolds in need of inspiration and guidance and to convince them that their future lay in serving Vestapalk. The first thing he’d had the tribe do was work together to move Vestapalk’s unconscious body to a fully enclosed cave that split off from the chasm. Then he’d set the hunters to searching for food while the clutch-guardians watched over the nest and he and Sistree watched over the entrance to Vestapalk’s resting place.
And one hunter—one hunter—dared to question the wisdom of his plan? Tiktag snarled and thrust his staff at Knaknak once more.
This time he focused his will and all of the awe he felt for his master through it. Devotion and rage and hatred boiled through the staff and, for an instant, a seething ball of bright green energy took shape at its end.
Then the ball spat from the staff to Knaknak. It changed as it moved, from compact and swirling to something that wasn’t quite liquid and wasn’t quite gas. It splattered across Knaknak. Where it touched, steaming fumes rose up. The hunter’s eyes bulged. She wheezed and staggered—then collapsed. Her body jerked feebly as she succumbed to the poison. Tiktag turned on the rest of the tribe and raised his staff high.
“We serve the Great One! Never forget that.” Wide eyes stared at him and only him. No one spared another glance for Knaknak. Triumph warmed Tiktag. He swept his staff over the other hunters, still kneeling. “The trough is waiting. Take the meat there and I will take it before our master. We perform a sacred duty by caring for him. He protects us now, and when he regains his full might, he will reward the faithful and punish the reluctant—”
“Tiktag! Tiktag!” Sistree came charging from the back of the tribe, bashing clutch-guardians and hatchlings aside in his haste. He slid to a stop before Tiktag and threw himself on the ground. His whole body shook with every breath. “The Great One is awake!”
Tiktag froze. Every member of the tribe froze, eyes wide and tails curving downward.
Then, yipping and screeching, every one of the hunters sprinted along the chasm with their bloody offerings held high. The clutch-guardians and the hatchlings streamed after them. Cursing and laying about him with his staff, Tiktag tried to keep up. “Place the food in the trough!” he shouted. “I will take it before our master! Only the servants of the Great One may look upon him!”
He threw a glance at Sistree, running beside him. “No one else saw, did they?” he demanded and Sistree shook his head. Tiktag whistled with relief. “What exactly did you see?”
“I heard movement,” Sistree wheezed. “I kneeled down and put just my head into the Great One’s cave as you told me. He was uncoiling his tail and stretching his wings. His head was up and he was looking around.” The other kobold looked around, then grabbed Tiktag’s arm and pulled him close. “There was something else, though,” he murmured urgently. “When we dragged him to his resting place, he was green, yes? A green dragon?”
Tiktag’s skinny gut clenched, but he nodded. Sistree just looked confused. “But now his scales are red!”
Terror gnawed at Tiktag. He pushed it aside. “The Great One moves to a new stage of his life!” he said with false excitement. “He is like a tree with leaves that change color before winter.”
Sistree’s eyes opened wide. “Leaves die in winter! The Great One is dying?”
Tiktag cursed silently and cuffed Sistree. “It means he’s getting stronger. Just don’t say anything to the others. Control them while I talk to the Great One.”
A long sigh from the unseen dragon made his decision for him. Putting his back to the tribe, Tiktag hurried around the corner and into the cave.
Sistree was right. Vestapalk was awake—and the green dragon had turned red. Not in the manner of the fire breathers among dragons, but each green scale was now outlined by angry crimson. It was as if flesh hot with infection peeked through from beneath the scales—except that with every motion, the stuff glowed briefly where Vestapalk’s muscles shifted and bent, like embers when a fire was stirred up. Tiktag stopped just inside the cave, just out of sight of the tribe, and stared.
Vestapalk hadn’t noticed his entrance. He was too busy staring at his legs, his chest, his flanks and wings, as if seeing them for the first time. Maybe, Tiktag thought, he was.
When the wyrmpriest had first climbed into the chasm in search of his fallen master, he’d found Vestapalk broken and injured. The dragon’s powerful limbs had been bent, his graceful neck twisted, one wing left in tatters, a terrible gash cut deep into his belly. As horrible as the injuries to Vestapalk’s body were, though, there had been something else that had disturbed Tiktag more.
Where his master’s blood showed in wounds and smears across his green scales, the red liquid shimmered with streaks of silver. It glowed, as Tiktag had once seen a ruby held before a candle glow. As he had watched over Vestapalk on that first awful night, he’d seen that glowing red spread, appearing first around the dragon’s eyes and across his snout before making its way between the scales along the length of his body like some spreading disease.
Tiktag had stared in horror, terrified of what might be happening to his master, until exhaustion had driven him into sleep.
When he’d woken to Vestapalk’s thin, dry laughter, the glow was gone. Vestapalk’s wounds were crusted scabs. As he swore his oath to watch over his wounded master, Tiktag could almost—almost—believe he had imagined it all. But he knew he hadn’t. Sometimes when he watched over Vestapalk, he thought he could see a faint silvery-red light in the tiny trickle of venom that leaked between the dragon’s jaws.
More than anything else, that was the reason he kept Vestapalk’s new tribe away from their master except for when they’d moved his unconscious body into the cave. How would the others react if the glowing red stuff revealed itself again? Dragons had no flaws. They were perfect beings.
And here were Tiktag’s fears come to pass.
The red taint wasn’t the only change, Tiktag realized as he stared. Vestapalk had grown thin, as if fever had eaten away at his body. His torso and limbs were thin, skin shrunk tight to corded muscles. His belly was wasting away in the manner of a starving animal. Even his tail seemed narrower. Yet somehow the dragon had still grown. He had been big before, but now he was even larger. If he reared back, his head might brush the roof of the cave. He had been majestic. Now he was awe-inspiring. And more than a little frightening.
Vestapalk still had not noticed him. Tiktag swallowed and stepped forward. He could feel the heat that rolled off him. The fever hadn’t passed yet, not entirely. “Master,” he said.
There was no reaction. Vestapalk continued staring at himself, running talons along limbs that had healed while he slept and over belly scales marked only by a dark line where the deepest wound had been. For the first time, Tiktag noticed strange blisters bigger than his fist forming along the joints of Vestapalk’s limbs. He swallowed and called again. “Master!”
Nothing.
He moved closer, crouching low to show proper reverence. “Master, you are beneath the cavern of tombs where you fought the death knight and the human female who came to his aid. You were wounded—you slept for a whole cycle of the moon while your body healed.” Tiktag paused, hoping Vestapalk might answer, but still the dragon seemed to see nothing but his reddened body. “I found a new tribe to serve you,” the kobold continued. “We dragged you here to this place of safety, all of us working together. The hunters of the tribe have brought you meat. I made sure you had food. I fed you myself.”
That had been a harrowing experience. Vestapalk might have been asleep, but waving a piece of bloody, poison-soaked meat past his nose had provoked a response. The first time Tiktag had tried feeding his master by hand he had almost lost an arm as Vestapalk’s massive tongue had licked out of its own accord to take the offered meat. After that, he’d used a long, sharp stick to skewer and present the gobbets of flesh.
Still nothing. Maybe he should have brought the trough of meat. “Master?” said Tiktag again, then louder. “Master! Master!” He drew a breath and screeched, “Vestapalk!”
The dragon turned. Tiktag’s legs trembled. He would have dropped to the rocky ground except that Vestapalk’s gaze seemed to pin him up. It felt as if his master’s red-rimmed eyes saw right through him.
“Tiktag,” said Vestapalk. “Loyal servant.”
The trembling in the wyrmpriest’s legs spread through his body. Vestapalk’s voice had changed with his appearance. Every word that he spoke was strangely doubled, as if spoken by not one but two voices. One was Vestapalk’s familiar, commanding roar. The other was strange but compelling, unworldly yet powerful, like mining picks striking a vein of quartz that refused to shatter. The play between the two voices rang in Tiktag’s ears and struck unease into his gut. Surely this was what the voice of a god—or if not a god, then a godling, still growing into his power—sounded like.
And Tiktag finally grasped the meaning of the changes that had taken place in his master. “The transformation. Oh master, is this the transformation promised to you by the Eye? But you said we were to find the Herald and we failed.”
“The Herald failed. Vestapalk did not.” The dragon held out talons for Tiktag to see. The red stuff had spread into them, too. What had been yellowed and opaque was now silvery red and translucent. “Vestapalk feels it in his blood. It is the source of the transformation. It burns—and this is only the beginning. It will transform Vestapalk and Vestapalk will transform the world.”
“How?” Tiktag asked. “When? Did it come on you while you slept? I guarded you, master, I swear it—”
Vestapalk’s eyes flared and he lunged, snapping massive teeth in front of Tiktag’s muzzle. “If Vestapalk believed you tried to prevent this, wyrmpriest, he would destroy you in an instant!” But his snout curved into a sneer. “Not that you could have. It is the will of the Eye. It is Vestapalk’s fate.” The dragon pulled back. “It was Vestapalk’s very enemies who made this possible! The death knight. The human woman. Their wounding of Vestapalk brought the source of his transformation to him. If Vestapalk encounters them again, he will show them what their anger did before he pulls their intestines from their bodies. Vestapalk knew the woman, too. He recognized her scent. And the scent of a halfling. They had attacked him before.”
“The woman’s name is Shara, master. I heard her companions call to her. The halfling is Uldane.” Tiktag rolled the name on his tongue. “He wounded me, master. If we encounter them again, may his death be mine?”
“If Vestapalk doesn’t kill him first, his death will be yours.” Vestapalk raised his head high and stared down his snout at Tiktag. “Your concern for Vestapalk’s well-being was misplaced, but your loyalty is noticed.”
Pride flooded Tiktag’s small body. He rose to his feet. “Will you eat, master? There is meat. Fresh meat gathered by your new tribe.”
Vestapalk’s features crinkled with amusement.
“This tribe?” he asked and flicked his head. Tiktag twisted around to look behind him.
The tribe filled the entrance to the cavern. Sistree, the hunters, the clutch-guardians, the hatchlings—all knelt and stared at Vestapalk in rapt, silent adoration. Tiktag whirled on Sistree. “I told you to keep them out!”
“You said to keep them under control. They wanted to see the dragon.” Sistree’s eyes didn’t move from Vestapalk. “He is magnificent!”
Tiktag raced back to throw himself before Vestapalk’s claws. “Master, they are fools. I told them not to disturb us. Do you want the meat? I will have them fetch it. I will send the hunters out for more—”
“No.” The dragon rose onto all four legs and paced back and forth in the cave. “No. Vestapalk has been here long enough. The Eye showed him where he must be next. The Voidharrow is within Vestapalk, but his power is not complete.”
“Voidharrow, master?” Tiktag rolled the strange word on his tongue.
Vestapalk glared at him, then suddenly spat at Tiktag’s feet. The kobold jumped back, staring at a blob of liquid red crystal as it bubbled and seethed on the rock.
“The source of change, wyrmpriest. The source of Vestapalk’s new power. But Vestapalk needs more than just the Voidharrow. He must seek out the One Who Gathers.” His gaze turned distant and Tiktag knew that his master was speaking as much to himself as he was to his servant. “A month lying wounded? Is Vestapalk too late? Has the Gatherer waited and gone? No. The Eye sees all. This follows the will of the Eye. The Gatherer will be there.”
“Where, master?” Tiktag asked, raising himself up again. “Where will this Gatherer be?”
Vestapalk looked at him and blinked, then focused as if seeing him for the first time. “Away from here,” he said. “Come, Tiktag. Prepare.” He turned toward the cave entrance and the chasm beyond.
The tribe started to shift and murmur as the dragon came closer—and most of the murmuring was fear and dismay that their new master should already want to leave them. Tiktag felt a burst of alarm, not so much for the tribe he had stolen and used but for Vestapalk. “Away? Fly? Master, you can’t. You’ve just woken. You need to rest and eat. The meat—”
The Temple of Yellow Skulls Page 8