by Kate Novak
“Come on!” the swordswoman shouted, picking up the halfling, tucking her under her arm, and running for the surface exit. Ruskettle was unexpectedly heavy, and between the extra weight and having to check her footing, Alias felt as though she were running underwater.
A roar began behind her, a deep rumbling sound. Harsh cries followed—ravens, she realized, caught in the conflagration. Her back grew uncomfortably warm as the dragon’s breath chased her down the passage. If she didn’t reach the exit quickly, the approaching wall of super-heated air would do her in before the beast’s metal-twisting flames even reached her.
The heat grew unbearable, and Alias wondered if she might already be burned so badly that she would die but her muscles and mind didn’t know that yet. The halfling was still squirming in her arms as she made a final leap toward the opening in the mountainside, praying to Tymora that she would clear it before the hot air singed her flesh and the fire stripped it from her bones.
The moment Alias cleared the stone passage, Dragonbait’s tail snaked out from the right. The powerful muscles in the scaly, green ribbon knocked the swordswoman and her passenger down the slope of greasy grass.
Alias looked back. The opening where she had been only an instant before was now filled with flame and soot. The rock about the cave entrance melted in the heat, twisting and flowing until the passage was sealed shut. Silence settled over the mountainside.
Dragonbait rubbed his mildly scorched tail and gave a reptilian whimper. Akabar, upon hearing the sound of the dragon’s inhalation, had assumed a safer position several paces away from the back door. He now looked down at the soot-blackened women with amusement.
Alias looked down at Ruskettle, and it suddenly dawned on her why the halfling had been so heavy. On her tumble down the hill, the bard had lost, in order, Alias’s dagger, two pouches of gold coins, an opal the size of a cockatrice egg, a handful of jade statuettes, a ratty scroll, and a large, ornate book marked with the sigil of Akabar Bel Akash.
For half a score of heartbeats, Alias lay among the flowers of the mountain meadow. She gasped in the thin mountain air, trying to will away the stabbing pain in her chest and the searing agony across her back. She imagined the dragon-heated metal of her chain shirt burning through her jerkin and inwardly cringed.
Dragonbait, having knocked her and the halfling out of the direct path of the dragon’s breath, was at her side immediately, his clawlike hands on her shoulders, helping her rise. He smelled heavily of woodsmoke, but his chivalrous aid helped make Alias feel a little better.
Farther down the slope, the halfling was scurrying about, trying to recover the items lost in her tumble. She grabbed one of the leather-bound tomes, but a sandal-clad foot suddenly appeared and held it tight to the ground.
“I believe,” Akabar Bel Akash said, “that this particular item is mine.”
The halfling gulped. “You were the wizard in the caravan,” she piped, wheels visibly turning behind her eyes. “Of course. I brought this from the dragon’s lair to …” she sighed deeply, “… to return to you.”
Akabar harumphed and, keeping his foot atop the book, reached over and picked up the age-torn scroll lying near it.
“That’s for you, too,” the halfling offered, jamming the opal and the jade figures back into her pockets.
Alias had by this time removed her charred cloak and shucked off her chain mail shirt. The cloak was a total loss; the heavy cloth had taken the brunt of the blast. The heat had been enough to fuse portions of her chain into solid lumps along the back and leave the light leather jerkin beneath hard and cracked. The leather must have insulated her back just enough though, for what she could see of her skin there, while pink, was not charred.
Blind Tymora’s luck, Alias thought. Her back ached as though she had a sunburn, but no more. She abruptly shouted to the others, “Let’s get a move on!”
The newly rescued bard ambled up the hill with the mage. Akabar held his recovered tome pressed tightly under his arm and used his hand to hold open the battered scroll, scanning its contents as he approached Alias.
The halfling planted each foot firmly at shoulder-width, and stuck out her hand toward the swordswoman. “We haven’t been properly introduced. Ruskettle is the name, song and merriment the—”
“Not now,” hushed Alias. “Look. In about five minutes, ten minutes at most, the red reptile is going to check to be sure we’re dead. She’ll come lurching out of the cave entrance. It’s at least a mile to decent tree cover.…”
Dragonbait sniffed the air and growled. The halfling turned to the lizard and offered her still outstretched hand. Dragonbait backed away a step and bared his teeth. Ruskettle hastily lowered her arm.
“If we flee,” Alias said, “it’s likely we’ll be caught in the open and fried.” She arched her eyebrows and looked at the mage.
“Any suggestions?”
“Seal her in?” Akabar offered.
“Sure,” countered Alias. “Have an avalanche handy?”
“Mayhaps,” the Turmishman replied with a grin. He held up the scroll he’d been perusing. It was crammed with tightly calligraphed symbols. “This title says it is a spell to conjure a wall of stone.”
Alias’s eyes lit up. “Can you cast it?”
The magic-user nodded. “All I need do is use a simple trick to read the magic. That will evoke the powers locked within the text. Of course, it may not work.” He spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
“Half a chance is better than none,” the warrior insisted. “Let’s try it out on the beast’s front door. Dragonbait!”
The lizard stopped staring at the halfling and followed the swordswoman and the mage over the scattered boulders that ringed the mountain. The halfling brought up the rear.
They don’t stand on ceremony much here, it occurred to Ruskettle moodily. As she walked, she pocketed her latest acquisitions, a ring and a small vial smelling of cinnamon.
By the time they reached the lair’s main entrance, steam was billowing from within. The cavern’s front opening was small but still quite wide enough for a dragon to pass through. From somewhere deep within, beyond their sight, a deep, throaty muttering rose and fell.
“Can the dragon use spells?” Akabar asked the halfling, concerned that the beast might have other, hidden talents.
“No. She’s just cursing,” the halfling explained. “The old girl talks to herself, deciding what she should do, where she should go, who she should eat, and so on. All that stuff.”
Alias said grimly, “Can we just seal her in and get out of here before she reaches a decision?”
Akabar held the scroll out at arm’s length and began intoning its spell in a low, melodic voice. Every so often, he would glance up at the entrance, then back to the paper.
Alias looked at her sword arm, but the symbols remained inert. Relief was quickly replaced by a sensation of horror as she spotted Ruskettle ambling over the stones directly toward the cavern’s mouth.
The small humanoid took up a position some twenty yards from the cavern and cupped her hands before her mouth. She bellowed, or at least shouted as loud as a small creature could, “Heyyy, Misty!”
All at once, the mutterings in the cavern stopped.
Alias held her breath. Akabar looked up and almost scrambled the spell by missing an inflection. He continued to read aloud, though faster than before. Alias looked for Dragonbait, but the lizard was bounding over the rock-strewn hillside toward the halfling.
Ruskettle continued her taunting. “We made it, you big sack of shoe leather! We got out, and I’m going to tell everyone you’re an oath-breaker! You jackass-faced salamander!”
Dragonbait was only halfway to the halfling’s position when a deep rumbling came from within the mountain, like the sound of an erupting volcano. The mage quickened his verbal pace yet again. Alias was torn between worrying that the mage’s speed would spoil the scroll’s spell and that the wall created wouldn’t be large enough to cover
the lair’s entrance or strong enough to stop a dragon.
“Oath-breaker, Fight-faker!” brayed the halfling. Twin amber lights appeared far within the cavern, growing larger by the second. They framed a red, open mouth set with swordlike teeth.
“Flame-brain, Lame-brain, Tame-brain, oooff—” The halfling’s jeers were lost in a sharp exhalation as Dragonbait slammed into her, knocking her down the hillside for the second time in ten minutes.
The rising roar of the oncoming dragon now hurt Alias’s ears. Akabar was shouting as well, spitting out the last phrases of the incantation. The scroll itself was being consumed by the force of the magics and was burning bright yellow in the merchant-mage’s hands.
Everything broke loose in the span of a breath. Mist’s body appeared from the darkness, visible in the sunlight that shone only a little way into the cavern. The dragon was flying low and fast, about to shoot through the small opening, falling upon the party like a hawk among sparrows.
Then there was a great whooshing noise, and a huge wall of stone blocked the party’s view of the monster. They heard, however, a bone-crushing smash coming from the far side of the wall, and saw the barrier arc outward at its center, trying to contain the force of several tons of wyrm flying at top speed.
When the wall bulged, Alias was sure that the magical mortar would give. Astonishingly, it held, even losing half of the bulge by springing back some. Silence descended on the mountain meadow. Akabar collapsed by the burned remains of the scroll and put his head in his hands.
Ruskettle picked herself off the ground, scowled at the lizard, and shouted down at Alias, “That was hard work. When do we eat?”
Olive and the Crystal Elemental
For the next few miles, as they wound down the hillside and into the cover of deeper woods, Alias kept checking over her shoulder. Despite having sealed Mist in, the swordswoman half-expected the dragon to dive on them from the sky, bathing the entire forest in flames. Logic insisted that Mist had to be at least slightly injured from her sudden collision, and it would take her at least a day to dig her way out, but Alias felt more comfortable playing it safe by assuming that Mist was pursuing them.
The swordswoman made the party turn off the road onto the first trail into the woods, so it was nearly dusk by the time they reached the stone circle where she and Akabar and Dragonbait had spent the night before.
In the setting sunlight, the red hewn rock of the druid circle blazed as though the hillock on which it stood was afire. According to the map Dimswart had given Alias, this site had long been abandoned by the clerics of nature, yet the pines encircling the clearing showed no sign of encroaching and reclaiming the area. Alias wondered whether the trees were discouraged by the rocky, frost-cracked soil or thwarted by some lingering magic.
At any rate, the bare space discouraged her as well. Last night they had found the clearing too cold to use as a camping site. Twenty feet down the slope under the cover of the pine branches, on the soft carpet of pine needles, they were sheltered from the wind and considerably warmer. This night, the trees would also shelter them from Mist’s gaze. Alias was glad to have good reasons to avoid the stone circle. The giant columns, set in no detectable order, made her uncomfortable. She and Dragonbait hurriedly retrieved the party’s gear from its hiding place in the hollow at the foot of one of the sandstone rocks.
Akabar was puffing on smoky, sparking pine needles when Alias and the lizard returned to the dark camp under the trees. While Akabar prepared dinner, Alias, wrapped in a cloak from the cache, patrolled the edge of the clearing, occasionally glancing at the bard.
Ruskettle was short, even for a halfling. Not even three feet high. There was nothing childlike about her figure, though. She was in the full bloom of womanhood, with plenty of curves, but she also had a slender waist and none of the plumpness most members of her race had. Her leanness, the muscles of her calves, her deep tan, all indicated to Alias that the bard was an adventuress like herself. Yet, Alias was not prepared to like or trust her at all. The bard hadn’t made the slightest effort to help Dragonbait and Akabar set up camp or prepare their meal. Besides, halflings were trouble. Alias had never met an exception to the rule.
She joined the others for dinner, seating herself opposite Ruskettle, still watching her intently.
“I don’t know how to thank you properly,” the halfling bard mumbled between bites of smoke-cured mutton. “The halflings of the south have a saying: I owe you my life, your belongings are safe with me.”
The mutton leg, which might have lasted Alias and Akabar another two days, was quickly disappearing. Ruskettle tossed her long, curly hair over her shoulder and motioned with her clay bowl for another helping of soup, still chewing as though her life depended on it.
Akabar furrowed his eyebrows at the small creature’s gluttony, but he ladled out another portion of the hearty gruel, a thick barley stock with bits of salted coney seasoned with herbs from the merchant-mage’s copious pockets.
“I can see you’re keeping our food safe,” Alias joked. “Are you sure it’s the musical ability of Olav Ruskettle that is renowned, and not her appetite?”
The bard swallowed and wiped her mouth. “The name’s Olive, dear. Olive Ruskettle. Don’t worry. Everyone makes that mistake.”
“Dimswart said it was Olav,” Alias muttered as a tiny fear crept over her. Perhaps she had rescued the wrong person.
“Well, I should know my own name, don’t you think? The problem is that some fool clerk made a mistake writing it down once on some official document and ever since I’ve had to correct people.”
“I see,” Alias replied suspiciously, wondering whether Mistress Ruskettle wasn’t wanted under the name of Olav for something more serious than straining rhymes.
“As for my appetite,” Olive Ruskettle explained, washing down a loaf of bread with a long pull on a waterskin, “you should know that that witch of a dragon, while having a civilized appreciation for my musical talents, had a lot to learn about the care and feeding of a halfling. Her own eating habits were anything but regular, and I had a devil of a time convincing her that I could not live on raw venison. Then I discovered that her cooking technique left something to be desired. If you had not come along, my dear,” she said shaking her head sadly and patting Alias’s boot, “I’m afraid my little bones would have joined those of the heroes littering the floor of the dragon’s lair.”
As the bard continued to make up for a ride’s worth of lost meals, Alias thought of the heroes’ bones littering the caverns of Mist. Heroes with all the bravado and lack of sense of the halfling. Alias shook her head remembering the bard’s outrageous behavior at the mouth of Mist’s lair.
Alias’s first adventuring party, the Swanmays, had been like that, all flash and fanfare. One encounter with trolls had taught them the wiser course of stealth and surprise.
She remembered the battle with the trolls clearly, as though it had happened last week. So why can’t I remember last week? she thought with frustration. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that Akabar nudged her.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
“I said, ‘Do you think we’ll return in time?’ For the wedding, I mean.”
“We’d better, or all this effort was for nothing,” Alias answered, oblivious to the feelings of the halfling.
Olive Ruskettle apparently took no offense. Her mind was also on other things. “As anxious as I am to make my Cormyrian debut, I simply haven’t the strength to keep pace with you. I shall have to have a mount.”
“I don’t care for sore feet and aching muscles any more than you, Mistress Ruskettle,” Alias replied. “We walked here for secrecy’s sake, but, since we seem to have eluded the dragon, horses sound like an excellent idea. How lucky for us you managed to acquire so much of the dragon’s wealth while I was fighting for your freedom and life. We can purchase mounts at the first farm we come to.”
Olive moved the mutton bone away from her face long enough to give Al
ias an unabashed grin. “I assure you, my feet made a bee-line for safety while you so valiantly risked your life to rescue me. My hands would have felt left out if they’d been any less useful, don’t you know?” She waved the bone in the direction of the sacks of treasure. “Please, feel free to consider this the party’s treasure to be used to cover expenses. Whatever remains should be divided evenly among those who survive our encounters. Even—” she cocked an eyebrow in Akabar’s direction “—if some were less useful than others.”
Akabar’s brow furrowed in astonishment at the woman’s nerve. “That is very human of you, small one,” he said. “Particularly since that spellbook you pulled from the dragon’s lair was my own. Most strange, though, because that book was missing from my wagon since the first day out of Arabel, which was, I believe, where you joined our caravan, several days before the dragon attacked us.”
“Most strange, indeed,” Olive agreed, returning Akabar’s level glare. “But”—her eyes returned to her soup bowl, and she took a gulp of broth before continuing—“these are strange times, so the sages say. Mannish kingdoms war and plot while old gods, long forgotten, stir in their restless sleep.” She lifted the soup bowl as if making a toast. “Let’s celebrate your good fortune at having your valuable tome returned to you, instead of probing into yet more mysteries.” She drained the soup bowl and held it out again. “Is there, perchance, any more soup?”
Akabar drained the last of the pot into Olive’s bowl. Olive leaned toward the treasure pile, plucked the magical book from the coins and carvings, and held it out to the wizard as he held out her soup bowl. Both parties gave the other a smile that was less than earnest as the exchange was made.
Akabar inspected his book for signs of damage. Alias reached for a tiny pouch near the treasure pile and loosened the string about its neck.
“Not that,” Olive objected. “Those are some of my personal effects.” But Alias had already dumped the contents of the pouch on the ground. A collection of keys, picks, and wires glittered in the dirt. A small gold ring rolled toward the fire.