“What’s going on?” Gaedynn asked.
Startled, Jhesrhi jerked around to find him standing right behind her. “I told you to stay put,” she said. But he hadn’t, because he didn’t trust her nerve and judgment anymore.
“We’re done here anyway,” he said. “What pulled you out of your chair?”
“Someone was watching our table. I wanted to find out why, but somehow he outdistanced me.”
Gaedynn looked around. “Well, he could have ducked in any of these doors, and it’s not that far to the bend in the street. Who do you think it was?”
She shrugged. “Someone trying to pass for a hill man, but not. Beyond that I can’t say. I hope he wasn’t a spy looking for his opposite numbers from south of the border.”
“Even if he was, we weren’t doing anything overtly nefarious. I think it’s more likely he’s a spotter for the local thieves’ guild. I was spreading a little coin around. And even though you have that hood shadowing your face and a cloak obscuring your shape, a perceptive fellow could still tell you’d make a lot of coin for any of the local festhalls.”
She scowled at him.
He grinned back. “Facts are facts, buttercup. The point is, if we keep our guard up, we can surely handle a few toughs.” He hesitated. “Can’t we?”
“Yes,” she said, gritting her teeth. “In your estimation, have we learned anything?”
“I assume you heard most of it. Plenty of people have stories to share about a dragon roaring in the night. The problem is, the tales are vague as to what hillside or mountaintop it’s roaring on. But just now I got the name of a fellow who collects information about the Sky Riders, then sells it to trappers looking for particularly luxuriant pelts or prospectors looking for streams that run yellow with gold.”
“In other words, a swindler.”
Gaedynn smiled. “I’d bet my life on it. Or at least somebody’s life. But I’d also wager he gathers real information to make his lies more convincing. And that he’s not averse to peddling that as well, when there’s a market for it. Shall we go find out?”
Jhesrhi kept watch for the pale man, and for any lurking ruffians, as Gaedynn led her into a shabby dead-end street. She didn’t see anyone suspicious. Nor, when she consulted it, did the wind. Maybe the watcher had taken their measure and decided to seek easier prey.
She noticed the structures in the immediate vicinity were smaller than average, with windows placed lower to the ground. Some builder had thrown up a dozen apartment houses for people shorter than humans.
Gaedynn rapped on one of the street-level doors, then waited. After a time it squeaked open a crack, and a halfling peered out from the darkness within.
“Good evening,” Gaedynn said. “My companion and I are headed into the Sky Riders. We need information to ensure a successful journey.”
“I need silver to open this door,” the halfling answered. Because of their size, his kind tended to have voices higher than humans, and old age seemed to have pitched the scratchy one Jhesrhi was hearing higher still. Yet she was reasonably sure the speaker was male.
Gaedynn produced a coin and presented it with a flourish. It disappeared into the crack, and then the door opened. Despite a soldier’s familiarity with wounds and scars, Jhesrhi had to suppress an impulse to stare or wince at what stood revealed on the other side.
The halfling was missing the eye, the ear, and some of the white hair from the right side of his head. In their places were deep, livid, horizontal grooves. His right hand and some of the forearm were gone too, while the right leg, though present, was twisted shorter than the left, hitching his body off center.
He turned and, limping, conducted his visitors into a candlelit, low-ceilinged room. Bearskins, wolf pelts, racks of antlers, and halfling-sized hunting weapons hung on the walls. A scatter of maps lay on a table, along with the hook and leather cuff the halfling presumably wore when he felt the need for a prosthesis.
Jhesrhi was somewhat encouraged. Judging from appearances, their host might truly have known the Sky Riders well, in the days before some beast mauled and crippled him.
He flicked his remaining hand at a bench with chipped and peeling paint that looked like he’d salvaged it from the town dump. “That’s the one thing big enough for humans to sit on.”
“Thank you,” Gaedynn said.
The halfling flopped down in a chair. “What exactly do you want?”
“We’ve heard stories,” Gaedynn said, “about a dragon that roars by night somewhere high in the hills.”
“So?”
Gaedynn smiled. “A dragon’s lair is full of treasure.”
The cripple snorted. “And you think you can carry it off? Just the two of you?”
“The tales suggest this particular wyrm is inconvenienced somehow.”
“It’s still a dragon.”
“We don’t intend to fight it. Just sneak into its lair, pocket a few prize gems, and live like lords for the rest of our days.”
The halfling squirmed in his chair like he couldn’t get comfortable. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out already. What do you need me for?”
“The tales are either unclear or contradictory concerning the dragon’s location.”
The maimed hunter grinned, revealing gapped, stained teeth. “Easy to see why, if the creature only appears at night. And seeing as how fools are always getting lost in the Sky Riders. People who saw or heard the wyrm—if anyone truly did—may not have known exactly where they were.”
“Do you think anyone did?” Jhesrhi asked. “See it, I mean.”
“What’s the difference?” The halfling shifted again. “You and your man have decided they did, or else you wouldn’t be here. Nothing I say is likely to change your minds.”
“You’re probably right,” Gaedynn said. “So, can you help us?”
“Maybe,” the halfling said. “I’ve heard all the stories you have and more, and knowing the hill country, I can interpret details that don’t mean anything to you. I can make a good guess where you ought to look. But only if you make it worth my while.”
“I already gave you one piece of silver. How about four more?”
“That’s piddling for information that will make you rich, or so you tell me. How about ten gold?”
“If we had that kind of coin, we wouldn’t need to chase dragons. What about this? We’ll cut you in for a tenth of the profits.”
“Now, that sounds splendid! Because I’m confident you’ll come back loaded down with diamonds and rubies, and just as certain you’ll keep your word.”
“I take your point. We’ll pay you three gold. But I swear by the Merchant’s Friend, we can’t go any higher.”
The halfling grunted. “Hand it over.”
Gaedynn fished a purse out of the jerkin he’d mended with big, clumsy stitches after the kobold’s javelin tore it. “You just need to understand one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Gaedynn shook coins out into his palm. “My companion is a wizard. She’s going to cast a charm that will alert her if you try to cheat us.”
It was a lie. Jhesrhi had mastered dozens of spells, but none that would serve that particular purpose. But other people had no way of knowing that, and she and Gaedynn had used the bluff to extract the truth from the credulous on several previous occasions.
As he took the coins, the halfling made a spitting sound. “As long as she doesn’t turn me into a rat or make my manhood fall off, she can do what she likes.”
Jhesrhi whispered words of power. The room grew colder. For a moment, the candles burned green, and a breeze rustled the parchments on the table. It was likely enough to create the impression that some useful enchantment was in place.
“Now,” said Gaedynn, “go ahead.”
The halfling leaned over the table and riffled through the maps until he found one drawn on vellum. He sketched a circle on it with his fingertip. “Somewhere in this area. And I think that if it’s really th
ere to be found, you’ll find it on the western side of a hill.”
Maintaining the fiction that Jhesrhi could tell if their informant was telling the truth, Gaedynn looked to her. She nodded.
The redheaded archer extended his hand. “Thank you for your help.”
The halfling blinked like he wasn’t used to courtesy or gratitude. “There’s one more thing I can tell you. People only ever glimpse or hear the dragon at the dark of the moon.”
“That complicates matters,” Gaedynn said, “but at least it’s not for a while yet. We have time to get to the right place. Thank you again.”
After the cripple showed them out, Jhesrhi said, “You could have just given the poor fellow ten gold.”
“That would have seemed very strange to him. He expected me to haggle.”
“And, it’s bad luck to swear a false oath by any of the gods.”
“Oh, I imagine Waukeen will forgive me.” He grinned. “As you know better than anyone, I’m well nigh irresistible to blondes with golden eyes.”
She scowled. “Where now? Back to the stable?”
“If you like. We have what we came for.”
They headed in that direction. To her relief, the crowds in the streets had thinned out. In fact, they soon found themselves entirely alone on a block lined with dark, shuttered shops at ground level. In the quiet, even the iron ferrule of her staff bump-bump-bumping against the mud seemed noisy. She picked up the weapon and carried it over her shoulder.
Then the wind whispered to her. She willed the bindings on the staff to loosen, and the cloth fell away. She lifted the rod into a middle guard and roused the power stored inside it. The golden runes glittered.
By that time, Gaedynn had noticed what she was doing and nocked an arrow. “What?” he asked.
“People are stalking us,” she said.
“Where are they?”
“All around us. I think. They’re using magic that hinders even the wind’s ability to perceive them, and—”
“And anyway, the breezes in Mourktar haven’t fallen in love with you yet.” He shifted so they stood back to back. “I’ve heard the song before. If the bastards are just thieves, now that they see that we’re ready for them, maybe they’ll go away.”
“I doubt common thieves would command such potent enchantments.”
“Permit me the comfort of my delusions.”
The breeze moaned, warning her. “Above us!” she said.
They both looked up at the wide, shadowy something plunging down at them. They each leaped forward, separating in the process because otherwise they wouldn’t have had time to scramble out from underneath. The weighted net thudded and rustled down between them.
A figure with a white face and hands jumped off the rooftop after the meshwork like a four-story drop was nothing. And apparently for him it was. He landed like a cat, and Gaedynn drove an arrow into his chest.
That too should have killed or at least incapacitated him. But he simply staggered a step, then charged. As he did, Jhesrhi recognized him as the small man from the tavern. She also noticed his bared fangs.
Fortunately, Gaedynn did too—and after the nightmarish campaign in Thay, he knew how to fight a vampire. His next shaft punched into the creature’s heart, where it would serve the same function as a stake. Paralyzed, the undead collapsed.
Jhesrhi glanced around. Other pale figures were creeping from between the houses. She hurled a blast of fire and set the nearest two ablaze.
Then she pivoted, searching for her next target. Even though she was trying to avoid it, she looked straight into another vampire’s eyes.
The undead’s coercive power stabbed into her head. Suddenly she couldn’t move. She wanted to, but it was like she’d forgotten how. She had the terrifying feeling she’d even stopped breathing.
She strained to break free. In her mind she recited words of strength and liberation that would no longer pass her lips. Abruptly, and without realizing it was about to happen, she wrenched her gaze away and gasped for air.
Her paralysis, brief though it had been, had given her foes the chance to rush closer. She spoke to the wind, and it hurled a vampire backward an instant before his outstretched hands could grab her.
Behind her, light flashed, momentarily painting the world blue-white. Thunder boomed, power crackled, and Gaedynn laughed a single “Ha!” of satisfaction. He’d used one of the special arrows she’d enchanted for him, evidently to good effect.
Even comparatively weak vampires—and it seemed to her that these were some of the weaker ones—were fearsome opponents, but so far it appeared that she and the archer were holding their own. Hoping to stand back to back again, she retreated a step, and then other figures stalked from the gloom behind the undead.
The newcomers weren’t pale as bone, and she didn’t see any glistening fangs or lambent eyes. Humans, then, wrapped in shapeless hooded cloaks much like her own.
She drew breath to cast a spell at the new enemies, then realized some of them were already chanting. A couple whirled implements resembling picks through serpentine passes with a nimbleness at odds with the weapons’ obvious weight.
Jhesrhi abandoned her offensive magic to rattle off a briefer charm. A disk of golden light shimmered into existence in the air before her.
Also floating and made of glowing light, but continually rippling from one color to another, several picks abruptly appeared in front of her defense. The magical weapons hurtled at her, and though her amber shield shifted back and forth, it couldn’t block them all. One red as flame whirled itself around the edge of the oval. She parried it with her staff, but at the same instant another such attack stabbed her in the back.
Wracked with pain and horribly cold besides, she crumpled. The pick that had wounded her changed from white to green and struck again before she finished falling. Her nose, mouth, and throat burned, and she started coughing uncontrollably.
Evidently recognizing that she was no longer able to oppose them, the enemy sent the animated picks streaking over her to take Gaedynn from behind. Still coughing, floundering in her own blood, she flopped over to watch the inevitable result.
Gaedynn whirled and loosed another arrow. Then, chopping relentlessly, the luminous, multicolored picks assailed him like a swarm of wasps. He fell with blood streaming from his wounds.
Between coughs, Jhesrhi caught the stink of charred flesh. Hands grabbed her and slammed her flat on her back. His skin burned black, a vampire dropped to his knees and bent over her.
Then one of cloaked men stepped into Jhesrhi’s field of vision. Now that he’d come close enough, she could make out the pattern of scales on the robe visible through the gap between the wings of his outer garment. She could even discern how the folds of the iridescent vestment changed color as he moved, although in the darkness she couldn’t truly see the colors themselves.
But she didn’t have to see them to recognize a priest of five-headed Tiamat, the Dragon Queen. “Get away from her,” the cleric said.
The vampire glared up at him. “She burned me,” he said, the words garbled for want of the lips the fire had taken. “It’s only fair that her blood help restore me.”
“If we injure her any further, she’s likely to die. As it is, we’ll have to cast healings on her and the bowman before they’re fit to travel.”
Coughing less, no longer shaking quite so hard with chill, but still too weak to resist, Jhesrhi silently thanked the Foehammer that Gaedynn was still alive.
“You … mortals,” the vampire snarled, like it was the foulest insult imaginable. “You priests. You order us to the fore to run the greatest risk——”
“And you obey,” the wyrmkeeper said, “because our master has given us authority over you.” Master, Jhesrhi noted, not mistress. Whomever he was talking about, it wasn’t his goddess. “And because you know we possess the power to compel you—or at least I assume you know. If necessary, I can provide a demonstration.”
Though still gl
owering with fangs extended, the undead rose and backed away. “Thank you,” the wyrmkeeper said. He stooped and tugged the staff from Jhesrhi’s feeble grasp. The runes stopped shining. He studied the tool with a knowledgeable eye. “Nice. Very nice. Now, we’re going to gag you and bind your hands. Then I’ll do something to restore your strength and take away the worst of—”
“Look!” someone yelped.
The wyrmkeeper pivoted and glanced around. “At what?”
One of the men armed with a pick made of ordinary steel and wood pointed at a rooftop. “He’s gone now, but he was there! Somebody spying!”
The wyrmkeeper turned toward the spot where three vampires stood clustered together. “Whoever it is, retrieve him.”
The pale-faced figures dissolved from bottom to top like icicles melting. Shrunken into bats with wrinkled snouts and eyes like gleaming ink, swirling around one another, they fluttered upward and vanished into the night sky.
Next the cloaked men restrained Jhesrhi, denying her any hope of using her magic. Then the wyrmkeeper prayed over her. The nasty, sibilant sound of the words made her skin crawl. But as promised, they closed her wounds, muted her pain, and brought a bit of her strength trickling back. The priest moved over to Gaedynn and did the same for him.
Shortly afterward the three vampires, in human guise once more, stalked into view. The one in the lead was carrying a motionless body in his arms. When he dumped it on the street, its cape fell open. Jhesrhi was surprised to see that under his outer garment, the dead man too wore a vestment of iridescent scales.
“Thank the Dark Lady,” the wyrmkeeper said.
“What do we do with him?” asked the fellow who’d spotted the skulker in the first place.
“It’s better that he should disappear than be found,” said the priest. “So I suppose we’ll have to drag him along with us. Get them up.”
The enemy hauled Jhesrhi and Gaedynn to their feet, and she saw that they’d disarmed, bound, and gagged the archer as well. The wyrmkeeper rubbed the black, mask-shaped ring on his finger, and she felt a powerful enchantment—no doubt the charm of invisibility—enfold the entire company, captors and captives alike.
The Captive Flame: Brotherhood of the Griffon • Book 1 Page 16