Skein of Shadows (dungeons and dragons)

by Marsheila Rockwell

  Greddark harrumphed and grudgingly handed the quarrel back to Sabira, who quickly loaded it into the crossbow and moved into position, using the feed trough at the back of the wagon to steady her aim.

  She could see the dragon without the spyglass now, a dark speck rapidly growing in size as it approached from the north. As it glided through the air, Sabira could see it wasn’t quite as large as she’d been expecting-the size of two of the wagons shoved together, maybe. She revised her estimate of the creature’s age-no more than a young adult, if the facts she’d learned as a Blademark could be applied to dragons she’d never seen in any of their libraries.

  Hopefully, that should mean the reptile would rely less on magic and more on mundane attacks. But without knowing what sort of breath weapon the creature had, she wasn’t sure if that was a benefit or not.

  “So,” she asked over her shoulder as she tried to keep the crossbow level while the wagon bumped along over the desert floor, “sand dragons. What do you know about them?”

  “Not much,” Brannan answered from behind her. “I’ve never encountered one out here before, but I’ve heard stories.”

  “Stories?” Jester asked, and Sabira could just imagine the red-armored warforged leaning forward eagerly on his bench.

  “I’ve heard they can create sandstorms-a tale I think we can safely confirm-and that they prefer to attack from underneath the sand. Not much else.”

  Wait. If sand dragons preferred to come at their prey from beneath the sand, then why-?

  Sabira didn’t even have time to finish thinking the question. As the dragon came within bowshot of the rearmost wagons, it suddenly veered up and over the caravan, well out of range of both arrow and quarrel. As it crossed above their wagon, Sabira scrambled forward to the front, poking her head out beside a startled Xujil. She watched as the dragon swooped down behind a row of high dunes ahead of the caravan and disappeared. Though she scanned the horizon in front of them, she didn’t see it reappear.

  “Stop the caravan!” she shouted to Brannan without turning.

  There was utter silence behind her.

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  The Wayfinder’s voice was politely amused, as if he were humoring a lunatic while trying to determine if she were dangerous or not.

  Now Sabira turned, her eyes narrowed and her jaw set.

  “The dragon is ahead of us somewhere, on the ground. Under the ground, if the stories you’ve heard are to be believed.” She waited for understanding to dawn on the Wayfinder’s features, but his face remained affable and unenlightened. It was Xujil who caught on first.

  “The beast is using the storm to herd us,” the drow said, the soft, oily words the first he had spoken in her hearing. Sabira was surprised at the anger behind them. Then again, she supposed that for someone who was used to leading others, being guided himself against his will must rankle.

  “Classic hunting tactic. And we’re the buck with the trophy rack.”

  Brannan took the revelation in stride.

  “If we halt the caravan, we have no chance of outrunning the storm, and it’s the greater of the two dangers facing us. The dragon can only attack one wagon at a time; the storm can wipe out the entire caravan.” The Wayfinder’s expression was no longer so affable. “There is no choice here, Marshal. We press on, ambush or no.”

  And as much as it galled her, Sabira couldn’t refute his logic.

  “If that’s your decision, then at least have the caravan advance in a row instead of a column. That way we can bring more force to bear against the dragon when it attacks.”

  Because that attack was as inevitable as the storm bearing down on them from behind. No predator would pass up such easy odds, least of all a dragon.

  Brannan regarded her for a moment before his smile returned, a grin that Sabira would almost have called flirtatious, in other circumstances, on another man’s face. On Brannan’s, she couldn’t help but regard it as calculating. Though the Wayfinder hadn’t said it in so many words, he’d made it abundantly clear that his bottom line was the main factor in any decision he made, including this one. That it was also the safest decision for the men in his employ was completely beside the fact, Sabira was sure.

  “As you will, Marshal,” he replied, inclining his head to her. He glanced at Xujil, who’d looked back over his shoulder at Sabira’s command to stop the caravan, and was now waiting for instructions. “Slow it down.”

  As the drow obeyed and turned back to the controls, Brannan dug around in a satchel tied to the rear opening of the wagon. He pulled out a length of bright red cloth, then leaned out the back of the wagon into the wind. With one end of the cloth clutched in each hand, he slowly spread his arms out, so that the red fabric was a bright, visible slash across his chest. After a moment, he brought his hands back together in front of him, and then repeated the gesture two more times. When he was sure the next wagon in line had gotten the signal and was passing it on, he balled up the cloth and replaced it in the bag.

  “That’s rather primitive,” Greddark remarked, no doubt thinking up a way he could rig a more efficient system with some Dust of Disjunction and a little spit.

  “Ah, ‘primitive.’ That’s a dwarven euphemism for ‘cheap,’ is it not?” Before Greddark could answer, the Wayfinder continued. “It may seem simple, but it’s the most effective means to communicate between wagons when the wind is howling too loud for voices to be heard and the glare of the sun blinds you to anything but the brightest colors.”

  “There are spells to bypass those difficulties,” the dwarf argued. “Cheap ones too.”

  There were even spells that would protect the entire caravan from both sun and storm in the first place, Sabira knew, but they were also quite a bit more expensive than a few strips of cloth torn from the tent in the Marketplace.

  “There are,” Brannan agreed. “But there are many places in the desert where such spells do not function as intended. If at all.”

  Sabira frowned at that. Though such areas were common in the Mournland, where a magical cataclysm had wiped the nation of Cyre from the face of Khorvaire in the space of a single day, she’d never heard of any similar places outside the bounds of the dark gray mist. Then again, Xen’drik had been through its own cataclysm millennia ago, so perhaps the existence of pockets of warped magic here should not be such a surprise, after all.

  “So map them and go around,” Greddark said, clearly still perturbed at the Wayfinder’s earlier insult, veiled though it had been.

  “If it were that simple, I’d have paid for an army of surveyors to blanket the desert twice over and staked out the path for all to use,” Brannan said patiently. Sabira had no doubt that was true, though the Wayfinder was conveniently leaving out the part where he’d charge travelers half a year’s wages for the privilege of doing so. “Unfortunately, these areas never seem to appear in the same spot twice-another manifestation of the Traveler’s Curse, perhaps. In any case, it’s impossible to either anticipate or avoid them. Hence, the different colored cloths. And verbal signals and lamps as required. We’re not complete savages.”

  Sabira turned back to the front of the wagon quickly to hide her grin and escape Greddark’s glower. Despite her objections to Brannan’s business practices, she couldn’t help but admire the Wayfinder’s wit. In fact, it was one of the things she found most attractive in a man. She supposed it was a good thing he wasn’t a couple of decades younger, or Elix might not appreciate the stories she returned to Karrnath with.

  Thinking of her not-quite-betrothed reminded Sabira again of the stakes riding on her return to Vulyar. If she’d known she was going to have to face a dragon on the way to rescue Tilde… no. It wouldn’t have stopped her from coming. She’d see this through and her debt to Ned and his family paid, one way or the other. Only then would she be truly free to give Elix the answer to the question he’d been waiting so very long to ask.

  As Xujil slowed the wagon, Sabira scrambled up into the seat
beside him, and she could hear her companions moving around in the wagon behind her, preparing for the attack. Other wagons began appearing on either side of theirs, flanking them. Soon, the caravan was advancing in a horizontal line across the desert, the dragon’s storm at their backs and the dragon itself somewhere in front of them, waiting.

  But not for long.

  Sabira scanned the ground ahead again, eyes narrowed against the glare as she turned her head in a slow arc from side to side. Xujil was on her left, operating the mechanical wagon’s controls via a series of levers and glowing dials. Beyond him, another multi-legged schooner skittered across the sand, its driver likewise joined by a crossbow-wielding copilot. To her right, one of the magebred camels pulled another wagon. A gnome with a wand sat atop the animal, hunkered down between two of its three humps. Two other gnomes sat on either side of the wagon driver, one with a crossbow and one with a dragonshard-tipped staff. Sabira was glad to see the diminutive passengers. They were obviously from the Library of Korranberg in Zilargo, and while the library wasn’t a school of magic per se, it employed some of the mightiest practitioners in Khorvaire to protect its vaults and expand their contents. If she couldn’t have a contingent of Blademarks at her side to fight a dragon, she’d take a gaggle of spellcasting gnomes, and be glad for it.

  The gnome closest to her-the one with the staff-caught her eye across the gap and winked at her. He’d seen the Siberys shard on her urgrosh peeking over her shoulder and probably thought she was a fellow mage. She was just nodding back at him when the ground in front of his wagon erupted in a spray of sand and a loud, inhuman bellow.

  Sabira whipped her crossbow over, but what she saw momentarily stunned her.

  The sand dragon had burrowed beneath the path of the oncoming caravan and waited until they were just above it. Then it launched itself upward, coming up underneath the camel and crushing the animal and its hapless rider between its huge, spike-framed jaws. The camel shrieked in pain as sharp teeth ripped through its abdomen and the force of the dragon’s massive bite broke the magebred animal’s spine. Its horrific lowing was accompanied by the higher-pitched scream of its rider as the gnome lost both his legs and the lower half of his torso to the dragon’s hunger.

  Quickly shaking off the horror of the attack, Sabira leveled her borrowed crossbow and squeezed the trigger, letting the enchanted quarrel fly. Bolts and spells flew at the dragon from the gnomes’ wagon and from the schooner on the far side of it, but the mundane missiles clattered off the reptilian creature’s tough scales and the spells fizzled and popped in one of the magic-warping zones Brannan had warned of. Only Sabira’s bolt struck home, slamming into the dragon’s neck and sinking deep.

  With a roar, the dragon tossed its head, trying to dislodge the quarrel and the pain it brought. The movement tore the camel’s corpse from its harness and overturned the gnomes’ wagon, sending it tumbling toward the one Sabira rode in. Only some quick maneuvering on Xujil’s part saved them from a similar fate. The drow pulled on two levers while simultaneous kicking a third forward with his left foot, and the mechanical wagon scuttled sideways and forward, just ahead of where the wreckage of the other wagon landed in a cloud of sand and splintered wood.

  Sabira had been reaching for a second green-fletched bolt, but the unexpected movement knocked the quarrels from her lap as she struggled to maintain her seat. Two landed in the sand outside the wagon and one fell to the bottom of the driver’s platform, got wedged between control levers, and was promptly bent when Xujil forced those levers in opposite directions. That left one on the seat between her and the drow. As she snatched it up and began to fit it into the groove, Xujil shoved her aside, just as the dragon’s tail went whizzing over the platform where her head had been a half a heartbeat ago.

  The drow’s touch was oddly cool, and she couldn’t stop herself from shrugging it off as quickly as possible. She tempered the action with a muttered “thanks”-the elf had probably just saved her life, after all-then sat back up, aiming and letting her last quarrel fly. It skimmed off the scales on the dragon’s left hind leg just as the creature disappeared in a crater of sand that quickly closed over the burrowing reptile again and then lay ominously still.

  “ Damn it!”

  “Not your fault.”

  Sabira looked up in surprise to see Skraad perched atop the wagon’s front opening. The orc must have climbed out of the back of the wagon and made his way across the ribbed canvas to get in on the action. She caught a flash of green from the hand crossbow he carried-apparently Brannan had found a few more enchanted bolts. A good thing, considering she’d lost or wasted most of hers.

  “Should have hit it; your aim was perfect. Must be more of that mixed-up magic the Wayfinder was talking about. Looks like it doesn’t just affect spells, but spelled items too.”

  The orc’s hair was billowing about his face in the wind, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she knew he wasn’t trying to placate her-that would imply a concern for her ego she was quite sure the orc didn’t feel. Still, it was good to know the failure hadn’t been hers.

  Not that it changed the outcome any. The dragon was still out there, and it hadn’t had a chance to finish feeding. It would be back.

  She’d barely finished forming the thought when the ground directly in front of their wagon exploded, showering them with sand and warm chunks of what she realized belatedly were masticated camel and gnome flesh.

  Out of ammunition, she tossed the crossbow aside and reached back to remove her shard axe from its quick-release harness. She leaped off the driver’s seat just as Xujil brought one of the wagon’s mechanical legs down on the dragon’s neck, trying to pin it to the ground and keep it from burrowing back into the sand or flying away. The dragon turned its head so the metal limb slid off its scales, ripping through the membranes of its left wing on the way down. With a roar of pain and anger, the dragon drew its head back and slammed forward, knocking the wagon off its legs as easily as Sabira would swat a spider. Skraad leaped free, but Sabira couldn’t see what happened to any of the others inside. And she didn’t have time to worry about it, because the dragon had finally noticed her scrambling to her feet on the ground in front of it.

  With a snort of recognition, the dragon opened its great maw and inhaled, as if trying to suck her into its lungs. She stood fast as her copper hair streamed out in thick ribbons around her head, knowing what was coming. And knowing that she’d have mere seconds to dive out of the way once the dragon let loose with its deadly breath.

  But the dragon was a step ahead of her. It brought its tail around behind her, forming a spiked and scaled barricade, blocking her retreat. Then her hair fell limp as the dragon stopped drawing air in and closed its mouth. Its intelligent amber eyes locked with hers for a long moment as the dragon held its breath. It cocked its reptilian head to one side, as if considering.

  Then, the dragon opened its massive jaws and began to blow.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mol, Barrakas 9, 998 YK

  The Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.

  And then Guisarme was in front of her, his backplates to that gaping maw as he shielded her from the great wind that emanated from the dragon’s throat like a shrapnel-filled gale. As she crouched in front of the warforged, she could see bits of metal and wood sliced off his body as if by a multitude of invisible and impossibly sharp knives. Then the force of the dragon’s breath toppled him on top of her, and they went down, the warforged curling around her like a mother protecting a newborn.

  “Flaywind,” the warforged said, his voice reverberating in her ear but unable to drown out the cries as others without the benefit of a construct shield succumbed to the fury of the dragon’s breath, the flesh scoured from their bones in a matter of endless, agonizing moments.

  After an eternity, the screams and the wind stopped and an eerie silence reigned. Just as Guisarme was peeling himself off of her, another sound cut through the stillness.

  “Everybody
off the sand! Now!”

  Guisarme stood and pulled her up with one arm, strips of shredded wooden tendons hanging down from it like fringe. As she regained her feet, she saw Brannan standing on the overturned wagon, brandishing a glass globe. Red and yellow flames raged within.

  The dragon’s tail was disappearing into the sand as she and the warforged raced for the wagon. Skraad and Greddark were helping Jester aboard, and from the strips of missing metal and wood on the red-armored warforged’s backside, she could see he’d tried to protect the orc in much the same way Guisarme had shielded her. Unfortunately, the bard wasn’t as big as Skraad, and blood oozed down the orc’s arms from a dozen long gashes as he strained to lift the warforged off the sand.

  As she ran, Sabira almost tripped over a small skeleton. As she sidestepped the glistening bones, she saw a dragonshard-tipped staff still clutched in an ivory fist. Apparently the gnome’s magic hadn’t worked any better than her last crossbow bolt had.

  Which made her question why Brannan thought his ball of fire was going to do any good. Spells clearly weren’t working correctly in this area, and a part of her wondered if the dragon had somehow known that and that’s why it had herded them here.

  Jester was up on the wagon now, turning to help her and Guisarme as they made it to the tattered canvas. She quickly harnessed her urgrosh and grabbed the bard’s outstretched hands, using him as a counterweight to keep her boots from slipping as she clambered up an exposed steel rib. Xujil appeared next to Skraad and reached down to help him and Greddark hoist the larger warforged up. As Guisarme’s feet left the sand, the drow shouted, “Clear!”

  Brannan threw the orb. It arced through the air, carried several feet south of where the Wayfinder had aimed by the approaching storm. But Brannan had taken the wind into account and the glass shattered against the sand right where a telltale berm had appeared, heralding the dragon’s next attack.