The kender watched him fall, then looked around with satisfaction. His eyes met Riverwind’s, and he grinned.
The Plainsman stared back, still half amazed, then slumped wearily to the deck.
Red Reaver was still smoldering at sunset, creaking and crackling. The cinders of her hull glowed red in the deepening dark. She listed sideways as seawater seeped in through her fire-weakened hull, and her bow was considerably closer to the waterline than her stern, but stubbornly she refused to sink. The black, charred fingers of her masts clutched upward, toward the pale, rising moon.
Amid the fire’s dim light, the survivors of the battle wrapped their dead in blankets and lined them along the bloodstained deck. It had been a heavy toll. Nine of the escaped slaves, and all of Captain Ar-Tam’s crew save three young seamen, had been slain. The pirates were all dead, too, but the slaves and sailors had given them to the sharks without a funeral.
The slaves’ black-bearded leader, a Khurrish mariner named Alaruq ur-Phadh, bent over each of his dead fellows and placed a steel coin-given to him by Kronn, who had salvaged some small part of the Reaver’s spoils-in each man’s mouth. It was an old rite of the Mikku, the clan to which Alaruq and his fellows belonged; the coins were payment for the guardians of the underworld, so the dead could pass by the Abyss and find peace among the stars.
Kael Ar-Tam gave his men no coins, nor did he speak as he looked over the corpses of his men. The creases on his scar-lined face deepened as his eyes flicked from body to body.
Swiftraven lay on a bundle of sailcloth, moaning as Brightdawn tended his wounds. Catt knelt at his side, holding his hand. He managed to smile at the kender.
“I doubted you,” he murmured. “I thought you were hiding, that you were afraid to help us.” He drew a deep breath, summoning words he found hard to speak. “I’m sorry.”
Red Reaver’s mizzenmast, made brittle by burning, groaned loudly against the gusting wind, then snapped and fell with a crash. Everyone on Brinestrider jumped at the sound. Then Alaruq spoke a word to the other escaped slaves. The men were dressed now, having taken clothes from the dead sailors’ lockers, but there was no hiding the hollow pallor of their faces or the difficult shadows deep within their eyes. One by one, the slaves lifted the shrouded bodies and dropped them into the sea. The corpses bobbed briefly on the waves before the waterlogged blankets dragged them down.
When the last of the dead had been cast overboard, Riverwind stood at Brinestrider’s rail and stared silently out across the sea. After a time, he reached into his fur vest and pulled out the Forever Charm. He looked at it accusingly, his fingers tracing its endless loop. Then he heard footsteps on the deck behind him. Recognizing the rhythm of his daughter’s light but confident stride, he curled his fingers around the charm, hiding it from view.
“You’re mad at them, aren’t you?” Brightdawn asked. She drew up beside him, leaning against the rail and following his gaze across the water. “The gods.”
“I braved death on black wings for Mishakal.” Riverwind said, frowning. “I brought her staff out of Xak Tsaroth, and your mother and I restored mankind’s faith in her.”
Brightdawn looked at him. “And, in return, she abandoned you.” She reached out, rested a gentle hand on his arm. “She owes you more than this, Father.”
The Plainsman sighed, a deep, woeful sound.
Her grasp on his arm tightened. “It’s all right to be angry, Father,” she murmured. “Do you remember Snaketooth?”
Riverwind nodded. Snaketooth had been the war priest of the Que-Kiri. Two years ago, when he’d learned that Kiri-Jolith had left the world, he had stopped eating out of despair. Young and strong at the start of his self-imposed fast, he had withered to a skeleton within two months, refusing even simple gruel or broth. Then, still grieving, he had died.
“Chief Graywinter told me, not long after the funeral, that when the women were washing Snaketooth’s body, they found something in his hand,” Brightdawn pressed. “Do you know what it was?”
Her father shook his head.
“It was a bison’s horn,” she said. “Kiri-Jolith’s holy symbol. They had to pry it from his fingers.”
A shudder wracked Riverwind’s body. He opened his fist and stared at the Forever Charm. Then he shook his head and draped it around his neck once more. He turned to Brightdawn as he tucked the medallion back into his vest. “I must ask you to do something when we reach Ak-Thain,” he said.
“I know.”
“Return to the Plains,” he pleaded. “Take Swiftraven with you.”
She shook her head. “No. There is more at stake now,” Brightdawn answered. “I owe my life to Kronn and Catt, after today-so does Swiftraven. Neither of us is going to turn our backs on a debt to the kender.”
“You would go against your own father’s wishes, then?”
Brightdawn closed her eyes. “Father,” she said, “have you heard the story of the princess who loved the shepherd boy? She went against her father’s wishes, too.”
“Don’t play games with me, child,” Riverwind snapped.
“I am not a child!” Brightdawn shot back. “I am a grown woman, and I know this isn’t a game. But what would have happened if Mother had heeded her father instead of following what was in her heart? I wouldn’t be standing here, for one thing.” Her strong, sky-blue eyes, so much like her mother’s, fixed on his. “I will go on to Kendermore, Father, because I must. Please don’t ask me to do otherwise.”
With that, she turned and walked away. Riverwind closed his eyes, but tears spilled forth anyway, leaving trails on his cheeks that glistened in the moonlight.
Out across the water, Red Reaver tipped up, slowly sinking beneath the waves.
Chapter 11
Hekhorath sighed with pleasure as he glided on the warm updrafts that rose from the blasted ruins of the Dairly Plains. He stretched his claws and hissed with pleasure. He circled slowly over the riven, rocky barrens that once had been fertile grasslands, tendrils of smoke curling from his nostrils and vanishing on the warm, rushing wind. The air held the faint aroma of brimstone and soot. It was a heady scent, and Hekhorath savored it as a man might enjoy the bouquet of a fine wine.
He was still young, as dragons measure time, though he had lived longer than even the oldest elves on Krynn. He had dwelt in the caves to the south of the Dairlies for more than three decades, having been left behind by the retreating dragonarmies at the end of the War of the Lance. He had found plentiful prey there, both animal and human, and though he had to compete with a few other wyrms, he’d carved out his own territory with plenty of livestock and human barbarians to keep him fed. He had even escaped the worst of the fighting during the Chaos War; the All-Father’s legions had attacked the Dairlies, but not in force. The devastation that had ravaged other parts of Ansalon simply hadn’t come to Hekhorath’s comfortable corner of the world. Life had been pleasant, easy.
Then Malystryx had come.
Hekhorath had first heard rumors of the great female red more than a year ago but had paid them little heed. Among the dragons of the Dairlies, a newcomer was always cause for interest, perhaps caution… but never alarm. When he’d heard Malys had taken up in Blood Watch, he had briefly considered flying north to investigate but had set the idea aside and hadn’t thought about her for months.
Then one morning last autumn as he was soaring over the Maw, the narrow bay that divided the Dairlies from the rest of Goodlund, he had been approached by a young green dragon. The green, who had been named Sthinissh, had a lair not far from Hekhorath’s in a small forest near the place called Madding Springs. Sthinissh, like most greens, was fond of talking. He had been the first one to tell Hekhorath about Malystryx’s arrival.
“Hekhorath!” Sthinissh had called to him, arrowing down through a cloud bank. “I must speak with you!”
At first, Hekhorath had considered ignoring him-the green’s prattling often wore on his nerves-but something in Sthinissh’s voice had given him pa
use: fear.
That caught his interest. Sthinissh had been barely more than a hatchling, still filled with the hubris of the very young. Hekhorath had never known him to be afraid of anything. He had slowed his flight, allowed the smaller wyrm to catch up. “What’s the matter?” he’d asked.
“It’s Malystryx,” Sthinissh had replied. “She’s killed Andorung.”
That had given Hekhorath pause. Andorung had been a red, the oldest, largest dragon in the Dairlies and one of the few left in all of Ansalon who’d been present at the great battle between Takhisis and the vile Huma Dragonbane. If the evil dragons of eastern Goodlund revered anything now that Takhisis was gone, Andorung had been it.
“Dead?” Hekhorath had asked. “Are you certain?”
Sthinissh had nodded. “I saw his corpse myself She’d… done things to it.”
“Things?”
“Yes.” Sthinissh had been silent a moment, an odd look in his glinting red eyes. “He’d withered. It was like he’d lain in the sun for a year.”
“Are you sure that is true?” Hekhorath had pressed. “He was very old… he could have died on the wing, away from his lair…
“I’m sure,” Sthinissh had retorted. “There was blood on the ground around his body-it was still fresh. And.
His voice had trailed off.
Hekhorath had glanced at him sharply. “And what?”
“His head was missing.” Sthinissh had swallowed hard. “I think she took it.”
“What?” Hekhorath had exclaimed. “Why would she take his head?”
“I don’t know. As a trophy, perhaps. But that doesn’t explain why the rest of him was a… a husk. And this isn’t the first time this has happened, either. From what I hear, she did the same thing to a pair of coppers near the Mistlestraits. And others are missing, too.”
“How many others?”
Sthinissh had swallowed again. “Ten, maybe more.”
“Ten?” Hekhorath had echoed, disbelievingly. “That’s almost every dragon north of the Maw!”
“No,” Sthinissh had replied gravely. “That is every dragon north of the Maw. She’s killing them, one by one, and I don’t think it’s just for territory. Strange things are happening at Blood Watch, Hekhorath. The land’s changing. It’s grown barren, and I could swear I saw the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands.”
“Blood of Takhisis.” Suddenly, Hekhorath had understood Sthinissh’s fear. “You don’t think she’s responsible for that, do you?”
The green had looked at him. “Can you think of another explanation?”
Hekhorath had considered this, then shaken his head. “If she’s shaping the land, she’s a more powerful magic user than Andorung ever was… or any dragon since the Age of Dreams.”
“And if she’s slaughtered every dragon in the north,” Sthinissh had said, “then maybe we’re next.”
Hekhorath had thought a great deal about Malystryx over the following weeks. By the time word reached him that she had destroyed the village of Ran-Khal and slain Aester, a bronze dragon who laired nearby, he’d had an idea of what to do about her. When he’d sought out Sthinissh soon after and found the green’s withered, headless body sprawled amid the ashes that once had been his forest, he’d made up his mind. With every dragon who died on the Dairlies, the chances had grown that she would come for him.
And so at the beginning of the winter he had left his lair and flown north, hoping to find her first.
He’d soon discovered that Sthinissh had been right. The land was changing. What had been only a hint of barrenness months before, however, had turned into a full-fledged blight. There’d been more than just the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands, and a volcano had risen at Blood Watch. No tree, no shrub, no plant disturbed the parched, stony landscape. The heat was intense, blistering.
In short, for a red dragon it was glorious. A thrill had surged through Hekhorath’s veins as he soared above the blasted terrain, streaking toward the smoldering volcano that was Malystryx’s lair.
Then he’d seen her, and the thrill had given way to awe. She had been gigantic even then, larger than any dragon he’d ever seen-and he had seen the largest wyrms in the dragonarmies. She had emerged from a shaft in the side of the volcano, her beating wings whipping up great clouds of ash and dust, and had spotted him almost instantly. Hekhorath had forced himself to swallow sudden terror as she’d streaked toward him, moving as swift as a hurricane. He’d known she could kill him as easily as he might slaughter a herdsman’s goat. Then she would defile his body, and take his head… unless he gave her another option.
When he’d decided she was close enough, he’d pulled up sharply, soaring high, his wings straining against the pull of gravity. The blasted earth had shot away beneath him, the air around him growing cold and thin. When he’d finally judged he was high enough, he’d drawn a deep breath, raised his head skyward, and exhaled a tremendous jet of flame.
The fiery torrent had shot upward hundreds of yards, hot enough to melt steel. He’d belched it forth until he’d had no more flames in him to breathe. Then, weak and dizzy, he’d tucked his wings in tight against his scarred sides and dived back toward the ground, toward Malys.
She’d looked at him as he approached, her lips curling with amusement. “I take it,” she’d said wryly, “that that’s your way of saying you wish to be my consort.”
“Yes,” he’d answered, unable to summon enough breath to say anything more.
“Interesting.” She had banked, circling lazily around him, forcing him to keep turning in order to face her. “What makes you so sure I have any desire for such a thing?”
Sensing she was testing him, he’d frowned in concentration, choosing each word of his response with meticulous care. “I’m not sure,” he’d said. “But I am drawn to your power nevertheless. If I cannot have this honor, then I beg you to slay me now, for I refuse to live unless I can bask in your glory.”
She had circled him silently for quite some time. Then, suddenly, she had stopped, hovering in the air before him. “I cannot decide,” she’d told him. “Either you are exceedingly clever, or you are the greatest idiot I have ever met. Whichever it may be, you have intrigued me. Very well, then. Let us be mates.”
With that, she had wheeled in midair and soared back toward Blood Watch. Hekhorath had watched her depart, amazed, for a heartbeat. Then, laughing, he had winged after her.
She had shown him many things, both wondrous and horrible, in the months they had shared her lair. Both together and separately, they had scorched the Dairlies, blasting one barbarian village after another. He had watched as she broke the mind of Yovanna, the human woman she had taken as her servant, and remade it to suit her will. He had helped her hunt down and destroy other dragons, though she refused to let him witness what she did to their bodies after they were dead-or what became of the severed heads she brought back to their lair. It was, in every way, a one-sided pairing. Malystryx had power over him, and he had none over her. Even when they lay in her nest, deep within the heart of the volcano, their sinuous bodies coiled about each other, he was always aware that she was his master, and he her thrall.
None of that mattered, though. Of the score of dragons who had once dwelt in the Dairlies, only he remained alive, because only he had been smart enough to make himself useful to Malys, rather than a hindrance.
Baring his fangs in a smile, he banked, gliding north, toward the smoldering peak of Blood Watch.
“Mistress.”
Malys stirred, stretching her vast bulk across the enormous cavern of her nest. The room was dark, but that mattered little; the dragon could see as well in shadow as in light. Her golden eyes burning, she arched her neck to look up the wall of the vault.
A hundred feet above the cavern floor, a smooth, narrow tunnel gaped in the wall. It was one of two entrances to Malystryx’s nest, and the only one usable by beings incapable of flight; the second, a broad shaft that led from the cavern’s ceiling to a fis
sure in the side of the volcano, was accessible only to Malys and Hekhorath. The mouth of the narrow tunnel led onto a broad ledge that resembled a balcony, and upon that balcony stood a figure swathed in black cloth. Unlike the handful of other mortals who had stood on the ledge, this figure did not shrink back from the dragon’s glare, nor did it tremble when Malys snorted, flames flickering briefly from her nostrils.
“Yovanna,” the dragon purred, her tone vaguely menacing. “You bring news?”
The robed figure bowed in deference. “Yes, Mistress,” she declared. “You asked me to tell you when he returned.”
Malys couldn’t quite hide her smile at the distaste with which Yovanna spoke the word. He. There was very little love lost between her servant and her consort. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Over the Hollowlands. He will be here soon, My Queen.”
“Will you not say his name?”
“I would rather not.”
The dragon growled a chuckle. “It would seem when I reshaped your mind I did not crush your capacity for jealousy Yovanna.”
“Jealousy, My Queen?”
“Of Hekhorath.”
The hooded head angled slightly. “I had not considered it that way,” she said thoughtfully. “With your pardon, however, I think you misread me.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, Mistress,” Yovanna replied, nodding. “When you reshaped me, you made me your protector as well as your servant. What you see as jealousy-and I understand how it might seem that way-is, in truth, mistrust. He is disloyal, Mistress. Not now, perhaps, but someday.”
Spirit of the Wind bot-1 Page 14