For several heartbeats, Malystryx didn’t respond. Then a white-hot star exploded inside Kurthak’s head as she forced her way into his brain, ripping into his memories, seeing what had happened, how the ogres had been fooled. Her disgust flooded his mind, and he doubled over, gagging.
Imbecile, her voice snapped in his mind. They set a trap for you, and you charged right into the middle. And I had such hopes for you.
“Help me, Mistress,” the Black-Gazer begged, his throat so tight he nearly strangled on the words. “Please …”
She laughed, then, a cruel, hissing sound that made ice of Kurthak’s heart.
Help you? she echoed mockingly. Whatever for? You have earned your fate, fool.
“I have served you,” Kurthak whimpered. “I’ve done your bidding. You owe me-”
The pain in his mind grew even stronger than before, blinding him, driving him to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, his voice giving way to a silent, agonized scream as the dragon tore his mind apart.
“Owe you?” he shrieked, but it was Malystryx’s voice that issued from his mouth, not his own. “I owe you nothing! You have failed, and you will pay. I will see to it! I will burn everything: the forest, the kender in their tunnels, and yes, Kurthak, you and your pathetic horde. I will burn you all until nothing remains!”
Then, in an eyeblink, she was gone from his tattered mind. Kurthak knelt on the stones for a time, retching. Smoke and screaming surrounded him. Then, roaring with senseless rage, he lunged to his feet again and charged back into the quadrangle. He swung his spiked club wildly, lashing out on all sides. Kender and ogres alike fell around him as he cut a bloody swath across the yard. He sought neither escape nor vengeance; such things were beyond him now. Abandoned by his mistress, unable to stop his horde from falling to pieces around him, Kurthak the Black-Gazer went mad.
A wave of smoke blew in his face, stinging his eyes, but he kept on going, a juggernaut of insane wrath. He only stopped when he reached the far side of the yard and saw the burning buildings before him, barring his way. Crying out in impotent anger, he started to turn around, to charge back into the fray.
He did not see Paxina. She ran toward him on his left, his blind side. He only realized she was there when the spiked butt of her hoopak plunged into his flank. Using her own momentum, the Lord Mayor drove four feet of ironwood through his bowels.
He spun, his left arm lashing out. The back of his hand caught Paxina square in her chest, lifting her off the ground and hurling her away. She struck the ground hard, landing in a motionless heap at the foot of a burning house. He started to turn toward her, but staggered, his head spinning. Hot blood coursed from the wound in his side. His world began to grow dark.
“Malys,” he wheezed. He took two faltering steps, then stumbled to his knees. “Help me.”
Stagheart came out of the smoke, his sabre flashing. Kurthak tried to block the vicious slash, but he no longer had the strength to raise his club. The Plainsman’s sword opened his throat. Choking, Kurthak the Black-Gazer died.
Malystryx’s eyes flared wide, blazing with rage. Above her, Riverwind and Kronn drew back from the rim of the ledge, shaking with fear. She didn’t see them; her wrath consumed her.
“No, my precious kender,” she hissed in a voice as deep and dark as an ossuary. “You may think the game is done, but it is not. You will not escape. Your tunnels will not save you. My flames will find you, even far beneath the earth.”
With unnerving speed, she uncoiled herself, rose on her hind legs, and leapt into the air. Her gargantuan form streaked past Kronn and Riverwind, up toward the rift in the ceiling. With a scraping of scales against stone, she pulled herself through the shaft. Her sinuous tail flicked with anger, then vanished from sight as she crawled out of her lair.
Riverwind and Kronn stared at the ceiling, watching chips of stone rattle down from the shaft and listening to the echoes of the dragon’s passage fade away. Even when the cavern was silent again, they continued to gaze upward, as if waiting for the enormous crimson head to reappear. At last, though, they let out their long-held breaths, and looked down at the floor of the nest.
The egg was loathsome, a leathery abomination six feet long and nearly half as high. It nestled in the middle of the floor, half-buried in a wide bed of warm, white ash. Orange firelight flickered across its rust-red shell, though there were no flames to be seen. Riverwind and Kronn beheld it with silent revulsion.
Wordlessly, the kender unscrewed the cap on the butt of his chapak’s haft. He unspooled the long silk rope from the weapon, slung the axe across his back again, and lashed one end of the line soundly around a rock outcropping at the ledge’s lip. He yanked it hard, testing it, then checked the knot and nodded with satisfaction.
“It’ll hold,” he declared, grabbing the rope with both hands and swinging a leg over the edge.
“No,” Riverwind said, catching his arm before he could go farther. “I will go first.”
Kronn met the old Plainsman’s firm, unwavering gaze. Seeing the resolve there, he hoisted himself back onto the ledge and handed the rope to Riverwind.
“Watch your step,” he said.
Gripping the rope with strong hands, Riverwind lowered himself toward the distant cavern floor.
Moonsong fought her way through the smoke and the press of bodies. The ogres ignored her, trying to flee or hewing wildly at the kender. She saw Stagheart, standing over the body of the ogres’ hetman. She saw Paxina’s hoopak, lodged in Kurthak’s gut. Then, turning, she saw the Lord Mayor sprawled on the ground like a discarded doll. The house Paxina lay beside groaned loudly, its flame-eaten walls starting to buckle. Blazing cinders rained down around the Lord Mayor’s body.
Moonsong ran, dropping to her knees beside Paxina’s unmoving form. As gently as she could, she turned the Lord Mayor over. Paxina’s face was pale beneath the war paint and soot. Checking furtively, Moonsong found the lifebeat in the kender’s throat. She whispered a prayer of thanks, not caring that Mishakal wasn’t there to hear.
“Paxina?” she asked urgently. “Can you hear me?”
The Lord Mayor groaned, her eyelids fluttering open. She looked up at Moonsong and grinned weakly. “Wow,” she said. “Those ogres can sure pack a wallop when they want to.”
A loud creaking sounded above them. Moonsong glanced up and saw the house shift slightly, leaning over them like a smith’s hammer above the anvil. Shards of pitch-soaked plaster broke off the walls, shattered against the cobbles all around them. Cold with fear, Moonsong grabbed Paxina’s hands and dragged her to her feet. The Lord Mayor was still stunned by Kurthak’s blow, however, and her knees buckled limply beneath her. The house continued to crumple, beams and timbers protesting loudly as they gave way.
There were tears in Moonsong’s eyes as she dragged Paxina along with her. “Come on,” she pleaded. “You have to help me. I can’t carry you-you’ve got to walk.”
“I can’t,” Paxina replied. “I can’t feel my legs, Moonsong.” She glanced up at the sagging building. Slate shingles slid from its roof, smashing to finders as they struck the ground. Her eyes hardened. “You’d better leave me.”
Moonsong paled, her eyes widening. “What?”
“You heard me,” Paxina replied firmly. “Find Stagheart, and get out of Kendermore, through the tunnels. I’ll only slow you down. Tell Kronn and Catt I’m sorry …”
Moonsong ignored her. She grabbed Paxina and tried to drag her away from the burning house. The kender’s weight was too much for her, though. They had scarcely gone ten feet when a loud crack split the air. Looking up, Moonsong saw the house’s flaming wall begin to topple.
“Go!” Paxina shouted. Somehow, she twisted free of Moonsong’s grasp. Before the Plainswoman could do anything, the kender shoved her with all her might, sending her stumbling away from the toppling building.
As she staggered, Moonsong saw Stagheart running toward her from Kurthak’s corpse. Then she tripped, crashing headlong to the gr
ound. As she rolled to a stop, she caught a glimpse of Paxina lying on her back, a smile on her face.
“Oh, well,” the Lord Mayor said, unafraid. “It was fun while it lasted.”
Then the house fell on them both, and the world crashed down in fire and darkness. Moonsong smelled hair and flesh burning. Then nothing.
Stagheart shouted in incoherent anguish, reaching out for Moonsong as she collapsed. Then, with a deafening roar, a deluge of blazing plaster and smoldering timbers poured down on her, and she disappeared.
“No!” he roared.
Recklessly he surged forward into the burning rubble. Muscles straining, he lifted pieces of smoldering wood and heaved them aside. He burnt both his hands as he dug, but he didn’t care. Tears washed Kurthak’s blood from his face. He called Moonsong’s name again and again.
When he lifted a charred board and saw her hand, he let out a ragged cry of relief and dread. Working quickly, he picked up debris and heaved it aside. He grabbed beams he should not have been able to lift; desperation fueled his strength, however, and he tossed them away like twigs. At last, he uncovered Moonsong’s body.
Burning pitch covered half her face, searing her flesh. Sobbing, he clawed it away, not noticing as blisters rose on his fingers. Underneath the tar, Moonsong’s skin was bright red. He ignored the sight of it and put aside the sweet stench of seared skin as he lifted her up and carried her out of the wreckage.
He didn’t go back for Paxina; there was nothing more he could do for her. The house’s upper floors, which had fallen on Moonsong, had been made of wood and plaster, but the lowest, the one that had buried the Lord Mayor, had been hewn of fitted stone. Where Paxina had been, moments before, there was only a crude cairn of jagged rubble.
Stagheart glanced around. The yard was all but empty: the ogres were all dead, and most of the kender were gone. Buildings were crashing to the ground everywhere, sending storms of cinders shooting up into the smoke-darkened sky. The heat of the burning city made it hard to breathe.
Holding Moonsong’s limp form close to him, trying not to jostle her, he began to run. He sprinted through pools of blood, skirted around huge and small bodies, then came to a halt at the edge of a dark shaft that led down beneath the ground. A pile of corpses marked where the kender had made a stand, holding off the ogres while their fellows fled. Stagheart stared at them a moment with raw, red eyes, then dashed down the stairs, out of the shambles of Kendermore.
Of the ten thousand kender who had stayed behind to defend their city nearly half perished in the battle. Those who fled through the tunnels emerged several leagues to the west and quickly caught up with the far greater numbers who had escaped through Kendermore’s sundered walls. They struggled wearily onward through the dead forest, straining toward the distant fields of Balifor. Word of Paxina Thistleknot’s death spread quickly, and the kender wept for her, but they did not slow their pace. There was still a long way to go.
Less than an hour after the last survivors escaped Kendermore, however, one young kender glanced back at the plume of black smoke rising from the city’s ruins and cried out in terror. The fleeing kender stopped, turned, then echoed his exclamation with sobs and screams of their own.
In the distance, too small yet to see clearly but growing steadily larger, a red, winged form streaked across the sky.
Chapter 26
Malystryx shrieked angrily as the barren land streaked by beneath her. She flew high over the Desolation, the wind roaring in her ears. Far ahead of her lay the parched bones of the Kenderwood. A black, smoky finger stuck up from its midst, pointing defiantly toward the empty, blue sky. She stared at it balefully, knowing she looked upon the downfall of Kurthak the Black-Gazer’s horde. She knew, too, that the kender were still alive.
“Not for long, miserable wretches,” she sneered. “You have won nothing. I will turn your bones to ashes.”
She soared onward, the Kenderwood inching steadily closer.
His arms burning, Riverwind lowered himself toward the floor of the cavern. Eight feet above the ground, he lost his grip and fell, landing hard and grunting with pain. He lay on his back a moment, his chest heaving, then forced himself to stand.
“You all right?” Kronn called from above, his voice echoing hollowly off the walls of the cave.
Riverwind nodded weakly. “Yes,” he lied, his face contorting with agony as he clutched at his stomach.
“All right,” the kender declared. “Look out below. I’m coming down.”
Wrapping the rope about himself, he swung over the ledge and started to descend. He rappelled down, pushing off the cavern wall as he slid recklessly down the rope. In less than a minute he stood on the ground beside Riverwind, panting and flushed.
“Whew,” he said, grinning. “I forgot how dizzy that makes me.” He crouched down, clutching his knees as he cleared his head. After a moment he knelt, then plucked a small, leathery shard from the floor of the cave. He held it up as he stood, showing it to Riverwind. “Eggshell,” he said, and gestured across the floor. The edges of the cave were littered with such fragments. “Just like you said-she laid a whole clutch of them, then destroyed all but one.”
Together, they looked across the cavern at the ash-heap and the abomination nestled in its midst. “The strongest one,” Riverwind said.
They stood still for a moment, then exchanged determined glances. Kronn reached over his shoulder and drew his chapak from his back, smiling grimly. “All right,” he declared.
“Let’s be done with this.”
Riverwind and Kronn crept across the cavern floor. As he walked, the old Plainsman stole a furtive glance up at the ceiling. The cleft in the rock was empty. Squaring his jaw, he looked toward the egg.
It was even more repulsive up close than it had been from above. Its leathery shell gleamed dully, and it seemed to pulse as they approached. The stink of brimstone that hung about it was almost suffocating. The ash pile surrounding it rippled, and glints of light danced about it, faster with every step, bobbing like a multitude of golden will-o’-wisps.
They stopped at the edge of the ash pile. Riverwind reached to his belt, his fingers clasping about the handle of Brightdawn’s flanged mace. Drawing the weapon, he stepped forward.
The instant his foot touched the ashes, the flitting motes of firelight stopped moving. With a noise like a distant blast of wind, they blazed brightly and began to coalesce. He stared in horror as they gathered together, forming a lithe, wriggling shape.
The serpent was fifty feet long, and its red-gold scales glittered as it coiled protectively around Malys’s egg. Its hooded head rose above Riverwind and Kronn, baring a mouthful of long, needle-sharp fangs and hissing like water thrown on hot stones. Two bright, blood-red spots glowed malevolently in the depths of its eye sockets.
“Branchala shave me bald,” Kronn swore devoutly.
In an eyeblink, the serpent’s head surged down, toward Riverwind. He tried to leap away, but its jaws clamped fast around his right ankle, fangs sinking deep into his flesh. Gagging with pain, he swung Brightdawn’s mace, bringing it down on the serpent’s head. The blow bounced harmlessly off the monster’s skull. Then the serpent raised its head again, jerking Riverwind off the ground.
The old Plainsman flailed his arms in the air, hanging upside down from the fiend’s mouth. Beneath him, Kronn raised his chapak and struck at the serpent’s body with all his might. Its scales turned the blow harmlessly aside. Tightening its grip on Riverwind’s leg, the serpent began to shake him violently, frying to snap his spine.
Riverwind fought ferociously, battering the serpent with his daughter’s mace. Each blow was strong enough to crush a man’s ribs, but the serpent ignored them completely, continuing to thrash him back and forth. At last the mace fell from Riverwind’s hand, landing with a puff in the bed of ashes. He continued to struggle, beating at the serpent with his bare fists.
Kronn swung his chapak again and again, trying to penetrate the serpent’s scales.
Every time, the axe glanced off harmlessly-until, finally, an errant swing grazed part of the serpent’s soft underbelly. Burning blood dripped from the wound.
Kronn glanced at the wound, then looked up at Riverwind. The serpent was still shaking the Plainsman, who had gone limp in its jaws. Furiously the kender raised his chapak high and buried its head deep in the serpent’s throat.
The first blow didn’t kill the monster, nor did the second or the third. Kronn struck the serpent’s throat again and again, like a lumberjack trying to fell a tree. The monster’s blood scorched Kronn’s skin, but the kender ignored the pain and continued to chop at the serpent.
Kronn cleaved the monster’s flesh a dozen more times, laying open its innards. At last, it stopped shaking Riverwind, then slumped over and died.
The old Plainsman lay motionless, his ankle still clamped in the serpent’s jaws. Then he raised his head and looked at Kronn, his hair and clothes dusted with fine, powdery ash.
Kronn breathed a sigh of immense relief. “How bad are you hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Riverwind answered, staring at his wounded leg. “I can’t feel anything below my knee.”
Together, they pried open the serpent’s viselike jaws. Blood welled from the old Plainsman’s leg as the monster’s fangs pulled out of his flesh, but he did not wince or moan. As soon as he was free, the serpent’s shimmering body turned dull black, then crumbled into a shapeless heap of soot.
“I should have known Malys would put a ward on this place,” Kronn muttered, angry with himself. “She’d want to protect her egg.”
The serpent’s teeth had shredded Riverwind’s leather boot, then had done the same to his skin. The flow of blood, strong at first, was choked off by the rapid swelling of the wound. Working quickly, Riverwind drew his dagger and cut off his pantleg at the knee. The wound darkened, the flesh surrounding it puffing up until it was the size of a kurpa melon. At last, however, it ceased to swell, though it continued to throb angrily, oozing thin trickles of blood. Kronn stared at it, sickened, as the old Plainsman extended his hand toward him.
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