Текст книги "Whisper of Venom"

Автор книги: Richard Lee Byers

Соавторы: Richard Lee Byers
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Many of the arrows glanced off Jaxanaedegor’s scales. Others stuck-but only in his hide, without piercing what lay beneath. One, however, drove deep into his brow. In response, he spat a stream of vapor that engulfed the marksman and his mount. The two plummeted together.

Aoth hammered the dark orb with blasts of fire, six detonating in succession quick as the beats of his racing heart. The blasts flung vampires through the air and even tore a couple apart. But the talisman remained intact.

He decided he needed to get close to the thing. He hated to abandon his men to fight Jaxanaedegor by themselves, but if they could distract the wyrm and survive for just a few moments, maybe they’d be all right.

Jet wheeled. When he was behind Jaxanaedegor, he swooped.

For a moment Aoth thought the undead green truly had lost track of them. Then he felt Jet’s jolt of alarm and looked up. Growing larger by the moment, Jaxanaedegor seemed to fill the sunless sky. His claws were poised to catch and tear.

Jet lashed his wings to change course. Then he furled them and dropped like a stone into the leafless upper limbs inside the bubble of darkness.

Branches cracked beneath the griffon and his rider, and bashed and raked them as they fell through. The punishment was like enduring a beating and a tumble down a staircase at the same time. But at least a creature as huge as Jaxanaedegor couldn’t pursue them down into the treetops.

At least not in solid form. Aoth had hoped the dragon would veer off, set down outside the copse, then reenter at ground level. Instead, he dissolved into mist. Aoth caught a whiff of the putrid-smelling fumes. It nauseated him and made him feel dizzy and weak.

Aoth judged-or perhaps merely hoped-that he’d have a few moments to act before Jaxanaedegor floated to the ground and turned solid again. Then Jet slammed down hard. Aoth felt the flash of pain as an aquiline front leg snapped.

I’m all right!the griffon snapped. Go!

Gaunt, pale figures rushed them. Jet gave Aoth just enough time to swing himself out of the saddle, then sprang to meet the vampires. His beak slashed and bit, and his good foreleg clawed to devastating effect. Yet even so, creatures pounced on him and clung, gnawing and tearing with their fangs.

As before, Aoth couldn’t linger to help. He dashed toward the tripod. Another vampire ran in on his flank. It had a poleaxe with what appeared to be grimacing faces mirrored in the blade, although there was nothing outside the steel to cast the reflections.

The creature struck. Grunting with effort, Aoth parried with his spear, then thrust it into his opponent’s heart. Since he couldn’t leave it there, he used a bit more of his rapidly dwindling power to draw flame from the point, sear the organ, and so keep the vampire from getting right back up again.

That cleared the way to the black globe. He rattled off a spell to ensure he struck hard and true. Meanwhile, wisps of mist coiled together and congealed into a wedge-shaped head. Jaxanaedegor leaped forward, clearing Jet and his frenzied foes in the process.

Releasing every bit of force still bound in the spear, Aoth drove the weapon into the talisman. The orb shattered, and sunlight stabbed through the naked branches overhead.

Jaxanaedegor was lifting a foreleg to strike when the radiance caught him. At once his immense scaly body charred and smoked, and he jerked in agony. Backpedaling, Aoth thought, Burn, you whoreson! Die!

But the latter was too much to hope for. Mastering his pain, Jaxanaedegor snarled words of power and vanished. Magic had translated him through space, no doubt to somewhere dark and safe.

Aoth pivoted toward Jet. The lesser vampires actually had burned to death, and-still alive despite a dozen gory bite wounds-the griffon stood on three legs amid smoldering drifts of ash.

“Can you get me back up into the sky?” asked Aoth.

“Oh, why not?” Jet replied. “What’s one more painful test of strength at this point?”

Feeling guilty-but only slightly, because he knew how hardy the griffon actually was-Aoth climbed back into the saddle. Jet limped out of the trees, accelerated, lashed his wings, and flew. The sellswords above them cheered, and their mounts screeched. Aoth acknowledged it by brandishing his spear.

Until a prodigious roar drowned out the acclaim. At the other end of the battlefield, from behind the earthwork at the top of the rise, Tchazzar soared upward in dragon form.

Bigger even than Jaxanaedegor, he annihilated the zombie dragon with a flare of fiery breath that nearly engulfed Gaedynn and Eider as well. Then, wings beating, he climbed.

One of the enemy reds tried to do the same. But Tchazzar gained the high air, then plunged at the smaller reptile like a hawk diving at a pigeon. He seized it and ripped it apart with fang and claw.

By that time, the other enemy red was fleeing north. Aoth thought it had enough of a head start to escape. But Tchazzar snarled, and Aoth felt a charge of supernatural coercion in the noise. It made his head throb even though it wasn’t directed at him.

The lesser red flailed, then labored onward clumsily like it was carrying an enormous weight or its muscles were cramping. As a result, Tchazzar had no trouble overtaking it.

When the enemy red turned to fight, it regained its agility. Either Tchazzar had contemptuously restored it, or that particular curse could only afflict a fleeing victim. The Threskelan wyrm found rising air, soared, then dived as Tchazzar had hurtled down at his comrade.

The war hero spat flame. Which should have had little or no effect on a fellow red. Yet it blasted chunks of flesh from his foe’s skull and burned or melted its eyes in their sockets. Aoth winced to imagine the heat and force required.

Tchazzar then flicked his wings, got out of the way of the blind, maimed wyrm, and seized it as it plunged by. He held onto it for the heartbeat it took to bite its head off, then let the bloody, burning pieces fall.

After that, he turned his murderous attention to an unfortunate company of kobolds. But he couldn’t attack everyone at once, and so a fair number of the enemy would get away to regroup later.

For, the Firelord knew, Tchazzar’s warriors were in no condition to pursue them. Somehow they’d averted complete destruction while waiting-and waiting-for the self-proclaimed god to make his move. But they’d taken a brutal mauling.

NINE

16 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

The Market Floor echoed with the fast, complex clatter of the victory drums, and dancers leaped and whirled to the rhythms. Khouryn reflected that dragonborn could be remarkably nimble for such a solidly built people, although in the present circumstances they weren’t always nimble enough. Many dances involved simulated combat with live blades, or tossing weapons into the air and catching them, and some folk watched from the sidelines with freshly bandaged hurts to attest to a fumble.

He and Medrash tried to slip past one such celebration, convened beneath a platinum and purple banner of Bahamut. But someone recognized them, and people clustered around to shake their hands and press wooden cups of wine and apple brandy into them.

Khouryn supposed it made sense. Thanks to the mounted charge and the other tactics he’d introduced, he and Medrash had emerged from the recent battle as heroes. Unfortunately, so had the leaders and warriors of the Platinum Cadre, and people-including many of the cultists-had a tendency to see all the innovations as parts of a greater whole. Especially since Medrash and Patrin had both proclaimed themselves the exotic sort of champion called paladins and fought side by side to save the vanquisher.

Since there was drink involved, Khouryn didn’t mind the attention all that much. He suspected it bothered Medrash more, but the Daardendrien’s natural courtesy masked it.

Eventually they managed to make their escape. They found a twisting staircase and descended into the Catacombs.

Balasar stepped from a shadowy niche in the wall. “It took you long enough,” he said.

“Your fellow maniacs are dancing all over the Market Floor,” Medrash said. “It ties up traffic.” He and his clan brother clasped hands.

Khouryn peered down the corridor with its dim, infrequent lights. “You’re sure you weren’t followed?” he asked.

Medrash smiled slightly. “He wasn’t. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s sneak. He learned it breaking curfew and the rest of our elders’ rules.”

“Fair enough.” Khouryn raised his hand to his chin, then made himself lower it again. He’d never considered himself vain, at least not about his appearance, but since the venom had burned his beard he’d acquired the unconscious impulse to cover the sad remains. “So, why did you want to meet us?”

“Did someone look at the bag?” Balasar asked.

Medrash nodded. “The wizard couldn’t tell a thing.”

“I swear,” Balasar said, “the talisman that interfered with the horses was in there.”

“We believe you,” Khouryn said. “Why else did the riders regain control as soon as you stole it? Why, if the contents weren’t incriminating, did they turn to dust as soon as a hand other than Nala’s untied the cord? But we can’t prove anything.”

“So the Platinum Cadre are marvels,” said Medrash, “winning new converts by the day. They’ll march with the rest of us when we head back onto Black Ash Plain to break the tribal alliance once and for all. Where, for all we know, Nala will betray us again.”

Balasar grinned one of the fang-bearing grins so often unsettling to folk unaccustomed to dragonborn. “Maybe not.”

Medrash’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning what?”

“I haven’t reported everything I’ve done as a spy. It’s dangerous to write very much, and impossible to hide a big sheet of parchment behind a stone. So you don’t know about the glassblower and her sand.”

He proceeded to tell how he’d followed said glassblower and two other cultists into the Catacombs, where he’d run afoul of a flying creature and a group of reanimated corpses.

“Later,” he concluded, “I made my way back to the spot where the winged thing ambushed me. There was no sign of it, so maybe I actually did kill it. But when I pressed on, I couldn’t find where Raiann and the others had gone, or anyplace interesting.”

“Still,” Khouryn said, “I think you were close.” He reached to stroke his chin, then lowered his hand again. “I’ve never actually run into a creature like the one you met, but I think I know what it is-a portal drake. The kind of watchdog a dragon priestess might use to guard the approach to something important.”

“Which means Torm has given us one more chance to unmask Nala before the army marches,” Medrash said. He always stood tall, but now seemed to draw himself up straighter still. “Lead on, kinsman.”

Khouryn’s nerves felt taut as they prowled along. It had nothing to do with the darkness or the stone overhead and all around. To a dwarf, such an environment was arguably more congenial than clear skies and green fields. Nor was he worried about the portal drake. Even if it was still alive, the three of them could handle it.

He was concerned because by then, Nala almost certainly knew someone had fought the reptile and survived. She didn’t know it was Balasar, or she would have tried to murder the Daardendrien as, Khouryn suspected, she’d sent the devil on the balcony to dispose of him. But she’d likely emplaced something worse than a portal drake and zombies to keep her secrets safe.

“I can’t believe Patrin knows,” Medrash said abruptly. “It’s difficult to imagine how he could notknow, being a champion of the dragon god and Nala’s lover too, but I can’t believe he understands the vileness.”

Khouryn grunted. “I think it’s the same with most of the cultists, like the ones who wanted us to join their revels. They’re just misguided. At least until Nala has enough time to really twist their heads around.”

“That’s true,” Medrash said. “We’re fighting to save them as much as anyone else.”

“A noble sentiment,” Balasar said. “But it won’t mean a fish’s toenail if we can’t figure out how to win. We’re coming up on the corner where the portal drake attacked me. I’ll give the signal Raiann gave. If the wretched beast is still alive, that may convince it to leave us alone.” He whistled three ascending notes, the sounds reverberating off the walls.

Afterward, they stalked around the right-angle bend without incident. The tunnel beyond looked no different than the dark, lonely ones they’d just traversed.

“Can one of you find the way from here?” Balasar asked.

“I can ask the Loyal Fury for a sign,” Medrash said.

“And I can be a dwarf,” said Khouryn. “Maybe Lady Luck will smile on one of us.” He pulled off one of his leather and steel gauntlets and ran his fingertips along the right wall as they moved ahead. The granite was smooth and cool to the touch.

He wasn’t as attuned to rock or as adept at stonework as the master quarrymen, miners, and builders of his people. From childhood it had been clear that the Soul Forger had created him for war, and he’d pursued his calling gladly. Yet even so, he fancied he had a fair chance at finding something that even a dragonborn as clever as Balasar had missed.

Behind him, Medrash murmured a prayer. The holy Power he was drawing down warmed the air and made Khouryn feel vibrantly healthy and alert. But it didn’t produce a disembodied hand with an outstretched finger, or any other supernatural signpost to point the way.

Fortunately, it didn’t need to.

Though Khouryn was currently running his hand along the right wall, he suddenly sensed something different about the left one. When he looked straight at it, he spotted the minute cracks that outlined a hidden door. Maybe he’d unconsciously noticed them before, or else some subtler instinct was at work.

“Here,” he said, pointing. “A door of sorts. I think it turns on a central pivot.” He pushed on the wall, but there wasn’t any give at all. “Or at least it should.”

“You mean it’s latched or locked,” Balasar said. He ran his hands over the surface. “I don’t feel a catch, a keyhole, or anything like that.”

“It could be magic,” Khouryn said. “We might need a talisman, or to speak a password.”

Balasar whistled the same three notes that had supposedly calmed the portal drake. They didn’t open the wall. “I guess we could bring a mage down here.”

“That may not be necessary,” said Medrash. He planted his hands on the door and chanted somewhat louder than he had before. Khouryn had a sense of fierce but beneficent Power gathering. Then, grunting, Medrash pushed with all his might. And for that one moment he evidently possessed a giant’s strength, because something crunched and then the section of wall scraped partway open.

If it had opened fully, the space would have been just large enough for a donkey cart to squeeze through. On the other side were stone sarcophagi like Balasar had described, though Khouryn judged that this was a larger and even more opulent tomb. Tapers burned in five-branched candelabra, the flames variously red, blue, white, green, or teardrops of shadow. The statue of a five-headed dragon reared in the gloom.

As they crept inside, Balasar murmured, “I wonder why the family thought they needed a secret way in and out of their crypt. Or do you think the builders installed the door on the sly, so they could rob the dead?”

“I don’t know,” Khouryn said. “But I’ll tell you something I havefigured out. Nala doesn’t really worship Bahamut. This is a shrine-”

He suddenly sensed motion on his left. He pivoted just in time to see Medrash cut at his head.

Aoth noticed that the faces around the crackling, smoky campfire all had one thing in common. They reflected a grinding weariness. Most of them looked worried too. But, included in the council of war simply because they were mages, Oraxes and Meralaine were surreptitiously trading smiles as they sat side by side on the ground.

Aoth supposed they were too ignorant to be scared. Or maybe youthful infatuation trumped mundane concerns. He wondered with a touch of wistfulness if he’d ever suffered from that particular delirium. Maybe not. His temperament had always been phlegmatic and pragmatic. Certainly, with a hundred years behind him, he was in no danger of experiencing it now.

Although Cera had showed him he could still like a woman well enough to do something reckless to help her. He smiled and hoped she was keeping out of trouble in Soolabax.

Then Tchazzar came striding up to the fire with a crimson cloak billowing out behind him and Jhesrhi in tow. Everyone rose to bow or salute as quickly as stiff, aching limbs would allow.

The war hero sat down on the campstool reserved for his use. He flicked a hand as though brushing away a gnat. “Sit. Report. You first, Captain.”

“I’ll let Shala and Hasos speak to the condition of the troops, Majesty. I spent most of the day with the scouts.”

“And?”

“Threskel has more companies in the field, essentially a whole other army we haven’t fought yet. They’re maneuvering to keep us from retreating to Soolabax and to keep reinforcements from reaching us.”

“How is that possible?” Shala asked, the firelight gleaming on the bits of steel trim on her masculine garments. “Threskel is a poor country. Even if Alasklerbanbastos spent every coin in his hoard, how can he field so many troops?”

“I can speculate,” said Aoth. “Ships supposedly in the service of High Imaskar have been raiding the Chessentan coast and Chessentan shipping for a while.”

Tchazzar gave a brusque nod. “The ships with dragonborn for crew.”

Aoth hesitated. Did Tchazzar truly not remember they had reason to doubt those particular pirates were actually Tymantherans? “That’s what the survivors claimed. At any rate, there was nothing to indicate the raiders were in league with Threskel. But it’s possible they’ve formed an alliance, and the pirate fleet landed troops to help Alasklerbanbastos fight us.”

“It would have been nice,” said Hasos, his head wrapped in bloody bandages, “if the great sellsword captain had noticed the existence of such an alliance before now.”

Aoth glowered, partly because he too had been privately wondering if he should somehow have predicted what was coming. “My lord, I remind you that I’m not one of His Majesty’s envoys or spies. I’m just a war leader. Now, if you want to cast blame because no one spotted the new troops before they reached their present positions … well, maybe there you have a point. But it’s hard to look everywhere at once, and we were busy keeping track of the three dragons and their minions.”

“Besides,” Gaedynn said, “this is your country, milord-give or take-and what useful intelligence have your own scouts ever gathered about anything? Perhaps you should pry their eyes open before you criticize the way my fellows do their jobs.”

Hasos sucked in a breath, no doubt for an angry retort, but Shala spoke first. “Captain, a moment ago you said, ‘ships supposedlyin the service of High Imaskar.’ What did you mean by that?”

Grateful to her for interrupting the budding quarrel, Aoth said, “Ever since we learned the truth-well, part of it-about the Green Hand murders and the violence in Soolabax, we’ve known Chessenta has enemies who are using misdirection against us. And none of us scouts saw any Imaskari today. Even though, with that marbling in their skins and those black clothes they like, they’d be hard to miss.”

“Maybe they hired mercenaries and stayed home themselves,” Hasos said.

Aoth shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Whoever they are,” Tchazzar said, “they mean to kill us if they can. What is the state of the army?”

“One man in nine is either dead or unfit to fight,” Shala said. “The rest are exhausted. Even after scavenging what we could from the battlefield, we’re short on arrows. I recommend we not fight again if we can possibly avoid it. If we fall back toward the Sky Riders-”

Tchazzar’s glare was enough to cut her off. “We will notgo any closer to the Sky Riders,” he growled.

Shala met his gaze for what seemed like a long time, then finally bowed her head. “As you command, Majesty.”

“Exactly,” said the living god, “as Icommand. Now, let’s talk about why we’re in this fix.”

With that, silence fell, broken only by the popping and snapping of the fire and the drone of the camp as a whole. Aoth was astonished-to say nothing of wary-that Tchazzar would redirect the discussion in such a way, and he imagined everyone else was too. He wondered if any good could possibly come of giving an honest response.

He was still wondering when Gaedynn spoke up.

“Since you ask, Majesty, I would have to say-with all respect-that even with the complication of Jaxanaedegor and the ghosts, the plan could still have worked. If you’d acted when the rest of us expected it.”

Tchazzar was as handsome a man as Aoth had ever seen, yet he contrived to smile a smile as ugly as the stained leer on a lich’s withered skull. “So it’s all my fault, is it? Do you all agree?” He rose. “Does each and every one of you agree?”

Khouryn jumped back, and the sword stroke fell short. He kept backpedaling as he snatched for the urgrosh strapped to his back.

As he did, he glimpsed another Medrash trading cuts with Balasar. Or at any rate one version of Balasar. A second one slashed right, left, and right again at the Medrash and Khouryn who were trying to flank him.

Obviously the guardians of Nala’s shrine could adopt the appearances of those they fought. Khouryn wished that Aoth and his truesight were there.

The false Medrash’s sword whirled in a backhand cut at his throat. He parried with his spiked axe, and steel clashed on steel. But at the same moment he felt something slice across his thigh.

He didn’t think the attack had cut deeply. His leather breeches had spared him the worst of it. But a sudden grogginess took hold of him. His eyelids drooped, and the urgrosh felt heavy in his hands. Insane as it was in the middle of a fight for his life, he had the feeling he was in danger of pitching over fast asleep.

He attacked furiously, recklessly, and his foe gave ground. With each swing he bellowed a war cry. The frantic onslaught woke him up, but also left him vulnerable to a sudden stop thrust. He managed to jerk to a halt with the false Medrash’s point a finger-length from his chest.

Another invisible attack slashed across his knee. Once again lethargy tried to smother him, and he bellowed it-or the worst of it-away. Perhaps to achieve the same end, Medrash and Balasar were shouting too, and the clamor echoed through the crypt.

Khouryn doubted he could endure too many more doses of sleep venom or too many more slices across the leg before one crippled him. But he had figured out his opponent’s favorite combination-cut high with the sword to draw a parry, then immediately slash low with whatever it was that did that.

Khouryn sidestepped the next sword stroke and simultaneously chopped with the urgrosh. Though he couldn’t see his target, battle sense guided his hands, and he felt his weapon bite.

The false Medrash gave a shrill hiss unlike any sound that Khouryn had ever heard emerge from the mouth of a genuine dragonborn. The mask of illusion fell away, revealing a reptilian creature skinny as a snake, its body mottled with an intricate pattern of black and purple scales. Covered in spines, the severed tip of its long tail twitched and coiled on the floor.

Then the guardian’s form rippled, and illusion veiled it once more. But not the same illusion. Khouryn was facing himself.

He assumed the trick was supposed to make him hesitate, but if so the reptile had misjudged him. He advanced, struck, and his foe didn’t hop back quickly enough. The axe ripped a gash in its torso.

Pain tore down Khouryn’s body as if he truly had cut his own flesh. It’s not real! he insisted to himself. And when the reptile hurled itself at him, he met it with another strike.

The urgrosh smashed through ribs and into its target’s vitals. The shock, or the echo of it, made Khouryn black out. When he roused, he was lying on the floor. So was his foe. Looking like its natural self again, it stared at him with lifeless, slit-pupiled eyes.

He judged that he’d only been unconscious for a heartbeat or two, because everyone else was still fighting. The other guardians had adopted the same tactic the dead one had used at the last. Medrash was dueling a copy of himself, and Balasar other Balasars.

And even there, where the fact that two were fighting one should have made it obvious, Khouryn found it difficult to pick out the real Balasar from one moment to the next. It was like there was more than simple illusion at work, like the guardians’ power gnawed at his mind to promote confusion and hysteria.

Refusing to succumb to them, he studied what was happening in front of him. Then he jumped up, rushed one of the Balasars, and chopped the base of its spine. Its shroud of illusion melted away as the creature crumpled. He started toward the other, and then instinct made him stop short. He felt the breeze as the reptile’s tail spikes whipped by in front of his face. He lunged into striking range and hacked one of its legs out from under it.

The real Balasar pounced to finish it off, and Khouryn rounded on the nearer Medrash. Who saw him coming and cried, “No! It’s me! Kill the other one!”

“Sorry,” Khouryn answered. He swung at the speaker’s kidney, and it collapsed in a frenzy of skinny, thrashing limbs and whipping tail. The actual Medrash dispatched it with a thrust to the heart.

Still feeling some ache from his phantom wounds as well as the genuine gashes on his leg, Khouryn looked around. He didn’t see anything else advancing to attack. “Everyone all right?” he panted.

“Just scratched up a little,” Balasar said. “And craving a nap. How could you tell the difference between them and us?”

“The purplespawn copied your looks,” Khouryn answered. “They couldn’t copy your fighting styles. And when I stared hard, I could make out the details of what was going on.”

“Purplespawn,” Balasar repeated. “That’s what these things are?”

“I think so,” Khouryn said. “They generally live underground like dwarves do. They’re supposed to be related to dark elves and dragons too, disturbing as that coupling is to imagine.”

“So,” said Medrash, “like the portal drake, they’re the kind of creature we might expect to find in Nala’s service. But before they interrupted us, you were telling us you’d discovered something you didn’t expect.”

Khouryn grinned. “Ah yes.” Since he’d decided to linger in Tymanther, he’d often regretted that he had so little aptitude for unraveling mysteries and conspiracies; Gaedynn or Aoth could surely do better. But by the Wanderer’s Eye, with help from the Daardendriens, he’d still found the end of the trail. “This isn’t a shrine to Bahamut but to Tiamat. Nala is actually a wyrmkeeper, a priestess of Tiamat.”

The dragonborn just looked at him.

“I don’t know a great deal about either Bahamut or Tiamat,” Khouryn persisted. “My people worship other gods. But I do know that Bahamut is considered good, and Tiamat evil. So, by infiltrating the Platinum Cadre, Nala has taken a group of worshipers who aspired to be virtuous and tricked them into corruption.”

“But for the most part,” Balasar said, “dragonborn don’t know anything about any of your gods.” He stifled a yawn. “They certainly don’t know enough to distinguish between one dragon god and another. Now that Nala’s accomplished the hard task of convincing them that any kind of wyrm worship can be a good thing, I don’t think this bit of news will trouble them. They simply won’t understand it.”

Khouryn frowned. “Surely the cultists won’t like hearing they pledged themselves to a completely different god than they imagined.”

“Once they go through the initiation,” Balasar replied, “Nala has at least the tip of a claw in every one of their heads.” He yawned again. “They’re the least likely of all to see the importance.”

“Curse it!” Khouryn said. “I can’t believe we’ve come this far and still have nothing!”

“I don’t believe it either,” Medrash said. He looked around and then, for want of anything better, wiped the blood from his sword with the edge of his cloak. “Torm brought us here for a reason.” He smiled. “And besides, you’re both forgetting we still haven’t discovered the reason for that wagonload of sand.”

Watching for more purplespawn or other threats, they stalked deeper into the tomb. Khouryn reflected that the owners must be-or have been-an important clan to possess such a spacious vault. Then he gasped at something extraordinary enough to push all such extraneous thoughts right out of his head.

Khouryn didn’t know a great deal about glassblowing, but he recognized the furnaces, blowpipes, marver, punty, and other tools required for the work. Raiann had set up in an open space where three crypts came together, and the five-headed statue of Tiamat he’d glimpsed previously loomed over everything else.

Nala’s ritual circle covered the patch of floor immediately in front of the idol. Intricately rendered in several colors, the figure was in its essence a wheel with S-shaped spokes.

The glass globes that Raiann crafted and Nala enchanted sat on a simple wooden rack convenient to both workspaces. Pinpoints of light from the votive candles reflected in the curves.

This, or something like it, was exactly what Khouryn and his comrades had needed to find. Yet for a moment, he felt less overjoyed than stunned by the sheer audacity and enormity of Nala’s scheme. She hadn’t just seized on the opportunity a menace afforded to foist her noisome creed on her fellow dragonborn. She’d help create the threat by crafting weapons to make the giants more dangerous than they’d ever been before.

“I said the barbarians had never made anything as fine-as civilized-as those orbs,” Balasar remarked at length. “Do you remember me saying that?”

“I remember Nala destroying every talisman we captured as soon as she could get her hands on it,” Medrash answered. “To make sure no mage or diviner could possibly figure out who fashioned it.”