Chapter 18

Malystryx slumbered in her nest deep within Blood Watch, her serpentine form shuddering and twisting as she dreamt of carnage. Her breath came in great snorting rushes, a massive bellows that fed the forge-fires in her belly. Smoke hung around her, swirling and eddying with the twitching of her wings. Her claws scratched the floor, scoring the stone with long, jagged furrows.

“Mistress.”

Even in the depths of sleep, she heard Yovanna’s voice. Angrily, she hauled herself back to wakefulness, her bloody dreams forgotten. She cracked open a golden eye, glaring at the black-cloaked form on the balcony above her. Yovanna met her baleful gaze calmly from within the dark depths of her hood.

“I have told you about waking me,” Malys hissed.

Yovanna nodded. “I would not do so, Mistress, if it did not seem urgent to me. The Black-Gazer has come.”

A jet of flame erupted from Malystryx’s maw, scorching the stone. She raised her head to look straight at the black-cloaked figure. “Kurthak?” she demanded. “Why has he left Kendermore?”

“He would not tell me, Mistress. He insisted that he speak with you.”

With an impatient snort, Malystryx slowly uncoiled and stretched her sinuous form. “You shouldn’t have disturbed me, Yovanna. The fool could have waited until I woke.”

“That was my thinking, Mistress,” Yovanna replied carefully. “But he came here three days ago, and you have been asleep the whole time. I thought you would prefer to see him now, so he can go back where he belongs.”

The dragon unfolded her wings, fanning them slowly to work out the stiffness of slumber. “Very well,” she rasped. “Where is he? Not within this mountain, I hope.”

Yovanna shook her head. “I left him and his companion on a ridge, a league west of here.”

Malystryx said nothing more to her servant. She tensed, then leaped almost straight upward, her legs launching her like coiled springs. Her wings beat slowly as she streaked up past Yovanna and caught the stony edge of the shaft with her clutching claws. With practised ease she pulled herself up into the cleft, then squirmed up through the rock, away from her nest. It was a tight fit, the shaft’s rough walls scraping her hide as she slithered along. It had not been so when she’d first claimed Blood Watch as her lair, but that had been quite some time ago. Malys had grown a great deal since then. There had been many other dragons to feed upon.

Daylight shone above her, a spot of blue amid the blackness of the stone. She heaved herself toward that light, her tail thrashing behind her. Then she was free, emerging from a vent in the side of the volcano like some terrible butterfly leaving its chrysalis. She sprang from the hole, away from the mountain, and her membranous wings caught the hot wind that gusted among the jagged hills that surrounded Blood Watch.

As she flew, she surveyed the Desolation she had shaped. It continued to grow more barren with the passage of time—even now, after only a few days of sleep, she could see how the land had changed. Flats of hot mud had dried and cracked. The last stubbornly hardy grasses had finally withered and fallen to dust. To the east, a thick plume of smoke and ash marked the birth of a new volcano. She regarded the Desolation proudly, soaring high above it. Then with an exultant screech she angled downward again, toward a narrow ridge of brown rock that stretched between two looming, fanglike peaks. She swooped in, the hot wind buffeting her body, and saw two tall figures standing atop the balk. Her lips curling back from her massive fangs, she dove.

The two ogres watched her descend, shock registering in their faces as she streaked straight toward them. She screamed, and the towering brutes covered their ears. They ducked as she swept over their heads, skimming barely ten feet above the stone of the ridge. Malys laughed mockingly and banked, watching them struggle to their feet again. She came around, spotted a large outcropping of rock on the nearest peak, and winged mightily toward it. She settled onto the perch gingerly, testing it first to see if it would bear her enormous weight. It held, and she folded her wings, glaring down at the ogres.

They were nearly half a mile away. She could have flown across the distance in little more than a heartbeat, but she let them come to her instead. A few minutes later, Kurthak and Baloth knelt before her.

“Wretch,” she snarled at the hetman. “Have you forgotten your place? I should burn you where you stand.” She sucked in a long, slow breath, flames crackling in her throat.

Baloth quailed, his face stiff with terror, but Kurthak the Black-Gazer mastered the almost overwhelming force of her dragonfear and returned her gaze. “You’d be wise not to do that,” he told her. “I bear news you must hear.”

Malys angled her head, her forked tongue flicking between her teeth. “Do you, now?” she asked. “What news could be so important that you would abandon your own army to bring it to me? Who did you leave in charge? That lackwit of a champion? I see you brought a new dog to skulk at your side,” she added, her gaze falling heavily upon the hairless ogre.

Baloth fell back a pace, unsteadily, but Kurthak grabbed his arm, stopping him from running away. “Tragor leads the horde, yes,” the Black-Gazer answered evenly. “He only needs to hold them where they are until I return. As to the word I bring, it is this. Riverwind of Qué-Shu is among the kender.”

A silence descended over the ridge, broken only by the moan of the hot wind among the crags, and the rumblings of the restless earth beneath their feet. Ogre and dragon faced each other, neither speaking a word. Then Malys arrogantly tilted up her chin, her lip curling once more.

“Who?” she asked.

Kurthak blinked, surprised. “Riverwind of Qué-Shu,” he repeated.

Malys thumped the mountainside with her tail. The impact knocked stones loose from the peak, sending them bounding down its slopes. “I do not know this man,” she said evenly. “Who is he that his presence in Kendermore would make you leave your place?”

“He’s a Hero of the Lance,” Kurthak said.

“A what?”

The Black-Gazer stared, dumbfounded; then his eyes narrowed as he tried to understand the dragon’s joke. He soon realized, however, that Malys was serious. “You haven’t heard of the Heroes of the Lance?” he asked. “But they’re known everywhere in Ansalon!”

“I am not from Ansalon,” Malystryx replied. “And I care little for the legends of mortals. This Riverwind is one man. He is of no concern to me. You should not have left your army, Black-Gazer. You will not leave it again, even if more of your precious ‘Heroes’ arrive in Kendermore.”

Stunned by her intransigence, Kurthak could do nothing but bow his head obediently. “Yes, Malystryx.”

“Very good,” she said to him. “Now come here, Black-Gazer. I have a gift for you.”

Kurthak walked forward, his legs moving against his will. He tried to stop himself, but he kept on moving until he was less than ten yards from Malystryx. He winced at the heat that emanated from her immense body.

“Kneel,” she breathed.

The word lodged in his mind, driving out all thoughts of resistance. He knelt. Gracefully, she extended a long, taloned finger and touched its tip to the middle of his forehead. Back along the ridge, Baloth winced and turned away, waiting for the dragon’s claw to plunge through Kurthak’s skull.

Malys’s touch, however, was gentle, almost a caress. She held her talon against him, and whispered words in a strange language the ogre didn’t understand. The air seethed with unseen energies. The Black-Gazer tensed as magic coursed both around and within him.

He sucked in a long slow breath, shivering. His good eye glazed, becoming as vacant as the empty socket that had once held its twin. His lips formed words, but it was the dragon’s sibilant voice that issued from his mouth.

“My mind to yours,” Malystryx said, her voice coming from two tongues at once. “I am in your thoughts, Black-Gazer. I can see inside your mind. And you are in mine. If you come to Blood Watch again, I shall destroy you. But,”—her voice became acerbic with irony—“if you should choose to warn me of anything more, you need only call to me with your mind. Our thoughts are linked. I can speak to you, and you to me, though we are a hundred miles apart.

“Listen for my call, Black-Gazer,” she continued. “The time will come when I am done working my magic upon the Kenderwood. I will tell you when to attack. The kender will be yours to do with as you please, and their forest will be mine to shape to my whim. I will raise a new lair, a peak to dwarf even Blood Watch, where Kendermore stands.” The dragon and ogre both smiled at this.

Kurthak took a deep breath, then answered with his own voice. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “Why don’t you attack them yourself?”

“I could do that, yes,” said the dragon. “But I choose not to—yet. I must conserve my strength, Black-Gazer.”

“Why?” Kurthak asked.

“To shape the land, as I’ve told you,” she answered. “To corrupt the Kenderwood—and the kender. But there is also another reason—one that only Yovanna and I know. Shall I tell it to you, Black-Gazer?”

“Yes. Tell me.”

Malys’ crimson lips curled into a cruel, mocking smile. So did Kurthak’s.

Standing away from them, forgotten for now, Baloth shut his eyes tight, whimpering wretchedly as Malystryx spoke.

The attackers rushed the base of the wall, howling for blood. Atop the battlements, kender scrambled to repel the assault. Shouted orders rang through the air as Kendermore’s defenders ran this way and that, flinging debris down upon the invaders. Below, the attackers toppled beneath the pelting bombardment and lay still upon the ground. The kender atop the wall raised a hearty cheer for every foe who fell and did not rise again.

“The cauldrons!” Brimble Redfeather barked hoarsely. His wrinkled face was red from shouting. “Don’t just throw things at them! Use the cauldrons!”

At his order, dozens of kender scurried to several huge cast-iron pots that stood atop the wall. The cauldrons, which had been brought from Kendermore’s many feasthalls and hauled up to the walls, could each hold enough riverbean stew to feed a hundred kender. Today, though, they brimmed with something other than stew.

“Don’t touch them!” Brimble shouted as several kender reached for the cauldrons with bare, curious hands. “You’ll burn your fingers off, you lamebrains! They’re scalding hot, remember?”

The kender snatched their hands back, grinning sheepishly at what they had almost done. “Sorry.” one of them said.

“Don’t be sorry, doorknob!” Brimble roared back. He jerked his thumb down at the ground below, where the attackers continued to surge against the base of the wall. “Pour the stuff on them! Now!”

“Right!” the kender replied. Crabbing pry bars from the catwalks, and working in teams of twenty, they levered the cauldrons up. Muscles bulged and teeth gritted as, groaning with the effort, they tilted the enormous kettles toward the edge of the wall. The contents of the cauldrons lapped against their rims.

“Heave!” the kender shouted, more or less at once.

Leaning on the pry bars, they tipped the cauldrons still farther. Streams of liquid spilled from the pots, first in thin drizzles, then building into deluges that drenched the attackers below. Shrieking and clutching at themselves, the wall’s assailants fell to the ground. They writhed a while in the mud, then were still.

But it wasn’t enough. The attackers kept on coming. More debris hammered down on them from the walls. “That’s it!” Brimble bellowed. “Keep at ‘em! Don’t stop to watch them fall! Grab something else to throw!”

Suddenly, a new chorus of shouting sounded from below. Another wave of attackers surged forward, these ones carrying long ladders. They charged the wall, yelling wildly, and though the kender on the battlements felled many of them as they ran, more than half of them evaded the defenders’ bombardment. A dozen ladders slammed down into the dirt, then swung up toward the top of the wall. Hollering attackers lunged up the ladders before they were even in place, brandishing weapons and taking the rungs two at a time.

“Stop them!” Brimble shouted. “They’ll take the wall! Move!”

The defenders grabbed up pitchforks, billhooks, and other pole arms, and used them to push the tops of the ladders away from the wall. One by one, the ladders tipped over, swinging back away from the wall and crashing down to the ground.

It wasn’t enough, though. Two ladders stayed up long enough for the attackers to reach the top. Quickly the attackers cleared away the wall’s defenders, more of them coming up every second. The defenders backed away, forced to give up more and more ground.

“Come on, you mangy, lazy halfwits!” Brimble was roaring. “Keep them back! Contain them, or they’ll take the whole bloody wall! Move, or I’ll—”

Suddenly, one of the attackers broke past the wall’s defenders and charged across the battlements. Before anyone could stop him, or even knew what he was doing, he grabbed Brimble and threw him off the wall. The old kender howled furiously, cursing the air blue, as he fell.

The kender atop the wall watched him drop. The attackers did not. All at once, the faltering defenses crumbled. Attackers boiled across the battlements, knocking down Kendermore’s defenders or shoving them off the catwalk. Soon there was no one left on the wall but attackers.

“Stop!” shouted Riverwind from atop the battlements.

At once, the attack ceased.

“All right, everyone get up,” the Plainsman commanded. “Including the ones who are dead. Come on.”

Kender who had lain unmoving on the catwalk, or on courtyard below the wall, pushed themselves sorely to their feet and started to clean up the mess left by the attack. They scraped up the red pulp of the kurpa melons the kender atop the wall had thrown, and mopped up the water that had poured down from the cauldrons. Those who had caught the brunt of the cauldrons’ deluge wrung out their topknots and wiped mud from their faces and clothes.

They all started to talk at once. The predominant topics were how much fun Riverwind’s war games were, how interesting it was to pretend to be under siege, and how weird it was to pretend to be under siege on the inside of the wall when, technically, they really were under siege on the outside.

Riverwind and Brimble had been conducting drills for three weeks. One brigade of kender would assail the inside of the wall, while another would attempt to fend them off. It was not going well.

Scowling sourly, Brimble Redfeather fought his way out of the haystack he’d landed in when he’d fallen. He muttered to himself, picking straw out of his hair as he made his way up the stairs to the battlements. He went to meet Riverwind, who stood solemnly, his strong arms folded across his chest.

“All right!” Brimble snarled. “Listen up!”

A few of the kender became quiet, but most kept jabbering, bragging about how well they’d fought and teasing those who had “died.”

Brimble rooted in his belt pouch, pulled out a tin whistle, and blew as hard as he could. The whistle’s shrill note split the air like a hatchet. Even so, Brimble had to sound two more blasts before things finally settled down to something like silence.

“That was better,” Riverwind announced with a sigh.

The kender cheered for themselves.

“Shut up, all of you!” Brimble barked back.

“However, you lost the wall,” the Plainsman continued. “Think about what that would mean if it had been ogres instead of other kender attacking. You’d be dead, and Kurthak’s horde would run rampant through Kendermore, killing your families and burning your homes.

“This may seem like a game,” Riverwind added, “but it’s not. You’ve got to do things right, or you’ll end up dead when the ogres attack.”

The kender stared at their shoes. Beside Riverwind, Brimble groaned in exasperation. The Plainsman rested a silencing hand on the old veteran’s shoulder.

He waved his arm behind him, out across the meadow. “All of Kendermore is depending on you to stop that horde out there. There’s no room for mistakes or sloppiness. Now, everyone can rest for an hour, and then we’ll do this again.”

Exhausted groans rose all around him as Riverwind turned and strode away along the battlements, following the catwalk to where Kronn and Paxina stood. He was pale and haggard, his white hair pasted to his forehead with sweat. Involuntarily, he pressed his hand against his stomach.

“Are you all right, Riverwind?” Paxina asked.

The Plainsman looked at her sharply, moving his hand away from his belly as he drew up to them.

“I’m fine,” he murmured.

Concern flashed in their eyes, and he looked away irritably, staring out toward the Kenderwood. Across the meadow, the towering figures of the ogres moved restlessly about their camps. Their snarling, bestial voices carried across the field.

“They’re certainly taking their time,” Kronn observed. “Are all sieges this blasted boring?”

“Most of them,” Riverwind replied, smiling. “The battle was over quickly at Kalaman, but I’ve heard of sieges that lasted for months—even years.”

“Years,” Paxina echoed, wondering. “We can’t hold out that long. We’ve barely enough food stocked to last us the winter, even if we ration.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Riverwind replied. “I doubt the ogres have that kind of patience. They’ll come soon enough. I just hope there’s enough time to get ready.” He turned, glancing back along the wall. Brimble Redfeather was berating the other kender, trying to get them to set up for the next drill. Riverwind heaved a leaden sigh.

“They’ll be ready,” Kronn told the Plainsman. “I’ve been watching them, especially the past few days. They really are improving—just not very quickly, is all.”

“Plus those drills you’re doing aren’t completely fair,” Paxina chimed in. “The melons make good rocks, and the water in the cauldrons is all right, but we’ll have them, too.” She nodded down toward the base of the wall, where a makeshift archery range was set up. Kender took turns firing arrows at straw dummies. More often than not, the shafts struck them in places that would kill a man—or an ogre. Watching them shoot, Riverwind marveled at the archers’ skill.

Down a few blocks, a second group of kender stood in line, facing a row of catapults. Riverwind watched as they loaded slingstones into the pouches of their hoopaks, then held them poised. A moment passed, then the catapults’ arms sprang forward, launching a volley of clay discs into the air. One by one they swung their hoopaks forward, flinging their stones at the discs. The targets shattered, raining down on the ground in pieces.

The old Plainsman nodded pensively, watching the slingers whoop in exultation as the catapult operators prepared their engines for another volley. “True,” he said. “The archers and slingers will kill many ogres before they even get near the wall. But even so…” He shrugged, looking away toward the Kenderwood once more.

“You don’t think we can hold them back?” Kronn asked.

Riverwind didn’t reply. He gazed out across the meadow. “The forest will be dead soon,” he observed.

Over the weeks since his arrival, the weather had continued to worsen. The heat had become even more intense and dry as an oven. The winds that swept over the town were much closer to the siroccos that scoured the sands of Khur than the damp, rainy gusts Paxina said were normal for autumn in Goodlund. Last year, she had said, it had rained for two-thirds of the month of Bleakcold, including a stretch of nine days without sunshine. Now, though, Bleakcold was nearly done, and not a drop had fallen.

Gradually, as the drought continued, the grassy meadow beyond the wall had turned from golden to the gray-brown hue of ashes. Then the grass had withered, leaving behind nothing but bald, barren earth. Stones pushed up through the soil where none had been before. Once the grass was gone, the trees had begun to change. Silver and green leaves had changed color—turning not red and gold, as was normal for autumn in the Kenderwood, but rather becoming brown and shriveled, many of them crumbling to dust before they had a chance to fall. Now many trees stood bald and gray, dead or nearly so.

And the stench of brimstone was stronger than ever.

“The dragon’s magic,” Paxina murmured, her face dark with emotion as she regarded the wasted husk of the Kenderwood. “I’ve heard the Dairly Plains became like this, when Malystryx started attacking the humans there. Now, from what I hear, there are no Dairly Plains any more—just mountains and badlands.”

“Desolation,” Riverwind murmured.

Kronn nodded, his eyes grim. “Even if we do beat the ogres when we attack, how can we stop this?”

“Defeat the dragon,” the Plainsman said.

“But how?” Paxina said. “You told Kronn that you never slew a dragon in your life!”

“And Malys is more than ‘just another dragon,’ you know,” Kronn put in. “I saw her when she burned Woodsedge—and killed our father. She’s incredibly huge.”

“From the stories told by Weavewillow survivors,” Paxina added, “she’s almost four hundred feet long. How can we hope to slay any creature that big?”

“I didn’t say ‘slay,’ ” Riverwind answered, his brow furrowed with thought. “I said ‘defeat.’ There must be some way to beat her even if we can’t kill her. We just need to discover her weakness.”

“Oh,” Kronn said. “But how are we going to figure out what—”

Before he could finish his question, though, a commotion rose in the courtyard below. Someone was running toward them, waving his arms. Looking down, the Plainsman and the Thistleknots saw it was Giffel Birdwhistle.

“Riverwind!” the tall kender shouted, his pouches flapping with every loping stride. “Kronn! Pax!” He sprinted toward the wall and bounded up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

“Giff?” Kronn asked. “What’s the matter? Has something happened in the tunnels?”

“No,” the tall kender replied, puffing with exertion as he finally reached the top of the stairs. He leaned heavily against a merlon. “I mean, yes. Something’s happened.” He looked at Riverwind, with a pitying expression that made the white hairs on the Plainsman’s arms stand on end. “You’ve got to come to Arlie’s place,” he said.

Riverwind walked so swiftly through Kendermore’s twisty streets that the kender had to jog to keep pace. For every step he took, they took three. The crowds of kender, who usually made it so hard to move quickly through the city, hurried out of his way to keep from getting trampled. Somehow, though he was still unfamiliar with the tangled layout of the city, Riverwind made his way without having to stop or double back even once. Mere minutes after leaving Brimble to oversee the next wall-defense drill, the Plainsman strode up the path to Arlie Longfinger’s house, past the parched earth that was all that remained of the herbalist’s garden. He stepped up onto the porch, pushed past several kender who waited outside the shop, and pounded on the door with his fist.

For a moment, no one answered. Then, as Riverwind tensed to knock again, the door swung open. Catt stood inside. Her injured arm was still in its sling, but the bandages that had covered her head were gone. She looked up at the Plainsman, then quickly stepped aside.

“That was quick,” she said as Riverwind and the others hurried in.

“What’s going on, Call?” Kronn asked.

“Is it Brightdawn?” Riverwind demanded impatiently, giving voice to the terrible fear that had been welling inside him since they had left the battlements. “Has something happened to her?”

“No,” said another voice.

They all looked down the dimly lit hallway that led into the depths of Arlie Longfinger’s home. Swiftraven stood in the passage.

“It isn’t Brightdawn,” he said. “It’s—”

“There you are!” snapped Arlie Longfinger. The old herbalist shoved past Swiftraven and marched straight up to Riverwind. “He’s been asking for you. He has a message.”

“Message?” Kronn echoed, confused. “Who has a message?”

At last, Riverwind’s frayed patience snapped. “Would someone tell me what in the Abyss is going on?” he shouted.

Arlie blinked at him, startled, then turned and headed down the hallway, beckoning with his hand for the others to follow. They did, Riverwind at the fore. The herbalist reached a door—it led to the same room where Call had lain, while she’d recovered from her head wound—and gently pushed it open.

The room was dark, but it was not empty. From the bed, the sound of ragged breathing mixed with moans of pain. The tang of fresh blood hung in the air.

“What is this?” Riverwind demanded as he entered.

Arlie pushed past him and went to an oil lamp that sat, flickering faintly, upon a small table by the bed. He turned its key, and the lamp’s light rose to a lambent, ruddy glow.

When Riverwind saw the man who lay upon the bed, he blew out his breath and staggered as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Swiftraven was at his side in an eyeblink, taking the old Plainsman’s arm and leading him to a low stool beside the bed. Riverwind sat down heavily and stared in mute horror.

The man on the bed was badly injured. He had been stabbed in the gut, and even though the bandages Arlie had used to bind the wound were fresh, they were nonetheless dark with blood. Despite the seriousness of his wound, however, the man stirred when he saw Riverwind and even tried to sit up. Swiftraven rushed to his side and eased him back again, whispering soothing words and mopping the man’s sweat-soaked brow.

“I don’t understand,” Paxina said, staring at the injured man. “He looks like one of your people, Riverwind—but what is he doing here? Who is he?”

Riverwind opened his mouth, but could say nothing. He bowed his head, overcome. Swiftraven turned toward the Lord Mayor, his face contorting into a grimace of pain.

“It’s Stagheart,” he said. “My brother… and Moonsong’s beloved.”