Chapter 17

The draconians’ supplies were extensive. The company separated out food and drink they could take with them on the last stage of their journey. They took two of the tents, all they could comfortably carry. The dwarf watched Harfang closely to see if the mate would pass along Ayshe’s information to Tashara, but the man showed no signs of doing so.

The dwarf wondered if he himself should speak to the captain, but he knew that, in some way, that would be a betrayal of Harfang, and so he remained silent, watching and waiting.

They stayed encamped at the site one more night after the funeral of the healer, resting their weary bodies in far more comfort than they had previously known. Malshaunt’s magic sustained a magical fire in the middle of the camp, melting the snow around it and spreading its warmth seemingly further than it had before, across their welcoming faces and hands. The company gathered round as overhead night stretched its long fingers across the sky and stars studded the heavens.

Whether because of their success against the draconians or the warmth of the fire and the prospect of more food and drink, everyone—almost everyone—seemed in better spirits. The feeling of fear and oppression that had hung over them since leaving Zeriak had lifted, and even Omanda’s death did not dampen their mood. Seated around the fire, Samustalen and the other elves explained to Ayshe how they had found him. They had missed him almost immediately and searched for him, but the storm made it impossible for them to spot his tracks. Then someone had heard a shout in the draconians’ hissing language, and they realized they were not the only travelers on the Snow Sea. They tracked the draconians and from signs realized the missing dwarf was a captive of their foe.

Dragonsbane, on Tashara’s orders, had followed, waiting for a chance to strike. The raging storm had delayed their opportunities, until they began to fear Ayshe would be dead before they could reach him. At last they saw their chance when the dragon men had made their camp. The storm still blanketed everything, but Tashara and Harfang were determined to use it as cover for their attack. The draconians were completely taken by surprise.

“They never knew what hit them,” said Samustalen, chuckling. “Half of them were dead before they even realized they were under assault. I’d always heard draconians were a hard bunch, but this was far easier than I expected.” He drew on his pipe. “Next time, Master Ayshe, work those legs a bit harder to keep up.”

The elves laughed, and Ayshe felt the warmth and companionship flow around the fire like a draught of good wine. His conscience gave a sharp twinge. They had turned back to rescue him. Would he have risked all and done the same for one of them, a straggler? He thought so, but he was not so sure.

“Where were the draconians taking you anyway?” asked Otha-nyar. As was her habit, she was holding her wyrmbarb, sharpening the head with a whetstone. She did that so often, Ayshe was surprised the steel head of the spear was not entirely worn away with sharpening.

“Brackenrock,” he replied.

There was a collective intake of breath around the fire.

“Good job we found you, then,” Samustalen observed. “Those who go into Brackenrock, it’s said, don’t come out again. I’ve heard said it’s the worst place in this whole damned wasteland.” His hand spread out to encompass all the southlands. “Why didn’t they kill you at once, I wonder.”

Ayshe shot a glance at Harfang. “I think… I think…” He hesitated.

From the far side of the circle came Tashara’s calm voice. “What do you think, Ayshe, son of Balar?”

“They were going to sacrifice me, I think. In a festival or ceremony of some sort.”

Tashara’s voice was still without expression. “What festival is that?”

“I think it was… they called it Dragondream. I think it was dedicated to the White Wyrm.”

There was utter silence for a moment, save for the whistle of the wind and the hiss of snow blowing across the frozen ground. At last Tashara smiled.

“I believe I have heard of this festival,” she said, “though I never paid much credence to it. It was long rumored the draconians of Icereach worshiped a dragon, but I believed it must be Cryonis. I never knew until now it is the one we seek.”

Harfang cleared his throat loudly. “We still don’t know that, ma’am. The dwarf might be mistaken. He was cold and in bad pain. He might not have heard right.”

Malshaunt’s chill voice came from beyond the circle, where he stood behind Tashara. “Possibly, Master Harfang. But what I find curious is that he did not say anything about it until now.” His grim eyes bored through the dwarf. “Why did you keep silent, Master Dwarf? Is there anything else you are concealing from Captain Tashara?”

Ayshe’s body stiffened as he groped for words.

Tashara ignored the mage’s question. “When is this festival? Did they say?”

“No, ma’am. But I don’t think more than a few days hence.” Ayshe glanced at Harfang once again, and his obligation became clear to him. He squared his shoulders. “There is more to tell, ma’am. When the draconians stopped to camp for the night, they conducted a ceremony connected with the dragon. And one of them told me more. He said the beast was preparing to sleep in its lair and to send out dreams to draconians. He called it the Dreamchamber.” Ayshe related what he’d heard about the location of the lair, while Tashara rose and paced back and forth, her hands working. She questioned him intently about every aspect of his conversation with the draconian, making him repeat over and over again the details about the Pass of Tarmock’s Fangs and the Valley of White Death.

“You’re sure it was in that direction?” She pointed.

Ayshe nodded. “Dwarves have a strong sense of direction, ma’am. We have to since most of us live underground.”

“It did you no good in the snowstorm, Master Dwarf,” growled Harfang. “Ma’am, we should treat this intelligence with caution.”

“Why?” snapped Malshaunt. “Assuming this dwarf is not lying”—he ignored Ayshe’s snort of fury—“this is vital information for which we’ve been searching many years. And now that we’ve obtained what we have coveted, why you would have us ignore it?”

A babble of voices rose around the fire.

Jeannara slammed a hand onto the ground. “Sleep! If the wyrm’s asleep—”

“Then we’ve got him!” Samustalen finished with a bark of laughter. “All we have to do is find the lair, and thanks to Ayshe, now we know almost exactly where it is.”

All the elves were astir. They laughed and joked, happier than Ayshe could remember in a long time. Tashara stood with an odd expression. Ayshe realized it was a half smile. After a short time, she clapped her hands for silence. “Enough! We have a long way to go, and even if we catch the wyrm asleep, it may be stirred by our approach.”

She turned to Ayshe. “I’ll not forget this, Master Dwarf.”

She moved away toward her tent, and Harfang took her place in the circle around the fire. His mouth was drawn in a thin line, his face red. “Nor will I,” he told Ayshe through clenched teeth.

Malshaunt followed Tashara, favoring both the mate and the dwarf with a sour smile.

The next morning, they set out. The storm had passed, and the sky was cloudless, a deep blue. Around them stretched the seemingly endless expanse of white, except to the south, where a ridge of mountains reared against the horizon.

Ayshe looked back. A few dark shapes marked the remains of the draconian camp. He breathed a prayer to Reorx for the soul of Omanda, wherever it might be.

The news that they were headed in the right direction and knew where the dragon was laired, in addition to the renewed supplies and a warm night’s rest, cheered the elves of Dragonsbane. They laughed and sang songs in Elvish—no laments, but stirring battle marches and chants. Some of them, Samustalen told Ayshe, dated back to the ancient days of the Dragon Wars.

They made swift progress, though in places the snow was deep and they had to plow their way through huge drifts. Toward evening, they came to a place where the drifts lessened, then fell away altogether, revealing bare, stony ground, bound with a film of ice. The mountains seemed to have drawn dramatically closer, and Ayshe again realized how deceptive distances could be in a setting such as theirs. He estimated they were no more than one or two days’ march from the beginnings of the mountains.

That night they again made a fire in the midst of their camp, a real wood fire with fuel taken from the draconian camp, and they sat in its ruddy light, smoking their pipes, sending circles and streams of smoke into the star-filled sky.

Tashara was largely silent. Once or twice she actually laughed aloud, almost as though at some private joke, the first time the dwarf remembered hearing her do so, and the many lines in her face seemed erased. The dwarf, looking at her in the leaping light of the fire, thought he had an idea of what she must have looked like when she was young.

The elves’ voices took up stories of the grand wyrms slain by Dragonsbane over the centuries. Listening to them Ayshe thought, as he had before, how strange it was to hear beings whose lives were measured in hundreds rather than tens of years. The elves’ memories stretched back before the War of Souls, before the Chaos War, before the War of the Lance when Flint Fireforge and his companions walked the roads of Ansalon.

He was lost in thought when he realized the captain was standing, flickering flames illuminating her tall, spare shape. The fire waxed and waned, red and yellow against the white of the surrounding snow. The elves fell silent as Tashara began to speak. Her blind eyes turned to the stars that glowed like orbs of fire in the sky. The cadences of her speech seemed to echo some ancient story of which her tale was only a small part.

“I was but newly made in Dragonsbane. Before me my mother had borne the burden of the secret, and before her my grandfather. We lived on the banks of the great southern ocean, where every day the gulls called to me, and I smelled the salt in the air. Every day I awoke and ran down to the rippling water, letting the tides carry away my childish sorrows into the never-ending rills and waves.

“It was many years past. Two centuries ago. My mother raised me alone. I never knew my father, and she never spoke of him. The males I knew were of our house among the Silvanesti, and they never spoke of my father either.

“I was happy as only one without care or sorrow can be. Since I never knew my father, I did not miss him. All I needed was my mother—the warmth of her embrace, the gleam of her smile, the sound of her voice calling me as dusk settled over the ocean.

“It was on a summer day, and I was playing on the beach when the air grew chill, and the sky was suddenly overlaid with clouds. I ran from the water without knowing why. I felt the clouds behind me swell and give birth to an awful thing I dared not look upon. I tripped and fell on the path to our house. From the doorway my mother came running to gather me to safety. She wore a sword girt at her hip, a thing I had never seen her wear before. Even as she reached for me, she drew it and cried out defiance.

“A great blast of thunder came from behind me, and I turned back to look…”

The captain’s voice faded for a moment. All was deathly still. Into the silence she whispered, “I saw white!”

No one moved. No one breathed. In a moment Tashara’s voice resumed. “When I woke, the voices of the village men told me my mother was close to death. I could not see them. I could not see anything.

“They took me to my mother’s side, and I felt her face and hands. She told me, her voice breaking with the pain, of Dragonsbane and of my legacy. She placed in my hands the destiny of the Great White Wyrm that killed her.

“Ever since then I have hunted it. We have slain many other dragons, but this one I have hunted in vain. And now, at last, this one I shall kill.”

She stopped then began to hum softly. The other elves took up the rhythm, slapping hands against the ground to keep time, beating it out on their packs, and stamping their feet. To Ayshe’s surprise, he saw Malshaunt joining in the song, his face transformed, his eyes shining.

The music was strange to Ayshe, as were the words, but somehow he recognized their power to move men and women, elves and dwarves, to great deeds, to draw from them that which they did not know they possessed. He found his own feet beating out the song as Tashara’s voice filled the air and went sailing over the Snow Sea toward the edge of night.

That night, Harfang once again took out the charon cards from his pack. He laid them out on the floor of the tent after everyone else was asleep. They felt different to him, rougher, and he felt an odd resistance as he laid them on the canvas, as if they were in some way reluctant to do their job and show him anything.

Eight cards: four in a square, one in the middle, three above. The ninth card on top of the rest of the pack.

He turned over the first card, the card in the middle. Rather than the Man, as it had been every other time he laid out the cards, it was the Cup. Harfang stared at it, wondering what the change meant. A cup was meant to be filled… but after it was drunk from… it was empty. He shook his head, and turned over the first card in the surrounding square.

It was the Dwarf. That was puzzling. Yet, perhaps not. If the four outside cards represented the four fates, surely that must be Reorx, god of the dwarves. It would be a comforting thought to know that some god, even the god of the dwarves, was watching over Dragonsbane.

Or perhaps the dwarf was Ayshe. Harfang knit his brow. The dwarf… indeed there was something strange about the dwarf.

No, there was nothing strange about him, but about Tashara’s interest in him. Why had she insisted he be brought aboard the Starfinder? Not even Malshaunt understood why, and Harfang suspected her decision grated on the mage. It was clear, though, the dwarf had some key role to play in their quest, a role known to or suspected by Tashara, and by her alone.

He turned the next card. It bore a Red Rose.

The sign of Majere. That was favorable. Majere favored Good. His followers, if Harfang remembered correctly, were schooled in disciplines both martial and mental. He couldn’t remember too many details, but Majere was Good—he was sure of that.

The third card. The Feather. That, he remembered, was the sign of Chislev, god of nature. It was ironic, the mate mused, that he had drawn that card in the midst of such a vast exercise of nature’s power over mortals. Perhaps that was the point. And Chislev was Neutral, as was Reorx. So. A god of Good and two gods of Neutral.

He turned over the final card in the square.

The Skull.

Chemosh.

The god of death.

A shudder passed over Harfang, and he drew his cloak and his blanket more firmly about his shoulders. On the other side of the tent, Jeannara stirred uneasily in her sleep and cried out some broken words in Elvish.

The mate shook his head firmly. He was being ridiculous. The cards could not predict the future. In any case, the old man had told him that they showed only possible futures, not what must happen. Besides, there were the three cards of the moons.

The first, in the position of Solinari, showed a Knight, his sword drawn, his face stern and noble. The second, for Lunitari, showed a red-robed wizard, one hand lifted while casting a spell. For one odd moment, Harfang seemed to see the face of the wizard as that of Malshaunt.

The third, for the dark moon, Nuitari, showed a Skeleton—another omen of death. The moons seemed to be balanced between the differing tendencies of Good, Evil, and Neutrality.

Harfang turned over the last card. As always, he knew before seeing it what it would be.

The White Dragon.

He gathered up the cards and returned them to their case. He rolled himself in his blanket. But it was a long time before he sank into slumber.

The following morning the sun rose in a clear sky. A light wind from the north blew against their backs, sending fine clouds of snow along the surface. The sunlight caught the spume and spun it into gossamer threads and clouds that misted the party’s feet as they trudged south.

They were quiet, heads bent, brows furrowed with effort as they walked. Each one’s eyes were on the back of the figure ahead—all save Tashara, who with her blind gaze confidently led them. Behind her walked Harfang, his face grim. Jeannara stepped close behind, and every now and again her eyes strayed to the man whose footsteps she was following.

Ayshe walked near the rear of the party. Despite the drama of Tashara’s story and the excitement of her song the previous night, his heart was burdened with misgivings. It felt too much like walking into a trap, and he was oppressed with the thought that if disaster befell the party, it might be said to have been of his making, since he’d set them on their course.

He raised his head and gazed at the mountains that soared into the blue sky. They were larger by far than the Khalkists under which he had labored. They were white with snow and ice and looked like jagged teeth, ready to devour any who chanced their slopes. Above the tallest, far away, a mist had gathered like a cloudy crown. He watched as it stretched and embraced the mountaintop. Something about it looked unnatural. He caught his breath then shouted. The others halted and followed his pointing finger.

There was no doubt of it. Far ahead and above, the clouds were heralding another breach of the White Wyrm.