visible.
Despite its ragged appearance, he knew it to have once been a place of power. The builders had been on a level equal to that of Vraad, which stirred up the question of what had happened to them. Why was this place now abandoned?
The horse had paused at the bottom of the incline, gazing up at its master with an almost impatient look. Despite the height, there was a path that allowed one fairly easy access to the valley. Dru knew he was supposed to follow the animal and knew also that whoever had sent it wanted him to know that the sorcerer was being purposely guided. That spoke of someone who wished to converse, not to kill.
“And shall we enter the dragon’s maw?” Dru whispered nonsensically to himself.
He thought of Darkness, who might revive and find him missing. Separating was perhaps not the most prudent of choices in this land, but Dru’s inquisitive, arrogant nature would not let him miss this opportunity. Even with his skills hampered, he felt more assured. Someone obviously wished to speak to him and his mind interpreted that as a need for his aid. Being Vraad, it appealed to him, eradicating all other possibilities, including a few which likely would have been seen to bear more merit, had Dru thought them through.
He started down the hill, his eyes focused more often on the decaying citadel than the path he took. Twice he almost tripped, which would have ended with him rolling the rest of the way, but luck was always with him.
At the bottom, he almost tripped again, but this time because the body in his path was so much the color of the earth it lay half-buried in, that he almost did not see it in time.
Dru’s entire situation altered in the single breath it took the sorcerer to recognize the form for what it was. Near him, the horse waited silently. It no longer seemed impatient, but rather expectant.
The Vraad reached down and touched the corpse. It lay on its stomach, but he could tell it was manlike at least. Nearly as tall as the spellcaster, it had worn finely crafted cloth garments that crumbled when his fingers ran across them. To Dru’s shock and wonder, the body, too, crumbled, collapsing within itself and blowing away with the breeze. Nothing remained after the first few seconds save a collection of fragments, mostly decor from the clothing.
How old? Dru wondered. How old and in what way would one have to die to be preserved like this?
The ravaged city no longer seemed such a wondrous place to visit. The sorcerer wiped dust from his eyes and glanced back up the way he had come. It would not be too terrible a climb…
The sun was little more than a tired remnant of its once-glorious self. Climbing the hill might not be so terrible, but could he find his way back to his companion? Even granting that Darkness stood out even in the… the true darkness… he was still too far away for Dru to locate immediately. In the dark, the spellcaster might wander off in the wrong direction.
“Serkadion Manee!” Dru cursed his own stupidity. His powers and senses now functioned, at least somewhat. It would be a simple matter of focusing on-
Something snagged his left foot and threatened to topple him to the ground. Dru looked down to see the foot, up to and including the ankle, sink beneath the rocky surface. The grip that held him was tight enough to cut off circulation. His first attempt to free himself was to kick at the slowly encroaching ground. When his mind registered the idiocy of that act, the Vraad threw caution to the wind and summoned forth his powers as best he could. Whether they worked sufficiently or not, he would strike at the underground nemesis with everything within him.
The earth shook violently and the hillside threatened to collapse on the sorcerer. It was not the result Dru had intended and he wondered whether he had hastened his own death. Then whatever had hold of him lost its grip and the startled spellcaster fell back, arms akimbo as he sought uselessly to halt his descent. Dru stuck the ground hard.
A huge, monstrous shape rose out of the earth, filling Dru’s vision. The Vraad looked into a visage of savagery, a long-snouted, red-orbed beast that seemed to glitter. The creature was covered with a natural body armor and stood on two bulky legs. It had clawed appendages large enough to grasp him by the neck and rip his head off, if it so decided.
The terror let loose with a maddened hooting noise that threatened to pierce Dru’s eardrums. It raised a claw, obviously intending to rend the sprawled Vraad’s midsection. The harried sorcerer desperately sought for control, hoping to make one last strike with his haphazard skills. The claws came down.
A black aura surrounded the attacking beast. It let out one frightened hoot, and toppled toward its intended victim.
Dru had, at the very least, enough sense to roll away from the collapsing figure. He had no idea what had happened, save that he had escaped death again-with help from someone or something. The sorcerer ended his rolling by returning to his feet, crouched low in case of a second assault. There was none.
Cautiously approaching his would-be killer, Dru frowned. The creature blended into the region around him with the exception of little spots of glitter buried in the folds of its armor. Suspicions already forming, Dru carefully prodded the huge corpse.
It collapsed the way the first had.
At the same time, the Vraad heard the flutter of wings. He looked up.
More than a dozen copies of the avian horror that had tried to kill him back in Nimth hovered overhead. The largest of them wore a medallion about its neck and cradled the artifact with one of its hands. Dru had no doubt that this was what had killed the armored creature.
It was now focused on him.
VIII
Among the celebrating Vraad, enmities began to spill over the mental dams in what could best be described as the first forerunners of one massive flood of hatred.
Gerrod noted it first in a Vraad called Lord Highcort, a pretty man bedecked in huge, glistening baubles. Highcort wore rings on each finger and was clad in a robe of majestic purple, giving him the appearance of some jaded monarch. The object of his wrath was a female who had once been his mate, or was it twice? She wore nothing but a multicolored streamer of light that occasionally revealed her charms for the briefest of times. Her hair hung low over her face, almost obscuring her eyes. She was presently taller than Highcort, though that could change depending on their moods. What her name was, Gerrod could not recall.
Highcort had evidently had no such trouble finding names for her. The last was the least in a long line that had initially alerted Gerrod to the argument down in the courtyard. “Minx! I grow annoyed at your toying! If you will not cease your diatribes, then I will have to remove the troublesome tongue that makes them!”
“You’ve been trying to remove that tongue for years, Highcort! What’s the matter? Have I struck so close with the truth that you cannot take it anymore?”
The male gritted his teeth. A haze started to form around him, first simply a cloud, then a whirlwind that began circling around.
What the woman was doing, Gerrod had no idea, but he could sense her own powers at work.
Just as the two were about to strike, a pair of dragon riders materialized above them. Both Vraad turned their attention skyward, knowing where the more dangerous threat lay.
“What is it? What goes on?” His father’s booming voice pulled the hooded Tezerenee from the window. Gerrod found he was disappointed that the combatants had not been allowed to continue. At least the others would have been thoroughly entertained and the mutterings would have ceased for a while.
“We can’t mislead them for much longer, Father. The feuds are starting to brew anew.”
The Lord Tezerenee was presently hunched over charts and notations that Gerrod and Rendel had made concerning the passage over to the Dragonrealm. Barakas absently stroked the head of the small wyvern perched on his armored shoulder as he digested both what lay revealed before him and his son’s warning.
Reegan, ever a champion of the head-on charge, slammed a mailed fist onto the table and, ignoring the splintered remnants where his hand had gone through, said, “They should be brought under control, informed of who is in command here! If they knew their true standing, they would abase themselves before us and beg for a place in the new kingdom!”
