the hut. The giant’s legs were too long, and a horse couldn’t negotiate the corners quickly enough.
Medrash reached out and seized all the divine Power he could hold. He sent it surging down his sword arm into his blade, then cut down at the barrier in front of him. For an instant he seemed to glimpse a much larger sword, forged of light and too big for even an ash giant to wield, surrounding his own weapon and making the identical attack.
When his blade sheared into the wattle, the hut flew apart in a flash of light, one half of it tumbling and crashing to the right and the other to the left. Suddenly deprived of his cover, Shangbok gaped in surprise.
For his part, Medrash felt a kind of hollow ache inside. It meant that for the time being he’d exhausted the ability to channel the might of Torm and henceforth would have to engage Shangbok using only mundane tactics. Well, so be it. He urged his horse forward over the rush-covered earthen floor the destruction of the hut had left behind.
Shangbok retreated and resumed chanting. Medrash had hoped that, startled, the adept had hesitated long enough to lose the cadence of his incantation. But manifestly not, because the giant thrust out his big gray hand, and embers blasted from his fingertips.
Medrash lowered his head and squinched his eyes shut. He couldn’t do anything to protect his poor horse, but the animal endured the blistering barrage and kept surging forward.
Shangbok reached for the axe hanging at his hip but failed to unlimber it in time to contend with Medrash’s first attack. The dragonborn slashed the shaman’s neck and rode on by.
When Medrash wheeled his mount around, Shangbok was on his knees. He was clutching his neck, but blood still spurted between his fingers. He groped in his sack and brought out the green egg. His mouth moved, and shadow squirmed inside the crystal.
No, thought Medrash. We’ve seen enough of your lizard friends. He rode at the giant and drove his point into the shaman’s chest.
Shangbok collapsed, and the egg rolled from his hand. Then, all at once, it shattered into glittering dust. Medrash realized the giant hadn’t been trying to create more minions after all. He’d used the last of his strength to destroy the talisman.
Off to the right, people started to cheer. Medrash looked around and saw that he and his comrades had eradicated their foes.
He tried to share in the other riders’ jubilation. It seemed reasonable that he should, for after all they’d won a victory. In so doing, they’d validated Khouryn’s training and proved that a warrior didn’t have to be a wyrm-lover to stand a chance against the giants.
But his instincts told him the egg had been important. What might they have learned from it if they’d captured it intact?
THREE
28 MIRTUL -3 KYTHORN THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Wings beating, Eider climbed into the cool night air, attaining the altitude necessary to protect her from bowshots from the ground. She couldn’t find an updraft to carry her, and gave a querulous little rasp at the effort involved.
“Lazy beast,” Gaedynn said. “Do as you’re told, or it’s off to the knackers with you.” He gave the griffon an affectionate, rustling scratch amid the feathers on her neck.
When he judged they were high enough, he flew her over the city walls and the enemy camp beyond. The Threskelans’ yellow fires flickered, just barely revealing the nearest soldiers and tents. No one called the alarm as Gaedynn soared overhead, and he inwardly conceded that Eider might have had a point. Maybe it hadn’t been necessary to rise so high. Maybe the night was shield enough. But also maybe not. Kobolds, orcs, and some of the other beings in the Great Bone Wyrm’s employ saw pretty well in the dark.
Gaedynn flew some distance beyond the force encircling Soolabax, then set down behind a stand of oaks. If he’d been in command of Alasklerbanbastos’s army, he would have stationed a picket or two among the trees. But he hadn’t spotted any when he’d flown over in the daylight.
He scrutinized the shadows under the branches and decided no one was there now either. Something made a tiny rustling sound in the underbrush, but his hunter’s instincts told him it was a small animal, a vole or stoat perhaps, not a threat.
He unbuckled his safety straps, swung himself out of the saddle, and led Eider into the cover the coppice afforded. “Wait for me here,” he said. “Keep out of sight.”
Eider grunted. No wizard had altered her in the womb, and she didn’t possess a quasi-human intelligence like Jet. Still, Gaedynn was confident she understood.
He patted her head, then headed for the far side of the oaks. By the time he reached it, he was crouching low and creeping.
He was reasonably sure the enemy force was directing most of its vigilance inward, toward the town that was their objective. But they surely had at least a few sentries looking out at the countryside too. So he all but crawled across the open ground between the coppice and the tents and fires on the near side of the half-erected earthworks and half-assembled siege towers and trebuchets. He paused often to study the ground ahead.
He supposed a charm of invisibility could have made the little excursion easier. But relying on such an enchantment could also mean disaster. There were wards that could strip away invisibility. Bareris Anskuld had run into one at the Dread Ring in Lapendrar. And since Gaedynn was no spellcaster, he doubted his ability to detect and avoid them. Better then to rely on the woodcraft he’d learned during his captivity in the Yuirwood.
Of course, were Jhesrhi with him, the task might be easier too. They might not need to sneak into the enemy camp at all, because she could command the wind to carry the sounds of voices to her from far away. He wondered what she was doing back at Tchazzar’s court. Dancing? He grinned and tried to find the thought ridiculous.
An owl hooted, and Selune’s silvery light glinted on the iron blade of a plow. The implement looked undamaged and accordingly valuable by peasant standards. Perhaps some unlucky farmer had dropped it as he fled the advance of Threskel’s army.
Five paces beyond the plow blade, Gaedynn spotted a small, round shape in the gloom ahead. At first glimpse he took it for a stone or shrub, but he froze and peered at it anyway. There was a triangular bump like a snake’s head sticking up from the rounded part. He decided the form was really a kobold sentry sitting on the ground with most of his body hidden behind a shield.
Could Gaedynn swing right or left and avoid the kobold’s notice? Possibly, but what if that meant moving straight toward another? He suspected there was more than one sentry, and he had no way of knowing how far apart they were.
He eased an arrow from his quiver, laid it on his bow, then stood, drew, loosed, and dropped back down all in a heartbeat.
The shaft punched into the kobold’s crown. The reptile flopped onto his back without making a sound.
So far, so good. Gaedynn just had to enter the camp, accomplish his objective, and sneak away again before anybody found the corpse.
As he passed the body, he looked for a badge he could appropriate. He didn’t see anything, and didn’t want to linger by the body to search. But fortunately, even though Threskel was a poor realm-or a poor province in rebellion, if you took the traditional Chessentan point of view-Alasklerbanbastos had somehow found the coin to hire a fair number of mercenaries from overseas. As a result, his army consisted of a diverse lot of warriors who were mostly strangers to one another. If Tymora smiled, Gaedynn could blend in for at least a little while.
He kept low until he was near the perimeter of the camp, near enough that a fellow might have wandered that far out simply to piss in peace. He peered, searching for anyone who might be looking right in his direction, then straightened up. Pretending to close the fastenings of his breeches, he sauntered on toward the tents and crackling fires.
As he’d hoped, he didn’t attract any special notice even though most of the human soldiers lay snoring, either in their tents or wrapped in blankets under the open sky. It was mainly nocturnal creatures, swaggering pig-faced orcs and other goblinkin, who were awake.
