badly. With a curt command, he summoned Warden Thilt.
'That is not important,' he declared with an abrupt, breathless determination. He turned to Warden Thilt. 'Take him to the dungeons. Kill him with a single strike.'
'Thank you, Master!' cried Fairman pathetically, falling forward to wrap his arms around the high priest's feet.
But Kelryn was already up and walking, taking long strides toward the white door. His mind was aflame, full of the mental image of the young woman. He was sure the reality would not be a disappointment. Behind him, he heard low sobs as Fairman was lifted to his feet and escorted without a great deal of force toward the stone- covered trapdoor that led into the temple's nether reaches.
The woman was waiting, and she was even more beautiful and willing than Kelryn had dared to hope. He enjoyed her through the rest of the morning, and she seemed more than happy to devote her considerable skill to the advancement of her faith.
Only later, as he lay in languid half-consciousness, did Kelryn's thoughts turn back to the hapless Fairman. The man had been dead for several hours when the priest sat up, cursing softly at his own thoughtlessness. He should have been more patient, more thorough as he questioned the traitor about his dream.
Specifically, he should have asked what the kender's name was.
CHAPTER 12
351 AC
Second Bakukal, Gildember
'Stop them!' High Priest Kelryn Darewind cried, standing on the wall above the gates of his temple compound, commanding the Faithguards to steady the bar that held shut the wide portals.
But the force of the mob in the streets would not be denied. Though Kelryn quickly descended, joining his men to throw his own weight against the gates, the bar splintered like a toothpick, and slowly the massive barriers of the gates were forced inward.
As soon as there was a narrow opening, people began to stream into the courtyard of the Sect of the Black Robe. The force of the crowd swelled the gap, and Kelryn abandoned the lost effort, falling back as the gates swung wide and a great throng of terrified humans charged into the high-walled compound. Even worse, he saw several kender ambling along with the crowd, unaffected by the hysteria that gripped the humans.
The refugees scattered through all portions of the temple grounds, filling the chapel, spilling through the gardens and drill grounds, pouring into the barracks, even seeking refuge in the bloodstained dungeons beneath the temple floor.
'Try to fix the gates after the throng is through,' growled the high priest. 'And by all that you value, get rid of the kender! Kill them if they won't leave!'
Warden Horec, the most recent chief of the Faith-guards, saluted and promised to do his best, though they both tacitly acknowledged that the force of the mob was a thing that no mere human could be expected to control. Still, he knew his master's aversion to the small folk, and he would make certain that any kender within the compound was quickly discovered and tossed over the wall.
Furious, Kelryn pushed his way through the crowd into the temple, then climbed the spiral stairway to the blessed solitude offered by the high tower. Two strapping Faithguards stood at the foot of the steps, barring passage-at least, thus far-to any trespasser who tried to follow.
The view from above offered little consolation. Kelryn could see many places where Haven was burning, the fires ignited by the cruel red dragons under the command of the villainous highlord, Verminaard. As he watched, the priest saw one of the massive serpents glide between two towering pillars of smoke. Banking gracefully, the wyrm uttered a shriek in the air above a crowded avenue, sending people spilling in panic toward any shelter they could find.
It was just such a panic that had driven the throng into the Temple of Fistandantilus. For days the news had been clear and harsh: Armies were marching on Haven, and the city would inevitably fall. As to his sect, the high priest was determined to do what he could to make sure it survived.
Kelryn touched the comforting weight of the bloodstone and wished that he could pray to Fistandantilus for help-wished that there really was a god that would protect him, that would see to the safety of his faithful follower.
As if to mock his hopes, the gliding red dragon dipped low, jaws gaping as it belched a great cloud of flame along a row of buildings not far from the temple. The structures, mostly taverns, ignited immediately, and moments later panicked folk came diving out of the doorways. Many of the victims were aflame, and they rolled in the street, screaming in agony, only to be ignored by their fellow citizens who fled past, desperate for any suggestion of safety.
Haven had fallen, as Kelryn, and everyone else who had a grasp of reality, had known it would. The dragon- armies that had swept southward from Abanasinia were clearly unstoppable, a horde of flying serpents, cruel riders, and teeming hordes of men and monsters on the ground. There were even rumors that the elves of Qua-linesti were withdrawing from their ancestral home, taking ships across the Straits of Algoni toward the imagined safety of Southern Ergoth.
Kelryn wondered, as he had wondered before, if he had been a fool to stay. Perhaps he should have abandoned the temple, left the faithful to fend for themselves as he sought a new place to begin. Much as he had done nine decades earlier, he reflected bitterly.
He had not remained in Haven out of any sense of loyalty to his followers. Rather, he had been unwilling to abandon the riches, the comforts, the women that had been his lot for so many years. The highlords would come, would claim this place and establish their rule, but Haven would remain a city. Kelryn merely hoped to maintain something like his old status when the new regime took power.
The dragon veered again, winging past the tower, and Kelryn grimaced at the sight of the rider sitting astride the crimson-scaled back. The man bore a long lance with a bloodstained tip and a shaft of black wood. His face was concealed behind a grotesque mask, and the high priest longed to tear that mask away, to punish this warrior for his insolence and to see the fear in his eyes as Kelryn Darewind delivered a blistering incantation of lethal violence.
Alas, it was not to be.
Hate flaring in his heart, Kelryn watched the dragon and its rider bank again, veering smoothly back to the north. There, some of the city's garrison had been determined to make a stand against the advancing army, valiantly trying to hold the gate and low wall. That defense had lasted for a few minutes, until a trio of the red dragons had flown overhead. Those men with the courage to remain at their posts in the face of the inevitable wave of mind-numbing dragonawe had died there, seared by the killing flames or crushed by claw and rended by fang. The rest of the defenders, driven into flight by terror, had scattered into every corner of the city or fled into the wilds of,the south.
By the time the enemy ground troops, the draconians and their human and goblin allies, had reached the city wall, the barrier had been scoured clean of defenders. Now those land-bound invaders were spreading through the city, burning, looting, and raping. It was these tactics that had driven the frenzied mob to the gates of the sect's compound, though Kelryn wasn't sure why the mindless folk felt they might be safe here. He was pragmatic enough to realize that the high stone walls and the sturdy gates would present no barrier at all to an army determined to sack the place.
However, as the day waned into evening and then blended into the following dawn, there came no attack against the compound. At sunrise, Kelryn resumed his place in the tower and saw that the fires in the northern districts of the city had, for the most part, burned themselves out. There was no sign that the destruction was continuing.
Throughout the day, a steady stream of injured people made their way into South Haven. Many of these were
