A buzz like an angry wasp-except that no self-respecting wasp would be out in this weather-ripped through the map. Had Kang been leaning forward, as he had been just a split second earlier, the arrow would have torn through a wing, come to rest in his skull. As it was, Gloth was staring stupidly at an arrow lodged in his thick, muscular thigh.
“Take cover!” Kang shouted. “We’re under attack!”
The draconians acted with alacrity, their playful fight forgotten. Those carrying the young sought the shelter of the woods, their comrades fanning out to cover them. More arrows sliced through the winter air, some finding their marks to judge by the yells.
“You bozaks! Stay clear of the young!” Kang shouted.
The bodies of all draconians are lethal to their killers. The baaz turn to stone, entrapping the weapon that had killed them. Others turn to pools of acid. When a bozak draconian dies, he effects revenge on his killer. His bones explode, killing or maiming anything in the vicinity. The draconians entrusted with the babies were baaz, who changed to stone.
Kang reached out, jerked the arrow from Cloth’s leg. A trickle of blood followed, but due to the draconian’s scales, the arrow had done little damage. The story would have been different if that arrow had found its target- Kang’s skull. He and the wounded Gloth sought shelter in the trees.
Kang studied the bloody arrow closely and swore bitterly. “Slith!” he yelled, hunkering down. “Where’s Slith?”
“Here, sir!” Slith came sliding and slipping through the snow.
“Who’s attacking us?” Kang demanded.
“Goblins, sir,” said Slith, looking apologetic.
“I thought you said we’d left those bastards behind!”
“I thought we had, sir,” said Slith. “We left their lands two days ago! Sir,” he said, lowering his voice, and dropping down beside his leader, “have you ever known those lazy slugs to leave their warm caves and track an enemy through the snow when he’s no longer a threat?”
“We never were a threat!” Kang protested. “I can understand the goblins wanting to protect their own territory, but we told them we were just passing through, and we passed through!”
“Yes, sir,” said Slith respectfully. “That’s what I mean. Going back to my original question about the goblins, have you known them to be this persistent, sir?”
“No,” Kang admitted gloomily. He looked at the arrow he was still carrying, shook it as though it were personally responsible for nearly skewering him. “I haven’t seen goblins carry well-crafted arrows like this before.”
As if to emphasize his words, another arrow whistled through the tree branches, thunked into the bole of a tree next to where Kang was crouching. An explosion, far off in the woods, told him that one of the bozaks had departed this world.
“You men keep your heads down!” Kang bellowed. He looked worriedly around for the soldiers carrying the young, hoped they’d found adequate cover.
“These aren’t ordinary goblins, sir,” Slith stated, as he and Kang helped the hobbling Gloth limp farther back among the trees. “I think we have proof now, that these goblins are acting on orders. Someone wants us dead, sir.”
“Now there’s a surprise!” Kang grunted. “I don’t have fingers and toes enough to count everyone who wants us dead.”
“Goblins aren’t usually among that number, sir,” Slith argued. “Goblins are usually on our side. Those who hire them are on our side, if you take my meaning, sir. The cursed Solamnics wouldn’t be likely to fund goblin assassins.”
“Which means that someone on our side wants us dead.” Kang was thoughtful. This introduced a totally new aspect to the situation. “But why?” He answered his own question. “The females.”
“We’re a threat to someone, sir. We know that Queen Takhisis-I spit on her name and her memory”-Slith matched his words with the action-”intended us to die out once we were no longer of any use to her. She feared us, and now it seems that even though she’s gone, others fear us, too.”
“But who?” Kang demanded impatiently, studying the arrow he was still carrying, like a talisman. “Who even knows about the babies?”
“Those dwarves know, sir, and they’re certainly not above selling the information.”
“Right,” Kang muttered. “I forgot about them, drat their hairy hides. I wonder-”
“Where’s the commander?” a voice was shouting.
Draconians hissed and pointed. Whenever a dracon-ian moved, an arrow zipped his direction.
Kang raised up quickly. “Here!” he shouted. An arrow struck his back, lodged in his chain mail armor. Slith plucked it out, broke it in two, and cast it into the snow. Kang hunkered back down.
“Sir!” A draconian slid through the snow, halted beside Kang, bringing a storm of arrows in their direction. The draconians flattened themselves into the snow, waited for the onslaught to pass. “Sir!” the draconian continued, “we’ve found a large stone building. It’s outside the tree cover, in the middle of the plains, about a mile away! It’s right out in the open, sir, but the building’s good and solid.”
“Excellent!” Kang was about to tell his troops to move out.
“There’s only one problem, sir.”
“What’s that?” Kang asked impatiently.
“It’s a Temple of Paladine, sir.”
A temple of Paladine. Their most implacable enemy. The great god of the righteous on Krynn. In the old days, no draconian would have dared set a claw inside a temple of Paladine. The wrath of the god would have fried the meat from his bones.
“Paladine’s gone,” said Kang. “From what we hear, he fled the world five months ago along with our cowardly queen.”
“What if we heard wrong, sir?” Gloth asked. He had packed his wound with snow, and the bleeding had stopped.
“We’ll have to chance it,” Kang said. “Slith, you go on ahead, check things out. Take Support Squadron with you.”
He could hear shouts, sounds of fighting. The goblins had given up shooting at them from afar and were now attacking.
“Yes, sir!” Slith was up and gone before the archers had a chance to target him.
“Fall back by squadrons,” Kang shouted. “Support Squadron first. Gloth, can you hold the line?”
“Yes, sir,” Gloth said and began to issue commands.
The wind howled through the sparse copse of trees, kicking up snow from the ground that stung the eyes and half-blinded them. The sound of fighting was far away, but that was a trick of the winter wind. His soldiers, the dra-conians of the First Dragonarmy Field Engineer Regiment, were only five hundred yards away through the sparse tree cover.
Runners went scrambling across the snow to relay the orders he had just given. Kang hurried to the rear to take a look at the temple himself. He paused in the shelter of the trees, gazed across the plains to the building that would serve as their redoubt. The forward companies were doing an excellent job of keeping the goblins occupied. No arrows back here, not yet-but it would be only a matter of time.
The temple was large with two levels, few windows and those were lead-lined stained glass. A dome surmounted it. The building was made of marble that gleamed whiter than the snow. A wall surrounded the temple. Behind the temple and along the wall were several outbuildings. Kang could just barely see their red-tiled roofs.
The snow wasn’t nearly as deep on the plains as it was in the forest. The wind swept the frozen ground clean, sent the snow piling up in drifts in front of the temple wall.
He watched as Slith cautiously approached the temple’s holy grounds, which could be just as dangerous to the draconians as goblin arrows. Nothing and no one attacked him. Kang could see no signs of guards on the walls. Slith kicked in the front gate.
Support Squadron, nearly seventy strong, came up behind Kang. He raised a hand, ordered a halt. Support Squadron had been tasked with keeping the young female draconians safe. Every one of them had sworn a blood
