Shortly before sunrise, they left the camp on foot and followed Selran over the nearby ridge. The ranger led them along the wooded hillside for several miles before they began to descend toward a boulder-choked riverbed. The stream was dark and slow in the summer heat, trickling through the dusty rocks. Selran finally called another halt in a dense copse another half mile farther on.
'There,' he said in a whisper. 'This side, two hundred yards.'
Erzimar followed the ranger's gaze and saw the cave-a wide, horizontal gash about man-high but close to thirty feet from side to side. It was low, only a few feet above the dry boulders and bleached snags marking the river's high water mark, but it looked like it sloped upward sharply inside.
'I see it,' he said. 'This is close enough. Before we go any farther, I must see to our magical protections.'
The ranger looked up sharply and asked, 'You have spells to protect you?'
'Isildra will use her holy prayers to ward against the dragon's breath and strengthen and fortify us. I will armor us all against its teeth and claws and enchant us with spells of dark-seeing. And I'll lay spells of dragonbane on our weapons, too.'
'Can you turn us invisible?'
'I can, but it won't help much. Dragons see through most such spells with ease.' Erzimar looked up at the tall tracker, and lowered his voice. 'Now, are you staying here, or do you wish to accompany us inside? I need to know before I begin my spells.'
Selran paled. He licked his lips and fixed his eyes on the cave mouth. He visibly shuddered, and passed his hand over his eyes.
I should not have asked, Erzimar chided himself. I have shamed him.
The wizard could only imagine the mortal terror the ranger wrestled with.
'You need not go, Selran,' he added quietly. 'I would not mind a sentry outside to guard against the dragon circling behind us undetected.'
'No,' Selran said. 'No, I will go.'
Gethred, who was standing near, clapped one mailed hand on the ranger's shoulder before turning away to look after his weapons.
Erzimar and Isildra quickly and quietly began their spells and enchantments, while the rest of the company stood guard against any sudden attack. The priestess murmured her sacred words and sprinkled holy water over each of the Argent Hawks, her holy symbol glowing blue with the Vigilant God's power. Erzimar confidently rasped out the words of spell after spell, dusting his companions with pinches of ground diamond and weaving potent abjurations over them. So protected, a swordsman could withstand all but the most powerful blows, and deal terrible wounds with his enchanted blade. When he finished with the last spell, he picked up his staff and gestured at the dragon's lair.
'Quick, but not careless,' said the wizard. 'The spells will not last forever.'
Gethred nodded and set out in the lead, trotting toward the cave in a low crouch. Bragor and Murgolm followed, weapons bared. Then Erzimar and Isildra broke cover and followed, keeping close to the fighters in front of them. Selran loped quietly a few steps behind, his bow strung and an arrow grasped in one hand. They crossed the desiccated streambed easily, and scrambled up toward the dark cave above. Stones scraped and crunched beneath their boots, and Erzimar winced with each one.
It must know we're coming, he thought. Dragons have uncannily keen senses. It'll know we're here.
His stomach twisted at the thought of the dragon waiting on them, but the wizard steeled himself and stayed close to his companions. Ducking below the overhanging rock at the mouth of the cave, the Hawks stole inside, blinking as they went from the sun-bright streambed to the deep shadows of the cave. Erzimar caught a whiff of the dragon's scent-a harsh, acrid smell like a tanner's vat, painful in the nose and throat.
Gethred paused in front of him and pointed to the cave floor with the tip of his sword. Erzimar glanced down and saw at once the dragon's wallow, a broad path through the loose scoria where its belly had smoothed the rubble as it passed in and out of the cave. It was almost a yard wide. He nodded sharply to the half-elf, and Gethred carefully prowled deeper into the cave, following the twisting tunnel deeper into the hillside.
The passage proved difficult and uneven, climbing up and down sharply, with a V-shaped floor that offered little level footing. A serpentine creature with sharp claws and a flexible body could use the narrow walls and rough rocks for easy footholds, but folk on two feet found it difficult going. Mail jingled and scraped as Erzimar's companions slipped and fumbled their way ahead. Erzimar was especially troubled by the height of the passage- crevice, more accurately-since it angled crookedly thirty feet or more above them. He caught up to Bragor and tapped the dwarf on the shoulder.
'Tell Murgholm to watch above,' he whispered. The dwarf nodded and muttered, 'I don't like this. Too easy.'
He tapped Murgholm on the shoulder and mumbled something in Vaasan. Murgholm craned his neck back and studied the darkness overhead for a long moment before scrambling after Gedreth. Bragor watched his back.
Another fifty feet farther, and they came to a branching passageway that descended sharply to the left. A thin trickle of water spilled out of the wall on the right and crossed the dragon's passage before splashing down into the darkness. Gethred looked back to Erzimar.
'Which way?' he mouthed quietly.
The wizard pointed forward. The downward passage looked a little small to him; a dragon with Serpestrill-vy th's evident ego would not care to squirm its way into its lair. But he resolved to keep a very careful watch behind the party as they continued on, just in case.
They continued a short distance past the intersection, and Bragor halted and went to one knee, reaching his thick fingers to the stone floor.
'Stone's pitted here. Acid burns,' he whispered.
Erzimar leaned close to look over Bragor's shoulder.
'The dragon's breath,' he murmured.
His eye fell on an oddly shaped dark lump deep in a crevice in the floor. He prodded it with the end of his staff. Rusty red flakes crumbled away, revealing a small white glint of bone: A human hand in a seared mail gauntlet.
'Damn,' Bragor muttered. 'Right about here, then.'
He looked up, hefting his warhammer.
'Little humanss. Your sswords are sharp, your sspells are strong. Have you come to sslay me, then?' a sibilant, oddly high-pitched voice rasped from somewhere overhead.
The Argent Hawks went on guard, blades pointing up, crouching against the stone walls of the passage. Erzimar glimpsed a glimmer of bright green near the top of the crevice, a glint from the dragon's eye.
'We've come to put an end to your depredations here, Serpestrillvyth,' Gethred answered. 'You can leave now, fly off and never return, and we'll let you go. Otherwise you'll not leave this cave alive.'
'You musst help me carry off my hoard, then. I cannot fly it away sso easily.'
'Seeing as your hoard consists of things you've stolen from the people you've murdered, you can leave it right here,' said Gethred.
He glanced back at Erzimar and cut his eyes toward the crevice overhead. The wizard caught the message- take the opportunity to locate the creature as long as it was willing to talk. They all understood that Serpestrillvyth had no intention of leaving; the dragon thought it was toying with them.
'You creep into my house to murder me and take my gold, and you call me a thief?' Serpestrillvyth sounded aggrieved. 'If the humanss in that little town keep sending brigandss and assassinss against me, I will have to redouble my effortss to show them the error of their ways. I have dealt with one ssuch band already.'
'You'll find us a more formidable challenge than the Sundered Shields,' Isildra called up into the cave.
'Indeed. Do you know you are sstanding exactly where they sstood when I killed them all?'
Serpestrillvyth laughed-a strange sound like sandpaper abrading a plank-then the dragon thrust its head down low into the passage and hissed out a tremendous gout of sickly green vapor.
The Hawks cried out and scrambled for cover, so taken aSack by the quickness of the attack that their magical protections were momentarily forgotten. Only Erzimar did not allow himself to flinch. Instead he gestured and snapped out a magical word, and hurled a bright stabbing fork of lightning up at the spot where the dragon crouched. He saw the creature twist away from the magical blast, but then the dragon's horrid breath sank down
