him whispering in his ears, came a moaning sound. Even though he could not see them, the draconian knew that the pleading, demanding dead encircled him… and that they waited for their opportunity.
“I’ve got nothing for you!” he snapped at the wind. “Nothing for you at all!” The anxious Bozak whirled about. “Find yourself another mage from which to leech! I’ll not cassst any more ssspells! You’ll sssuck no more magic through me!”
But the wind seemed to mock him. The ever-growing legion of wraiths swirled invisibly around him, silently watching him.
All around him. Unseen, but everywhere.
Brudas hissed. He imagined the clawing hands, the hollow eyes. The Bozak began pawing at his elegant robe, the one he wore in order to better emulate the Auraks. He tried to peel away the grasping fingers. Sharp talons ripped fabric, and yet still Brudas felt the ghostly presence. He looked around, saw the bracelet. Grasping it, Brudas rubbed his hand across the skull design, trying to find some way to unlock the power.
Nothing. Brudas’s gaze fixed on the two empty spaces where the stones had been mounted. Had he, by ripping them free, ruined any hope of using the artifact?
“Fool! I’ve been a fool!” Brudas swung the bracelet about in wild anger and frustration. His hand smashed against the oil lamp, sending it flying against the tent wall. The oil and fire spread across the fabric, quickly turning into an inferno. Brudas backed away, only to discover that the hem and sleeve of his robe were afire.
He turned, trying to douse the spreading flames. In desperation, the draconian began to cast a spell, one that should have been able to quell any ordinary fire. However, as the last words left his mouth, Brudas again experienced the unsettling sensation of feeling the magic drained away from his very lips.
In that terrible moment, dark, maddening thoughts flew into his mind. Had the ghosts planned this, too? Had they led him into this desperate situation so he would be forced to try magic-which they would then swoop upon, unseen vultures hungry for even the tiniest morsel of his power?
“No!” the Bozak shouted at the air, heedless of the fire consuming his garments. “I know what you intend! I’ll not be your puppet! I’ll be free of you somehow-free of all of you!”
The flames now covered his robe and burned his scaly hide. Brudas tried rolling on the ground, then, in desperation, he dashed out of the burning tent, startling Drek and the others, who had come to stop the fire.
Brudas ran past them toward the swamp. In his agonized mind, he saw only the water, and as the three Baaz watched, their superior ran headlong into the swamp, ignorant of its many perils. Brudas waded farther and farther out into the muck.
With each step he made less progress, sinking deeper. Still he pushed on. His shoulders and arms were ablaze. He took a breath and plunged underwater to kill the fire.
As his head went under, the Bozak caught sight of something in the mud-two tiny objects gleaming. Two tiny black stones.
Struggling to hold his breath, Brudas reached for the precious stones, but they were too far away. He managed another step and, his lungs straining, tried once more to grab them.
Brudas’s hand plunged into the mud and seized the stones. A slight shock ran through him and suddenly, all around the Bozak, floated the legions of dead.
Terrified, Brudas opened his mouth to shout, forgetting for the moment that he, unlike the hungering spectres, needed air to breathe.
Drek, leaning over as far as he could, ceased calling his superior’s name and watched with horror as the last bubbles rose to the surface… and the angry swamp finally calmed again.
The silence shattered as an explosion, the final mark of death for all Bozaks, sent a shower of water high into the air. Drek stepped back just enough to avoid being drenched, then eyed the swamp, still confused by what had happened.
Molgar and Gruun reluctantly joined Drek and the three Baaz stared for a time, almost as if they still expected their superior to rise out of the water and castigate them for standing around doing nothing. At last, Gruun broke the silence, turning to Drek.
“What do we do now?”
Drek shrugged. He had lived his life obeying orders, not giving them, but the other Baaz seemed even more uncertain about what to do. At last, he gave them the only answer that made any sense at all under the circumstances.
“We pack up and go back to our missstressss.”
“So this is all?” the black leviathan rumbled dangerously. “This is the result of your grand expedition?”
Drek could not help but shiver before Sable. The great creature towered over the tiny draconian, her form so massive she had to bend over and contort herself to fit into this cavern, one of her many sanctums scattered around her domain.
“Yesss, missstressss! It isss all!”
Spread before the overlord were the handful of items that the three Baaz had been able to salvage from Brudas’s destroyed tent. Not much to show for their work, and Drek knew it. Yet, as a lowly servant of the great dragon, he had no recourse but to bring it all to her, no matter her certain disappointment and anger.
The ebony leviathan’s head swung back and forth as she surveyed their meagre findings. Drek already knew that she would find them of little interest. Brudas had mentioned time and time again how pathetic these magical relics were.
“It is fortunate for your superior,” Sable announced, her malevolent gaze fixing on the Baaz again, “that he chose to die in Krolus. He wasted my time and hopes on this mission, it seems. I should have sent an Aurak to lead the expedition just as I had originally planned.” Her eyes narrowed. “And as for you-”
Drek blinked, suddenly realizing that he had forgotten one item. Fool! He had wanted so much to protect it that he had forgotten to remove it from his pouch and add it the pile. “There isss one more, missstressss! One more!”
She pulled her head back, waiting.
The draconian plucked the object from the pouch, then set it down before her. Drek backed up as Sable’s head dived down to scrutinize the relic.
Her eyes lit up. “Yes! I can sense the magic within! Strong magic! This has to be the work of the dark mage the scrolls spoke of.” She reached down and delicately took the bracelet in her tremendous talons. “This has been damaged, though.”
Under her baleful gaze, the draconian stammered, “It wasss Brudasss, missstressss! Brudasss in his madnessss! I am only a lowly Baaz and understand nothing of magic!”
“But you understand wealth and treasure, do you not?” Sable said. “Even you wouldn’t be so foolish as to steal a couple of paltry gems and risk my wrath… would you?”
An intense blast of dragonfear overwhelmed Drek. He fell to his knees. “No, missstressss! No!”
She seemed satisfied, both with his reply and the relic. “So perhaps the mission was not a total failure.” Sable held up the bracelet, admiring it. “I shall make use of this, yes! The damage means little overall. All I need is the raw magic within!”
The gargantuan dragon turned away, eyes fixed upon her prize. Even though only a lowly Baaz, Drek knew well enough to rise to his feet and hurry from her sight.
Drek did not look back as he rushed from the cavern and, even if he had, all he would have seen was the dragon studying the artifact. He would not have seen the trailing legions of ghosts who followed him, the legions that Sable herself could not see without the black gems. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands of them, already floating around the black leviathan, eagerly awaiting her spells.
Ghosts with hungry, hungry eyes.
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