“I’m sorry,” Medrash said. “The bats are the steeds of the Lance Defenders, the core of our army. I’ve never heard of anyone else being entrusted with one under any circumstances. In wartime, it’s all but inconceivable.” He sipped from his cup.
“Unless we stole one,” Balasar said.
Medrash choked and sputtered.
“Easy,” Balasar said, laughter in his voice. “I didn’t say we should, or that I would. I was speaking hypothetically.”
The paladin wiped his mouth with the back of a scaly hand. “That’s good, since such a theft would amount to treason.”
“And I wouldn’t be a party to it anyway,” Khouryn said. “I’ll just have to resign myself to not seeing my lass this time around.”
Out in the darkness, the lutenist finished his song, paused, then started another just as sad.
After a while, Balasar said, “It seems like a cheerless world all of a sudden. Bad things happening everywhere you look.” Khouryn noticed that when dragonborn drank to excess, they started to slur just like dwarves and men.
“I hate sensing the pattern,” Medrash said, “yet not being able to see it. That’s the thing that keeps us helpless.”
“Everything doesn’t have to be connected,” Balasar said. “Not in the way you mean. Maybe the stars are just in a bad configuration or something.”
“No, there’s a better reason than that. If the Loyal Fury would guide me again, maybe I could figure it out. But given my failure in Luthcheq, perhaps he’s decided to look for a more capable agent.”
“Please,” Balasar groaned. “I’m begging you by the tree and the stone, don’t start babbling that nonsense again.”
Khouryn decided to change the subject. “What will the two of you do now that Perra doesn’t need your services anymore?”
Balasar grinned, the gleam of his pointed teeth perceptible even in the dark. “You’re looking at it. Strong drink and a soft chair. Throw in an amorous female or two and I’m set.”
Medrash gave him an irritated glance. “It isn’t only active Lance Defenders fighting the giants. Every clan has sent or will send its own troops. I’m going, and I know that whatever he pretends, this clown wouldn’t think of staying behind.”
“Oh, I’d think about it,” Balasar said.
“How soon will you leave?” Khouryn asked.
Balasar chuckled. “I have a terrible premonition that the prig here won’t even give me time for my hangover to run its course.”
“In that case, I’ll tag along if you’ll have me. Just me. I need to send the other sellswords back to Aoth.”
“Of course we’ll have you,” Medrash said. “But why are you doing this?”
“If Tymora smiles, maybe it won’t take you dragonborn long to win a decisive victory. Then the Dustroad will open up again, and I’ll be in the right place to take advantage of it.”
That really was the main reason. But it was also true that Medrash’s murky talk of a pattern had struck a chord with him.
Could the paladin possibly be right? Was there a common underlying cause for all the tribulations afflicting the realms around the Alamber? If so, then it could only benefit the Brotherhood to understand it. And maybe if Khouryn stuck with Medrash and Balasar and learned more about Tymanther’s problems, he’d gain some insight.
More likely not. But all things considered, it was worth an extra tenday or two just in case.
From their icy touch, and the fact that they had no trouble moving around in the dark, Jhesrhi inferred that the captors gripping her forearms and marching her along were vampires. Once she realized that, she found their touch even more repulsive than that of the living, but all she could do was steel herself and bear it as they marched her along. They’d removed the shackles that suppressed her magic, but it was unlikely her powers could help her while she was blind and two such formidable creatures were holding on to her.
“Are you still all right, buttercup?” asked Gaedynn from somewhere behind her. Despite their predicament, his tone was no longer grave and gentle as it had been before the vampires came for them. Now it was as jaunty as usual.
“I’m well,” she answered.
Light appeared ahead of them, revealing the dimensions of the tunnel they were traversing. She could tell it was magical illumination, silvery and soft, but after her time in the dark it made her squint like the glare of a summer sun.
As her eyes adjusted, her pale, gaunt guards marched her and Gaedynn into a broad, high-ceilinged chamber where glowing white balls floated in the air and slowly drifted from one point to another. Their light gleamed on the treasure below. Gold and silver coins filled open coffers or simply lay in heaps and drifts on the floor. Emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, water stars, and red tears lay scattered among the rounds of precious metal-some loose, some set in necklaces, rings, and brooches.
It could have been a spectacle to make an observer smile at its glittering beauty or drool with greed, except that there was more to it. Corpses-human, halfling, orc, goblin, and others-sprawled amid the wealth. Some were old and withered, and others still fresh enough to nourish the scuttling rats. All were mangled and had had the heads ripped from their shoulders. Their rotten stink made Jhesrhi queasy.
Suddenly a shape surged from the rear of the chamber. It was so huge that she couldn’t understand how she’d missed it before, but it truly seemed to burst out of nowhere. Startled, she tried to recoil, although the cold iron grips of the vampires kept her from succeeding. Gaedynn gasped.
Jaxanaedegor was immense enough to make the blue dragon who’d carried the prisoners there seem puny by comparison. Subtly pattered with scales of lighter and darker green, his clawed feet were the size of oxcarts. The spiny crest that ran from the top of his wedge-shaped head down the length of his body was nearly as tall as a human being all by itself.
Yet the most daunting thing about him was the pale unearthly sheen in his yellow eyes, a surface manifestation of the insatiable hunger and boundless malice of the undead. Jhesrhi recognized it from her time in Thay, but she’d never seen it melded with the profound intelligence and prodigious might of an ancient wyrm before.
As she struggled to contain her fear, Gaedynn’s guards brought him forward to stand beside her. He ran his gaze over the nearest corpses and said, “You might think about tidying up a bit.”
Jaxanaedegor stared at him for a moment that seemed to drag on endlessly, scraping at Jhesrhi’s nerves. Then the lesser vampires let the captives go and backed away. She assumed their master had given them some silent signal to do so.
It didn’t matter. If she had had her staff and Gaedynn his bow, or at least some weapon and armor, they might have had an infinitesimal chance of fighting their way clear of the situation. As it was, they had no hope at all.
“I know you,” the dragon said. “Jhesrhi Coldcreek and Gaedynn Ulraes. Lieutenants to Aoth Fezim.”
Jhesrhi tried to keep her surprise from showing in her face.
“Who?” Gaedynn replied. “My name is Azzedar, and my woman is Ilzza. We-”
Fast as a striking serpent, Jaxanaedegor lunged forward. A flick of his forefoot flung Gaedynn backward to slam down on an old sack. It burst under the impact, and clinking coins splashed out.
Meanwhile, the same forefoot grabbed Jhesrhi around the middle and shoved her to the floor. Jaxanaedegor’s scaly hide was as cold as his servants’ skin, and his weight squashed the breath out of her.
She wheezed a word of power. The wyrm glared down at her. The force of his will stabbed into her head and made it throb, but failed to paralyze her. She forced out the next word of her incantation, and he shifted his stance to make her take a fraction more of his weight.
