quiver. He pulled out one of the many black arrows, sighted down the length of it, and smiled.
Cera sat cross-legged on a flat portion of the temple roof. The elevation brought her closer to the sun.
Amaunator’s radiance was shining just as brightly at ground level, so her ascent was purely a symbolic gesture. But every acolyte learned early on that where meditation was concerned, symbolism helped the practitioner achieve the proper frame of mind.
She studied the golden light reflecting from the rooftops around her. Then, when she felt centered, she lifted her eyes and gazed directly at the sun. No layman could have done so without pain and, if he persisted nonetheless, permanent damage to his sight. But the blaze simultaneously calmed and exalted her. It made her feel the majesty of her god.
Until a screech split the air, and a big black shape with outstretched wings cut between her and the object of her adoration. She felt a pang of dread, but the emotion disappeared when she recognized Jet for what-or, according to Aoth, who-he was.
“Sunlady!” cried the griffon.
“Yes?” she replied, thinking that even though she knew the beast could speak, it was a marvel to hear it nonetheless.
“Meet me in your garden! Now!”
She started to ask why. But then Jet swooped level with her rooftop, and she gasped at the sight of a crimson figure slumped on his back.
She clambered down her ladder and scurried through the interior of the temple with no regard for the dignity of a high priestess. As she burst out into the garden, Jet said, “A drake, or some creature like a drake, hurt him bad! I think he may be dying!”
Cera tried to put dismay aside and think with the calmness befitting a cleric and healer. “I’ll call my people to carry him to a bed.”
“No,” Jet said. “This town is full of people who want to be rid of him. You’re the only one I trust. You open doors for me and I’ll carry him.”
She trusted her own subordinates, but it wasn’t worth arguing about, certainly not when Aoth was in urgent need of care. “Whatever you say.”
People either recoiled or goggled to see the enormous black mount with his scarlet eyes stalking through the temple at her back. Prayers and litanies stumbled to a halt.
She had Jet bear his rider to her own chambers and her own bed. Then she checked the saddle for straps securing Aoth in place. There weren’t any. Either he wasn’t worried about losing his seat and falling, or magic prevented it. She took hold of him to ease him onto the bed. He was heavy, particularly in his mail, but she’d had a lot of practice lifting patients.
“Boo!” he whispered.
She jumped back.
“Some healer,” he said, grinning and swinging himself off Jet’s back. “You couldn’t tell the blood isn’t mine?”
She took a breath, and her heart stopped thumping quite as hard. “Not before I examined you.”
“Good. If the ranking sunlady of the temple couldn’t tell close up, then I doubt anyone else did from farther away.”
“What is the matter with you? If this is a joke-”
He raised a hand. “It’s not. Well, the boo part was, but the rest no. This is me taking advantage of a chance to catch our elusive dragonborn.”
“How?”
“In Luthcheq, when we couldn’t find the Green Hand killers, we set a trap to flush them out. We’re doing it again, and this time the bait is me. We’ll spread the word that I got badly hurt on the other side of the border. And that you think you can save me, but even with your strongest prayers mending me, I’ll be a helpless invalid for a couple of days. That should prompt the dragonborn to come after me while I can’t fight back.”
She frowned. “I suppose that could work.”
“I’m glad you think so, because obviously I need your help to make it work. For one thing, we have to provide a lure that really is enticing. My being wounded won’t look like such a perfect opportunity if Jet and a bunch of sellswords are standing guard over me. There has to be a credible reason why they’re not.”
Cera nodded. “I can handle that.”
“I want to fight,” Medrash said.
Patrin smiled. “But?”
“But it’s a bigger party than the one that defeated us Daardendriens.” The admission still tasted bitter in his mouth. “They’ve already seen us just as we’ve seen them, so we can’t surprise them. I think it would be wiser to avoid them if we can.”
Her upper body swaying ever so slightly, Nala said, “The blood of dragons flows in our veins. We can kill these giants like we killed the others.”
“I agree,” Patrin said. He looked back at Medrash. “But we won’t think less of you if you stay behind and guard the carts and horses.”
“We’d think less of ourselves,” Medrash said. “We said we’d stand with the Platinum Cadre. So if you fight, we will too.”
Patrin grinned and gripped Medrash’s shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. How could it be otherwise, when your god and mine are staunch friends and fellow lords of Celestia?”
The suggestion that Torm willingly associated with any sort of dragon deity struck Medrash as blasphemous, but he did his best to hide his distaste. “I look forward to fighting alongside you as well.”
“Then let’s go kill some giants.”
As the warriors of the company fell into a loose formation, Balasar said, “It’s a funny thing. I wouldn’t think a bit less of myself if I stayed behind.”
“Yet here you are,” Medrash answered. Patrin flourished his sword, and everyone started forward.
“Here we all are,” Khouryn said, his urgrosh in one hand and a crossbow in the other. “Me, because I want to see how this ragtag band accomplishes what a better company couldn’t.”
“Let’s hope the answer isn’t pure luck,” Balasar said. “Or if it is, let’s hope this isn’t the day the luck runs dry.”
When they reached the top of a rise, they saw the giants awaiting them. Several ash spires towered in the enemy’s vicinity, three with horizontal branches interconnecting them, two others sliding sluggishly. Medrash couldn’t actually tell if the enemy had a shaman capable of pushing the landforms around, but he assumed so.
The dragonborn jogged forward. Khouryn broke stride for a moment to discharge his crossbow. Other warriors loosed their bows.
Medrash just had time to see some of the shafts hit their marks. Then one of the giants-clearly the adept he’d been trying to spot-swung a long stone rod in a circle over his head and growled a word of power. The interconnected spires exploded into ash. The wind howled and blew the grit into the oncoming dragonborn’s faces.
Medrash’s eyes burned, and he coughed. The ground shuddered under his feet, surely a sign that the giants were charging and perhaps that other ash spires were sliding toward the Tymantherans as well.
He raised his sword over his head and chanted a prayer. Off to his left in the streaming murk, visible only by virtue of the white light shining from his blade, Patrin did the same. Nala chanted a spell.
The wind died, and the blinding, choking ash simply vanished from the air. Someone had countered the shaman’s power. Or perhaps they’d all three done it working together.
But unfortunately, the ash storm had lasted long enough to neutralize the advantage afforded by their bows. The giants were closing fast. So were two ash spires, looping in on either flank.
