lava oozing down its sides.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Yovanna asked. “Malystryx is proud of her work here. Soon these peaks will dwarf the Lords of Doom themselves. After that-”
She stopped, her body stiffening suddenly. For a moment she was silent, then she swept her arm forward and up, her sleeve fluttering in the hot, fetid wind.
“She comes,” she hissed.
Kurthak didn’t see the dragon until she was almost upon them, so heavy was the pall of smoke and ash that hung over the Hollowlands. When she emerged from the haze at last, he could do little but hold his breath and stare, while dragonfear clamped around his innards like a vise.
Malystryx the Red was larger than any dragon either ogre had seen before. She stretched more than three hundred feet long, nearly half of that a sinuous, snaking tail; her wingspan was similarly huge, blocking out half the sky as she dipped through the smoke toward the crater. The air howled with the rush of her passing. She banked sharply as she passed overhead, then began to circle the caldera, scanning the ground with eyes like forge-fired steel. If she saw the three tiny figures atop the ridge, she gave no sign.
Beside Kurthak, Tragor moaned and began to tremble. Kurthak glanced at him harshly, but said nothing, afraid of revealing his own terror.
At that moment, the dragon threw back her head and roared. The ogres clamped their hands over their ears, wincing at the sound. The rock beneath their feet shivered. The shriek carried on for nearly a minute, and when it ended Kurthak wiped tears from his eyes, wondering if the ringing sound that lingered after it would ever go away.
“Mistress!” Yovanna cried, exulting.
The great scaly head whipped around, and Malystryx stared straight at them, her eyes smoldering. Smoke curled from her nostrils, and her lips curled into a vicious leer. She circled once more, then set down on the floor of the caldera. The beating of her wings as she landed whipped stinging chips of stone in the ogres’ faces; when they could see again, the dragon had curled around the sulfur-steaming cleft in the crater’s midst. She studied them, her head angling from side to side.
“Good,” hissed the dragon. “Very good, Yovanna. You may leave us now. Go to Blood Watch and await me there.”
The black-cloaked figure bowed. “Yes, mistress,” Yovanna said. Without even a sidelong glance at the ogres, she turned and walked away, disappearing down the lip of the crater. Kurthak and Tragor watched her go.
Malys stretched lazily, writhing around the warm steam vent. Her claws flexed, cracking stones. A sigh of contentment escaped her lips, accompanied by a puff of flame that could have reduced both ogres to ashes. When she was done, she looked at Kurthak. He stared back, wide-eyed.
“Black-Gazer,” she purred. “Yovanna has watched you for some time now. She has told me great things about you.”
Kurthak goggled for a moment, then bowed abruptly. “I’ve heard far greater things about you,” he responded. Despite his efforts to control it, his voice shook as he spoke.
The dragon chuckled. “Indeed.” Her gaze flicked to Tragor, and her scaly brows knitted. “This one I do not recognize.”
Tragor swallowed, shuddering.
“This is Tragor,” Kurthak stated. “He is my champion.”
“A warrior?” Malys asked, her voice mocking. Her great forked tongue flicked in and out of her mouth. “You wouldn’t use that mighty blade against me, would you, Tragor?”
The champion fell to his knees, weeping. “No,” he whimpered. “Please..
With a snort of amusement and disgust, Malys turned back to Kurthak. “I hope Yovanna did not… disturb you too greatly,” she said.
He shook his head. In truth, though, he had seen the woman’s disfigured face in his nightmares.
“You want to know what she is,” Malystryx declared. “Don’t you?”
Kurthak nodded wordlessly.
The dragon grinned, flames crackling between her tree-trunk fangs. “Call her an experiment,” she said. “When I first came to these lands, I laid waste to a village. Ran-Khal, I believe, was its name. Most of the barbarians living there died, but when the flames abated I found Yovanna still alive, though badly scarred… as I’m sure she has shown you. I took her back to Blood Watch and remade her as my servant. The spells I cast upon her destroyed the peasant girl she once was. Now she is strong and cunning, and she would leap from the top of one of these peaks if I wished it.”
“Spells?” Kurthak asked. “But magic is gone. The moons-”
Malystryx laughed. Her breath smelled like burning metal, making the ogres’ nostrils sting.
“Perhaps to you mortals there is no magic,” she said. “Dragons need no moons for their power.” She raised a long-taloned claw, pointed it at Tragor, and spoke several guttural words. Tragor gaped in horror, and Kurthak took a quick step away, expecting him to explode or rot before his eyes. Instead, though, Tragor rose from the ground and floated through the air toward the dragon. His terrified cries ended abruptly as he fainted dead away.
Sneering, Malys lowered her claw and turned back to Kurthak. Tragor continued to hang in midair, his feet dangling a hundred feet or more above the stony ground.
“Now,” Malystryx said, “enough idle talk. I have chosen you for a reason, Black-Gazer.”
With effort, Kurthak tore his gaze away from the hovering, limp form of his champion and focused on Malys. “Very well,” he said, trying to sound as though he were somehow on even footing with the gigantic wyrm. “Your servant sought me out. She said you had a bargain to make-my people’s allegiance in exchange for Kendermore.”
Malystryx’s head bobbed. “That is indeed what I intend to offer you,” she said. “I have watched your people for some time, Black-Gazer, and I see great promise in you-promise I did not see in the puny humans who dwelt in this land.”
Kurthak didn’t miss the carefully chosen word-dwelt. There had been thousands of humans in the Dairly Plains to the south of the ogres’ lands.
“They are mostly gone now,” Malys hissed, guessing his thoughts. “Many are dead, though some of them fled. I could have destroyed your people with no more effort than I crushed the humans, but I have chosen not to. Do you know why, Black-Gazer?”
“Because you wish to ally with us instead?”
“Precisely. I mean to turn my attention to the kender next.”
He swallowed. “To destroy them?”
“If I must,” she said. “But the kender are not very filling and I find simple slaughter somewhat boring. I like to… play with and savor my food. That is where I need your help.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have been attacking the kender,” she explained, her tone that of a patient parent speaking to a dull- witted child. “Your chief-Ruog-has sent you and others to destroy villages along their eastern border. But you aren’t content with simple slaughter either, are you? No, instead you take them prisoner. Why?”
“We want them as slaves,” Kurthak said.
“Slaves!” Malystryx laughed. “Of course. But who would buy one? I am still somewhat new to this land, but I’ve learned enough about the kender to know they are not well-respected. Most of the other races consider them nuisances, I understand.”
“We don’t mean to sell them,” Kurthak said. “We mean to keep them.”
“To what end?”
He pursed his lips, hesitating.
“Oh, come now, Black-Gazer,” Malys purred. “Don’t be so reluctant. I can always use my magic to pluck the answer from your mind-something you’d find quite uncomfortable.”
She twitched another claw, and instantly Kurthak’s brain flooded with agony. He staggered, gagging, but the pain ebbed as quickly as it had risen. For a moment he stood silently, fighting to keep his gorge from rising. Then he wiped cold sweat from his forehead. “Th-the mines,” he stammered. “Our people have found many new lodes of ore. Narrow, cramped, dangerous work. Lord Ruog wants to use the small kender to dig them out.”
“Ah,” the dragon declared, smiling. “I see. And when the ore is gone… you will kill them then?”
