Sthinissh had nodded. “I saw his corpse myself She’d… done things to it.”
“Things?”
“Yes.” Sthinissh had been silent a moment, an odd look in his glinting red eyes. “He’d withered. It was like he’d lain in the sun for a year.”
“Are you sure that is true?” Hekhorath had pressed. “He was very old… he could have died on the wing, away from his lair…
“I’m sure,” Sthinissh had retorted. “There was blood on the ground around his body-it was still fresh. And.
His voice had trailed off.
Hekhorath had glanced at him sharply. “And what?”
“His head was missing.” Sthinissh had swallowed hard. “I think she took it.”
“What?” Hekhorath had exclaimed. “Why would she take his head?”
“I don’t know. As a trophy, perhaps. But that doesn’t explain why the rest of him was a… a husk. And this isn’t the first time this has happened, either. From what I hear, she did the same thing to a pair of coppers near the Mistlestraits. And others are missing, too.”
“How many others?”
Sthinissh had swallowed again. “Ten, maybe more.”
“Ten?” Hekhorath had echoed, disbelievingly. “That’s almost every dragon north of the Maw!”
“No,” Sthinissh had replied gravely. “That
“Blood of Takhisis.” Suddenly, Hekhorath had understood Sthinissh’s fear. “You don’t think she’s responsible for that, do you?”
The green had looked at him. “Can you think of another explanation?”
Hekhorath had considered this, then shaken his head. “If she’s shaping the land, she’s a more powerful magic user than Andorung ever was… or any dragon since the Age of Dreams.”
“And if she’s slaughtered every dragon in the north,” Sthinissh had said, “then maybe we’re next.”
Hekhorath had thought a great deal about Malystryx over the following weeks. By the time word reached him that she had destroyed the village of Ran-Khal and slain Aester, a bronze dragon who laired nearby, he’d had an idea of what to do about her. When he’d sought out Sthinissh soon after and found the green’s withered, headless body sprawled amid the ashes that once had been his forest, he’d made up his mind. With every dragon who died on the Dairlies, the chances had grown that she would come for him.
And so at the beginning of the winter he had left his lair and flown north, hoping to find her first.
He’d soon discovered that Sthinissh had been right. The land was changing. What had been only a hint of barrenness months before, however, had turned into a full-fledged blight. There’d been more than just the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands, and a volcano had risen at Blood Watch. No tree, no shrub, no plant disturbed the parched, stony landscape. The heat was intense, blistering.
In short, for a red dragon it was glorious. A thrill had surged through Hekhorath’s veins as he soared above the blasted terrain, streaking toward the smoldering volcano that was Malystryx’s lair.
Then he’d seen her, and the thrill had given way to awe. She had been gigantic even then, larger than any dragon he’d ever seen-and he had seen the largest wyrms in the dragonarmies. She had emerged from a shaft in the side of the volcano, her beating wings whipping up great clouds of ash and dust, and had spotted him almost instantly. Hekhorath had forced himself to swallow sudden terror as she’d streaked toward him, moving as swift as a hurricane. He’d known she could kill him as easily as he might slaughter a herdsman’s goat. Then she would defile his body, and take his head… unless he gave her another option.
When he’d decided she was close enough, he’d pulled up sharply, soaring high, his wings straining against the pull of gravity. The blasted earth had shot away beneath him, the air around him growing cold and thin. When he’d finally judged he was high enough, he’d drawn a deep breath, raised his head skyward, and exhaled a tremendous jet of flame.
The fiery torrent had shot upward hundreds of yards, hot enough to melt steel. He’d belched it forth until he’d had no more flames in him to breathe. Then, weak and dizzy, he’d tucked his wings in tight against his scarred sides and dived back toward the ground, toward Malys.
She’d looked at him as he approached, her lips curling with amusement. “I take it,” she’d said wryly, “that that’s your way of saying you wish to be my consort.”
“Yes,” he’d answered, unable to summon enough breath to say anything more.
“Interesting.” She had banked, circling lazily around him, forcing him to keep turning in order to face her. “What makes you so sure I have any desire for such a thing?”
Sensing she was testing him, he’d frowned in concentration, choosing each word of his response with meticulous care. “I’m not sure,” he’d said. “But I am drawn to your power nevertheless. If I cannot have this honor, then I beg you to slay me now, for I refuse to live unless I can bask in your glory.”
She had circled him silently for quite some time. Then, suddenly, she had stopped, hovering in the air before him. “I cannot decide,” she’d told him. “Either you are exceedingly clever, or you are the greatest idiot I have ever met. Whichever it may be, you have intrigued me. Very well, then. Let us be mates.”
With that, she had wheeled in midair and soared back toward Blood Watch. Hekhorath had watched her depart, amazed, for a heartbeat. Then, laughing, he had winged after her.
She had shown him many things, both wondrous and horrible, in the months they had shared her lair. Both together and separately, they had scorched the Dairlies, blasting one barbarian village after another. He had watched as she broke the mind of Yovanna, the human woman she had taken as her servant, and remade it to suit her will. He had helped her hunt down and destroy other dragons, though she refused to let him witness what she did to their bodies after they were dead-or what became of the severed heads she brought back to their lair. It was, in every way, a one-sided pairing. Malystryx had power over him, and he had none over her. Even when they lay in her nest, deep within the heart of the volcano, their sinuous bodies coiled about each other, he was always aware that she was his master, and he her thrall.
None of that mattered, though. Of the score of dragons who had once dwelt in the Dairlies, only he remained alive, because only he had been smart enough to make himself useful to Malys, rather than a hindrance.
Baring his fangs in a smile, he banked, gliding north, toward the smoldering peak of Blood Watch.
“Mistress.”
Malys stirred, stretching her vast bulk across the enormous cavern of her nest. The room was dark, but that mattered little; the dragon could see as well in shadow as in light. Her golden eyes burning, she arched her neck to look up the wall of the vault.
A hundred feet above the cavern floor, a smooth, narrow tunnel gaped in the wall. It was one of two entrances to Malystryx’s nest, and the only one usable by beings incapable of flight; the second, a broad shaft that led from the cavern’s ceiling to a fissure in the side of the volcano, was accessible only to Malys and Hekhorath. The mouth of the narrow tunnel led onto a broad ledge that resembled a balcony, and upon that balcony stood a figure swathed in black cloth. Unlike the handful of other mortals who had stood on the ledge, this figure did not shrink back from the dragon’s glare, nor did it tremble when Malys snorted, flames flickering briefly from her nostrils.
“Yovanna,” the dragon purred, her tone vaguely menacing. “You bring news?”
The robed figure bowed in deference. “Yes, Mistress,” she declared. “You asked me to tell you when
Malys couldn’t quite hide her smile at the distaste with which Yovanna spoke the word.
“Over the Hollowlands. He will be here soon, My Queen.”
“Will you not say his name?”
“I would rather not.”
The dragon growled a chuckle. “It would seem when I reshaped your mind I did not crush your capacity for jealousy Yovanna.”
