Spirit of the Wind

“What is that?” he asked.

Tragor looked, frowning, then reached out, brushing the nearest wall with his fingertips. They came away smeared with grime. He rubbed them together, held them up to his nose. Then he turned back toward Kurthak “It’s pitch,” he said.

“Ready!” shouted Paxina.

As one, the archers touched the tips of their arrows to the smoldering braziers. The shafts’ tips, wrapped in oily rags, burst aflame. The archers pulled their bowstrings back to their cheeks, aiming high. Kurthak’s eyes widened with understanding.

“Fire!” Paxina cried.

A multitude of twangs rang out. The arrows flew high, arcing above the seething battle, then dropped toward the houses at the quadrangle’s edges. A blazing shaft whizzed past Tragor’s head, embedding itself in the wall before him. He stared at it, blinking in surprise.

The wall exploded with fire. Tragor screamed as flames flared out around him, enveloping his body. Kurthak could do nothing but stare in horror as his champion became a living, howling torch. Tragor staggered back from the building, dropping his sword and beating wildly at the sheath of fire that surrounded him. He shrieked in agony, fell to his knees, then crashed face forward onto the ground. His burning body twitched violently, then was still.

The building he had been standing before rapidly became an inferno. It wasn’t the only one. The archers’ flaming arrows struck dozens of other houses, setting them alight as well. The fire spread with shocking speed, leaping from one pitch-soaked building to the next. In moments, the quadrangle was surrounded by a ring of flame.

Through the heat-shimmering air, Kurthak saw plumes of black smoke rise where other blazes were breaking out all over Kendermore. The crackling of burning wood grew deafening, drowning out the clamor of battle.

“What are they doing?” the Black-Gazer shouted. “They’re burning their own city!”

The ogres panicked, searching vainly for a way out of the trap. In that moment, the tide of the battle turned. The kender in the quadrangle’s midst pushed forward, slashing and stabbing. Many of the ogres died; others broke and ran, screaming as they sought to escape the conflagration.

But the kender knew their home. They knew which streets to block, which buildings to set alight. Most of them managed to escape, running out of the city ahead of the flames; others dove down tunnel entrances, scattering in all directions through the passages. For Kurthak’s horde, however, there was no escape. Sheets of flame blocked their way; burning buildings collapsed, filling the streets with fiery rubble. Ogres perished by the score, overcome by fire and choking smoke.

Kurthak stood amidst it all, hewing about him with his club. He spotted a group of four taunting kender, who had just killed two ogres and were trying to escape through the smoke. They saw him as he charged toward them, and turned to run. One of them, a tow-headed boy in bright blue trousers, lagged behind his fellows: Kurthak knocked him flat, then smashed his cudgel down, spattering the young kender’s blood on the cobblestones. The other three glanced back, horrified, but did not slow their pace: they ran onward, through a roiling wall of smoke. He gave chase, but when he cleared the other side of the pall, they were nowhere to be seen. He cast about, growling in frustration, but the kender were gone. Enraged he lashed out with his club at the nearest available target: a stack of water barrels, piled high against the wall of a burning blacksmith’s shop. The barrels shattered, splinters of wood flying everywhere. He began to turn away, then stopped, confused. Where was the water?

Looking down, he confirmed his suspicions: the barrels had been bone-dry, empty. He kicked at the broken staves, pushing them aside, and saw the hole in the ground.

It was dark and small, too tight for him to squeeze through, but large enough to admit a kender… or three. It led down into the ground, its earthen stairs freshly scuffed by passing feet. He gawked at it, dumbfounded. Then his mouth dropped open with sudden comprehension. All at once, he knew-how the kender had eluded his people at Myrtledew, how they had fled the inexorable advance of the horde toward Kendermore, how, even now, they were escaping the inferno they had made of their city. He reeled, nausea twisting his stomach as he stared into the tunnel entrance.

Off to his left, a burning house collapsed, littering the ground with stone and blazing timbers. The deafening crash roused him, bringing him back to his senses. He glanced back into the quadrangle, through the billowing smoke. The remaining kender were making short work of his people, then melting away into the shadows-fleeing, he realized, into the safety of their subterranean passages. At that moment, Kurthak the Black-Gazer knew his horde was utterly beaten and that he would die here with his people if he didn’t get help soon.

He sought that help in the only place left to him: his mind. Concentrating, he focused on the presence that simmered within him, seeking the other who dwelt in his thoughts. “Malystryx!” he begged, speaking the words aloud even as he thought them. “Mistress, hear me.”

I am here, Black-Gazer, Malys’s voice growled. What is happening?

“We are betrayed!” he shouted. “The kender have tricked us! They destroy their own city and flee through tunnels, under the ground! We are doomed!”

For several heartbeats, Malystryx didn’t respond. Then a white-hot star exploded inside Kurthak’s head as she forced her way into his brain, ripping into his memories, seeing what had happened, how the ogres had been fooled. Her disgust flooded his mind, and he doubled over, gagging.

Imbecile, her voice snapped in his mind. They set a trap for you, and you charged right into the middle. And I had such hopes for you.

“Help me, Mistress,” the Black-Gazer begged, his throat so tight he nearly strangled on the words. “Please …”

She laughed, then, a cruel, hissing sound that made ice of Kurthak’s heart.

Help you? she echoed mockingly. Whatever for? You have earned your fate, fool.

“I have served you,” Kurthak whimpered. “I’ve done your bidding. You owe me-”

The pain in his mind grew even stronger than before, blinding him, driving him to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, his voice giving way to a silent, agonized scream as the dragon tore his mind apart.

“Owe you?” he shrieked, but it was Malystryx’s voice that issued from his mouth, not his own. “I owe you nothing! You have failed, and you will pay. I will see to it! I will burn everything: the forest, the kender in their tunnels, and yes, Kurthak, you and your pathetic horde. I will burn you all until nothing remains!”

Then, in an eyeblink, she was gone from his tattered mind. Kurthak knelt on the stones for a time, retching. Smoke and screaming surrounded him. Then, roaring with senseless rage, he lunged to his feet again and charged back into the quadrangle. He swung his spiked club wildly, lashing out on all sides. Kender and ogres alike fell around him as he cut a bloody swath across the yard. He sought neither escape nor vengeance; such things were beyond him now. Abandoned by his mistress, unable to stop his horde from falling to pieces around him, Kurthak the Black-Gazer went mad.

A wave of smoke blew in his face, stinging his eyes, but he kept on going, a juggernaut of insane wrath. He only stopped when he reached the far side of the yard and saw the burning buildings before him, barring his way. Crying out in impotent anger, he started to turn around, to charge back into the fray.

He did not see Paxina. She ran toward him on his left, his blind side. He only realized she was there when the spiked butt of her hoopak plunged into his flank. Using her own momentum, the Lord Mayor drove four feet of ironwood through his bowels.

He spun, his left arm lashing out. The back of his hand caught Paxina square in her chest, lifting her off the ground and hurling her away. She struck the ground hard, landing in a motionless heap at the foot of a burning house. He started to turn toward her, but staggered, his head spinning. Hot blood coursed from the wound in his side. His world began to grow dark.

“Malys,” he wheezed. He took two faltering steps, then stumbled to his knees. “Help me.”

Stagheart came out of the smoke, his sabre flashing. Kurthak tried to block the vicious slash, but he no longer had the strength to raise his club. The Plainsman’s sword opened his throat. Choking, Kurthak the Black-Gazer died.

Malystryx’s eyes flared wide, blazing with rage. Above her, Riverwind and Kronn drew back from the rim of