the ledge, shaking with fear. She didn’t see them; her wrath consumed her.
“No, my precious kender,” she hissed in a voice as deep and dark as an ossuary. “You may think the game is done, but it is not. You will not escape. Your tunnels will not save you. My flames will find you, even far beneath the earth.”
With unnerving speed, she uncoiled herself, rose on her hind legs, and leapt into the air. Her gargantuan form streaked past Kronn and Riverwind, up toward the rift in the ceiling. With a scraping of scales against stone, she pulled herself through the shaft. Her sinuous tail flicked with anger, then vanished from sight as she crawled out of her lair.
Riverwind and Kronn stared at the ceiling, watching chips of stone rattle down from the shaft and listening to the echoes of the dragon’s passage fade away. Even when the cavern was silent again, they continued to gaze upward, as if waiting for the enormous crimson head to reappear. At last, though, they let out their long-held breaths, and looked down at the floor of the nest.
The egg was loathsome, a leathery abomination six feet long and nearly half as high. It nestled in the middle of the floor, half-buried in a wide bed of warm, white ash. Orange firelight flickered across its rust-red shell, though there were no flames to be seen. Riverwind and Kronn beheld it with silent revulsion.
Wordlessly, the kender unscrewed the cap on the butt of his chapak’s haft. He unspooled the long silk rope from the weapon, slung the axe across his back again, and lashed one end of the line soundly around a rock outcropping at the ledge’s lip. He yanked it hard, testing it, then checked the knot and nodded with satisfaction.
“It’ll hold,” he declared, grabbing the rope with both hands and swinging a leg over the edge.
“No,” Riverwind said, catching his arm before he could go farther. “I will go first.”
Kronn met the old Plainsman’s firm, unwavering gaze. Seeing the resolve there, he hoisted himself back onto the ledge and handed the rope to Riverwind.
“Watch your step,” he said.
Gripping the rope with strong hands, Riverwind lowered himself toward the distant cavern floor.
Moonsong fought her way through the smoke and the press of bodies. The ogres ignored her, trying to flee or hewing wildly at the kender. She saw Stagheart, standing over the body of the ogres’ hetman. She saw Paxina’s hoopak, lodged in Kurthak’s gut. Then, turning, she saw the Lord Mayor sprawled on the ground like a discarded doll. The house Paxina lay beside groaned loudly, its flame-eaten walls starting to buckle. Blazing cinders rained down around the Lord Mayor’s body.
Moonsong ran, dropping to her knees beside Paxina’s unmoving form. As gently as she could, she turned the Lord Mayor over. Paxina’s face was pale beneath the war paint and soot. Checking furtively, Moonsong found the lifebeat in the kender’s throat. She whispered a prayer of thanks, not caring that Mishakal wasn’t there to hear.
“Paxina?” she asked urgently. “Can you hear me?”
The Lord Mayor groaned, her eyelids fluttering open. She looked up at Moonsong and grinned weakly. “Wow,” she said. “Those ogres can sure pack a wallop when they want to.”
A loud creaking sounded above them. Moonsong glanced up and saw the house shift slightly, leaning over them like a smith’s hammer above the anvil. Shards of pitch-soaked plaster broke off the walls, shattered against the cobbles all around them. Cold with fear, Moonsong grabbed Paxina’s hands and dragged her to her feet. The Lord Mayor was still stunned by Kurthak’s blow, however, and her knees buckled limply beneath her. The house continued to crumple, beams and timbers protesting loudly as they gave way.
There were tears in Moonsong’s eyes as she dragged Paxina along with her. “Come on,” she pleaded. “You have to help me. I can’t carry you-you’ve got to walk.”
“I can’t,” Paxina replied. “I can’t feel my legs, Moonsong.” She glanced up at the sagging building. Slate shingles slid from its roof, smashing to finders as they struck the ground. Her eyes hardened. “You’d better leave me.”
Moonsong paled, her eyes widening. “What?”
“You heard me,” Paxina replied firmly. “Find Stagheart, and get out of Kendermore, through the tunnels. I’ll only slow you down. Tell Kronn and Catt I’m sorry …”
Moonsong ignored her. She grabbed Paxina and tried to drag her away from the burning house. The kender’s weight was too much for her, though. They had scarcely gone ten feet when a loud crack split the air. Looking up, Moonsong saw the house’s flaming wall begin to topple.
“Go!” Paxina shouted. Somehow, she twisted free of Moonsong’s grasp. Before the Plainswoman could do anything, the kender shoved her with all her might, sending her stumbling away from the toppling building.
As she staggered, Moonsong saw Stagheart running toward her from Kurthak’s corpse. Then she tripped, crashing headlong to the ground. As she rolled to a stop, she caught a glimpse of Paxina lying on her back, a smile on her face.
“Oh, well,” the Lord Mayor said, unafraid. “It was fun while it lasted.”
Then the house fell on them both, and the world crashed down in fire and darkness. Moonsong smelled hair and flesh burning. Then nothing.
Stagheart shouted in incoherent anguish, reaching out for Moonsong as she collapsed. Then, with a deafening roar, a deluge of blazing plaster and smoldering timbers poured down on her, and she disappeared.
“No!” he roared.
Recklessly he surged forward into the burning rubble. Muscles straining, he lifted pieces of smoldering wood and heaved them aside. He burnt both his hands as he dug, but he didn’t care. Tears washed Kurthak’s blood from his face. He called Moonsong’s name again and again.
When he lifted a charred board and saw her hand, he let out a ragged cry of relief and dread. Working quickly, he picked up debris and heaved it aside. He grabbed beams he should not have been able to lift; desperation fueled his strength, however, and he tossed them away like twigs. At last, he uncovered Moonsong’s body.
Burning pitch covered half her face, searing her flesh. Sobbing, he clawed it away, not noticing as blisters rose on his fingers. Underneath the tar, Moonsong’s skin was bright red. He ignored the sight of it and put aside the sweet stench of seared skin as he lifted her up and carried her out of the wreckage.
He didn’t go back for Paxina; there was nothing more he could do for her. The house’s upper floors, which had fallen on Moonsong, had been made of wood and plaster, but the lowest, the one that had buried the Lord Mayor, had been hewn of fitted stone. Where Paxina had been, moments before, there was only a crude cairn of jagged rubble.
Stagheart glanced around. The yard was all but empty: the ogres were all dead, and most of the kender were gone. Buildings were crashing to the ground everywhere, sending storms of cinders shooting up into the smoke- darkened sky. The heat of the burning city made it hard to breathe.
Holding Moonsong’s limp form close to him, trying not to jostle her, he began to run. He sprinted through pools of blood, skirted around huge and small bodies, then came to a halt at the edge of a dark shaft that led down beneath the ground. A pile of corpses marked where the kender had made a stand, holding off the ogres while their fellows fled. Stagheart stared at them a moment with raw, red eyes, then dashed down the stairs, out of the shambles of Kendermore.
Of the ten thousand kender who had stayed behind to defend their city nearly half perished in the battle. Those who fled through the tunnels emerged several leagues to the west and quickly caught up with the far greater numbers who had escaped through Kendermore’s sundered walls. They struggled wearily onward through the dead forest, straining toward the distant fields of Balifor. Word of Paxina Thistleknot’s death spread quickly, and the kender wept for her, but they did not slow their pace. There was still a long way to go.
Less than an hour after the last survivors escaped Kendermore, however, one young kender glanced back at the plume of black smoke rising from the city’s ruins and cried out in terror. The fleeing kender stopped, turned, then echoed his exclamation with sobs and screams of their own.
In the distance, too small yet to see clearly but growing steadily larger, a red, winged form streaked across the sky.
