Chapter 26
Malystryx shrieked angrily as the barren land streaked by beneath her. She flew high over the Desolation, the wind roaring in her ears. Far ahead of her lay the parched bones of the Kenderwood. A black, smoky finger stuck up from its midst, pointing defiantly toward the empty, blue sky. She stared at it balefully, knowing she looked upon the downfall of Kurthak the Black-Gazer’s horde. She knew, too, that the kender were still alive.
“Not for long, miserable wretches,” she sneered. “You have won nothing. I will turn your bones to ashes.”
She soared onward, the Kenderwood inching steadily closer.
His arms burning, Riverwind lowered himself toward the floor of the cavern. Eight feet above the ground, he lost his grip and fell, landing hard and grunting with pain. He lay on his back a moment, his chest heaving, then forced himself to stand.
“You all right?” Kronn called from above, his voice echoing hollowly off the walls of the cave.
Riverwind nodded weakly. “Yes,” he lied, his face contorting with agony as he clutched at his stomach.
“All right,” the kender declared. “Look out below. I’m coming down.”
Wrapping the rope about himself, he swung over the ledge and started to descend. He rappelled down, pushing off the cavern wall as he slid recklessly down the rope. In less than a minute he stood on the ground beside Riverwind, panting and flushed.
“Whew,” he said, grinning. “I forgot how dizzy that makes me.” He crouched down, clutching his knees as he cleared his head. After a moment he knelt, then plucked a small, leathery shard from the floor of the cave. He held it up as he stood, showing it to Riverwind. “Eggshell,” he said, and gestured across the floor. The edges of the cave were littered with such fragments. “Just like you said-she laid a whole clutch of them, then destroyed all but one.”
Together, they looked across the cavern at the ash-heap and the abomination nestled in its midst. “The strongest one,” Riverwind said.
They stood still for a moment, then exchanged determined glances. Kronn reached over his shoulder and drew his chapak from his back, smiling grimly. “All right,” he declared.
“Let’s be done with this.”
Riverwind and Kronn crept across the cavern floor. As he walked, the old Plainsman stole a furtive glance up at the ceiling. The cleft in the rock was empty. Squaring his jaw, he looked toward the egg.
It was even more repulsive up close than it had been from above. Its leathery shell gleamed dully, and it seemed to pulse as they approached. The stink of brimstone that hung about it was almost suffocating. The ash pile surrounding it rippled, and glints of light danced about it, faster with every step, bobbing like a multitude of golden will-o’-wisps.
They stopped at the edge of the ash pile. Riverwind reached to his belt, his fingers clasping about the handle of Brightdawn’s flanged mace. Drawing the weapon, he stepped forward.
The instant his foot touched the ashes, the flitting motes of firelight stopped moving. With a noise like a distant blast of wind, they blazed brightly and began to coalesce. He stared in horror as they gathered together, forming a lithe, wriggling shape.
The serpent was fifty feet long, and its red-gold scales glittered as it coiled protectively around Malys’s egg. Its hooded head rose above Riverwind and Kronn, baring a mouthful of long, needle-sharp fangs and hissing like water thrown on hot stones. Two bright, blood-red spots glowed malevolently in the depths of its eye sockets.
“Branchala shave me bald,” Kronn swore devoutly.
In an eyeblink, the serpent’s head surged down, toward Riverwind. He tried to leap away, but its jaws clamped fast around his right ankle, fangs sinking deep into his flesh. Gagging with pain, he swung Brightdawn’s mace, bringing it down on the serpent’s head. The blow bounced harmlessly off the monster’s skull. Then the serpent raised its head again, jerking Riverwind off the ground.
The old Plainsman flailed his arms in the air, hanging upside down from the fiend’s mouth. Beneath him, Kronn raised his chapak and struck at the serpent’s body with all his might. Its scales turned the blow harmlessly aside. Tightening its grip on Riverwind’s leg, the serpent began to shake him violently, frying to snap his spine.
Riverwind fought ferociously, battering the serpent with his daughter’s mace. Each blow was strong enough to crush a man’s ribs, but the serpent ignored them completely, continuing to thrash him back and forth. At last the mace fell from Riverwind’s hand, landing with a puff in the bed of ashes. He continued to struggle, beating at the serpent with his bare fists.
Kronn swung his chapak again and again, trying to penetrate the serpent’s scales. Every time, the axe glanced off harmlessly-until, finally, an errant swing grazed part of the serpent’s soft underbelly. Burning blood dripped from the wound.
Kronn glanced at the wound, then looked up at Riverwind. The serpent was still shaking the Plainsman, who had gone limp in its jaws. Furiously the kender raised his chapak high and buried its head deep in the serpent’s throat.
The first blow didn’t kill the monster, nor did the second or the third. Kronn struck the serpent’s throat again and again, like a lumberjack trying to fell a tree. The monster’s blood scorched Kronn’s skin, but the kender ignored the pain and continued to chop at the serpent.
Kronn cleaved the monster’s flesh a dozen more times, laying open its innards. At last, it stopped shaking Riverwind, then slumped over and died.
The old Plainsman lay motionless, his ankle still clamped in the serpent’s jaws. Then he raised his head and looked at Kronn, his hair and clothes dusted with fine, powdery ash.
Kronn breathed a sigh of immense relief. “How bad are you hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Riverwind answered, staring at his wounded leg. “I can’t feel anything below my knee.”
Together, they pried open the serpent’s viselike jaws. Blood welled from the old Plainsman’s leg as the monster’s fangs pulled out of his flesh, but he did not wince or moan. As soon as he was free, the serpent’s shimmering body turned dull black, then crumbled into a shapeless heap of soot.
“I should have known Malys would put a ward on this place,” Kronn muttered, angry with himself. “She’d want to protect her egg.”
The serpent’s teeth had shredded Riverwind’s leather boot, then had done the same to his skin. The flow of blood, strong at first, was choked off by the rapid swelling of the wound. Working quickly, Riverwind drew his dagger and cut off his pantleg at the knee. The wound darkened, the flesh surrounding it puffing up until it was the size of a kurpa melon. At last, however, it ceased to swell, though it continued to throb angrily, oozing thin trickles of blood. Kronn stared at it, sickened, as the old Plainsman extended his hand toward him.
“Kronn,” Riverwind said plaintively, “help me stand.”
It was difficult-Riverwind could barely bend his knee, and his numb foot had trouble supporting his weight-but Kronn took the Plainsman’s hand and pulled him upright. Plowing a furrow in the ash pile as he dragged crossed the cavern floor. He stopped when he reached the rope, then turned. The Plainsman still faced him, smiling.
“Goodbye, Riverwind,” Kronn said, his voice trembling.
“Farewell, Kronn-alin. You have been a good friend.”
Swallowing, Kronn turned toward the cavern wall. He slung his chapak across his back, grasped the rope with both hands, and began to climb.
Riverwind watched him ascend, his face grave. It took the kender several minutes to reach the ledge. Finally, Kronn scrambled nimbly onto the stone balcony, looked down at the cavern floor, and waved his arm above his head. Riverwind raised his hand in reply. Then Kronn was gone, walking swiftly back down the obsidian tunnel.
Sighing, the old Plainsman turned back toward the egg. He looked at it silently for nearly a minute, then crossed the warm ash pile, walking swiftly to its side. “Goddess give me strength,” he whispered. “Guide my hand.”
Slowly, deliberately, he raised Brightdawn’s mace high above his head. He held it poised a moment, then swung downward, striking the egg’s ruddy shell.
