face. The youth was probably in a mood, but Druhallen wouldn't have wanted to be looking into Rozt'a's eyes just then. He'd face ten dung beasts with no fire at all before he'd tell her that he'd caught himself thinking about settling down, marriage, and children.
He wouldn't let himself think about such notions again, at least not until they'd gotten back to Weathercote and pried Galimer from Lady Mantis.
Dru grabbed his blankets with one hand and headed for the horse line, a path which, not coincidentally, took him close to Tiep and Rozt'a. They spotted him and fell silent.
'Problems?' he asked, on the forceful side of polite.
Neither answered. With his head still down, Tiep turned and walked away. He limped a bit, but he'd been in worse shape yesterday, before Rozt'a slathered his blistered feet.
The one who looked like death in the morning was Sheemzher. One of the goblin's red-orange cheeks was a dull, swollen brown and he held his spear close against his flank for balance. No way he'd be able to walk and maintain any sort of pace. They'd have to put him up on one of the horses-which wasn't so bad, except Dru couldn't remember the otyugh getting a blow in on the goblin.
'There's something strange going on between Tiep and Sheemzher,' he said to Rozt'a without looking at her.
'Maybe.'
'Is that what you and he were talking about just now?'
'No.'
'He seemed sulky-'
Rozt'a grimaced and Dru decided not to ask her if she was feeling sulky also. The answer was obvious, and so was the explanation. After yesterday, Rozt'a had to be wondering if she'd ever see her husband again. Without a censoring thought, Dru wound his unencumbered arm over Rozt'a's shoulders and pulled her gently against his chest.
'We're not dealt out of this game, not by a long shot.'
Their eyes met and Rozt'a gave Dru a lethal stare before shrugging free of his one-armed embrace. He folded both arms beneath his blankets.
'Let's get moving,' he stammered.
Rozt'a nodded and walked away without saying a word.
That pretty much set the tone for another day of trekking up over stone and down through the quaking bogs. From his perch on Hopper's back, Sheemzher urged them to pick up the pace. They panted and sweated but didn't argue, especially when they were crossing rock.
The sky was no bluer than it had been yesterday, but the thick clouds had lifted somewhat. They could see more of the dark gray mountains, and dragons. Druhallen had counted eight dragon sightings, two of them simultaneous, both full-grown and deep red. Even one red dragon was too many for a party of four.
Around noon they arrived at a ledge that was black, rather than dark gray, and glassy, like the sealed entrance to Lady Wyndyfarh's cave. This was no magic cave. A red dragon had fought here and blasted its prey with fire more intense than any Druhallen could summon. The dragon had been killing, not hunting. Whatever had drawn its wrath would have been reduced to powder and ash.
Dru didn't know if his companions read the same story from the scene. No one was talking and he didn't volunteer the information. Ignorance was bliss, so long as one of them knew what they were facing. He had to wonder, though, what Rozt'a saw and kept to herself, or the goblin who swung his feet in the stirrups and was the first away from the ledge.
'Hurry,' Sheemzher said, the first word anyone had spoken in hours. 'Bad place. Evil place.'
They hurried and made palpable progress toward the tallest mountains that formed their horizon-until the clouds fell again. Not much later, when they were striding carefully through one of the spongier bogs they'd encountered, the clouds opened up. Today's raindrops were smaller than yesterday's, cooler, too-bespeaking autumn rather than summer-and pushed sideways by gusty winds.
Dru laced himself into his cloak and pulled the hood up. He could see the goblin's back from the waist down and Hopper's from the tail up-not a sight to inspire any man. Hard to believe that only a few days ago he and Galimer had been looking for someone who knew the way to Dekanter. Everything looked different-better-when you were pursuing your own dreams and not trying to appease some over-powered, bug-and-goblin befriending, magic-making woman who'd turned your best friend into a mindless pet.
If there was a lesson to be learned from the last few days, it wasn't about amber. Large chunks of his conversation with Amarandaris lay heavy in Dru's mind. He'd wasted so much of his life learning things the Zhentarim already knew. When they got to Scornubel, Druhallen promised himself that he'd sell the glass disk and let the Zhentarim deal with the Red Wizards however they chose.
The path curved upward, promising another exposed rock gully. Bugs didn't fly in the rain, maybe dragons didn't either. Dru could hope; a man should be careful with his hopes. It wasn't dragon-fire that struck them from above, but fist- and skull-sized stones that fell with the rain. He pinched embers from his sleeve-Dru had a little fire left in his memory-but looking up he didn't see anything that looked like a target.
'Stay close!' Rozt'a shouted. She gave the orders when they were under attack. 'Do something, Dru.'
He guessed at the location of their attackers, cast fire in that direction, and for a few moments only cold, hard rain pelted their faces. Then rocks came down again.
'A shield!' she shouted, herding them against the sheer stone at the back of the ledge. 'And quick.'
The horses shied and whinnied. They were bigger and taking the worst of an attack that smacked of opportunity, not skill.
Druhallen knew a spell to thicken the air and slow an arrow by half, so a quick-thinking man could bat the shafts down with his forearm. If their attackers had been throwing the stones, the spell might have helped his family, but they were dropping them instead. A simple shielding spell-the best he could manage under the circumstance-wouldn't stop the falling rain and do less against a falling rock.
Unless Weather made a difference with magic. Dru's fireball spells burned hotter in the summer and longer when the air was dry. This rain wasn't merely falling, it was driven sideways by the wind. If the wind was affecting the rain-throwing it-then his shielding spell might slow the rain and the ensorcelled rain might slow the stones. Moreover, he could cast the spell on a moving target-himself and his party. If it worked at all, it would travel with them, maybe as far as the next bog.
And if the spell slowed either the stones or the rain, neither would it make their situation worse.
At least it shouldn't make their situation worse.
Dru paused, reconsidering his conclusions.
'Now, Dru!'
He reached inside his cloak and clutched the folding box. The box could be opened in any of a dozen ways. Dru found the clasp that revealed the compartment where he kept sprigs of virgin goose-down. With a few of the tiny feathers pinched between his thumb and forefinger, he spoke the words that kindled the shielding spell. The feathers vanished and he drew his next breath in a far-less-gusty wind.
'Let's go!' he shouted to the others.
Rozt'a took the lead, but the path was too treacherous for great haste and rocks continued to fall. One struck the black mare, Ebony. The mare lunged and broke away from Rozt'a distracted grasp. Another step and she'd have been over the edge and into the bog, no better than Cardinal. Tiep intervened; he caught Ebony's rein and, shouting her name, put his full weight against her panic.
Tiep got through to the horse and the attackers got through to him. A stone the size of a baby's skull clipped the youth on the forehead. Blood gushed, as it always did with a head wound. Druhallen allowed himself to believe that the wound wasn't serious, but the lad stood stock-still, making an attractive target of himself after the mare's rein slipped from his hand.
Their unseen overhead attackers responded with stones that were definitely thrown. The shielding spell interfered with their trajectories, but Tiep swayed and staggered whether or not the stones struck him. Druhallen dropped the reins he held and caught the youth's sleeve.
Two more stones struck home, one against Dru's shoulder, the other against Tiep's. Dru acknowledged the blow with a groan, but Tiep seemed not to notice. Dru pulled him close and got a glimpse of vacant eyes in the process.
