Which made him feel even more frightened and ashamed. Roghar glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then ducked down into the stall where his own horse waited and drew the gauntlet off his right hand.
Beneath it, the fine scales of his wrist were torn in a raw, irregular circle. Blood pricked the surface in small, shimmering beads. Roghar examined the abrasion closely, making sure the sparkling droplets were indeed blood- and nothing else.
When Vestagix’s lashing crystalline tail had wrapped around his arm in the heat of battle, he’d registered only a moment’s stinging pain. The wrenching of the sword from his grip and the gauntlet from his hand had seemed like more of a blow. In the chaos that followed-a wave of plague demons that had strangely all but ignored him, the furious blow that had ended Vestagix, the storm of Albanon’s magic-he hadn’t given the slight sting of his wrist a second thought. Then he’d recovered his gauntlet and his sword and, in donning the gauntlet, had realized what had happened.
Roghar could almost feel the splintering crystals of Vestagix’s tail against his hide. Raking through his scales. Drawing blood.
Infecting him with the taint of the Abyssal Plague.
He’d lied when Uldane had asked him to heal Lord Padraig, but he couldn’t help himself. Padraig’s wound had been entirely natural. A good dressing and careful attention would heal it. There was nothing natural about what Vestagix had done to him. He wrapped his good hand around his wrist and focused the power of his faith. “Holy Bahamut,” he murmured, “whose Word is Law and whose Shield is Justice. Hear my prayer and cleanse these wounds.”
The warm touch of the divine that normally answered his invocation was slow in coming, like honey flowing on a cold morning. When it did finally enter him, it was sweet but also strangely distant. Roghar held his breath as it grew, then ebbed, beneath his fingers. Albanon had described how Kri had drawn on the holy light of the gods to scour the Voidharrow from his flesh. Roghar couldn’t wield divine radiance in the same way, but he hoped-prayed- that his own healing abilities would be just as effective.
When the warmth faded, he slowly removed his hand from his wrist. The mark of Vestagix’s tail remained, a scar on his scales, but the blood was gone and the raw flesh was smooth. Roghar let his breath out in relief.
Then he caught it again as a single bright red drop welled up between two torn scales.
“No,” he choked softly. “No!” He squeezed his hand over his wrist once more. “Bahamut, close this wound!”
This time, he waited for the touch of the divine in vain. There was no warmth, no sense of the divine. All he felt, and it might have been his own imagination, was a slow itching, as if something crawled through his veins. Bahamut did not answer him. Did not or would not. Or perhaps, Roghar thought, could not.
“Roghar!” called Uldane from outside the stable, then his voice echoed as he came inside. “Roghar, where are the horses? We’re ready to go.”
The paladin flinched and grabbed his gauntlet, pulling it on to hide the blood that smeared his wrist. He stood just as Uldane came searching along the row of stalls. Uldane frowned at him. “What have you been doing?”
Roghar scowled back at him. “Giving thanks,” he lied. “Can I not have a moment to commune with my god?”
“It would be better if you communed while we rode. People are starting to forget they’re afraid of Albanon. We need to go.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “You haven’t even gotten them saddled yet!”
“Then make yourself useful and help me. Gather their tack. We’ll be gone faster.” Roghar grabbed his horse’s saddle blanket from where it hung over the stall and threw it across the animal’s back. As Uldane turned away, he exhaled and squeezed his eyes closed, fighting down a churning fear he knew he couldn’t outrun.
There were two times during the day that Albanon found his memories of Winterhaven particularly hard to bear. The first was in the evening as he prepared himself to enter the trance that served eladrin in place of sleep. Memories of the power he had wielded chased themselves around the dark corners of his mind and a fear grew that madness would creep up on him once more as he dreamed.
The second was in the morning. For about twenty heartbeats after he emerged from his trance, he’d be at peace. Then he’d remember that Splendid and Immeral were no longer with them and his sense of peace would evaporate. Various emotions would rush in to fill that void. Sorrow. Fury. Determination to put an end to Vestapalk’s cruelty-and to Tharizdun’s hold on him. Sickness at what his friends’ deaths had brought out in him. Guilt at what he’d done.
On the third morning after they’d left Winterhaven, guilt and sickness came together like a physical blow that made his head spin and his throat clench with nausea. Albanon lunged away from their little campsite, drawing calls of concern from Tempest and Uldane, and retched into a clump of bushes. He thrust the vile thought away and stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
He found himself facing Roghar across the bushes and winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t…” He gestured weakly at the vomit-streaked leaves. “Did I?”
“No,” said Roghar in a low rumble. “You didn’t. Thank Bahamut for that.”
“I didn’t know you were there.” Although he should have guessed, Albanon realized. Ever since they had left Winterhaven, the paladin had been taking himself a short distance from the camp to pray at dawn and dusk. He’d been quieter and more withdrawn, too. Albanon couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Roghar sing the way he used to. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who carried emotional scars from the events in the village.
He stretched out a hand-not the one he’d wiped his mouth with-and offered it to Roghar. “We’ll get through this together. We’ll stop Vestapalk.”
The dragonborn hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his hand, still cased in a gauntlet, around Albanon’s. “How much farther?” he asked bluntly.
Albanon glanced in the direction that his internal urge-growing steadily stronger the farther they traveled-was taking them. Away through the trees, the ground rose into the first steep slopes of the Cairngorm Peaks. They’d left the road behind and spent the previous day travelling through foothills. That day, and for as many succeeding days as it took to reach their mysterious destination, they would journey through the mountains. Unless they had good fortune, there was every chance they might find themselves forced leagues out of their way to get around some obstacle in the empty wilderness.
That the wilderness was empty was, perhaps, a blessing. They hadn’t seen any sign of plague demons since leaving Winterhaven. Albanon wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at that, especially in a region that was so sparsely populated to begin with, or even more worried. All evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Vestapalk’s minions were out there somewhere. Waiting for them.
“Not far,” he told Roghar. “I hope.”
Roghar responded with a grunt. “Good,” he said-and he dropped Albanon’s hand, turning to stride back to the camp without another word or glance. Albanon blinked and stared after him.
Later, with the sun almost at its noon height, the eladrin nudged his mount over beside Tempest’s as they rode around the grassy flank of a mountain. “Have I done something to offend Roghar?” he asked quietly.
Tempest raised a narrow eyebrow. “Besides almost vomiting on him?”
“Other than that.” Albanon looked at Roghar’s back-the paladin rode in advance of the rest of them. “He’s been curt with me the last couple of days and it’s only getting worse. You’ve known him the longest. What’s bothering him?”
“I wish I knew,” she said, “but it isn’t just you. I’ve seen him surly, but never for this long.”
“Do you think it’s because of what happened at Winterhaven?”
“He’s seen worse-or at least as bad. The attack on Fallcrest. What we found in Nera before we came back to the Vale. When something bad happens, he seeks refuge in Bahamut for a while, then he comes back stronger than ever.” Tempest turned her head and studied Albanon for a long moment. “I think you’re doing better than him right now.”
“If I’m doing better, then he’s in really bad shape.” Albanon attempted a smile but it withered on his lips. He sighed. “I never thought I’d actually miss Splendid this much.”
“It surprises you, doesn’t it? I miss Immeral. Not much of a talker, but his wilderness skills would come in handy right now. I can’t help thinking we’d be moving a little faster if he was here.”
Albanon shrugged. “We’ll get through. Uldane’s trying but I think he always depended on Shara.”
“Possibly.” Tempest rode a little farther in silence before she said, “Am I the only one who was hoping we’d
