Strafing

“Enemies?” Fyrentennimar’s thunderous question made the six terribly vulnerable companions hold their breath in dread.

“We are friends,” Cadderly replied weakly as the dragon went into a series of short stoops and quick rises, as close to a hovering maneuver as the bulky creature could accomplish.

Fyrentennimar’s serpentine neck twisted, putting his head at a half-cocked position, almost like some curious dog.

“Are they enemies?” the dragon roared again. They? Cadderly noted curiously, hopefully. “Who?” Fyrentennimar bobbed his head and erupted with laughter. “Of course, of course!” he cried, his voice no longer carrying the edge of dragon hysteria. “Your eyes are not so keen as dragon eyes! I must remember that”

“What potential enemies do you speak of?” Cadderly asked impatiently, realizing that Fyrentennimar’s aimless banter might continue for some time, and aware that his enchantment might not have much time remaining.

“Back on the trail,” the dragon explained. “A procession of goblins and giants.”

Cadderly turned to Danica and Shayleigh. “We should continue on our way,” he offered. “I can bid Fyrentennimar to let us down far from the monstrous caravan.”

“How many?” Shayleigh asked grimly, one hand tightly grasping her bow and an eager sparkle in her violet eyes. Both Cadderly and Danica knew from that look that the elf maiden did not wish to simply pass the monsters by.

Cadderly looked to Danica for support. When it was not immediately forthcoming, he continued, “I do not know how long the dragon will remain calm. The risk...”

“All the flight is a risk,” Danica replied evenly, and Shayleigh seemed to approve.

“If Shilmista was your home, you would not be so quick to allow giants and goblins to return to their holes,” the elf maiden said to Cadderly. “We of the wood know well what the spring will bring upon us.”

“If we destroy Castle Trinity, the monsters might not return,” Cadderly reasoned.

“If you were of Shilmista, would you take that chance?”

Danica nodded at Shayleigh’s logic, but her smile disappeared when she regarded Cadderly’s grim expression. “Let us allow our friends to decide,” the monk offered.

Not realizing how much the surly Ivan had come to enjoy dragonflight, Cadderly readily agreed.

To this point, Ivan, Pikel, and Vander, enjoying the short, fluttering air-hops of the great red, had remained oblivious to the discussion.

“Ivan!” Danica called back to the dwarf. “Would you care for the chance to smash a few goblin heads?”

The yellow-bearded dwarf roared, Pikel squeaked in glee, and Danica turned a smug smile back Cadderly’s way. The young priest scowled, thinking Danica’s method of asking Ivan was terribly unfair—what dwarf would say no to that question?

“Let us use our new ally to our best advantage,” Shayleigh said to the defeated young priest.

Cadderly relaxed against the scaly dragon neck, trying to sort out this whole situation. He knew that they should go straight on to Castle Trinity, that any fighting now could jeopardize their chance for success later, especially if the dragon escaped his enchantment.

But was he ready for Castle Trinity? After his fight to destroy the Ghearufu and his titanic struggle with Ghost, Cadderly wasn’t so sure. Up to now, he had been primarily concerned with the Ghearufu, but with that task out of the way, he had begun to look ahead—to powerful wizards and a well-trained army, entrenched in a secluded mountain fortress.

Cadderly needed time to catch his breath and to better consider those dangers at the end of his intended road. He decided that an attack on the goblin band, with a dragon on his side, might actually come as a reprieve.

And he couldn’t, in good conscience, deny Shayleigh’s fears for Shilmista or the plaintive, determined expression on her fair elven face. The young priest had to admit, to himself at least, that there was something alluring about the idea of experiencing unleashed dragon power from this secure vantage point.

“I believe that they are enemies, mighty Fyrentennimar,” Cadderly called back to the unusually patient dragon. “Is there anything we might do against them?”

In answer, the dragon dipped one wing and dropped into a stoop, plummeting at breakneck speed, then leveling out and using his momentum to begin a great rush around the mountain. From this lower point, the friends had no trouble spotting the monstrous caravan, several hundred strong and with a fair number of giants among the shuffling, hunched goblinoid ranks, trudging along a trail in a narrow valley bordered by steep, rocky walls.

Fyrentennimar kept close to the ridges, circling away from the monsters. In mere seconds, the valley and the caravan seemed far removed.

“Do tell me, humble priest,” the obviously eager dragon implored Cadderly. Cadderly looked to his friends once more, to confirm the decision, and found five bobbing heads staring back at him.

“They are enemies,” Cadderly confirmed. “What is our role in the battle?”

“Your role?” the great beast echoed incredulously. “Hang on to my spiked spine with all your pitiful strength!”

The dragon banked, its wings going nearly perpendicular to the ground (drawing another cry of glee from Ivan and Pikel), and then shot off around the targeted peak. The friends felt the warmth growing within the wyrm, the flaring fires of old Fyren’s fire. Reptilian eyes narrowed evilly, and in realizing the wyrm’s mounting intensity, Cadderly wasn’t so certain that he liked this whole scenario.

They came around the base of the mountain into the entrance to the narrow valley, still in a tight bank, the rock walls rushing by the six astonished friends in a dizzying blur. The dragon leveled and dipped even lower, the tips of his wide wings only a dozen feet or so from the sheer walls. The goblins and giants at the rear of the caravan turned and let out terrified shrieks, but so swift was the dragon’s flight that they had no time to even break ranks before Fyrentennimar was upon them.

A searing line of fire strafed the trailing monsters. Goblins curled up into charred balls; mighty giants toppled, slapping futilely at the deadly flames as their bodies were consumed.

Acrid smoke rose in the dragon’s wake. His flames were exhausted before he had gotten very far into the long line, but Fyrentennimar proudly stayed low in his flight, let his enemies see him and fear him.

All about the valley, the monsters went into an uncontrolled frenzy. Giants squashed goblins and slammed into other giants; goblins clawed and battled with their own kin, even coming to sword blows in their desperation to get away.

“Oh, my dear Deneir,” Cadderly muttered, awestruck once again by the bared power of the dragon, by the utter terror Fyrentennimar had evoked in those pitiful creatures on the ground.

No, Cadderly told himself, not pitiful. These were Shilmista’s invaders, the plague that had scarred the elven wood and slaughtered many of elf prince Elbereth’s people. The plague that would undoubtedly return once more in the spring to complete what had been begun.

Shayleigh, her violet eyes narrow and grim, let fly a few well-aimed bowshots. She saw one goblin aiming a crude bow the dragon’s way, but the dim-witted creature could not calculate the incredible speed, and its shot flew far behind. Shayleigh was the better archer, putting an arrow into the cursing goblin’s filthy mouth.

Another bowshot followed immediately, this one knifing into a goblin’s back and dropping the wretched thing dead to the ground.

Cadderly winced at that one, caught by the realization that this creature was only trying to flee and posed no threat to them. That notion assaulted the young priest’s sheltered sensibilities.

Until he again remembered the elven forest, remembered the scars in Shilmista. These were enemies, he decided finally, the taste of vengeance rising in his throat. The young priest fell into the song of Deneir and suddenly wore as grim an expression as that of his elvish companion. He heard the notes loud and strong in his head, as though Deneir approved of his decision, and he readily fell into its flow.

Fyrentennimar banked upward as the valley narrowed. As soon as he had cleared the steep walls the dragon banked again, steeply, swerving around for another run at the creatures.

Those monsters at the front of the caravan might have gotten away then, slipped out the narrow end of the valley into the wide expanses where they could have broken ranks altogether.

Cadderly stopped them.

He called to the rock walls at the valley’s end, concentrated his magic on one high archway. The closest monster, a fat-bellied giant, rushed through that archway, and the rocks came to life, snapping repeatedly like an enormous maw, chomping the surprised giant into a pile of bloody mush.

The second giant in line skidded to a stop, eyeing the rocks with blank amazement. Wanting to test the unbelievable trap, the behemoth plucked up a helpless goblin at its side and tossed the creature forward.

Smacking, munching sounds accompanied the goblin’s screams and continued long after the cries had died away, bits and pieces of the goblin flopping through the barrier on the other side.

The grisly scene was gone from Cadderly’s sight in a moment as the dragon came about. For the wyrm, the turn was tight, but still huge Fyrentennimar had to travel a great distance from the valley to manage it.

“Have him put me down,” Danica implored Cadderly.

“And me!” declared Vander from farther back. The firbolg and Danica exchanged excited looks, eager to fight beside each other.

Cadderly shook his head at the outrageous idea and closed his eyes, falling back into his chanting.

“Put me down, old Fyren!” Danica called out. Cadderly’s eyes popped wide, but the obedient dragon pulled up short beside a ridge, and both Danica and Vander hopped from their perches, running off before Cadderly could react.

“Hey, we’re missing all the fun!” Ivan realized as the wyrm set off once more, quickly gaining altitude. The dwarf started to call out to the dragon, but Pikel grabbed him by the beard and pulled him close, whispering some-thing into his ear.

Ivan roared happily, and both dwarves scrambled from the dragon’s back, one going for each wing.

“What are you doing?” Cadderly demanded.

“Just tell the damned wyrm to hold on tight!” Ivan cried back, and then he disappeared from view, crawling hand over hand down the scaly side. His head popped back up a moment later. “But not too tight!” he added, and then he was gone.

“What?” Cadderly replied incredulously, and it took him a few moments to catch on. “Fyrentennimar!” he cried desperately.

Danica and Vander sped off for the back and wider end of the valley, looking for any monsters that might have found their way through the stench and smoke. Only a few minutes after Fyrentennimar had put them down, with the dragon still flying wide, though now angled for his second pass, the two spotted several goblins and a single, lumbering giant coming down a barren, rocky slope, heading directly for them.

The firbolg and the monk nodded and split up, each seeking the cover of some of the many boulders in the region.

The goblins and the giant were looking back more than forward, too afraid of the dragon to even think that there might be other danger lurking ahead.

Danica came out in a rush from the side, hurling one dagger after another, dropping a pair of goblins, and then charged forward, diving into a roll before her surprised adversaries and coming up with a flurry of ferocious blows.

Facial bones were smashed apart, and knifing fingers crushed a windpipe. Before Danica had even played out her momentum, four of the nine goblins lay dead at her feet.

The evil giant, on the far side of the band, turned to meet her charge, but noticed a movement back the other way and spun about, huge club at the ready. A goblin rushed by, eyeing Danica and shrieking in fear.

Vander cleaved it in half.

“Giant-kin,” the club-wielding monster said to Vander in the rolling, thunderous language of the hill giants.

Vander snarled and rushed ahead, his great sword coming across in a blurring arc. The hill giant fell back, throwing its club up in a frantic defense. By sheer luck, the club fell in line with the rushing sword, Vander’s blade diving many inches into the wood.

Vander tried to pull back on the sword, to retract it and slash again, but the club’s hard wood held it fast.

The hill giant, much larger and several times heavier than Vander’s eight hundred pounds, rushed forward, letting go of its club and spreading its huge arms out wide to engulf its foe.

Vander twisted and punched out, connecting solidly but doing little to impede his enemy’s momentum. The firbolg went down heavily, under two tons of hill giant flesh.

The four remaining goblins looked as much at each other as at Danica, each waiting for one of its companions to make the first move. They circled the apparently unarmed monk, one lifting a spear.

Now that the initial surprise was gone, Danica stayed down in a defensive crouch, preferring to let her enemies come to her. The goblins wisely spread out around her, but she remained confident, turning slowly so that no creature could remain behind her.

The spear wielder pumped its arm, and Danica started to dive to the right. She stopped almost immediately, though, recognizing the goblin’s move as a feint, and used the break to her advantage, coming back hard to the left, spinning low and straight-kicking one of the other goblins in the knee.

The creature jerked straight, then fell back, clutching its broken limb. Danica was already back to circling, now eyeing the spear wielder directly, taking its measure, using its body language to discern its every thought.

Cadderly saw the fight off to the side, noticed Vander buried beneath the flabby folds of the monstrous hill giant. He tried to think of a way to help, but suddenly the valley walls were up around him again as Fyrentennimar began another breath-stealing approach.

Shayleigh nimbly moved about on the dragon’s back, determined to play a role and firing her bow repeatedly. At first, her shots were random, nearly every one scoring a hit, but then she concentrated her fire on one hill giant. By the time Fyrentennimar’s flight took her beyond range of the beast its wide chest sported a half-dozen arrows.

“Get lower, ye damned fun-stealing wyrm!” came a cry from below, a cry informing Cadderly that Ivan and Pikel were in position. The young priest fell flat to his belly and peered over the front edge of the dragon’s wing.

Hanging below him were the Bouldershoulder brothers, one in each of Fyrentennimar’s clutching talons. The dragon did fly lower, and Pikel howled in glee as he put his tree-trunk club in line and used the dragon’s momentum to splatter the head of a giant that was too slow in ducking.

Ivan took an axe swipe on the other side as they passed, but he mistimed the blow badly and caught nothing but air.

“Sandstone!” the frustrated dwarf bellowed.

Cadderly’s orderly sensibilities could not accept the craziness about him. Helplessly shaking his head, he managed to sit back up and dropped a hand into a berry-filled pouch. He uttered the last words of the enchantment in resigned tones, then took out a handful of the berries and tossed them randomly into the air. The seeds exploded into tiny bursts of flame as they hit, startling and stinging giants, wounding and even killing a few goblins.

Fyrentennimar swerved up again, slightly, as the valley started to narrow, but the friends knew that he would not soar away, knew that he had not finished the run.

A swarm of creatures huddled about the back end of the valley, hemmed in by the sheer walls and Cadderly’s biting enchantment. Their frenzy multiplied many times over as the dragon reared near them. Giants stuffed goblins through the archway (one actually passed through without being hit, to run screaming down the rocky slope on the other side), and then many giants, in sheer terror of the great dragon, jumped in themselves.

The dragon’s serpentine neck shot forward, and then came the flames. Fyrentennimar’s maw waved from side to side, changing the fire’s angle, immolating the whole mass of creatures.

On and on it went, interminably long for the stunned Cadderly.

Agonized cries came from creatures who were soon no more than crackling bones; all the monstrous swarm seemed to flow together in a singular bubbling mass.

“Oo,” Pikel muttered admiringly, the dwarf having a fine view of the catastrophe from his low perch. Ivan, shaking his head in disbelief, couldn’t find the words to reply.

Danica saw the panic welling in the goblin, knew that it wanted to throw the spear and run off. She locked her gaze upon it fully, forced it to stare into her eyes, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.

She had to hold the goblin’s shot a bit longer, until the anxious club wielder to her right made the first move.

Danica straightened and seemed to relax, though she kept her intimidating gaze steady. She dipped and turned suddenly, caught the club in both hands as it predictably came across, and slid down, hooking the surprised goblin’s knees with her feet and pulling the creature around her.

The goblin jerked suddenly, its eyes popping wide, and Danica, though she couldn’t see the spear sticking from the goblin’s back, knew that her timing, and her understanding of her enemies, had been perfect.

She came up in a spin, tearing the club from the dying creature’s grasp and hurling it straight back, into the chest of the next charging goblin. The creature fumbled with the unexpected missile for a moment, getting it tangled with its sword, then finally tossing it aside. It managed to focus its attention on Danica just as her foot snapped into its throat.

Again Danica was spinning, leaping over the dead club wielder and tearing the spear from its back. Three running strides later, she let fly the crude weapon. The spear didn’t hit the mark exactly, but it did get tangled up in its original owner’s legs enough to drop the goblin hard to its face.

It lay on its belly for a moment, trying to shake away its dizziness.

Then Danica was upon it, and it was dead. The monk looked back to the one remaining goblin, the first of the four she had hit. It was floundering about, half-hopping, half-crawling, as it continued to grasp at its shattered kneecap. It struggled past two of its companions, two goblins that had died grasping at daggers. Thinking to arm itself, the struggling creature ambled for the daggers, but stopped and looked up, dismayed, for Danica had gotten there first.

Vander slapped futilely against the giant’s bulk, thrashing about with all his strength, even biting the monster on the neck. But all the savagery the powerful firbolg could muster seemed puny beneath the sheer size of the hill giant.

Vander found his breathing hard to come by and wondered how long he could hold out beneath the two-ton behemoth. His estimate lessened considerably when the hill giant began to bounce, pushing off the ground with its huge hands and free-falling back on top of poor Vander.

Vander’s initial thoughts were to curl up in a ball. He realized, though, that his body could not take the pounding for long, whatever he might do—the first bounce had blasted out his breath, and he could only draw small amounts of air between each subsequent slam. Every time the hill giant came crushing back down, Vander expected his rib cage to collapse.

Without even thinking of the movement, Vander used one moment of freedom to tuck his legs up near his belly. Fortune was with the firbolg, for when the hill giant came back down, its own weight drove Vander’s knees hard into its abdomen. Back up went the hill giant, higher this time, fully extending its arms that it might come back with one final slam.

Up came Vander’s feet, straight out in pursuit of the monster’s belly, locking the giant up high before its fall could build momentum. The desperate firbolg strained with all his might; leg muscles flexed and ripped and stood out like iron cords. The giant, its girth hanging several feet off the ground, freed up one hand and punched Vander across the face, nearly knocking him senseless.

Vander accepted the blow, but kept his focus on his legs and groaned against the strain, compelling his massive legs to straighten.

The giant rose up a few more inches; Vander knew that he could not hold the weight. He kicked out a final time, trying to buy himself precious seconds and space, then curled his legs and rolled, securing the butt of his sword against the ground and angling the blade straight up.

The giant’s eyes widened in horror as it flailed its arms and thrashed about for the instant of its descent, but it could not get to the side, could not get out of line. The sword entered it at the juncture between its belly and its chest, driving upward through the monster’s diaphragm. The hill giant planted its quivering arms firmly, broke its fall so that it would not further impale itself.

Vander was free, now, but he did not immediately roll out from under the giant. He grasped his blade in both arms and heaved it straight up, driving it deeper into the giant’s flesh.

The quivering arms buckled altogether, and the giant slid down the blade, issuing a long, low groan as the tip of the sword came against its backbone and stopped its descent for a moment. Then the sword broke clear, and the behemoth lay very still, feeling no pain, feeling nothing at all.

Vander, pressed again under the enormous weight, jerked the sword a few times to make sure the monster was dead, then began the task of crawling out. Danica, finished with her own work, was soon crouched beside him.

Eventually the dragon’s fire ceased, leaving the entire horde of creatures at the narrow end of the valley lying together in a bulbous, smoldering mass.

Those monsters behind the dragon could have rushed in to strike at the low-flying beast’s back, but they did not, for they were too terrified to even approach the deadly wyrm.

Ivan and Pikei waved weapons at them and taunted them, trying to draw them in.

“Aw, run off then, ye cowardly bunch!” a frustrated Ivan yelled.

A moment later, when the dragon’s talons let go of the dwarves, Ivan yelled a singular note of surprise. He and Pikel dropped fifteen feet to the ground, bounced right back to their feet, and hopped about, dazed.

Fifty feet behind them, the fleeing giants and goblins turned and stared curiously, not knowing which way to run.

“Humble priest, get you down!” Fyrentennimar roared, shaking Cadderly from his daze. The young priest turned back to old Fyren, wondering if the ethics enchantment had ceased, wondering if he was about to die.

“Get you down!” Fyrentennimar cried again, and the force of his stone-splitting voice nearly knocked Cadderly from his perch. He and Shayleigh were moving in an instant, crawling down the spiked back and tail and dropping the last few feet to the ground to stand beside Ivan and Pikel.

“Playing with dragons,” Ivan remarked sarcastically under his breath.

Shayleigh lifted her bow but had to close her eyes and look away as Fyrentennimar, wings beating fiercely, pivoted in the air, whipping the smoke and dust about. The dragon dipped into a short stoop, reared again, and then fell over the remaining group of monsters, tail thrashing, spiked foreclaws slashing, great hind legs kicking, and wings beating a hurricane of wind. A swoop of the dragon’s tail sent four goblins soaring, splattering them against the valley wall with force enough to shatter most of the bones in their bodies, and then the tail itself connected on the wall, opening a huge crack in the stone and leaving crimson marks where the goblins had been. A giant, horrified beyond reason, lifted its club and charged.

Fyrentennimar’s maw clamped over it, hoisting it easily into the air. Squealing like some barnyard animal at the slaughterhouse, the giant freed one arm from the side of the wyrm’s maw and slapped its pitiful club against the armored head.

Fyrentennimar bit the giant in half, its legs dropping free to the stone.

Even sturdy Ivan was shaken by the spectacle of the dragon’s wholehearted slaughter, by the mass of bubbling corpses and the flying and broken bodies of those enemies caught in close to the enraged wyrm.

“Glad he’s on our side,” Ivan said, his breathless voice barely a whisper.

Cadderly grimaced at the words, remembering again the tone Fyrentennimar had used when ordering him down. He studied the dragon’s lusty, hungry movements as old Fyren reveled in the blood and carnage,

“Is he?” the young priest muttered under his breath.

Chaos

A giant’s broken form came flying up over the wall of the valley, landing hard and bouncing down the rocky slope past Vander and Danica. They heard the chaos within the valley, heard the dragon’s primal roars and the horrified screams of the doomed monsters. Neither Danica nor Vander held much pity for the evil goblins and giants, but they looked to each other with honest fear, simply overwhelmed by the awakening storm within those entrapping walls. Danica motioned for Vander to move around to the valley entrance, while she took a more direct course up the slope. Before she even got to the top, she saw monsters, and pieces of monsters, flipping into the air, tumbling about and dropping back into the frenzy. Her nerves on end, Danica could not hold back a chuckle, thinking that the scene reminded her of Pikel’s work in the Edificant Library’s kitchen, the druidic-minded dwarf stubbornly (and clumsily) tossing a salad of woodland flora despite Ivan’s roaring protests.

The dragon’s tail must have hit the stone wall then, for Danica, though she was separated from the blow by forty feet of solid stone, suddenly found herself siding down.

Cadderly slipped into the dreamstate, into the song of Deneir, and reached his mental perceptions out to Fyrentennimar.

A wall of red blocked his entry.

“What do you know?” Shayleigh asked, recognizing the concern, even dread, in the young priest’s expression.

Cadderly did not answer. Again he fell into the song, reached out to the dragon. But Fyrentennimar’s savage rage blocked him and held any real communication far away.

Cadderly knew in his heart that old Fyren would no longer consider him an ally, that in the bloodlust, the dragon had reverted to its true, wicked nature. He moved the notes of the song toward the sphere of chaos, thinking to delve there again and attempt to tame the wyrm once more.

He opened his eyes for just a minute, regarded the complete slaughter of the few remaining monsters, and sensed that no such spell could get through the outraged dragon’s instinctual mental defenses.

“Get back to the far end of the valley,” he said as calmly as he could to Shayleigh. “Ready your bow.”

The elf maiden eyed him gravely, considering the implications of his grim tone. “The enchantment is no more?” she asked.

“Ready your bow,” Cadderly repeated.

There wasn’t much left of the monstrous column; Fyrentennimar would be finished in mere minutes. Cadderly called up his protective magics, drew a line of dragonbane across the valley floor, and brought a magical fire shield around him and the two confused dwarves at his side.

“What are ye doing?” Ivan demanded, always suspicious of magic and especially on edge with an enraged dragon barely a hundred yards away.

“It is a spell of the elements,” Cadderly tried to quickly explain. “On me, it will stop the dragon fire.”

“Uh-oh,” Pikel mumbled, figuring out the implications of Cadderly’s precautions.

“On you it will diminish the fire, but not completely,” the young priest finished. “Get to the wall and find a rock to hide behind.”

The dwarves didn’t have to be asked twice. Normally, they would have remained boldly at their ally’s side, ready for battle. But this was a dragon, after all.

So Cadderly stood alone in the center of the valley, surrounded by carnage, by torn reminders of the dragon’s wrath. He stooped low and grabbed a handful of dirt from one of Fyrentennimar’s footprints, then stood straight and resolute, reminding himself that he had done as the tenets of Deneir demanded. He had destroyed the Gkearufu.

Still, he thought of Danica, his love, and the new life they had begun in Carradoon, and he did not want to die.

Fyrentennimar swallowed whole the last cowering goblin and turned about. Reptilian eyes narrowed, shooting glaring beams even under the light of day. Almost immediately, those beams focused directly on Cadderly.

“Well done, mighty wyrm!” Cadderly cried out, hoping that his guess might be wrong, that the dragon might still be caught within a goodly moral code.

“Humble priest...” Fyrentennimar replied, and Cadderly thought the booming voice would surely destroy his hearing. Since he had leveled the enchantment at the dragon, Cadderly had only heard that voice twice, both times when the dragon had suspected that enemies were about. Crouched low like a hunting dog, walking on all fours with his leathery wings tucked in tight to his back, the dragon quickly halved the hundred-yard distance to Cadderly.

“You have done us a great service,” Cadderly began.

“Humble priest!” Fyrentennimar interrupted.

The song of Deneir played in Cadderly’s thoughts. He knew that he would need a diversion, something physical and powerful to gain time as he sorted through the notes of a spell he had not yet fully come to understand.

“A service both in your cave and in taking us across the mountains,” Cadderly went on, hoping that he might steal some time with flattery. He remained conscious of the song as he spoke, the notes of the needed spell coming clearer with each playing. “But now, it is time for you...”

“Humble priest?”

Cadderly found no answer to the thunderous roar, the absolute indication that Fyrentennimar did not yet consider the killing to be at its end. With low growls shivering the stone beneath Cadderly’s feet, the dragon stalked in.

Those eyes! Cadderly lost his concentration, caught in their hypnotizing intensity. He felt helpless, hopeless, surely doomed against this godlike creature, this terror beyond imagination. He fought for breath, fought against the welling panic that told him to run for his life.

Fyrentennimar was close. How had Fyrentennimar gotten so damned close?

The dragon’s head slowly moved back, serpentine neck coiling. A foreclaw tucked up tight against the massive beast’s chest, while its hind legs tamped down securely on the stone.

“Get outa there!” Ivan roared from the side, recognizing that the beast was about to spring. Cadderly heard the words and agreed wholeheartedly, but could not get his legs to move.

An arrow zipped above Cadderly’s head, splintering harmlessly as it struck the dragon’s unpenetrable natural armor.

Intent on Cadderly the deceiver, Fyrentennimar did not seem to even notice.

Of all the things Cadderly of Carradoon would see in his life, nothing would come close to the sheer terror of seeing Fyrentennimar’s ensuing spring. The dragon, so huge, shot forward with the speed of a viper, came at Cadderly with a maw opened wide enough to swallow him whole, showing rows of gleaming teeth, each as long as the young priest’s forearm.

In that split second, Cadderly’s vision failed him, as though his mind simply could not accept the image.

Just a dozen feet in front of him, Fyrentennimar’s expression changed suddenly. His head snapped to the side and contorted weirdly, as if he was pushing against some resilient bubble.

“Dragonbane,” Cadderly muttered, the success of his ward bringing him some small measure of hope.

Old Fyren twisted and struggled, bending the blocking line, refusing to relent. The great hind legs dug deep scratches into the stone, and the hungry maw snapped repeatedly, looking for something tangible to tear.

Cadderly began his chant. Another arrow whipped past him, this one grazing Fyrentennimar’s eye.

The dragon’s wings spread wide, lifting old Fyren upright. The dragon roared and hissed and sucked in air.

Cadderly closed his eyes and continued to chant, locking his thoughts on the notes of Deneir’s song.

The flames engulfed him, scorched and melted the stone at his feet. His friends cried out, thinking him consumed, but he did not hear them. His protective globe sizzled green about him, thinning dangerously as though it would not endure, but Cadderly did not see.

All he heard was the song of Deneir; all he saw was the music of the heavenly spheres.

When Danica came to lip of the valley wall and saw her love apparently immolated below her, her legs buckled and her heart fluttered—she thought it would stop altogether.

Her warrior instincts told her to go to the aid of her love, but what could she do against the likes of Fyrentennimar? Her hands and feet could be deadly against ores and goblins, even giants, but they would do little damage slamming the iron-hard scales of the wyrra. Danica could hurl her crystal-bladed daggers into the heart of an ogre ten yards away, but those blades were tiny things when measured against the sheer bulk of Fyrentennimar.

The dragon fires ended, and, looking at Cadderly, so boldly facing the wyrm in the open valley, Danica knew that she had to do something.

“Fyrentennimar the awesome?” she cried incredulously. “A puny and weak thing is he, by my own eyes. A pretender of strength who cowers when danger is near!”

The dragon’s head snapped around to face her, high above on the lip of the valley wall.

“Ugly worm,” Danica chided, emphasizing her use of “worm” instead of “wyrm,” perhaps the most insulting thing one could say to a dragon. “Ugly and weak worm!”

The dragon’s tail twitched dangerously, reptilian eyes narrowed to mere slits, and old Fyren’s low growl reverberated through the valley stone.

Standing before the distracted dragon, Cadderly picked up the pace of his chanting. He was truly glad for the distraction, but terribly afraid that Danica was pushing the explosive dragon beyond reason.

Danica laughed at old Fyren, just crossed her hands over her belly and shook with laughter. Her thoughts were quite serious, though. She recalled the ancient writings of Penpahg D’Ahn, the Grandmaster of her sect.

You anticipate the attacks of your enemy, the Grandmaster had promised. You do not react, you move before your enemy moves. As the bowman fires, his target is gone. As the swordsman thrusts ahead, his enemy, you, are behind him.

And as the dragon breathes, Penpahg had said, so its flames shall touch only empty stone.

Danica needed those words now, with Fyrentennimar’s head waving only a hundred feet below her. Penpahg D’Ahn’s writings were the source of her strength, the inspiration for her life, and she had to trust them now, even in the face of an outraged red dragon.

“Ugly, ugly Fyrentennimar, who thinks he is so good,” she sang. “His talons cannot tear cotton, his breath cannot light wood!” Not an impressive rhyme perhaps, but the words assaulted the overly proud Fyrentennimar more profoundly than any weapon ever could.

The dragon’s wings beat suddenly, ferociously, lifting the dragon into the air—almost-

Cadderly completed his spell at that moment, and the stone beneath Fyrentennimar reshaped, animated, and grabbed at the dragon’s rear claws. Old Fyren stretched to his limit, seemed almost springlike as he came crashing back down, falling tight against his haunches, but all of his subsequent thrashing could not break the valley floor’s hold.

Fyrentennimar knew at once the source of his entrapment, and his great head whipped around, slamming hard against the blocking line of the dragonbane spell.

Cadderly paled—could his protective globe defeat a second searing blast of dragon breath?

“His wings cannot lift his blubber,” Danica cried out “His tail cannot swat a gnat.”

The dragon’s ensuing roar echoed off mountain walls a dozen miles away, sent animals and monsters rushing for the cover of their holes throughout the Snowflake Mountains. The serpentine neck stretched forward, and a gout of flames fell over Danica.

Stone melted and poured from the ledge in a red-glowing river. Pikel, hiding in an alcove beneath the region, let out a frightened squeak and rushed away.

Cadderly verged on panic, thought for sure that he had just seen his love die, and knew in his heart, despite the logical claims of his conscience, that nothing, not the destruction of the Ghearufu or the downfall of Castle Trin- ity, could be worth such a loss.

He calmed, though, when he remembered who he was thinking of, remembered the wisdom and almost magical talents of his dear Danica. He had to trust in her, as she so often trusted in him, had to believe that her decisions would be the correct decisions.

“His horns get caught in archways,” Danica continued the rhyme, laughing over the words as she came back up to the ledge at a point thirty feet to the side. “And his muscles are no more than fat!”

Fyrentennimar’s eyes widened with outrage and incredulity. He thrashed his tail and legs, slammed his horned head repeatedly against the magical dragonbane barrier, and beat his wings so fiercely that goblin corpses shifted and slid, caught up in the wind.

Like Danica, Cadderly was grinning widely, though he knew that the fight was far from won. One of Fyrentennimar’s claws had torn free of the stone, and the other would soon break through. The young priest completed his next enchantment, pulled from the sphere of time, and hurled waves of magical energy at the distracted dragon.

Old Fyren felt the stone loosen about his one trapped leg, though it retightened immediately. The dragon, wise with years though he was, did not understand the significance, did not understand why the valley suddenly seemed much larger to him.

Again the wyrm sensed that Cadderly was somehow involved, and he calmed his tirade and steeled an angry glare over the supposedly “humble” priest “What have you done?” Fyrentennimar demanded.

The dragon jerked suddenly, slammed from behind by Vander, the firbolg’s huge sword smashing in hard at Fyrentennimar’s trapped haunch.

“Time to go!” Ivan yelled to his brother, and the two dwarves appeared from behind their rocks, heads down in a wild charge.

To the still huge Fyrentennimar, the firbolg’s hit did no real damage. A tail slap sent Vander flying away, crashing down against the base of the valley wall. Resilient, Vander came right back up, understanding that none of the band could give in to the pain and the terror, that there could be no retreat and no quarter against such a merciless and terrible foe.

The new distractions could not have come at a better moment for Cadderly. Again came the waves of his insidious magic, and to old Fyren, the valley seemed larger still.

Then the dragon understood—the “humble” priest was stealing his age! And to a dragon, age was the measure of size and strength. “Old Fyren” was more than a match for the pitiful companions, but suddenly “young Fyren” found himself in dire straits.

“Bat-winged newt with a bumpy head, run away, run away before you’re dead!” Danica cried out.

The immediate threats were the charging dwarves and the humble priest with his wicked magic. Fyrentennimar knew this rationally, knew that he should put his mouth in line with the charging dwarves and incinerate them before they got near him. But no respectable red dragon could ignore the taunt of “bat-winged newt,” and Fyrentennimar’s head went back up toward the ledge, his fire bursting forth in Danica’s direction.

Or at least, bursting forth to where Danica had been.

By the time the fires ended with more molten stone slipping down from the ledge, Ivan and Pikel were hacking and smashing away, and while their weapons would have skipped harmlessly off the scale plating of “old Fyren,” they now cracked and smashed apart the thinned and smaller scales. After only three furious swings, Ivan’s axe dug deep into dragon flesh.

Similarly, Shayleigh’s line of arrows chipped away at the dragon’s scales. So perfect was the elf maiden’s aim that the next six arrows that left her quiver hit the dragon in a concentrated pattern no larger than the brim of Cadderl’s blue hat.

Cadderly was truly exhausted. His eyelids drooped heavily; his heart pounded in his chest. He went back into the song again, though, stubbornly steeled his gaze, and loosed the energies.

This time, Fyrentennimar was ready for the magical assault, and the spell was turned aside.

Cadderly came at him again, and then a third time. The young priest could barely focus his vision, could hardly remember what he was doing and why he was doing it. His head throbbed; he felt as if every ounce of magical energy he let loose was an ounce of energy stolen from his own life-force.

Yet he sang on.

Then he was lying on the stone, his head bleeding from the unexpected impact on the valley floor. He looked up and was glad to see that his enchantment had gotten through once more, that Fyrentennimar seemed not so large to him, barely taller than a hill giant. But Cadderly knew that the spells were not lasting, that Fyrentennimar’s stolen centuries would soon return. They had to hit at the dragon hard right now; Cadderly had to find some offensive magic that would smash the monster while the dragon was caught in his lessened state.

But the song of Deneir would not play in the young priest’s head. He could not bring to mind the name of his holy book, could not even recall his own name. The pain in his head throbbed, blocking all avenues of thought. He could hardly draw breath past the sheer physical exertion of his beating chest. He brought a hand to his pounding heart and felt his bandolier, then, following that singular focused thought, drew out his hand-crossbow.

Ivan and Pikel went into a flurry of activity under the dragon’s slashing foreclaws. Ivan got buffeted by a wing, but hooked his axe over the limb’s top and would not be thrown away.

Vander’s next hit on the dragon’s haunch shattered several scales and drove a deep gash. Fyrentennimar roared in agony, swooped his serpentine neck about, launching his opened maw for the dangerous giant.

Vander tugged his sword free, knew that he had to be quick, or be snapped in half.

It took Cadderly several moments to load and cock his weapon, and when he looked back to the fight, he found Fyrentennimar, on the stone and level with him, staring him in the eye from just a few feet away!

Cadderly cried out and fired, the quarrel blasting into the dragon’s nostril and blowing pieces from his face. Cadderly, scrambling on all fours with the little strength he had left, didn’t even see the hit. He calmed considerably when he at last looked back, though, when he realized that Fyrentennimar’s head had only been near him, had only crossed the line of dragonbane, because Vander had lopped it off, halfway up the neck.

Pikel stood by the fallen torso, mumbling, “Oooo,” over and over. Cadderly, his senses slowly returning, did not understand the green-bearded dwarf’s apparent concern, until he saw the top of Ivan’s head wriggle out from under the chest of the dead wyrm. With a stream of curses to make a barkeep of Waterdeep’s dock ward blush, Ivan pulled himself out, slapping Pikel’s offered helping hand away. The yellow-bearded dwarf hopped to his feet, hands planted squarely on his hips, eyeing Vander dangerously.

“Riding stupid dragons!” he huffed, glancing menacingly Cadderly*s way.

“Well?” the dwarf roared at the confused firbolg. Vander looked to Pikel for some explanation, but the green-bearded Bouldershoulder only shrugged and put his hands behind his back.

“Move the damned thing so I can get back me axe!” Ivan howled in explanation. He shook his head in disgust, stomped over to Cadderly, and roughly pulled the man to his feet.

“And don’t ye ever think o’ bringing a stupid dragon along again!” Ivan roared, poking Cadderly hard in the chest. The dwarf shoved by and stormed away, looking for a quiet spot where he could brood.

Pikel followed, after patting Cadderly comfortingly on the shoulder.

Cadderly smiled, despite his pain and exhaustion, when he looked upon Pikel. As long as everything turned out all right, the easygoing dwarf cared little for any troublesome details—as was evidenced by the dwarf’s not-too-well hidden “Hee hee hee” as he skipped along behind his surly brother.

Cadderly would have shaken his head in disbelief, but he feared that the effort would cost him his tentative balance.

“She is all right,” Shayleigh remarked to him, coming up and following his worried gaze toward the melted ledge.

True to the elf maiden’s words, Danica came running in through the valley entrance a moment later, flying with all speed for her love.

She grabbed Cadderly tightly and held him close, and he needed her support, for the weariness, more complete than Cadderly had ever experienced, had come rushing back in full.

To Trust

She viewed the dragon, full-sized once more, dead in the rocky vale, focused on its severed head lying a few feet from the scaly torso. All about the grisly scene, Dorigen saw the smoldering, torn remains of goblins and giants, scores of the beasts. And walking out of the valley, weary perhaps, but not one of them showing any serious wounds, went Cadderly and Danica, flanked by the two dwarves, the elf maiden, and the treasous firbolg.

Dorigen slipped back into her chair and allowed the image to disappear from her crystal ball. At first she had been surprised to so easily get through. Cadderly’s magical defenses and locate the young priest, but when she gazed upon the scene, upon the carnage and the fury of Fyrentennimar, she had understood the priest’s excusable defensive lapse.

Dorigen thought that she was witnessing Cadderly’s end, and the end of the threat to Castle Trinity. She had almost called in Aballister, almost advised the older wizard to go out and recruit Fyrentennimar as an ally for their unhindered attack against Carradoon.

Her surprise as Cadderly literally shrank the great wyrm—by stealing its age, Dorigen presumed—could not have been more complete, and complete, too, was Dori-gen’s surprise as she sat back and honestly considered her own feelings during the viewing.

She had felt saddened when she thought Cadderly was surely doomed. Logically, ambitious Dorigen could tell herself that Cadderly’s death would be a good thing for the designs of Castle Trinity, that the interference of the young priest could no longer be tolerated, and that in killing the young priest Fyrentennimar would have only saved Aballister the trouble. Logically, Dorigen should not have felt sympathy for Cadderly as he stood, apparently helpless, before the dreaded wyrm.

But she had, and she had silently cheered for Cadderly and his brave friends in their titanic struggle, had actually leaped up in joy when the firbolg came up from behind and lopped the dragon’s head off.

Why had she done that?

“Have you sighted anything this day?” The voice startled Dorigen so badly that she nearly fell out of her chair. She quickly threw the wrap over the crystal ball, though its interior was a cloud of nothingness once more, and fumbled to straighten and compose herself as Aballister threw open the curtain now serving as her front door and whisked in beside her.

“Druzil has lost contact with the young priest,” Aballister continued angrily. “It would seem that he is making fine progress through the mountains.”

If only you knew, Dorigen thought, but she remained silent. Aballister could not begin to guess that the young priest was now no more than a day’s march from Castle Trinity. Nor could the old wizard imagine that Cadderly and his friends would be resourceful and powerful enough to overcome the likes of old Fyren.

“What do you know?” the suspicious Aballister demanded, drawing Dorigen from her private contemplations.

“I?” Dorigen replied innocently, poking a finger against her own chest, her amber eyes wide with feigned surprise.

If Aballister had not been so self-absorbed at that moment, he would have caught Dorigen’s defensive and obvious overreaction.

“Yes, you,” the wizard snarled. “Have you been able to make contact with Cadderly this day?”

Dorigen looked back to the crystal ball, mulled the question over for a short moment, and then replied, “No.”

When she looked back, she saw that Aballister continued to eye her suspiciously.

“Why did you hesitate before answering?” he asked.

“I thought that I had made contact,” Dorigen lied. “But in considering it, I have come to believe that it was only a goblin.”

Aballister’s scowl showed that he was not convinced.

“I fear that your son purposely misdirected my scrying attempt,” Dorigen quickly added, putting the older wizard on the defensive.

“The last time Druzil saw Cadderly, he was near the mountain called Nightglow,” Aballister said, and Dorigen nodded her agreement. “There is a storm brewing in that area, so it is unlikely that he will have gone very far.”

“That would seem logical,” Dorigen agreed, though she knew better.

The old wizard grinned evilly. “A storm brewing,” he mused. “But unlike any storm my foolish son has ever encountered!”

Now it was Dorigen’s turn to eye him suspiciously. “What have you done?”

“Done?” Aballister laughed. “Better to ask what I will do!” Aballister spun about in a circle, as animated as Dorigen had seen him since this whole business had begun, nearly a year before when Barjin had entered the Edificant Library.

“I grow weary of the game!” Aballister said suddenly, fiercely, stopping his spin so that his hollowed face was barely inches from Dorigen’s crooked nose. “And so now, I will end it!”

With a snap of his fingers, he left the room, left Dorigen to wonder what he had in mind. The curtain now serving as her door seemed a poignant reminder of Aballister’s wrath, and she couldn’t contain a shudder when she thought of the magics that Aballister might soon be launching Cadderly’s way.

Or at where he believed Cadderly to be.

Why hadn’t she told her mentor the truth? Dorigen wondered. Aballister was planning something big, perhaps even going out personally to deal with his son, and Dorigen hadn’t told him what she knew about Cadderly’s position, that the young priest was many miles beyond Nightglow. Rationally, it seemed to the woman that letting Aballister go out and deal with Cadderly would be her safest course, for if Cadderly’s attempt at Castle Trinity proved successful, Dorigen, no ally of the young priest, would likely find herself in serious trouble.

Dorigen ran a finger along the length of her crooked nose, shook her long hair back from her face, and eyed the cloth covering the crystal ball. Cadderly might arrive in a day, and she had not told Aballister!

Dorigen felt strangely removed from the cascading events about her, like some distant spectator. Cadderly could have killed her in Shilmista Forest, had her unconscious at his feet. He had broken her hands and taken her magical items, putting her out of the fight.

But he had spared her life.

Perhaps it was honor that guided Dorigen now, an unspoken agreement between her and the young priest. A sense of obligation told her to let it all play out, to stand aside untill they learned who was the stronger, the father or the son.

Back in his private chambers, Aballister held a smoking beaker aloft in trembling hands. He focused his thoughts on Nightglow, the target area, and focused his magical energies on the contents of the beaker, an elixir of great strength.

He uttered the enchanting words, spoke the arcane syllables from a nearly meditative state, losing himself in the swirling, growing energies. He continued for nearly an hour, until the vibrating power within the beaker threatened to blow apart and take Castle Trinity down with it.

The wizard hurled the beaker across the room, where it shattered at the base of the wall. A gray puff of smoke arose above it, growling, rumbling.

“Mykos, mykos makom deignin,” Aballister whispered. “Go out, go out, my pet”

As though it had heard the wizard’s request, the gray cloud filtered through a crack in the stone wall, worked its way through all the walls and out of Castle Trinity. It rose up high on the winds, sometimes following, sometimes moving of its own accord, and all the while the wizard’s magical storm cloud began to grow and darken.

Contained bursts of lightning rumbled as it soared across the mountains. Still the ominous thing thickened and darkened, and seemed as if it would explode with building energy.

It raced across the high peaks of the Snowflakes, unerringly aimed for the region around Nightglow.

Cadderly and his friends noticed the strange cloud, so much darker than the general overcast of the snowy day. Cadderly noticed, too, that while the more common clouds seemed to be drifting west to east, as was usual for the area’s weather patterns, this strange cloud was racing almost due south.

They heard the first rumble of thunder soon after, a tremendous, though distant blast that shook the ground under their feet

“Thunder?” Ivan balked. “Who ever heared o’ thunder in the middle o’ the damned winter?”

Cadderly bade Vander to lead them up higher, where they might see what was happening behind them. When they reached a higher plateau, affording them a view between several other peaks all the way back to Nightglow, the young priest wasn’t so sure that he wanted to watch.

Bolt after searing bolt of lightning, crystalline clear across the miles as the already dim daylight began to wane, slammed the mountainside, splintering rocks, splitting trees, and sizzling into the snow. Huge winds bent the pines on the mountain’s lower slopes nearly horizontal and pelting ice quickly accumulated in the thick branches, bending the trees lower.

“We were wise in riding the dragon,” Shayleigh remarked, quite overwhelmed, as were her companions, by the ferocity of the storm. Vander grunted, as though he had told them all, but in truth, even the firbolg, who had grown to adulthood in the harsh climate of the northern Spine of the World range, was at a loss to explain the sheer power of this distant storm.

Another tremendous bolt slammed the mountainside, brightening the deepening gloom, its rumbling wake dislodging tons of snow into a cascading avalanche down Nightglow’s northern face.

“Who ever heared of it?” Ivan asked incredulously.

The worst had not yet come. More lightning, more pelting ice assaulted the region about the mountain. Other avalanches soon began, tons and tons of snow plummeting down the mountainside to resettle far below. Then came the tornado, blacker than the impending night, a twister as wide, it seemed, as the foundation of the Edificant Library. It circled Nightglow, tearing trees, burrowing huge chasms in the high-piled snow.

“We must go,” the firbolg reminded them all, for he— and, he correctly guessed, his friends—had seen more than enough. Shayleigh mentioned again that they were fortunate in riding out on the dragon, and Vander put in a word that winter storms so high up were unpredictably and ultimately deadly.

Everyone readily agreed with the firbolg, but they all understood that what had happened back at Nightglow was more than a “winter storm.”

Vander soon found them an uninhabited cave not too far from the valley of carnage, and truly, they were all glad to be sheltered from the suddenly frightening elements. The place was three-chambered, but snug, with a low ceiling and a lower doorway that blocked most of the wintry wind.

Vander and the dwarves set up their bedrolls in the entry cavern, the largest of the chambers. Cadderly took the smallest chamber—to the left—as his own, with Danica and Shayleigh going to the right, the monk glancing back at Cadderly with concern every step of the way.

Dusk came soon after, and then a quiet and star-filled night, so different from the storm. Soon the usual grumble-and-whistle snoring of Ivan and Pikel echoed throughout the chambers.

Danica crept back into the entry cavern, saw Vender’s huge form propped in the doorway. Though he had volunteered once more to take the watch, the firbolg was asleep, and Danica didn’t blame him. It seemed safe enough to her, seemed as if all the world had taken a break from the chaos, and so she slipped through to Cadderly’s chamber quietly, without disturbing the others.

The young priest was sitting in the middle of the floor, hunched over a tiny candle. Deep in meditation, he did not hear Danica’s approach.

“You should sleep,” the monk offered, putting a hand gently on her lover’s shoulder. Cadderly opened his sleepy eyes and nodded.

He reached over his shoulder to grab Danica’s hand, pulled her around to sit next to him, close to him.

“I have rested,” he assured her. Danica had taught Cadderly several rejuvenating meditation techniques, and she did not dispute the claim.

“The road has been more difficult than you expected,” Danica said quietly, a trace of trepidation evident in her normally solid voice. “And with perhaps the most difficult obstacle yet ahead of us.”

The young priest understood her reasoning. He, too, believed that the fury they had witnessed battering the slopes of Nightglow had been a calling card from Aballister. And he, too, was afraid. They had survived many brutal ordeals in the last year and over the last few days on the trail, but if that storm was any indication, their greatest trials were yet ahead of them, waiting for them in Castle Trinity. Since the manticore and chimera attack, Cadderly had known that Aballister was on to them, but he had not imagined the great strength of the wizard.

An image of the landslide and the tornado assaulted his thoughts. Cadderly had enacted great magics of his own recently, but that display was far beyond his powers, he believed, far beyond his imagination!

The young priest, trying to hold fast to his resolve, closed his eyes and sighed. “I did not expect so many troubles,” he admitted.

“Even a dragon,” Danica remarked. “I still cannot believe ...” Her voice trailed off into an incredulous sigh.

“I knew that dealing with old Fyren would not be an easy task,” Cadderly agreed.

“Did we have to go there?” There remained no trace of anger in Danica’s soft tones.

Cadderly nodded. “The world is a better place with the Ghearufu destroyed—and with Fyrentennimar destroyed, though I did not foresee that as a probability, even as a possibility. Of all that I have accomplished in my lifeline destruction of the Ghearufu might be the most important.”

A wistful smile crossed Danica’s face as she caught the glimmer in Cadderly’s barely open, but surely smiling, gray eyes.

“But not the most important of all you mean to do,” the monk said coyly.

Cadderly’s eyes widened, and he regarded Danica with sincere admiration. How well she knew him! He had just been thinking of the many deeds that were sorting themselves out before him, of the many demands his special relationship with his god Deneir would make on him. Danica had seen it, had looked into his eyes, and had known exactly the tone of his thoughts, if not the specifics.

“I see a course before me,” he admitted to her, his voice subdued, but firm with resolve. “A dangerous and difficult course, I do not doubt.” Cadderly chuckled at the irony, and Danica looked at him quizzically, not understanding.

“Even after what we witnessed before setting our camp, I fear that the most difficult of my future obstacles will be the ones brought on by friends,” he explained.

Danica stiffened and shifted away.

“Not from you,” Cadderly quickly assured her. “I foresee changes at the Edificant Library, drastic changes that will not be met with approval from those who have the most to lose.”

“Dean Thobicus?”

Cadderly nodded, his expression grim. “And the headmasters,” he added. “The hierarchy has evolved away from the spirit of Deneir, has become something perpetuated by false traditions and piles of worthless paper.” He chuckled again, but there was something sad in his voice. “Do you understand what I did to Thobicus for him to allow us to come out here?” he asked.

“You tricked him,” Danica replied.

“I dominated him,” Cadderly corrected. “I entered his mind and bent his will. I might well have killed him in the attempt, and the effects of the assault could remain with him for the rest of his years.”

An expression of confusion came over Danica, confusion fast turning to horror. “Hypnosis?”

“Far beyond hypnosis,” Cadderly replied gravely. “In hypnosis, I might have convinced Thobicus to change his thoughts.” Cadderly looked away, seeming ashamed. “I did not convince Thobicus. I evoked the change against his will, and then I entered his mind once more and modified his memory so that there would be no repercussions when ... if, we return to the library.”

Danica’s almond eyes were wide with shock. She had known that Cadderly was uncomfortable with what he had done to Thobicus, but she had assumed that her love had exacted some charm spell over the dean. What Cadderly was talking about now, though the results had been similar to a charm, seemed somehow more sinister.

“I grabbed his will in my hand, and I crushed it,” Cadderly admitted. “I stole from him the very essence of his ego. If Thobicus recalls the incident, then his pride will never, ever recover from the shock.”

“Then why did you do it?” Danica demanded softly.

“Because my course was determined by powers greater than me,” Cadderiy said. “And greater than Thobicus.”

“How many tyrants have made such a claim?” Danica asked, trying hard not to sound sarcastic.

Cadderly smiled helplessly and nodded, “That is my fear.”

“Yet I knew what I must do,” he continued. “The Ghearufu had to be destroyed—to study such a sentient, evil artifact would bring only disaster—and the war with Castle Trinity, if it comes to pass, will prove a travesty that cannot be tolerated, whatever side is victorious.

“I went after Thobicus in a way that left a foul taste in my mouth,” Cadderly admitted. “But I would do it again, and I may have to if my fears prove true.” He quieted for a moment and considered the many wrongs he had witnessed, the many things within the Edificant Library that had long ago veered from the path of Deneir, searching for some solid example he might offer to Danica. “If a young cleric in the library has an inspiration,” he said at last, “divine though he believes it to be, he cannot act upon it without first receiving the approval of the dean and the permission to take time away from meaningless duties.”

“Thobicus must oversee...” Danica began to argue, playing the pragmatic point of view.

“That process often takes as long as a year,” Cadderly interrupted, no longer interested in hearing logical arguments for a course he knew in his heart to be wrong. Cadderly had heard those arguments from Headmaster Avery for all of his life, and they had fostered in him an indifference that swelled to so great a level that he had nearly deserted the order of Deneir. “You have seen how Thobicus works,” he said firmly. “A wasted year will pass, and though the thoughts of the story the young cleric wished to pen, or the painting he wished to frame, might remain, the sense, the aura, that something divine might be guiding his hand will have long since flown.”

“You speak from personal experience,” Danica reasoned.

“Many times,” Cadderly replied without hesitation. “And I know that many of the things I have become comfortable with in my life, many of the things I now know I must change, I do not want to change, for I am afraid.”

He brought his finger up to Danica’s lips to stem her forthcoming response. “You are not among those things,” he assured her, and then he grew very quiet, and all the world, even the dwarven snoring, seemed to hush in anticipation.

“I do believe that our relationship must change, though,” Cadderly went on. “What began in Carradoon must grow, or it must die.”

Danica grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away from her face, eyeing him unblinkingly, not sure of what would come next from this surprising young man.

“Marry me,” Cadderly said suddenly. “Formally.”

Now Danica did blink, and she closed her eyes, hearing the echoes from those words a thousand times in the next second. She had waited so long for this moment, had longed for it and feared it all at the same time. For while she loved Cadderly with all her heart, being a wife in Faerun carried expectations of servitude. And Danica, proud and capable, served no one.

“You agree with the changes,” Cadderly said. “You agree with the course my life will take. I cannot do it alone, my love.” He paused and nearly faltered. “I do not want to do it alone! When I have completed what Deneir has asked, when I look upon the work, there will be no satisfaction unless you are there beside me.”

“When I have completed?” Danica echoed and asked, emphasizing Cadderly’s use of the personal pronoun and trying to get some sense of what role Cadderly meant for her to play in it all.

Cadderly thought about the emphasis of her response and then nodded. “I am a disciple of Deneir,” he explained. “Many of the battles he guides me to, I must fight alone. I think of it as you think of your studies. I know that, as each goal is attained, richer by far will be my satisfaction if...”

“What of my studies?” Danica interrupted.

Cadderly was ready for the question and understood Danica’s concern. “When you broke the stone and achieved Gigel Nugel,” he began, referring to an ancient test of achievement that Danica had recently completed, “what were your thoughts?”

Danica remembered the incident, and a smile spread wide across her face. “I felt your arm around me,” she replied.

Cadderly nodded and pulled her close, kissing her gently on the cheek. “We have so much to show each other,” he said.

“My studies might take me away,” Danica said, pulling back.

Cadderly laughed aloud. “If they do, then you shall go,” he said. “But you will come back to me, or I will go to you. I have faith, Danica, that our chosen paths will not take us apart. I have faith in you, and in myself.”

The somber cloud seemed to fly from Danica’s fair features. Her grin widened to a dimpled smile, and her brown eyes sparkled with the moisture of joyful tears. She pulled Cadderly back to her, kissing him hard and long.

“Cadderly,” she said coyly, as her wistful, mischievous smile sent a stream of thoughts careening through him. A shiver rippled up his spine and then back down again as Danica added, “We are alone.”

Much later that night, with the sleeping Danica cradled in his arms and the dwarven snoring continuing its relentless pace, Cadderly rested back against the wall and replayed the conversation.

“How many tyrants have made such a claim?” he whispered to the empty darkness. His considered his course once more, thought of the profound impact his intended actions would have on all the region surrounding Impresk Lake. He believed in his heart that the changes would better everyone, that the library would once again take on the true course of Deneir. He believed that he was right, that his course was inspired by a trusted god. But how many tyrants had made such a claim?

“All of them,” Cadderly answered grimly after a long pause, and he hugged Danica close.

The Fortress

Aballister rested back in his chair, exhausted from his magical assault. He had thrown his full weight against Cadderly, had pounded the mountain region mercilessly. The wizard’s smile held firm for a long while as he pondered what Cadderly, in the unlikely event that the boy was still alive, might be thinking now.

Aballister felt a tug within his mind, a gentle prodding. It was Druzil, he knew, for he had expected the imp’s call. The wizard’s smile became an open laugh—what might the imp, who had been so close to Nightglow, think now of him? Anxious to know, he let the imp into his mind. Greetings, dear Druzil, Aballister said. Bene tellemara!

Aballister cackled with glee. My dear, dear Druzil, he thought after a moment, what could be the trouble!

The imp ripped off a series of outcries, curses, and sputterings against Aballister and against wizards in general.

Druzil had been caught in the edges of Aballister’s storm, had been pelted by hail and nearly sizzled by a lightning blast.

Now the imp, cold and miserable, only wanted to get back to Castle Trinity. You could come out for me, Druzil telepathically asked.

I have not the energy, came Aballister’s expected reply. Since you allowed Cadderly to get away, I was forced to take matters into my own hands. And still I have preparations before me, for the unlikely event that Cadderly or any of his foolish friends survived.

“Bene tellemara” the frustrated imp whispered under his breath. Now that Druzil believed he needed Aballister, he was careful to put up a blocking wall of innocuous thoughts so that the wizard would not hear the insult.

Better that I am with you if Cadderly arrives, Druzil replied, trying to find some argument to change the stubborn wizard’s mind. With his magic, powerful Aballister could teleport to Druzil’s side, scoop the imp up, and put them both safely back in Castle Trinity in a matter of two minutes.

I told you that I was too weary, Aballister’s casual thoughts came back—and Druzil understood that Aballister was simply punishing him. Better that you are with me? the wizard scoffed. I sent you on a most important mission, and you failed! Better to face Cadderly alone, I say, than with an unreliable and troublesome imp at my side. I do not yet know what happened to facilitate the destruction of the evil spirit, Druzil, but if I find that you were in any way involved, your punishment will not be pleasant.

More likely it was your own son, Druzil’s mind growled back.

The imp felt a wave of unfocused mental energy, an anger so profound that Aballister had not taken the moment to give it a clear flow of words. Druzil knew that his reference once again to Cadderly as Aballister’s son had struck a sensitive nerve, even though Aballister had apparently taken care of the problem.

You will seek out the bodies of Cadderly and his friends, Aballister answered. Then you will walk back to me, or flap those weak wings of yours when the wind permits! I’ll tolerate little more from you, Druzil. ‘Ware the next storm I send out to the mountains!

With that, Aballister promptly broke off the connection, leaving Druzil cold in the snow, pondering the wizard’s last words.

Truly, the imp was disgusted by the ridiculous accusation and by Aballister’s continual threats. He had to admit, though, that they carried some weight. Druzil could not believe the devastation Aballister had rained on Nightglow and the surrounding region. But Druzil was cold and miserable now, deep in the wintry mountains, and constantly had to shake the fast accumulating snow off his leathery wings.

He certainly didn’t like where he was. But in a way, Druzil was relieved that Aballister had refused his request to bring him home. If indeed the young priest had somehow escaped Aballister’s fury—and Druzil did not think that such an impossibility—then Druzil preferred to be far away when Aballister at last faced his son. Druzil had once battled Cadderly in mental combat and had been overwhelmed. The imp had also fought against the woman, Danica, and had been defeated—even his poison had been ineffective against that one. Druzil’s repertoire of tricks was fast emptying where the young priest was concerned.

The stakes were simply too high.

But these mountains! Druzil was a creature of the lower planes, a dark region mostly of black fires and thick smoke. He did not like the cold, did not like the wet feel of the wretched snow, and the glare of sunlight on the angled whitened surface of the mountain slopes pained his sensitive eyes. He had to go on, though, and would, eventually, have to return and face his wizard master.

Eventually.

Druzil liked the ring of that thought. He brushed the snow from his wings and gave a lazy flap to get him up into the air. He decided immediately that searching for Cadderly and his friends would be a foolhardy thing, and so he veered away from the settling mass of misplaced snow around Nightglow. Neither was his direction north, toward Castle Trinity. Druzil went east, the shortest route out of the Snowflakes, a course that would take him down to the farmlands surrounding Carradoon.

“Prepare your defenses,” Dorigen said as soon as she entered Aballister’s room, unexpectedly and unannounced.

“What do you know?” growled the weary wizard.

“Cadderly lives!”

“You have seen him?” Aballister snapped, coming fast out of his chair, his dark eyes coming to life with an angry sparkle.

“No,” Dorigen lied. “But there are still wards blocking my scrying. The young priest is very much alive.”

Reacting in quite the opposite way Dorigen had expected, Aballister erupted in laughter. He slapped a hand on the arm of his chair and seemed almost giddy. Then he looked to his associate, and her incredulous expression asked many questions.

“The boy makes it enjoyable!” the old wizard said to her. “I have not faced such a challenge in decades!”

Dorigen thought that he had gone quite insane. You have never faced such a challenge, she wanted to scream at the man, but she kept that dangerous thought private. “We must prepare,” she said again, calmly. “Cadderly is alive, and it might be that he escaped your fury because he was much closer than we anticipated.”

Aballister seemed to sober at once, and turned his back at Dorigen, his skinny fingertips tapping together in front of him. “It was your scrying that led me to assail Nightglow,” he pointedly reminded her.

“It was Druzil’s guidance, more than my own,” she quickly corrected, sincerely afraid to accept blame for anything, given Aballister’s unpredictable, and incredibly dangerous, mood.

She sighed, noticing Aballister subtly nod his head in agreement.

“Prepare...” she started to say a third time, but the wizard spun about suddenly, his scowl stealing the words from her mouth.

“Oh, we shall prepare!” Aballister hissed though gritted teeth. “Better for Cadderly if he had fallen to the storm!”

“I will instruct the soldiers,” Dorigen said, and she turned for the door.

“No!” The word stopped the woman short. She slowly turned her head, to look back over her shoulder at Aballister.

“This is personal,” Aballister explained, and he led Dorigen’s quizzical gaze across the room, to the swirling ball of mist hanging on the far wall, the entrance to Aballister’s extradimensional mansion. “The soldiers will not be needed.”

*  *   *  *

They looked down from a high perch to new battlements and a singular tower. From the outside, Castle Trinity did not seem so remarkable, or so formidable, even with the new construction that had been done. Vander, who had seen the tunnel networks beneath the rocky spur, assured them otherwise. Work on the new walls was slow now, with winter blowing thick, but guards were in abundance— humans mostly—pacing predetermined routes and continually rubbing their hands together to ward away the icy breeze.

“That is the main entrance,” Vander explained, pointing to the central area of the closest wall. A huge door, oaken and ironbound, was set deep into the stone, enveloped by walkways and parapets and many soldiers. “Beyond that door is a cave entrance, barred by a portcullis, and a second, similar door. We will find guards, well-armed and well-trained, positioned every step of the way.”

“Bah, we’re not for going straight in the front door!” Ivan protested, and this time, the yellow-bearded dwarf found some allies for his grumbling. Danica readily agreed by reminding everyone that their only chance lay in stealth, and Shayleigh even suggested that perhaps they should have come out with Carradoon’s army at their heels.

Cadderly hardly listened to the talk, trying to think of some magic that might get them in, but that would not overly tax his still-limited energies. His friends had remained optimistic, believing that he could handle the situation. Cadderly liked their confidence in him; he only wished that he shared it. That morning, leaving the cave, with the sky shining blue, Ivan had scoffed at the storm that had hit Nightglow, had called it a simple wizard’s trick, and berated Aballister for not being able to aim straight.

“First rule in shootin’ magics!” the dwarf had bellowed. “Ye got to hit the damned target!”

“Oo oi!” Pikel had heartily agreed, and then the green-bearded dwarf, too, had made light of it all with a quiet, “Hee hee hee.”

Cadderly knew better, understood the strength of the wizard’s incredible display. The young priest still believed that he walked along the true path of Deneir, but images of Aballister’s fury, slamming the mountain itself into surrender, stayed with him all morning.

He shook the unpleasant thoughts away and tried to focus on the situation at hand. “Is there another way in?” he heard Danica ask.

“At the base of the tower,” Vander answered. “Aballister brought us... brought the Night Masks in that way, through a smaller, less guarded door. The wizard did not want the commoners of his force to know that he had hired the assassins.”

“Too much open ground,” Danica remarked. The tower was set some distance behind the two nearly finished perpendicular walls, and though the tower, too, had apparently not been completed, it stood an imposing thirty feet high, with temporary battlements ringing its top. Even if the friends managed to get past the guards on the closest walls, just a couple of archers up in that tower could make life miserable for them.

“What tricks ye got to keep them off our backs while we make the run?” Ivan asked Cadderly, gruffly slapping the young priest on the shoulder to force him from his private contemplations.

“The shortest route would be from the right, from below the spur,” he reasoned. “But that would leave us running uphill, vulnerable to many defensive measures. I say that we come in from the left, down the slope of the rocky spur and around the shorter wall.”

“That wall’s guarded,” Ivan argued.

Cadderly’s wry smile ended the debate.

The friends spent the better part of the next hour in a roundabout hike to a point on the rocky spur far above Castle Trinity. With this new angle, around the side of the largest, frontal wall, they could see scores of soldiers, including large, hairy bugbears, ten-foot-tall ogres, and even a giant. Cadderly knew that this would be quite a test—for his friends’ trust in him, and for his abilities. If that formidable force intercepted them before they got inside the back door, all would be lost.

The tower was fully thirty yards back from the front wall and fully forty yards away from the outermost tip of the perpendicular wall, the wall they had to run around. Ivan shook his hairy head; Pikel added an occasional “Oo,” showing that even the dwarves, the most battle-hardened members of the troupe, did not think the idea feasible.

But Cadderly remained undaunted; his smile had not ebbed an inch. “The first volley will alert them—the second should get them into positions where we might get near the wall,” he explained.

The others looked around to each other in confusion, their expressions incredulous. Most eyes centered on Shayleigh’s quiver and the hand-crossbow at Cadderly’s side.

“On my cue, when the third volley of flaming pitch soars out for the front wall, we go for the tower,” Cadderly went on. “You lead the charge,” he said to Danica.

Danica, though she still had no idea of what “volleys” the young priest was talking about, smiled wryly, pleased that Cadderly would not patronize her, would not try to protect her when the situation obviously called for each of them to perform specific, and dangerous, tasks. Danica knew that not many men of Faerun would allow their beloved women to rush out into danger ahead of them, and it was Cadderly’s implicit trust and respect of her which made her love him so very much.

“If the archers up above catch sight of us,” Cadderly continued, aiming this remark at Shayleigh, “we will need you to cut them down.”

“What volley?” Shayleigh demanded, tired of the cryptic game. “What flaming pitch?”

Cadderly, already falling away, deep into his spellcasting concentration, didn’t reply. In a moment, he was chanting, singing softly, and his friends hunched down and waited for the clerical magic to take effect.

“Wow,” muttered Pikel at the same moment that one of the guards along the front gate cried out in surprise. Balls of flaming pitch and large spears were appearing in midair, thundering down near the wall. Soldiers scrambled and dove from the gate; the giant hoisted a slab of stone and put it in front of him defensively.

It was over in just a few instants, with no fires left burning and no apparent damage to the stonework. The soldiers remained under cover, though, calling frantic orders and pointing out many potential artillery hiding places in the ridges beyond the gates.

Cadderly nodded to Danica, and she and Shayleigh began the procession from the side, slipping from stone to stone. The diversion had apparently worked thus far, for few guards seemed concerned with the high ground to the side of the walls.

The second illusory “volley” roared in farther down the front wall, well beyond the main gates, luring the enemy’s attention to the vulnerable corner where the third wall would be built. As Cadderly had predicted, those soldiers along the side wall rushed into defensive positions behind the shielding, and thicker, front wall.

Again the explosions lasted only a few seconds, but the guards were in a near-panic now, huddled tight against the battlements and the base of the wall. Not a single eye turned to the southwest, to the higher ground from which the companions approached.

Danica and Shayleigh led them up to the now-abandoned perpendicular wall without incident, light-stepped along its base away from the front wall, and peered around to the empty courtyard.

Cadderly moved in front of the group and held his hand up to keep his friends back. He concentrated on the front wall and reached out to the particles of air about him, seeing their nature revealed in the notes of Deneir’s song. Slowly and subtly, using triggering words and the energy of clerical magic, the young priest altered the composition of those particles, brought them together, thickened them.

A heavy mist swelled up around the front wall, and around the front half of the uncompleted courtyard.

“Go,” Cadderly whispered to Danica, and he motioned for the dwarves to follow, and for Shayleigh to come into position where she could view the tower. Without hesitation, the brave monk ran off, zigzagging across the rough, frozen ground.

On impulse, Cadderly took Shayleigh’s arrow from her hand. “Get it up on top of the tower,” he instructed, casting an enchantment over it and handing it back.

Danica was twenty yards out, halfway to the tower, before anyone there noticed her. Three archers took up their bows and started to call out, when Shayleigh’s arrow smacked solidly into the shoulder of one. The man went down in a heap; the other two went into a frenzy, their mouths wagging wide as they tried to cry out for their companions manning the front gate.

Not a sound came from the top of the tower, the area magically silenced by the enchanted arrow.

The remaining two enemy archers opened up on Danica, but her course was too erratic and her agility too great. Arrows skipped off the frozen ground, or snapped apart as they struck, but Danica, rolling and diving, cutting sharper angles than the soldiers could anticipate, never came close to being hit.

“Hee nee nee,” chuckled Pikel, running with Ivan far behind the monk and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

Shayleigh returned the fire with vicious accuracy, skipping arrows in between the parapet stones and forcing the guards to concentrate more on keeping their heads down than on firing at Danica. Still the men tried futilely to cry out, to warn their associates of the peril.

Vander scooped up Shayleigh, settled her atop his broad shoulders, and ran after the dwarves.

Cadderly focused once more on the front wall, loosing another illusory volley to ensure that the soldiers would remain tight in their holes. Smiling at his own cleverness, the young priest raced off after his friends.

As Danica reached the base of the tower, the door burst open and a swordsman rushed out to face her. Always alert, she rolled headlong and came up within his weapon’s descending arc, the ball of her fist connecting under his chin and driving him away.

Above Danica, one of the archers leaned out, angling for a killing shot. Shayleigh’s arrow, loosed before he had even drawn his bow, sank deep into his collarbone.

The other archer, tight against the corner of a squared stone, responded with a shot that caught Vander in the chest, but the arrow did little to slow the giant. Howling and growling, Vander yanked out the puny bolt and hurled it away.

Her angle improved by the fact that she was ten feet above the ground, Shayleigh smiled grimly and loosed another arrow. It skipped off the squared stone and ricocheted into the enemy archer’s eye. The man fell back in agony, obviously screaming—but again, not a sound came from the enchanted area.

Ivan and Pikel disappeared into the tower behind Danica; Cadderly could see that there was some fighting within. The young priest ran with all speed, slipping in on Vander’s heels, but by the time he, the firbolg, and the elf maiden got there, the five goblin guards of the tower’s first floor were already dead.

Danica kneeled before another doorway across the small chamber, studying its lock. She pulled the clasp off of her belt and straightened it with her teeth, then gently slipped it in and began working it, side to side.

“Hurry,” bade Shayleigh, standing by the outer door. Across the courtyard, cries of “Enemies in the tower!” could be heard. The elf maiden shrugged—the deception was no more—and leaned out the door, shooting off an arrow or two to keep the enemy forces back. One quiver empty, her second growing lighter, she regretted now her decision to join in the battle in the valley.

Cadderly pulled her in by the elbow and closed the door. It was an easy thing for the priest to magically reach into the essence of the wood, to swell it and warp it so that the portal was sealed tight. Vander piled the dead goblins against the door as added security, and again all eyes focused on Danica.

“Hurry,” Shayleigh reiterated, her words taking on more weight as something heavy slammed against the tower door.

With a grin to her companions, Danica slipped her makeshift lockpick behind one ear and pushed open the door, revealing a descending stairway.

Cadderly looked at the passage curiously. “Not heavily guarded and not trapped?” he mused aloud.

“It was trapped,” Danica corrected. She pointed to a wire along the side of the jamb, secured in place with the other part of her belt. None of them had the time to admire the skilled monk’s handiwork, though, for another, louder crash sounded on the outer door, and the tip of an axe blade poked through the wood.

Ivan and Pikel pushed ahead of Danica and rambled side by side down the stairs. Vander and Shayleigh went next, the firbolg using his innate magics to reduce himself to the size of a large man. Next came Cadderly, and then Danica, who turned back and, with a subtle twist of her pick, locked the door and rearmed the trap.

Another door blocked the way at the bottom of the stairs, but the dwarven brothers lowered their heads, locked arms, and picked up their pace.

“It may be warded!” Cadderly called out to them, understanding their intent.

The Bouldershoulders blew through the door, a series of fiery explosions erupting on their heels as they tumbled down in the midst of shattered and smoking wood. The two had been fortunate indeed to get through the portal so quickly, for tiny darts protruded from both doorjambs, dripping poison. In the underground tunnels beyond the door, the blare of horns sounded—probably magical alarms, Cadderly thought.

“What’d ye say?” Ivan yelled above the clamor, as the others came into the lower passage.

“Never mind,” was all that Cadderly replied. His voice was grim, despite the sight of Pikel hopping all about, trying to put out wisps of smoke trailing from his heels and backside. The whole objective in coming to Castle Trinity with so small a force was to strike at the leaders of the enemy conspiracy, but that goal seemed unlikely now, with horns blaring and enemies beating at the closed doors behind them.

“Aw, come on and find a bit of fun!” Ivan bellowed at the obviously worried young priest “Hold on to me cloak, boy! We get ye where ye want to go!”

“Oo oi!” Pikel piped in, and the brothers thundered away. They hit resistance before they even turned the first corner, and plowed through the surprised band of goblins with abandon, slaughtering and scattering the creatures.

“Which way?” Ivan called back, his words coming out at the end of a grunt as he drove his mighty axe through the backbone of one goblin that had turned to flee a split second too late. The torchlit corridor beyond the dead goblin showed several doors and at least two branching tunnels.

The friends looked to Cadderly, but the young priest shrugged helplessly, having no immediate answers amidst the sudden confusion. A series of explosions far behind them told Cadderly that their enemies had breached the second door—and had not been successful in disarming the trap.

Ivan kicked open the nearest door, revealing a huge room holding a battery of human archers and a group of giants at work leveling a ballista. “Not that way!” the gruff dwarf explained, quickly closing the door and rushing on.

In the wild run that followed, Cadderly lost all sense of direction. They passed through many portals, turned many corners, and clobbered many very surprised enemies. Soon they came to an area of better worked tunnels, with runes and bas reliefs of the teardrop symbols of Talona carved into their stone walls.

Cadderly looked to Vander, hoping that the firbolg might recognize some landmark, but Vander could not be sure.

A jolt of electricity threw Pikel back from the next door. Ivan growled and hit the portal shoulder-first, bursting through into yet another long and narrow corridor, this one lined by tapestries depicting the Lady of Poison, smiling evilly as though she clearly saw the intruders. Resilient Pikel, the hairs of his green beard dancing free of the light braid, joined his brother in an instant.

Twenty steps in, the group was enveloped by a ball of absolute darkness.

“Keep moving!” Shayleigh bade the dwarves, for with her keen elven hearing, she had heard the approach of enemies from behind.

Cadderly felt the air beside his face move as the elf put an arrow into the air. He did not take serious note of Shayleigh’s movements, though, for he was fumbling with the straps of his backpack, searching for his light tube, or for the wand, to battle the conjured darkness.

Apparently sensing that he had stopped moving, Danica grabbed the young priest’s arm and pulled him along—gently, so that she would not disturb his efforts.

There came a loud click and a scrape of stone against stone, followed by a diminishing, “Ooooooo ...”

“Domin illu.” Cadderly cried, holding up the wand, and the darkness fled. Cadderly stood ready with his wand, Shayleigh with her bow, and Danica and Vander were into similarly defensive crouches, feeling their way along the walls.

But Ivan and Pikel were gone.

“Trapdoors!” Danica cried, spotting tiny lines in the floor ahead. “Ivan!”

There came no response, and Danica found no apparent way to open the neatly fit portals, no cranks or handles anywhere in sight.

“Go on!” Shayleigh yelled suddenly, pulling Cadderly past her and drawing back her bowstring. Enemy soldiers were at the door behind them, barely fifty feet away.

Danica leaped the trapped region; Vander reverted to his full size and stepped across, hoisting Cadderly behind him.

“Close your eyes,” the young priest whispered to his friends, and he thrust the wand back toward the door and uttered, “Mas Ufa!” A burst of brilliant lights shot forth, green and orange and popping in all colors of the spectrum in a myriad of blinding flashes.

It was over in an instant, leaving the soldiers rubbing their eyes and stumbling about the end of the corridor.

“Go on!” Shayleigh said again, firing off two more arrows into the confused throng. The other three started for the door at the corridor’s other end, calling for Shayleigh to catch up.

When the elf maiden turned back around to follow her friends, they realized that she, too, had been caught in Cadderly’s magical lash. Her once-clear violet eyes showed as dots of bloodshot red, and she inched down the corridor, trying to discern when to jump.

“We’ll come for you!” Danica called out, but Shayleigh had already begun her leap. She landed with her heels on the edge of the trapdoor, which clicked open, and she balanced on the edge of the fall for what seemed an eternity.

Vander dove headlong, spread out wide on the floor, grabbing desperately.

He caught only air as Shayleigh fell backward into the pit, the devilish door swinging tight behind her.

Danica was beside the firbolg, pulling at his sleeve, and Cadderly was beside her, his wand extended once more.

“Mas illu” he said again, his voice subdued, and the brilliant burst hit the recovering soldiers once more. Many of them thought to close their eyes this time, and the charge, though slowed, would not be halted.

Vander led the rush to the far door and almost got there, but a ten-foot section of the corridor shifted suddenly, its entire perimeter turning diagonal to its original position. The surprised firbolg fell to the side, into the suddenly angled wall/floor, and disappeared from sight as that corner of the trapped area rotated on a central pivot.

Danica leaped past the angled section of corridor and snapped a kick into the door, breaking apart the locking mechanism. The door creaked open, back toward Danica, just an inch, and the monk grabbed it and pulled it fiercely, as if she were daring another trap to go of.

Cadderly, overwhelmed, came up to her, still looking back to the floor where three of his friends had disappeared, and to the wall that had taken the firbolg.

Danica grabbed his hand and pulled him in—a short passage this time, its walls bare of tapestries, that ended in another door just a dozen feet away. As soon as they crossed the threshold, a solid slab of stone dropped behind them, sealing off any possible retreat, and a portcullis fell in front of the door before them, blocking the way. They knew instantly, of course, that they were trapped, but did not appreciate the depth of their predicament until a moment later, when Danica noticed that the small passage’s side-walls had begun to close together.

The Holy Word

Danica threw her back against the wall, pushing with all her strength while trying to plant her feet firmly on the smooth floor. She only slid forward, and the corridor narrowed relentlessly.

Cadderly’s frantic gaze darted all about, from the stone slab to the portcullis, to the closing sidewalls. He tried to summon the song of Deneir, but remembered nothing immediately within its lyrical notes that might aid them now.

The walls were barely eight feet apart. Seven feet.

Cadderly fought back his panic, closed his eyes, and told himself to concentrate and to trust in the harmonious music.

He felt Danica grab his arms roughly, but tried to ignore the disturbance. She pulled again, harder, forcing Cadderly to look at her.

“Hold your hands stiffly in front of you,” she instructed, turning Cadderly’s palms upward. He watched curiously as Danica turned horizontally across his palms, planting her feet against one wall and holding her arms out past her head to “catch” the other, approaching wall.

“You cannot,” Cadderly started to protest, but even as he spoke, the walls closed within Danica’s reach, closed and then were stopped by the meditating monk’s stiffened form as surely as if a beam of metal had been placed between them.

Cadderly moved his hands away from Danica’s belly— her stiffened position supported her fully—and forced himself to turn his attention away from the amazing Danica and consider the larger predicament. If the enemy detected that the walls had stopped moving, then he and Danica might soon expect some unwelcome company. Cadderly drew out his hand-crossbow and loaded an explosive dart.

He heard some mumbling from beyond the portcullis and the far door, and moved closer, straining to hear.

“Buga yarg grrr mukadig,” came a deep guttural sound, and Cadderly, with his exceptional training in the various languages of Faerun, understood that an ogre outside the door had just insisted that the walls must be finished with their business by then.

Cadderly ran back, slipped under and around Danica, and placed his crossbow arm across her back for support. He also put his spindle-disks atop Danica, within easy reach, and clutched his enchanted walking stick in his free hand.

There came a cranking sound as the portcullis began to rise, and Cadderly heard a key slip into the door’s lock. He steadied his crossbow and his nerves, realizing that he had to fend off the enemy long enough for Danica to dislodge herself and rush out behind him.

The door swung in, and with it came the face of an eager ogre, stupidly grinning as it looked for the squished remains of the intruders.

Cadderly’s dart hit it right between the gap in its two front teeth. The young priest charged boldly, scooping up his spindle-disks.

The ogre’s cheeks bulged weirdly, its eyes nearly popped free of their sockets, and then its lips flapped, spewing a stream of blood and broken teeth.

“Dun, Mogie?” its stunned companion asked as the splattered monster slid down to the floor. The second ogre bent low, trying to figure out what had happened, then looked back toward the trap-room just in time to catch Cadderly’s flying adamantite spindle-disks on the side of its nose.

Cadderly flicked his wrist hard, sending the disks spinning back to him, stinging his palm, then hurled them again fiercely. The ogre’s hand started up, but didn’t get high enough for a block, and the beast caught the missile in the eye.

The ogre’s arm, continuing its upward motion, hooked the wire, though, and Cadderly could not properly retract the disks for a third throw. Always ready to improvise, the quick-thinking young priest took up his walking stick in both hands and bashed it hard against the dazed ogre’s thick forearm.

He came lower with his next strike, slamming exposed ribs, and the ogre, as Cadderly had expected, reflexively brought its arm swinging down. Cadderly’s next cut came in high again, smashing the ogre on its already splattered nose. He followed through, reversed his grip, and came back around the other way, the ram’s head of his walking stick connecting solidly on the base of the ogre’s skull.

The monster was kneeling suddenly, its weakened arms down at its side.

Back and forth slammed Cadderly’s walking stick, three times, five times, and then Danica raced past, driving a knee under the kneeling monster’s chin. The ogre’s head snapped back viciously, and finally, the huge thing toppled to the floor beside its dead companion.

“Load it!” Danica instructed Cadderly, handing him back his crossbow. Behind them, they heard the crunch of wood as the closing walls bit against the opened door. Neither one of them cared to look back.

The chute was slick and steep, and Shayleigh, for all her frantic efforts, could hardly slow her descent. Finally, she got her back tight against the sloping floor and pushed up into the air with her longbow, searching for some hold.

There were none. The chute’s ceiling, like the floor, was perfectly smooth.

A dozen unpleasant images rushed through the elf maiden’s head, mostly ones of her being impaled against a wall of poison-tipped spikes beside Ivan and Pikel. Or behind Ivan and Pikel, slamming against her already stuck friends to drive them deeper onto the imagined spikes.

Still holding fast to her bow, Shayleigh angled herself to put her feet against one wall and her shoulder diagonally across the narrow chute against the other. She lifted her head and peered down into the darkness across the length of her body, hoping for some warning before she hit. With her heat-sensing eyes, she could make out traces of the dwarves’ passing, residual body heat from Ivan and Pikel still showing in spots along the floor and against the curving walls.

And then there was just a blank wall, the end of the chute, and Shayleigh understood, in the split second before she collided, that since the dwarves were nowhere in sight, it must be some type of swinging trapdoor.

She hit and pushed through, but grabbed both sides of the door with widespread arms. Her bow fell below her, and she heard a dwarf grunt, followed by a small splash.

The trapdoor swung back, pinning Shayleigh’s forearms between it and the stone wall. She held on stubbornly, guessing that this might be their only way out of the devious pit.

“Glad ye could make it, elf,” Ivan said from below. “But ye might think of getting away from that door if any more are on their way down.”

Shayleigh managed to look straight below her, to see the blurry, heated forms of Ivan and Pikel, standing waist-deep in some murky pool. She couldn’t tell the exact dimensions of the room, but it was not large, and there was no other apparent door.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Just wet,” Ivan grumbled. “And I got a bump on me head where me brother fell on me.”

Pikel began to whistle and turned away. A moment later, the green-bearded dwarf spun back, frantically, and leaped onto his brother, nearly knocking Ivan under the water.

“What are ye about?” the surly dwarf demanded.

Pikel squeaked and worked hard to get his feet out of the water.

Ivan gave a sudden yell and heaved Pikel into the air. As the green-bearded dwarf hit the water, Ivan, axe in hand, began chopping wildly, his splashes even reaching Shayleigh, high on the wall.

“What is it?” Shayleigh cried. Both dwarves scrambled about, slapping at the water with their weapons.

“Something long and slimy!” Ivan bellowed back. He rushed to the wall directly below the hanging elf and began jumping up, trying futilely to reach her boots. Pikel was at his back in an instant, clambering over him, but Ivan ducked low, sending Pikel facedown into the murk, and then he leaped atop Pikel’s back.

All the while, Shayleigh begged for them both to calm down. And finally they did, exhausted, without coming close to reaching the elf.

“Use my longbow,” Shayleigh reasoned.

“Eh?” Pikel squeaked confusedly, but Ivan understood. He splashed about, finally retrieving the dropped bow, then came to the wall and reached up with it, hooking Shayleigh’s foot.

“Ye sure ye got a good enough hold?” the dwarf politely asked.

“Hurry,” Shayleigh replied, and Ivan jumped and grabbed, pulled himself along the bow to get high enough to catch a handhold on the elf’s boot.

“Come up over me,” Shayleigh instructed. “You will have to get into the corridor first and find some way to brace yourself.”

Sturdy Ivan felt guilty climbing over a slender elf maiden like that, but he understood the practicality of it, especially when his brother, still below, gave a worried, “Uh-oh.”

Ivan looked down to see Pikel standing very still; a serpentine head lifted clear of the water and swayed slowly, back and forth, only a foot out from Pikel and nearly eye-level with the dwarf.

“Me brother,” Ivan whispered, hardly able to find his voice. He thought of leaping back to the water and jumping between Pikel and the serpent.

“Climb,” Shayleigh said to him.

Pikel began to sway with the snake, whistling as he went from side to side. They seemed somehow in harmony, dancing almost, and the snake gave no indication that it meant to strike out at the dwarf.

“Climb,” Shayleigh said again to Ivan, “Pikel cannot get up until you are out of the way.”

Ivan had always been protective of his brother, and a big part of him wanted to leap back atop that snake, to rush wildly to Pikel’s defense. He managed to light back the impulse, both because of his agreement with Shayleigh’s logic, and because he was terribly afraid of snakes. He carefully picked handholds along Shayleigh’s clothing and got up even with her, taking solace in Pikel’s continued whistling, a calm song that took much of the tension from the nasty situation.

Ivan worked his way around to Shayleigh’s back and squeezed through the narrow gap between her and the heavy door. When he got fully into the sloping chute, he turned sideways, bracing with his hands and feet on opposite walls.

“Pikel?” Shayleigh asked breathlessly, for the whistling had stopped.

“Oo oi!” came the hearty reply from below, and Shayleigh felt the weight on her foot as the second brother began his climb up the longbow. Pikel thoughtfully took the bow with him as he scaled Shayleigh, then slipped into the corridor and crossed over Ivan, planting his wet sandals firmly against the stretched-out Ivan’s side and reaching back over his brother to help Shayleigh. This was the trickiest part of the maneuver, for Pikel and Ivan had to somehow open the doorway wide enough and long enough for Shayleigh to get through, and at the same time give the elf something solid to hold on to.

Pikel braced his club against the door, between Shayleigh’s outstretched and aching arms.

“When me brother pushes, ye gotta let go with one hand and get it up to me,” Ivan instructed. “Ye ready?”

“Open it,” Shayleigh begged, and slowly, Pikel began to push.

As soon as the pressure lessened, Shayleigh reached back for Ivan.

She missed, and her grip with her other arm was not solid enough to support her. With a cry, the elf maiden began to fall.

Ivan caught her wrist, his stubby fingers wrapping her tightly and holding her fast against the slimy wall.

“Oooo,” Pikel wailed as the whole group began to slide back dangerously toward the end of the chute.

But Ivan growled and straightened his powerful back, locking himself firmly into place. And Pikel, though his arms ached with the strain of the awkward angle, kept the pressure on the heavy door, kept it open enough for Shayleigh to scramble through. She came over Ivan, up beside Pikel, and he let the door slam shut. Then he straightgned perpendicularly to his braced brother, and Shayleigh climbed above him and turned as Ivan had turned.

Ivan climbed up Pikel next, as Pikel held fast to the braced elf maiden. Ivan went across Shayleigh, standing straight up the chute. Pikel clambered up to the top, turned sidelong to Ivan, and set the next brace, and so it went, the three working as a living ladder.

“Eh?” Pikel squeaked as he set another stretching brace, around a bend and far out of sight of the chute’s end.

“What ye got?” Ivan asked, climbing even with him. Then Ivan, too, saw the lines in the chute’s wall—even, parallel lines, like those of a door.

The dwarf planted himself across Pikel’s back, his hands fumbling about the wall. He felt a slight depression—only a dwarf would have been able to detect so minute an inconsistency in the unremarkable wall—and pushed hard. The secret door slid aside, revealing a second passageway, angling up as was this one, but with an easier grade.

Ivan looked back to Shayleigh and to Pikel.

“We know what is above us,” Shayleigh reasoned.

“But can we get through the trapdoor?” Ivan replied.

“Sssh,” Pikel begged them both, motioning with his chin toward the new passage. When the others quieted, they heard some scuffling from within, far away, as though some battle had been joined.

“Might be friends and might be needing us!” Ivan roared, and he went into the new passage, pulling Shayleigh, and then Pikel, in behind him. Fumbling again for the depression in the stonework, Ivan managed to close the secret door behind them, and with the lesser slope, the three made better time.

They came to a fork a short time later, the passage continuing up one way, but angling down in a narrower chute to the side. Their instincts told them to keep climbing— they had left their friends on a higher level—but the sounds of battle emanated from the lower tunnel.

“It could be Cadderly,” Shayleigh reasoned.

“Giant dog!” came a familiar voice from down below.

“Traitor!” roared another powerful, and even deeper-toned, voice.

Pikel was into the chute, sliding headlong, before Ivan even cried out “Vander!”

Which door? Cadderly wondered, looking around at the many possible exits from the large circular room as he crossed over the bodies of the two dead ogres. He noticed, too, the many symbols carved into the walls, tridents with small vials above each point interspersed with triangular fields holding three teardrops, the more conventional design for the evil goddess, Talona.

“We must be near the chapel,” Cadderly whispered to Danica. As if in confirmation, the door across the way opened and a horribly scarred man, dressed in the ragged gray and green robes of a Talonan priest, hopped into the circular room.

Danica went into a crouch; Cadderly brought his crossbow level with the man’s face.

The priest only smiled, though, and a moment later all the doors of the circular room burst open. Cadderly and Danica found themselves facing a horde of ores and goblins and evilly grinning men, including several more wearing the robes of Talonan priests. Both friends looked back to the trapped corridor, the only possible escape, but the walls were tight against each other by this point and showed no signs of opening.

For some reason, the enemy force did not immediately attack. Rather, they all stood looking from Cadderly and Danica to the first priest who had entered, apparently the leader.

“Did you think it would be so easy?” the scarred man shrieked hysterically. “Did you think to simply walk through our fortress unopposed?”

Cadderly put a hand on Danica’s arm to stop her from leaping out at the foul man. She might get to him, might well kill him, but they had no chance of defeating this mob. Unless...

Cadderly heard the song playing in his thoughts, had a strange feeling that some powerful minion of his god was calling to him, instructing him, compelling him to hear the harmony of the music.

The evil priest cackled and clapped his hands and the floor in front of him heaved suddenly, rose up and took a gigantic, humanoid shape.

“Elementals,” Danica breathed, drawing Cadderly’s attention. Indeed, two creatures from the plane of earth had arisen to the evil priest’s beckoning, and Cadderly realized that this man must be formidable indeed to command such powerful allies.

But Cadderly shook the dark thought away, fell back into the song, heard the music rising to a glorious crescendo.

“He is spellcasting!” one of the other priests cried out, and the warning sent the whole of the enemy force into wild action. The foot soldiers charged, weapons waving, lips wetted with eager drool. An archer took up his bow and fired, and the clerics went into their own spellcasting, some creating defensive energy, others calling out for magical spells to assault the intruders.

Danica yelled for her love and reflexively kicked out, barely deflecting an arrow that was soaring for Cadderly’s chest. She wanted to protect Cadderly, knew that they were both surely doomed, for they had no time....

A single word, if it was a word, escaped the young priest’s lips. A trumpet note, it seemed, so clear and so perfect that it sent shivers of sheer joy rushing along Danica’s spine, invited her into its perfect resonance and held her, trancelike, in its lingering beauty.

The note created a much different effect over Cadderly’s enemies, over the evil men and monsters who could not tolerate the holy harmony of Deneir’s song. Goblins and ores, and some of the men, grabbed at their bloodied ears and fell dead or unconscious to the floor, their eardrums shattered by the word. Other men swooned, their strength stolen by the bared glory of Deneirian truth, and the elementals fell back into the stone of the floor, fled back to their own plane of existence.

For many moments Danica stood trembling, her eyes closed, and then, when the last lingering echoes of the perfect note died away, she realized the folly of hesitation and expected that the horde would be upon her. But when she opened her eyes, she found only three enemies standing: the first priest who had entered the room and an associate along a side wall, both holding their ears, and a third man, a soldier not a priest, standing not so far away and glancing about in absolute confusion.

Danica leaped forward and kicked the man’s sword from his hand. He looked up at her, still too perplexed to react, and the monk grabbed him by the front of his tunic and threw herself backward in a roll, planting her feet into his belly as he came over her and heaving him hard against the wall beside Cadderly, where he crumbled down in pain. Danica was upon him in a moment, fingers coiled for a deadly strike.

“Do not kill him,” Cadderly said to her, for the young priest realized that if this man had escaped the pains of his most holy spell, if the man could withstand the purely harmonious note, then he was probably not of an evil nature. Cadderly glanced at him only briefly, but he noticed revealing shadows atop the man’s shoulder, the man’s aura personified. These were not huddled, evil things, like the ones the young priest had often witnessed when viewing wicked men in similar fashion.

Danica, trusting in Cadderly’s judgment, put the man in a defensive lock, and Cadderly turned his attention back to the still-standing priests.

“Damn you!” the horribly scarred leader growled in a loud voice—and the awkward volume of that response revealed to Cadderly that his holy utterance had probably deafened the man.

“Where is Aballister?” Cadderly called out, and the man regarded him curiously, then tapped his ears, confirming Cadderly’s suspicions.

Both evil priests began chanting frantically, beginning new spells, and Danica slammed the soldier to the floor and started forward.

“Get back!” Cadderly warned, and the monk was truly torn. She knew the importance of getting at the spellcasters before they could complete their enchantments, but knew, too, to trust in Cadderly’s warnings.

With supreme confidence, feeling invulnerable against the priests of an evil god, Cadderly fell back into the flowing music and began his song. He felt waves of numbing energy as the priest to the side hurled a paralyzing spell at him, but within the protective river of Deneir’s music, such a spell had no hold over Cadderly.

The scarred leader lifted his arm and hurled a gemstone, glowing with the mighty energies it contained. Danica leaped in front to block it, as she had blocked the arrow, while Cadderly pointed to it and cried out.

The glow in the gemstone disappeared, and on a sudden inspiration (a silent telepathic message from Cadderly), Danica caught the stone.

Cadderly grabbed the back of Danica’s tunic and pulled her behind him, singing all the while. Equations and numbers flashed through his thoughts with every note. He saw the very fabric of the area about him, the relationships and densities of the different materials. Energy flowed from the torches set into sconces on the walls, and a more static energy, the very binding force which held everything in place, was clearly revealed.

The evil priests began chanting again, stubbornly, but now it was Cadderly’s turn. The young priest focused on that binding force, replayed equations and changed their factors, forcing truth into untruth.

No, not untruth, Cadderly realized. Not chaos, as was the enchantment he had forced over old Fyren. In the revealing equations, Cadderly found an alternate truth, a distortion, not a perversion, of physical law. By sheer willpower and the insights the song of Deneir had offered to him, the young priest bent the binding force, turned it in on the scarred enemy leader, making him the center of gravity.

For every unsecured item near the scarred man, the floor was no longer a resting place.

Dead and downed soldiers “fell” at their leader, they did not slide along the floor, but actually toppled and plunged, as though the floor was now a vertical slope. A desk from the room behind the surprised priest crashed against his back, all its items clinging to him as though he had become a living magnet. Two of the torches within the area of warped reality leaned toward the evil priest and slowly slid along the sides of their sconces, coming to an angled rest in a precarious perch, their flames burning out to the side away from the cursed man.

The priest who had been standing at the side of the room hung straight out, his feet toward his master, his hands clutching desperately at the doorjamb.

Danica couldn’t prevent a chuckle at the ridiculous sight. A ball of bodies and items had converged on the scarred leader, smashing him from every angle. The priest to the side fell last, slamming hard against a dead ore. And then everything had settled once more, everything unattached or unsupported within fifty feet of the evil priest had come to rest atop him, had pounded him and buried him.

Several groans came from within that confused pile, mostly those of the battered leader, buried somewhere far beneath the jumble.

The man’s associate, lying on the outside layer of the confused pile, looked at Cadderly with sheer hatred and began again his stubborn chant.

“Do not!” Cadderly warned him. The priest did stop, but not because of Cadderly’s warning. Out of the same rgtom that had held the desk now fell an incredibly fat giant hitting the pile with such tremendous force that those bodies on the opposite side of the pile, near Cadderly and Danica, bounced out to the side, then fell back and settled on the pile once more. The scarred leader went quiet then for the first time, and Cadderly winced, realizing that the giant had probably crushed the man.

The giant was far from dead, though. It roared and thrashed, launching bodies far to the side, then smashing them apart as they inevitably fell back into the pile.

“How long will it last?” Danica asked. Her darting eyes revealed her fear, for their was no apparent way for her and Cadderly to get out of the area. Many of the men stricken unconscious by the holy word were awakening, and that ferocious giant had not been badly wounded.

Trepidation welled up within Cadderly, dark fears for what he must do to complete this battle. He searched his spells, listened carefully to the song, seeking something that would allow him and Danica to get through without further bloodshed. But what of his friends? he wondered. If they came out behind him, and the spell was no more, they would face a formidable force.

Again the raging priest atop the pile chanted; a soldier to the side of him hurled a dagger Cadderly’s way, but it was as if he were throwing up the side of a cliff, and the knife dropped back to the jumble, sticking into the back of a dead goblin. The giant climbed through next, a look of sheer hatred on its huge face.

Cadderly looked to Danica, to the gemstone, a hunk of amber, that she held. Of all the trials the young priest would ever face, none would be so agonizing as this trial of conscience. He could not fail now, though, could not allow his own weakness to threaten his mission, to threaten all the goodly peoples of the region. He waved his hand over the gemstone, uttered a few words, and it began to glow again, teeming with magical energy.

“Toss it,” he instructed.

“At them?”

Cadderly thought about it and shrugged as though it did not matter. “To the side,” he said, pointing to the doorjamb where the priest had been hanging.

Danica still seemed not to understand, but she tossed the enchanted stone. It followed a normal, expected course for a few feet, then crossed into the area warped by Cadderly’s spell and fell in an arcing, unerring curve to strike at the pile.

With a blinding flash, all the jumble was aflame. Men cried out for a moment, then fell silent. The giant thrashed wildly, but had nowhere to run, could find nothing to roll in that was not also burning. It went on for what seemed a long and agonizing time, but was in reality merely minutes, then the only sound was the crackle of hungry flames.

Pikel plowed through another angled doorway and fell fifteen feet to hit the corridor floor with a resounding “Oof!”

Dazed, and unable to find his balance, the dwarf turned his gaze to the side and saw Vander—Vander’s furred boots, at least—stumbling about the bodies of several dead ogres. Even larger boots moved to keep up with the dancing firbolg, a hill giant, probably, along with the dirty, naked feet of yet another ogre.

Pikel knew that Vander needed him, so he gave a determined grunt and started to pull himself off the floor.

The plummeting Ivan hit him squarely in the back. The yellow-bearded dwarf bounced up from his cushioned landing and rushed ahead, recognizing Vander’s desperate situation. The hill giant had Vander wrapped in its huge arms, and the ogre, wielding a huge spiked club, was circling about them, looking for an opening.

“Traitor!” the hill giant bellowed once more.

Vander butted with his forehead, splattering the giant’s nose. With a roar, the giant swung about and launched Vander into the wall with such force that it shook the whole corridor. Vander bounced back a step, trying to get his sword up, but the ogre rushed in at his side and hit him with a roundhouse that drove a spike right into the side of his head.

Down on his knees, the dying firbolg noticed Ivan rushing in and with heroic effort heaved his sword forward as though it were a spear. The blade slashed into the hill giant’s shoulder, knocking the monster back, slumping, against the opposite wall, its huge hands trying to find some hold that it might pull the thing out.

The ogre’s great club smashed in again, and Vander saw no more.

Tears welled in Ivan’s dark eyes as he pounded down the corridor. He leaped atop the wounded giant and crunched his axe into the monster’s thick skull. The ogre roared at the sight of the dwarf and rushed back across the corridor, swinging wildly.

Ivan hopped away, and the ogre’s spiked club drew bloody creases down the giant’s face and sent the behemoth sprawling to the floor.

“Dun,” the ogre groaned stupidly, and then it jerked to the side as Ivan’s axe chopped it on the leg. Like a lumberjack, the sturdy dwarf went to work, hacking with abandon, and four blows later, the ogre toppled to the floor.

Behind Ivan, the giant groaned and tried to rise. The cry of “Ooooooo!” followed by the resounding smack of a tree-trunk club against flesh brought a grim smile to the yellow-bearded dwarf.

Pikel hit the stunned giant again and moved for a third strike. But the stubborn behemoth, far from finished, caught the club and pulled it aside.

Pikel let go with one hand and pointed it straight out at the giant, who seemed not to understand—not until something snapped out of Pikel’s loose-fitting sleeve, snapped out with venom-dripping fangs into the surprised giant’s face.

The giant let go of the club and fell back, clawing at the stinging wound, horrified.

It heard Pikel’s “Ooooooo!” as the dwarf, club in hand, wound up, but it never saw the killing blow coming.

Without its weapon, the ogre across the hall raised its arms defensively and called out a surrender.

But those arras, however thick, were no match for Ivan’s blind fury. Vander lay dead behind him, and the dwarf was hardly in the mood to listen to anything the desperate monster might have to say. The dwarf’s axe chopped down repeatedly, smashing through flesh and bone, and by the time Shayleigh joined Ivan and put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, the ogre’s cries were forever silenced.

A Call on the Wind

The man at the base of the wall groaned, and Danica was on him in an instant, roughly pulling his arms behind his back and pushing him facedown against the hard stone.”How long will your enchantment block our way?” she snapped at Cadderly.

“Not long,” the young priest replied, surprised by Danica’s harsh tone.

“And what are we to do with him?” Danica gave a rough tug on the captured soldier’s arms as she asked the question, drawing another groan from the battered man.

“Be easy with him,” Cadderly said.

“As you were with them?” Danica asked sarcastically, waving a hand out to the smoldering pile.

Now Cadderly understood Danica’s ire. The battle had been rough, as the rising stench of burning flesh reminded them.

“Why didn’t you tell me what that orb would do?”

Danica’s question sounded as a desperate plea.

Cadderiy had a hard time sorting through this seeming reversal of roles. Usually he was the one who was too softhearted, who got them into trouble by not fighting hard enough against the declared enemies. He had spared Dorigen in Shilmista Forest, had let her live when he had her helpless on the ground before him, though Danica had instructed him to finish her. And now, Cadderiy had been merciless, had done as the situation demanded against his own peaceful instincts. Cadderiy held little remorse—he knew that all those humans in the fiery jumble were evil-hearted men—but he was more than a little surprised by Danica’s cold reaction.

She gave another tug on the prisoner’s arms, as if she was using the man’s pain to torment Cadderiy, lashing out at the young priest by going against what he obviously desired.

“He is not an evil man,” Cadderiy said calmly.

Danica hesitated, her exotic eyes searching out the sincerity within Cadderly’s gray orbs. She had always been able to read the young priest’s thoughts and believed now that he was speaking truthfully (though where he had garnered that piece of information, Danica had no idea).

“And they were?” Danica asked somewhat sharply, again indicating the pile.

“Yes,” Cadderiy answered. “When I uttered the holy word, how did you feel?”

The simple memory of that wondrous moment eased much of the tension from Danica’s fair face. How did she feel? She felt in love, at ease with all the world, as if nothing ugly could come near her.

“You saw how it affected them,” Cadderiy went on, finding his answers in Danica’s serene expression.

Following the logic, Danica lessened her grip. “But it did not adversely affect this one,” she said.

“He is not an evil man,” Cadderiy reiterated.

Danica nodded and lessened her grip. She looked back at Cadderiy, though, and her expression was cold once more, a look more of disappointment than of anger.

Cadderiy understood, but had no answers for his love. There had been human beings among the evil monsters in this group, men among the goblins. Danica was disappointed because Cadderiy had done what was necessary, had given in to the fighting fully. She had been angry with Cadderiy when he had spared Dorigen, but it was an anger founded in her fear of the wizard. In truth, Danica had loved Cadderiy all the more because of his conscience, because he had tried to avoid the horrors of battle at all costs.

Cadderiy looked back to the pile of corpses. He had given in, joined the fighting with all his heart.

It had to be that way, Cadderly knew. He was as horrified as Danica over what he had just done, but he would not take back the action even if he could. The friends were in desperate straights—all the region was in desperate straights—and that danger was being precipitated by the minions of this fortress. Castle Trinity, and not Cadderiy, would have to take responsibility for the lives that would be lost this day.

But while that argument held solid on a logical basis, Cadderiy could not deny the pain in his chest when he looked upon the pile of dead men, or the sting in his heart when he viewed Danica’s disappointment.

“We must go!” Shayleigh said to Ivan, tugging on the dwarfs arm and looking back to the corridor behind them, where the steps of many boots could be heard.

Ivan sighed as he regarded Vander, the firbolg’s head crushed and misshapen. A similar sigh behind him turned Ivan about to regard Pikel. He eyed his brother curiously, for something seemed out of place along the length of Pikel’s tunic and undershirt.

“How’d ye get away from the snake?” Ivan asked, suddenly remembering their past predicament.

Pikel gave a short whistle, and on cue, the serpent’s head streamed up from his collar and hovered in the air right beside his green-bearded cheek.

Shayleigh and Ivan fell back in shock, Ivan’s axe coming up defensively between himself and his surprising brother.

“Doo-dad!” Pikel announced happily, petting the snake, which seemed to enjoy the treatment. Pikel nodded to the side, then, indicating that they should be on their way.

“Doo-dad?” Shayleigh inquired of Ivan as Pikel hopped off.

“Wants to be a druid,” Ivan explained, moving to follow his brother. “He don’t know that dwarves can’t be druids.”

Shayleigh considered the words for a long moment “Neither does the snake,” she decided, and with a final, helpless look at the dead Vander, she rushed off after her companions.

“My thanks to you,” the soldier whispered to Cadderly, all the while eyeing the charred mass of his dead allies. The pile fell apart then, resettling upon the floor, as Cadderly’s strange enchantment dissipated.

“Where is Aballister?” the young priest demanded. The man’s lips seemed to tighten into thin lines,

Cadderly leaped past Danica, grabbed the man by the collar, and slammed him hard against the wall. “You are still a prisoner!” he growled in the surprised man’s face. “You can be an asset to us, and we will repay you accordingly.

“Or you can be a detriment,” Cadderly went on grimly. He looked back to the pile as he spoke, and the unvoiced threat drained the blood from the captured man’s face.

“Lead on to the wizard,” Cadderly instructed. “Along the most direct route.”

The man glanced at Danica, as if pleading for some support, but the monk looked away impassively.

That gesture did not reveal the turmoil in Danica’s heart. Cadderly’s move and threat against the prisoner, a person he had just declared was not an evil man, had surprised her. She had never seen Cadderly so calculatingly cold, and while she could understand his determined actions, she could not deny her fears.

The prisoner took them through a door to the side, halfway around the circular room. They had only gone a dozen steps when Cadderly grabbed the man again, pushed him up against the wall and began roughly stripping off every piece of his noisy armor, even to the point of removing the man’s hard-soled boots.

“Quietly,” he whispered to the man. “I have but one battle left to fight, a battle against Aballister.”

The man growled and pushed Cadderly away, and found Danica’s silver-hilted dagger at his throat in the blink of an eye.

“The wizard is powerful,” the prisoner warned, wisely keeping his voice soft.

Cadderly nodded. “And you fear the consequences of your actions should Aballister win out against us,” he reasoned.

The man’s lips went tight again, and he made no move to respond. Cadderly eased Danica away and again put his face close to the man’s, his jaw firm and unrelenting. “Then choose,” the young priest said, his voice low and threatening. “Do you take the chance that Aballister will not win out?”

The man glanced about nervously, but again said nothing.

“Aballister is not here,” Cadderly reminded him. “None of your allies are here. It is just you and I, and you know what I can do.”

The man started off again immediately, his bare feet making little noise as he padded along the corridor with appropriate caution. They crossed several side corridors, often hearing the sounds of other soldiers rushing about, probably in search of them. Each time some group was about, Danica looked nervously to Cadderly, as if to say that this man, who could betray them with a simple call, was his responsibility.

But the man held true to the terms of his capture, moving with all stealth as they worked their way past one guard position or patrol group after another.

When they entered one long corridor, though, a group of goblins entered it simultaneously from the other end, and they found that they had nowhere to run. The goblins, six of the beasts, advanced cautiously, weapons drawn.

The prisoner addressed them in their own croaking language, and Cadderly understood well enough to know that the man had concocted some lie about being on a mission for the priests, going to Aballister with some important information.

Still, the goblins eyed Cadderly and Danica dangerously, exchanging a few quiet remarks—doubts, Cadderly knew— amongst themselves.

Even the cooperative prisoner looked back, his expression showing sincere worry.

Danica didn’t wait for events to take their obvious course. She leaped out suddenly, punching the nearest goblin in the throat, circling about her leg flying high to connect on the next one’s chest, and whipped a dagger into the face of yet another. She ducked low under a sword swipe and sprang up high from her crouch, double-kicking the sword wielder in the face and chest.

Two goblins rushed by her, more concerned with escape than with tangling against Cadderly and the soldier, but Cadderly got one with his walking stick, shattering its knee, and the soldier tackled the other.

Danica spun about and again kicked, sending one goblin flying into the wall. The creature smacked hard against the stone and bounced back, and Danica, timing her spin perfectly, promptly kicked it again. Again it bounced out again it was launched backward by a perfectly timed kick.

The fourth time, the goblin was allowed to fall to the floor, for Danica sprang away, leaping over the prone prisoner at the back of the goblin that had slipped his grasp. One hand reached around to cup the goblin’s chin while the other grabbed the hair on the back of its head.

The goblin squealed and tried to stop and turn, but Danica rushed right beside it, twisting her arms viciously, snapping the wretched thing’s neck.

“Down!” Danica called, coming around behind Cadderly. The young priest fell to the floor and the goblin facing him was caught fully by surprise as Danica rushed by, connecting with a heavy punch into its ugly face. It flew backward several feet, hit the stone with a groan, and Danica ran past.

The goblin she had hit in the throat was up to its knees again, trying to find its footing. Danica leaped high into the air, coming down with her knees driving against the skinny creature’s back, slamming it down fiercely. She pulled her second dagger from her boot, grabbed a clump of hair with her free hand and pulled the goblin’s head back, cutting a neat line across its throat.

She did likewise to the helpless goblin that had her other dagger sticking from its face, ending its misery. And then she turned back, to see Cadderly and the prisoner staring at her incredulously.

“I do not parley with goblins,” Danica said grimly, wiping her blades on the nearest monster’s dirty tunic.

“You could not outrun her,” Cadderly remarked to the prisoner, and the man, in turn, gave the young priest an incredulous look.

“I just thought I would mention that,” Cadderly said.

They set out at once, Cadderly and Danica anxious to put some distance between themselves and the scene of the slaughter. The prisoner said nothing, just continued to lead them at a swift pace, and soon the tunnels became quieter and less filled with rushing soldiers.

Cadderly sensed that the walls in this region were not natural, though they were lined by uncut stone. The young priest could feel the residual energies of the magics that had been used to make this place, as though some powerful dweomer had pulled the natural stone from between these walls.

The sensations sent a mix of emotions through the young priest. He was glad that the captured soldier was apparently not leading them astray, glad that their search might soon come to its end. But Cadderly was worried, too, for if Aballister had created these tunnels, had magically torn the stone from these halls, then the storm at Nightglow only hinted at his powers.

Something else assaulted Cadderly’s thoughts then, a fleeting, distant call, as if someone was summoning him. He paused and closed his eyes.

Cadderly.

He heard it clearly, though distantly. He felt for the amulet in his pocket which he’d acquired some time ago and with which he could communicate with the imp, Druzil. Now it was cool, indicating that Druzil was nowhere about.

Cadderly.

It was not Druzil, and Cadderly did not believe that it was Dorigen, either. Who then? the young priest wondered. Who was so attuned to him that they might make telepathic contact without his knowledge or consent?

He opened his eyes, determined not to get sidetracked. “Keep going,” he instructed his comrades, taking his place beside them.

But the call remained, fleeting and distant, and what bothered Cadderly more than anything else was that it somehow sounded so very familiar.