Jean Rabe - Redemption

“Master,” she intoned. “I live to serve you.” Nura Bint-Drax coiled low in front of the shadow dragon, not daring to move again until she felt the ground rumble in response. Then she raised herself high, resting back on her tail, hood flaring far back and eyes wide with pleasure. “Your plan is working?

Tell me, master.” Nura didn’t try to conceal her excitement. “You expected all this. You anticipated it. It is all part of your plan to force Dhamon Grimwulf to slay Sable?”

The dragon shook his massive head, barbels thrumming across the floor. His breath quickened, and the breeze from it struck Nura hot in the face. “Not exactly. I have discovered another way to produce the energy I need to live,” the dragon said.

Nura Bint-Drax slithered back a respectful distance, able to see more of the beautiful shadow dragon from this safer vantage point. This cave was not so dark as the one in the swamp, and that was the only good thing about it as far as she was concerned. She could get a better view of the shadow dragon.

“Khellendros, called Skie by men,” the shadow dragon began. “He once tried to craft a body for his love, Kitiara. Word among the dragons was he initially hoped to place her spirit in the body of a blue spawn. When that failed, he tried to rob Malys of her soul, intending to let Kitiara step into the body of the Red.”

The snake-woman’s eyes sparkled in fascination. “More, master. Tell me more.” Such tales, known only by dragons, were what Nura lived for.

“Khellendros might have succeeded, had things fallen into place properly. But I will succeed with Dhamon Grimwulf. I will not make Khellendros’ mistakes.”

“I don’t understand.” Nura Bint-Drax furrowed her brow, thinking. Dhamon was supposed to kill Sable, so the shadow dragon, whose physical form was dying, could use his magic to transfer his spirit inside the Black’s body.

“You forget, I can hear your thoughts,” the dragon rumbled with a rare chuckle. The dragon stretched as much as was comfortable within the confines of the cave, drawing a talon out toward the naga and scratching at the stony floor. “No, that was never the intent, Nura Bint-Drax. Dhamon… and the others I was cultivating… the best specimen was going to house my spirit when this body deteriorated. Dhamon has proven the strongest. He has adapted best to my magic. He is the one.”

“But Sable….?” The bewilderment was clear on her face.

“Sable was always just a means to an end. I intended to use the energy released from the overlord’s death to help power my spell. I am dying, Nura Bint-Drax. Living inside Dhamon’s shell is my best recourse.”

She gasped. “So it is Dhamon’s body that will save you!”

“Yes.”

“Your spirit will displace his.”

The dragon gave a slight nod. “Energy from the god Chaos birthed me, and energy from the dragons’ deaths in the Abyss nurtured me. Magic expended from the deaths during the dragonpurge strengthened me. And now…”

“I see. The energy from Sable’s death will help you live in the body of Dhamon Grimwulf.” Nura searched the dragon’s visage and saw her reflection in its dull eyes. She hung her head ruefully. “I would have gladly housed your spirit, master,” she said. “I would have gladly—”

“I know,” the shadow dragon returned, “but you are more valuable, to me, and to this world. Dhamon can be sacrificed.”

This pleased the naga, and she glided forward to caress the shadow dragon’s jaw. “Tell me more, please,” she entreated. “What are your plans? What should I do? What must we do to Dhamon Grimwulf?”

“At the moment, protect him.”

The shadow dragon briefly closed his eyes, and she feared he would fall into a deep sleep again, but he merely was taking pleasure from her ministrations. After a few moments his eyes again bathed the cave with their dull yellow glow.

“There is some interesting magic in the ogre-mage Maldred,” the dragon said, “and in the weapons he and Dhamon carry. There is magic in the wingless sivak. The deaths of Maldred and the sivak should release the necessary energy, combined with the destruction of enchanted trinkets I have gathered since the Chaos War.”

“Will that be enough?” Nura Bint-Drax asked skeptically.

“Not so much as the magic that beats in Sable’s heart,” the dragon quickly returned, its words sending more tremors through the rock. “But I only half-expected Dhamon to slay Sable. I had to buy time until his body was ready for my spirit. The magic will have to be enough. Meanwhile we will gather more to be certain.”

“Oh, I see. How very clever, master. We will begin with the horde hidden away in the Knights of Neraka’s stronghold in the Dargaard Mountains!” Nura had wondered why, when first they arrived in Throt, the shadow dragon had asked her to capture a Knight from those mountains and bring him to this cave.

“Yes. From that stronghold. The Knight has… told me of their vault.”

“Will it be difficult to obtain, master?”

“Not for you, my Nura.”

They left the following evening, when dusk overtook Throt and before the stars came out in the sky.

The dragon looked like a dark rain cloud moving swiftly with the wind. Nura rode on his back in her Ergothian female form. It wasn’t her favorite guise, but at times it well suited her purpose, and the human arms and legs were useful in gripping the dragon’s neck. It felt cold this high above the earth, and Nura endured no little measure of unaccustomed discomfort. She found herself wishing for the frail human trappings of furs.

It took them three days of travel, for when the sun rose each day the shadow dragon had to seek refuge from the light. Once they were fortunate to find a big enough cave. On the other days the shadow dragon used its magic to hollow out the earth at the base of hillsides, creating a makeshift lair more like a pit. Nura stood watch during the brightest daylight, encountering people only once—a band of scouts for a Dark Knight company. She dispatched them quickly, confident that the company would march elsewhere when the scouts failed to report.

Food was scarce, but Nura was able to use her magic to snare a half-dozen wild pigs. The shadow dragon ate these only at her urging, as he was so obsessed with his mission he thought little of his own needs.

On the third day, in the quiet hour before midnight when even the nightbirds and nocturnal beasts seem to melt away, they descended near the keep of the Knights of Takhisis.

The moonlight showed that the place was well guarded. Knights patrolled the barren, hardscrabble ground where the keep was wedged into the base of the Dargaards. A Dark Knight sorcerer was stationed on a crenelated portion between two archers, and there were certainly other guards whom they could not spot.

“You are right. It should not be difficult at all, master.” Nura stood back from the keep, arranging her scant clothes and fussing with her hair—the way she’d seen human women do in every town she’d visited. When she was certain her looks would please the men, she nodded to the dragon. “Ready, master.”

The naga gazed rapturously at the shadow dragon as her master drew a symbol in the ground with a shadowy talon. It was part of a spell it had learned from one of its first minions, a sorcerer who did not take to its scales as easily as Dhamon and who died when the dragon tried to force its magic. There were words to the enchantment, but the shadow dragon simply chanted them in its head, thought of Nura and their magical link, and slowly folded in on itself.

As the spell took effect, the dragon began to deflate, became flat, like a piece of cloth cut from the night sky. Then the strange cloth shaped itself and flowed like oil, running across the ground until it brushed Nura’s heel.