Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

“Feril.” The word softly rumbled, shaking the ground. The dragon repeated her name, certain she hadn’t heard him the first time.

She wiped at her face, squared her shoulders. She thrust her chin out and adopted a proud, defiant look. She managed to keep the look of surprise off her face that the dragon somehow knew her name.

“Feril, I was wrong to come here. I should have let the past stay buried. I should have stayed in my swamp.”

There was something reassuringly familiar about the sonorous voice, and also about the dragon’s eyes, where not a touch of menace appeared to lurk. Feril searched them for a hint of the man she thought she detected earlier, but all she could see was her own reflection. She continued to tremble from the dragonfear, though not as much as before—less and less, it seemed, with each passing moment.

“How do you know my name? How can…”

Feril rose with a start when she saw a sivak draconian step into view from behind the dragon. She glanced back and forth between the two creatures, inhaled sharply, then almost retched again from the combination of horrible smells.

“It’s all right,” the dragon continued. “I won’t hurt you, Feril. I would never hurt you. I’ll be on my way. I shouldn’t have…”

The sivak cocked his head, gesturing with a crooked finger. “Is this the woman you wanted to find? A Kagonesti?”

The dragon gave a nod.

“When you mentioned an elf, I pictured some fragile creature with flowers in her hair—or with painted lips and eyelids, like your friend Rikali. Nothing dainty or painted about this one. She certainly didn’t need our help with those Knights of Neraka. Slaughtered most of them on her own, she did. Are all of your friends this tough, Dhamon?”

“Dhamon? Impossible!”

Even as Feril said this, she knew it was indeed true. The image of the man she had seen in the dragon’s eyes, and saw again now. The image of that rugged, handsome face flickered, then disappeared when she blinked and shook her head. “Impossible,” she repeated, though she knew that somehow it was him. Her chest tightened, feeling as though someone had slammed a mailed fist into her stomach. She could hardly breathe. “By all the gods, Dhamon Grimwulf!”

She reached out, shaky fingers tentatively touching the scales on his leg. She pressed her palm against one and closed her eyes, flooded by myriad emotions and questions. Her breath came ragged and fast.

“It is you, isn’t it, Dhamon? I never thought I’d see you again and certainly not like this. What strange magic did this to you, Dhamon?”

“Feril, dark magic. Terrible magic. I…” The dragon glanced behind him toward the trees where the Knights of Neraka had been hanged. He knew that Feril found him repulsive. He had long rehearsed the speech he might give to her some day, but right now his thoughts were jumbled. “Ragh, it’s time to leave. This wasn’t…”

The sivak shook his head in disagreement. “We’re not leaving, not just yet. We came all this way, and you’re not even going to introduce me?”

Dhamon looked at the sivak, then down at the Kagonesti, who was still stroking his scales. Saliva dripped from his jowls, and Feril stepped back to keep from getting splashed. After a moment, he tipped his head up, as if he were listening to something far beyond this clearing in the Qualinesti forest. A red-shouldered hawk cried shrilly and cut through the sky above them, then circled a fallen knight on the river bank, where a cloud of insects swarmed.

“Ragh, this is Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter,” Dhamon said at length, “a Kagonesti from Southern Ergoth and once a champion of Goldmoon.”

“I prefer Peril,” she said, shortening her name, as she stepped back from the dragon to study the draconian.

“Feril,” Ragh said, as he met the eyes of the Kagonesti. “Well met, Feril of Southern Ergoth.”

At first her eyes were daggers aimed at the sivak then finally they softened as she turned her face away and lifted it to the dragon again. “Dhamon, what has happened to you? How in the world did you become…”

“A dragon? It’s a long story,” Dhamon replied. The faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of his massive mouth.

“Tell me, Dhamon.”

“Short or long, let’s do it away from here,” the sivak urged, gesturing at the dead bodies. “They’re going to attract all sorts of beasties once they begin to stink— stink worse than Dhamon even, maybe attract more knights.” He waved a clawed hand in front of his face to ward off a gathering mistlike swarm of gnats.

Again, Feril glared at the draconian. “I am in no hurry. I intend to bury all of these men.”

“What, are you mad, elf?” The draconian furiously swiped at the gnats.

“Listen, sivak,” she started. “I’ve…”

“Ragh,” Dhamon said to the Kagonesti. “Feril, he’s a good friend of mine.”

“Dhamon, his kind…”

“I know, my kind eat elves,” Ragh finished her sentence, finally giving up on keeping the insects at bay. “Elves are a favorite food of most sivaks, you might say but it’s been a few years for me. I’ve long since acquired other tastes.”

She sucked in a breath and pointed south, where tall pines grew far apart and sheltered smaller trees. The shadows were particularly thick there. The sun had nearly set. “Dhamon, if you must go, then I’ll meet you over there when I’m finished burying the dead. We obviously have a lot of catching up to do.”

Dhamon pawed at the ground, a talon digging a deep line. “I’ll bury them, Feril.” Softer, he added, “They were once my kind.”

“So you knew him years ago when he was human, huh? Probably before he got all high-and-mighty bent on saving the world.”

Feril was settled on a carpet of lungwort that grew between the knobby roots of a golden rain tree. She stared up at the clusters of yellow flowers and didn’t answer the nearby sivak draconian.

“Certainly before he had a change of heart and fell in with thieves in ogre lands, before he hooked up with Maldred.”

Feril rubbed at the back of her neck and rolled her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to the sivak’s prattle.

“Well, I met Dhamon back when he was human, too,” Ragh continued. The sivak leaned against the trunk of an old gum as he warily regarded her. “He was a good man, for a human. Best I can recall knowing. I have a gap in my memory, but I understand that Dhamon freed me from some of Sable’s minions. Sable’s the black dragon overlord that rules this swamp,” he paused, “but I suppose you know about Sable. I suppose everyone does.” He rubbed his back against the tree. “Anyway, Sable’s minions cut off my wings. Dhamon said they were bleeding me to make spawn and abominations.”

Still no reaction from Feril. She seemed busy watching a small black bird that was searching for insects in the flowers and along the small branches. Her elf eyes picked through the darkness and noticed the bands of blue on the bird’s wings.

“In those days Dhamon had this big scale on his right leg, black as night with a silver streak in it. The thing was paining him terribly. Sometimes he’d curl into a ball and pass out, it hurt that much. We’d watch him with a knot in our stomachs—Maldred and Riki and me. I remember thinking I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to suffer so. We thought sooner or later the pain might kill him.”

Ragh talked on and on about Maldred and Riki, the ogre-mage and half-elf thief who kept company with Dhamon for a while and who worried over him and his accursed scale. He talked some about Rig and Fiona, without mentioning their deaths, since he realized Feril must have known the pair. Dhamon could deliver those somber tidings when and if he wanted to.