Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

“There are,” Brannan agreed. “But there are many places in the desert where such spells do not function as intended. If at all.”

Sabira frowned at that. Though such areas were common in the Mournland, where a magical cataclysm had wiped the nation of Cyre from the face of Khorvaire in the space of a single day, she’d never heard of any similar places outside the bounds of the dark gray mist. Then again, Xen’drik had been through its own cataclysm millennia ago, so perhaps the existence of pockets of warped magic here should not be such a surprise, after all.

“So map them and go around,” Greddark said, clearly still perturbed at the Wayfinder’s earlier insult, veiled though it had been.

“If it were that simple, I’d have paid for an army of surveyors to blanket the desert twice over and staked out the path for all to use,” Brannan said patiently. Sabira had no doubt that was true, though the Wayfinder was conveniently leaving out the part where he’d charge travelers half a year’s wages for the privilege of doing so. “Unfortunately, these areas never seem to appear in the same spot twice-another manifestation of the Traveler’s Curse, perhaps. In any case, it’s impossible to either anticipate or avoid them. Hence, the different colored cloths. And verbal signals and lamps as required. We’re not complete savages.”

Sabira turned back to the front of the wagon quickly to hide her grin and escape Greddark’s glower. Despite her objections to Brannan’s business practices, she couldn’t help but admire the Wayfinder’s wit. In fact, it was one of the things she found most attractive in a man. She supposed it was a good thing he wasn’t a couple of decades younger, or Elix might not appreciate the stories she returned to Karrnath with.

Thinking of her not-quite-betrothed reminded Sabira again of the stakes riding on her return to Vulyar. If she’d known she was going to have to face a dragon on the way to rescue Tilde… no. It wouldn’t have stopped her from coming. She’d see this through and her debt to Ned and his family paid, one way or the other. Only then would she be truly free to give Elix the answer to the question he’d been waiting so very long to ask.

As Xujil slowed the wagon, Sabira scrambled up into the seat beside him, and she could hear her companions moving around in the wagon behind her, preparing for the attack. Other wagons began appearing on either side of theirs, flanking them. Soon, the caravan was advancing in a horizontal line across the desert, the dragon’s storm at their backs and the dragon itself somewhere in front of them, waiting.

But not for long.

Sabira scanned the ground ahead again, eyes narrowed against the glare as she turned her head in a slow arc from side to side. Xujil was on her left, operating the mechanical wagon’s controls via a series of levers and glowing dials. Beyond him, another multi-legged schooner skittered across the sand, its driver likewise joined by a crossbow-wielding copilot. To her right, one of the magebred camels pulled another wagon. A gnome with a wand sat atop the animal, hunkered down between two of its three humps. Two other gnomes sat on either side of the wagon driver, one with a crossbow and one with a dragonshard-tipped staff. Sabira was glad to see the diminutive passengers. They were obviously from the Library of Korranberg in Zilargo, and while the library wasn’t a school of magic per se, it employed some of the mightiest practitioners in Khorvaire to protect its vaults and expand their contents. If she couldn’t have a contingent of Blademarks at her side to fight a dragon, she’d take a gaggle of spellcasting gnomes, and be glad for it.

The gnome closest to her-the one with the staff-caught her eye across the gap and winked at her. He’d seen the Siberys shard on her urgrosh peeking over her shoulder and probably thought she was a fellow mage. She was just nodding back at him when the ground in front of his wagon erupted in a spray of sand and a loud, inhuman bellow.

Sabira whipped her crossbow over, but what she saw momentarily stunned her.

The sand dragon had burrowed beneath the path of the oncoming caravan and waited until they were just above it. Then it launched itself upward, coming up underneath the camel and crushing the animal and its hapless rider between its huge, spike-framed jaws. The camel shrieked in pain as sharp teeth ripped through its abdomen and the force of the dragon’s massive bite broke the magebred animal’s spine. Its horrific lowing was accompanied by the higher-pitched scream of its rider as the gnome lost both his legs and the lower half of his torso to the dragon’s hunger.

Quickly shaking off the horror of the attack, Sabira leveled her borrowed crossbow and squeezed the trigger, letting the enchanted quarrel fly. Bolts and spells flew at the dragon from the gnomes’ wagon and from the schooner on the far side of it, but the mundane missiles clattered off the reptilian creature’s tough scales and the spells fizzled and popped in one of the magic-warping zones Brannan had warned of. Only Sabira’s bolt struck home, slamming into the dragon’s neck and sinking deep.

With a roar, the dragon tossed its head, trying to dislodge the quarrel and the pain it brought. The movement tore the camel’s corpse from its harness and overturned the gnomes’ wagon, sending it tumbling toward the one Sabira rode in. Only some quick maneuvering on Xujil’s part saved them from a similar fate. The drow pulled on two levers while simultaneous kicking a third forward with his left foot, and the mechanical wagon scuttled sideways and forward, just ahead of where the wreckage of the other wagon landed in a cloud of sand and splintered wood.

Sabira had been reaching for a second green-fletched bolt, but the unexpected movement knocked the quarrels from her lap as she struggled to maintain her seat. Two landed in the sand outside the wagon and one fell to the bottom of the driver’s platform, got wedged between control levers, and was promptly bent when Xujil forced those levers in opposite directions. That left one on the seat between her and the drow. As she snatched it up and began to fit it into the groove, Xujil shoved her aside, just as the dragon’s tail went whizzing over the platform where her head had been a half a heartbeat ago.

The drow’s touch was oddly cool, and she couldn’t stop herself from shrugging it off as quickly as possible. She tempered the action with a muttered “thanks”-the elf had probably just saved her life, after all-then sat back up, aiming and letting her last quarrel fly. It skimmed off the scales on the dragon’s left hind leg just as the creature disappeared in a crater of sand that quickly closed over the burrowing reptile again and then lay ominously still.

“ Damn it!”

“Not your fault.”

Sabira looked up in surprise to see Skraad perched atop the wagon’s front opening. The orc must have climbed out of the back of the wagon and made his way across the ribbed canvas to get in on the action. She caught a flash of green from the hand crossbow he carried-apparently Brannan had found a few more enchanted bolts. A good thing, considering she’d lost or wasted most of hers.

“Should have hit it; your aim was perfect. Must be more of that mixed-up magic the Wayfinder was talking about. Looks like it doesn’t just affect spells, but spelled items too.”

The orc’s hair was billowing about his face in the wind, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she knew he wasn’t trying to placate her-that would imply a concern for her ego she was quite sure the orc didn’t feel. Still, it was good to know the failure hadn’t been hers.

Not that it changed the outcome any. The dragon was still out there, and it hadn’t had a chance to finish feeding. It would be back.