James Wyatt: Storm dragon

Vaskar wants to be the Storm Dragon, Gaven thought. Vaskar thinks that’s a service to the world. He noticed that Darraun was staring at him. The artificer had barely smiled at Haldren’s humor. Gaven decided to ignore the stare and continue watching Haldren.

“Vaskar and I have discussed the Prophecy with Gaven,” Haldren continued. “We have learned much that is useful, and confirmed much that we already knew. We believe that Vaskar was correct, that the Time of the Dragon Above has begun, and the Eye of Siberys will soon fall from the sky.”

He paused for dramatic effect, clearly enjoying the attention of his companions. This was a man used to addressing crowds, Gaven realized, and used to having his pronouncements greeted with cheers.

“And so we are going to Aerenal,” Haldren announced.

“Aerenal?” the elf blurted. “That’ll take weeks!”

“We will not be riding, Senya,” Haldren said. “My magic will transport us now. We’ll rest this morning at an inn in Whitecliff, in Q’barra, do some business in the city, and tomorrow head on to Aerenal.”

“How soon do we depart, Lord General?” Cart asked.

“Immediately,” Haldren said. “Grab your pack and we will be on our way.”

“Should I clean up the campsite, remove our trail?” the warforged said.

“No. Let them find it. They’ll assume we’re still on the wing and look for us tomorrow within fifty miles of this site.” Haldren grinned. “And we will be over a thousand miles away.”

Senya left the cluster and retrieved her pack. Cart followed her example, while Darraun quickly rinsed an iron cooking pan in the surf. In a moment’s time, they returned and stood around Haldren, ready for him to work his magic.

Before he did, he addressed the group again. “I neglected to mention, my friends, that Vaskar will not be accompanying us to Aerenal. The elves hold an ancient grudge against dragonkind, and Vaskar would draw too much attention to our mission there. He will rejoin us later. Vaskar,” he said to the dragon, “thank you for your part in freeing me-and Gaven. Without you we would still be in Dreadhold.”

The dragon nodded almost imperceptibly, then glided over to the wyverns, which shifted nervously at his approach.

“Please join hands,” Haldren said, seizing Gaven’s left hand in his right and pulling him to his feet. Darraun took Gaven’s right hand and Cart’s left, and Senya connected Cart back to Haldren. With a smile around the little circle, Haldren began a brief incantation.

The last thing Gaven saw was Vaskar closing his jaws on the neck of a wyvern and tearing out its throat.

An instant of blackness laced with silver, then green, then they stood in a lush forest alive with the droning of insects, the songs of birds, and the screeches of monkeys greeting the dawn. In sharp contrast to the windswept coast they’d just left, the air was warm and heavy with humidity. The ground rose sharply in one direction, and peering through the broad leaves of the forest, Gaven caught a glimpse of white-capped mountains in the distance.

Haldren looked quickly around the little circle, then dropped Gaven’s hand.

“Welcome to Q’barra,” he said with a broad smile. “Whitecliff should be a short walk.” He glanced around to get his bearings, then waved his hand at a thinner patch of forest. “Downhill.”

“What are the chances someone will be looking for us there?” Senya asked. “Looking for you, I mean.”

“It’s almost inconceivable,” Haldren said. “They’ll be expecting us much closer to Dreadhold.”

“They know you’re a sorcerer,” Darraun said.

“True, but they can’t search a thousand-mile radius.”

“How many major settlements are there within a thousand miles of Dreadhold?” Senya said. “It seems likely they could narrow that search quite a bit.”

“Most of eastern Karrnath would have been in my reach. They don’t know our destination, so they have little reason to look in Q’barra.”

“Except that it’s been a haven for refugees and fugitives for seventy years,” Darraun said, frowning.

“True enough,” Haldren said. Gaven could see that he didn’t like having his pronouncements questioned, but he remained gracious. “We will exercise caution as we approach the town. They know what Gaven and I look like, of course, but they don’t know any of you. They’ll be looking for a dragon and people on wyverns. We have no dragon and no wyverns, so I do not anticipate any difficulty.”

The memory of Vaskar killing one of the wyverns flashed in Gaven’s mind.

Haldren started walking, ending the discussion by turning his back on Darraun-rather pointedly, Gaven thought. Senya followed without a moment’s hesitation, and Darraun trailed after. Cart lingered by Gaven.

“So you’re my faithful hound,” Gaven said to the warforged.

“Hound?”

“It’s your job to keep an eye on me, make sure I stay with the group?”

“It’s my job to keep an eye on everyone,” Cart said with a shrug. Gaven was struck at how human the warforged managed to seem, despite a face that was essentially a featureless plate of metal with a hinged jaw. Gaven nodded, and they walked shoulder to shoulder behind Darraun.

For all the concerns Senya and Darraun had expressed, the group walked out of the jungle and into Whitecliff with little difficulty. Apparently this frontier town was accustomed to people appearing out of the forest and strolling into town. Had they been lizardfolk of the sort that infested the jungle, Gaven was sure they would have been given a very different reception. A wall of white stone surrounded the town, presumably quarried from the cliffs of the Endworld Mountains just to the north and west that gave the town its name. The guards at the gate wore coats of metal scales and bristled with weapons. Each one carried a halberd and wore a sword, a dagger, and a crossbow. The sentries asked a few questions about their business and the length of their stay, but Haldren handled them with ease.

After a quarter-century in Dreadhold, Gaven felt overwhelmed by this first taste of civilization. The morning streets, lined with buildings made of the same chalky stone as the town’s walls, were crowded with people-thronging the marketplace, visiting the temples, opening shops for the day’s business. Considering the town’s location near the eastern edge of nowhere, it seemed awfully crowded to Gaven. Any one of these hundreds of faces could have been someone looking for them-a Sentinel Marshal or a Tharashk inquisitive. The dwarves made Gaven most nervous, reminding him of his jailers and making him wonder how many had ties to House Kundarak. The freedom he had tasted and savored at the campfire began to sour in his mouth. Looking constantly over his shoulder hardly seemed like freedom at all.

Haldren led them through the streets, leading Gaven to wonder how the Aundairian knew the place so well. That thought made Gaven realize he had no idea of the crime that had brought Haldren to Dreadhold. Had he spent time as a fugitive, hiding in the frontier of Q’barra before he was captured and imprisoned? What had he done that made them hunt him to the farthest reaches of Khorvaire? And to what lengths would they go to recapture him?

Probably the same lengths they’ll go for me, he thought, quickly surveying the faces in the crowd around him.

They reached a section of town where the stone buildings were dingy gray, and Haldren stepped through the doorway of a small hostel. A faded sign above the door showed only a unicorn that might once have been gold, but now looked dull brown. The door had been painted green a long time ago, but knives, fists, and armored shoulders had chipped away much of the color. The wooden floor inside was adorned with a frayed rug that displayed another yellow-brown unicorn marred with stains that made up a rainbow of unpleasant colors.