Troy Denning - The Siege

"Then there is no need to sacrifice a company of spell-blades to affix a magicstar to it," Kiinyon said. "If Shade Enclave is on our side, we need only ask them to lower it before the mythal is weakened."

Khelben's expression grew darker. "Matters are not so clear, I'm afraid." He glanced at Keya and the Vaasans, then took Lord Duirsar's arm and started for the stairs. "Perhaps we should discuss this in Cloudtop. There are difficult decisions to make, and you may have need of the Hill Elders' advice."

Keya bit her lip and managed to remain silent, even when Khelben started down the stairs with Kiinyon and Lord Duirsar.

Once they were out of sight, Dexon came to her side and wrapped a burly arm around her shoulders. "I'm sure Galaeron's all right," he said. "We'll ask later, after they've sorted out their strategy."

Keya nodded and squeezed Dexon's hand. "Thank you." She closed her eyes and raised her face toward the heavens. "I pray to Hanali that just this once, the Hill Elders will move with a speed more human than elf."

After just three days beneath the blazing Anauroch sun, Galaeron's tongue was swollen to the size of a rothй's. His head throbbed and his vision blurred unpredictably. His heart beat in slow, listless thumps that barely seemed to pump the viscous blood through his veins, and he was close enough to water to smell damp sandstone. Sometimes, through the screen of emerald foliage growing along the base of the cliff ahead, he even glimpsed a flash of rippling silver. Had Ruha not insisted that they pause to study the oasis before entering, he and Aris would have been at the pool already, doing their best to drink it dry.

Two minutes later, though, Aris and Ruha would have been dead and Galaeron on his way back to Shade Enclave in a pair of scaly claws.

It had taken Ruha only a few minutes of watching to realize the oasis was too quiet, there were no birds flitting through the treetops or hares scurrying through the underbrush. A few minutes later, Aris had spotted the dragon, a young blue tucked onto a hidden ledge just above the treetops, little more than its eyes and horns visible at one end and a tip of dangling tail at the other.

Galaeron motioned to his companions, and they slipped down behind the crest of the dune and retreated into the trough nearly four hundred feet below. There was no shade, so Aris dropped to his seat on the stolen shadow blanket, which lay folded on the face of the opposite dune. His eyes were glassy and sunken with dehydration, his lips cracking and his nostrils inflamed.

The giant glanced up at the midday sun, then said, "I need that water." His voice was a raw croak. "Even if I have to fight a dragon for it."

"The dragon will only be the beginning," Galaeron said. "It looks too small to have many spells, but 111 wager the Shadovar have arranged a way for it to communicate with Malygris."

"Maybe it has nothing to do with them," Aris said. "It seems like oases would be good places for young dragons to hunt."

"But not to guard," Ruha said. Though she had drank no more than a few swallows since their departure from Shade, her voice betrayed no sign of thirst. "Nothing will come while a dragon is here. When they are hunting, they must swoop in and take what they can. Otherwise, the silence of the birds betrays them."

Aris let his head drop. "I can't go another day," he said. "If I go in alone, maybe we can fool it"

"How many stone giants do you think there are wandering the desert?" Ruha asked. "If the dragon sees any of us, the Shadovar will realize we turned toward Cormyr instead of Evereska."

Aris glanced toward the crest of the dune, his eyes growing large and wild. "Then we have to kill it," he said. "We have to sneak up and kill it."

"You're sun sick, Aris," Galaeron said. "You can't sneak up on a dragon."

"There will be water in the Saiyaddar." Ruha stood and started south, walking on the trough's steep wall so the slope would collapse and slide down to cover her tracks. "We will be there soon. It is not far." Aris groaned and buried his face in his arms. "Come on," Galaeron said. "Ill take the shadow blanket"

Aris raised his head high enough to fix a single eye on Galaeron. "It is twice your size. How can you carry it?"

Galaeron pulled a strand of shadowsilk from his cloak and began to fashion it into a circle. "How do you think?"

"No!" Aris boomed the word sharply enough to loose a small avalanche on the slope behind Galaeron. "No shadow magic."

Ruha spun around. "Are you trying to call the dragon down on us?" She glared at the giant for a moment, then looked to Galaeron. "Leave the blanket. It is too heavy and hot for him to carry."

"It's proof," Galaeron said as he began to twist the ends of his shadowsilk together, "and I'm not leaving it."

"Then I'm carrying it." Aris stood and slung the huge blanket over his shoulder. "Because you're not casting another shadow spell."

With no place to hide from the sun and concerned about attracting vultures and giving away their position even if they did stop, the trio spent the rest of the day marching south. Every so often, Ruha would climb to the crest of a dune to study the terrain and search the sky for signs of pursuing dragons, then wave her companions up behind her and lead them eastward in a mad dash over one dune crest after another. The effort never seemed to tire the witch, but Galaeron and Aris would grow so weary after a dozen or so crossings that their legs gave out and left them crawling on their hands and knees.

Galaeron spent much of that time seething over Vala's desertion, relishing the prospect of the vengeance he would extract on Telamont for refusing to intervene with Escanor, and plotting how he would emphasize the prince's part in the melting of the High Ice.

The Shadovar had betrayed him, had stolen Vala away and made her turn a blind eye to the promise she had sworn to him, and for that they would pay. For that, he would expose their true nature to the world, reveal how they were melting the High Ice and upsetting the weather all along the Sword Coast. What that decision might mean for Evereska, Galaeron did not even consider. Shade Enclave had its own reasons for destroying the phaerimm, and his departure was unlikely to have any impact on their plans.

Finally, as the afternoon shadows began to extend their stretch toward evening, they crested a dune and found themselves looking over a vast prairie of pale green grasslands. In the distance, the brown blot of a gazelle herd was slowly drifting over the purple horizon, while the rest of the plain was speckled with the tiny flecks of foraging birds. Scattered here and there along the course of a dry riverbed were the puffy crowns of several dozen big cottonwood trees.

"Skoraeus strike me now!" Aris cursed. "The river is as dry as bones."

"Only on the surface." Ruha slipped over the crest of the dune and started down the other side. "There is water underneath."

"Underneath?" Aris cast a longing look north toward the cliffs where they had left the young dragon. "How far underneath?" "Not far," Ruha said, waving the giant after her. "You have said that before," Aris observed.

Despite his protests, the giant raced down the dune past the witch and started across the plain. "Aris! Wait until dark!" Ruha called. "The birds!"

She was too late-and even had she not been, it was doubtful that the giant would have stopped. With the heavy shadow blanket still draped over his shoulders, he started for the riverbed in long, booming strides that sent a cloud of startled birds screeching and cackling into the sky. Ruha looked to the north. "How close do you think-"

"Too close," Galaeron said. "I have heard blue dragons brag that they pick meals in the Sharaedim from a roost in the Greycloaks." "You speak with dragons?" Ruha asked.