Just then, Rikali slipped, the cane flying from her fingers and clattering over the edge. Dhamon pulled back on the reins, stopping the horses before they could trample her. Spitting and cursing, she picked herself up and brushed at the mud on her back. The half-elf looked up at Maldred and vehemently shook her head. Her long white hair was plastered against the sides of her body, streaked with mud. "It's like a damn stream ahead!" she hollered. "Pigs, but water is gushing down it. It's too slippery. We'll have to stop."
"Fetch!" Dhamon gestured to the kobold.
Muttering all the way, the small creature clambered down from the wagon and skidded toward the half-elf, falling twice before he reached her. He glanced down the merchant trail that continued to wind its way along the edge of the Kalkhists, his red eyes looking like tiny beacons through the gray sheet of rain. He skidded past Rikali and glanced around the next curve, scowled, and looked up, squinting as the rain pounded against his face.
"She's right. It's pretty bad," he called to Dhamon. "But waiting ain't gonna help." He pointed. "No sign of this letting up anytime soon. Only gonna get worse."
The big man gestured down the trail, and Rikali and Fetch moved slowly ahead, stopping at the bend to wait for the wagon to catch up, and guiding the horses around the next outcropping. It was difficult going, as a significant portion of the trail was washing away, and what was left was barely wide enough for the wagon. When the wagon rounded another curve, Fetch let out a whoop. His feet flew out from underneath him. Hands flailing in the air, the kobold slipped toward the edge.
Rikali grabbed his bony wrist just as his body shot over the side. She let him dangle in the air for a moment, treasuring the terror-filled look on his face before hauling him to safety and hoisting him up on the back of one of the horses. "Worthless," she muttered, turning and resuming her task as solo guide. "You are completely worthless, Fetch."
What would have taken them only a few hours, took them nearly the entire day and almost resulted in a catastrophe when a wheel slipped off the trail. It required Rig, Fiona, and Dhamon to set it back on.
They camped that night on a small plateau that was free of mud-the rain had washed all the earth away, revealing a layer of slate that gleamed slickly black when the moon made a brief visit. The rain was also threatening to dislodge the few saplings that sprouted from the cracks in the cliff face. The small trees were whipping about unmercifully in the wind that had picked up and that was driving the rain nearly horizontally.
The deluge continued throughout the night, lessening with the morning and then increasing again at sunset. The sky was masked with clouds, billowy and dark and rumbling with constant thunder. Occasionally the ground shook beneath them, and though it was not as threatening as the earlier tremors, it unnerved Fetch, Rikali, and Mal-dred. Dhamon remained impassive to the weather and small quakes.
Rig and Fiona kept to themselves for the most part, and Dhamon managed to avoid their company by losing himself in Rikali's arms. The half-elf was suspicious enough to wonder why Dhamon had become so devoted all of a sudden. She couldn't help but notice the mariner's eyes narrow every time she kissed Dhamon.
"I know you love your brother," Rig said in a low voice to Fiona. "But I don't think he'd approve of this. Hell, I don't approve." They sat side by side on a flat rock, inured to the rain. "Keeping company with these people, heading to Bloten. That's the heart of ogre country. It doesn't feel right. And it's damn dangerous."
"I need to raise a ransom, Rig. How else can I get it? These… people… are my best chance. I have nothing- through the years I've tithed it all to the order. You haven't enough. And you haven't a better idea."
The mariner snorted and draped an arm around her shoulders, frowning when she didn't sag against him as she usually did. Her posture was as stiff as her armor. Water trickled out from between gaps in the plates and spilled over the lips of her boots. "I don't trust Dhamon. And what about this man Maldred? We know nothing about him other than that he's a thief."
"I recall you telling me you were a thief once."
The mariner shook his head, grinding his heel against the slate. "That was a lifetime ago, Fiona. Feels like it anyway. And I wasn't a thief. I was a pirate. There's a big difference. At least to me there is."
"Those whom you stole from might disagree." She sighed and softened her tone. "Look, Rig, I really need to raise this ransom. And soon. This is my best idea. Maybe if there was more time… but there isn't. His life is at stake."
"Do you really think this draconian will be waiting around for us?"
"He told the Solamnic Council he was stationed in Takar."
"And you trust him?"
She shrugged. "What choice do I have? Besides, there's no reason he'd lie to the council about his whereabouts if he really wanted to collect some treasure for Sable. And there's no reason he would've approached the council about a ransom in the first place if the dragon wasn't interested in adding to her horde."
"And if you can manage to raise the ransom, and get to Takar, you've still got to find this draconian. I'd wager there are quite a few draconians and spawn there."
She let out a deep breath. "That, I'm certain, will be the easy part. I will recognize him, Rig. I know it. His name is Olarg, and the scar was singular."
"Fine. So you're sure you can find him. And are you as certain this draconian will simply hand over your brother for a big sack of…"
"I've no alternative but to believe it. And Dhamon and Maldred are our best chance of raising the coin. Maybe our only chance. My brother must be set free. Then we can put all of this behind us and be married."
Rig raised his eyebrows and leaned forward to look into her face. She was watching the bare-chested Maldred, who was resting against the wagon, his face tipped up into the rain.
"And what about Dhamon? After this is all over-one way or the other?"
"Dhamon needs us to believe in him, and you know it. He needs another chance. He's a good man, Rig. Deep down. Too good to cart off to prison, no matter what he's done recently."
Her words genuinely surprised him. "Doesn't sound like you, Fiona. I thought you told me justice demands people pay for their wrongs."
"Justice," she repeated. "Where's the justice in this world? My brother is in Shrentak. And Dhamon is going to help me get him released. That's the justice I want-my brother free. Besides, Dhamon is really a good man. Deep down good."
I'm a good man, too, the mariner thought ruefully, as he picked a spot on the ground and settled down for another drenched and sleepless night.
Two days later, the rain still falling, though more gently now, they stood at the gates of Bloten, a once-great city nestled high in the Kalkhists, the mountains ringing it like a spiky crown.
A crumbling wall nearly forty feet high wrapped around the ancient capital. In sections it had collapsed, the gaps alternately filled with boulders piled high and mortared in place, and with timbers driven deep into the rocky ground and held together with bands of rusted iron. Across the top where the walls seemed in the worst repair, spears were jabbed in, angled outward and inward.
"Broken glass and caltrops are spread across the top everywhere," Fetch informed the mariner. "For the purpose of keeping the uninvited out."
"Or to keep everyone in," the dark man returned. "It looks like an enormous prison to me."
Atop a barbican that seemed so weathered it might crumble at any time, stood two grizzled ogres. Stoop-shouldered and wart-riddled, their gray-green hides slick with rain, they glowered down at the small entourage. The larger had a snaggly tooth that protruded up at an odd angle from his bottom jaw. A dark purple tongue snaked out to wrap around it. He growled something and thumped his spiked club against his shield, then growled again, issuing a string of guttural words lost on all save Maldred and Dhamon.