He glanced over at Murgholm again. The Vaasan was slumped down over the huge rock, as if he'd decided to simply lay his head down to sleep. Dead or unconscious, it didn't matter. He clearly couldn't help. But just in case he might still be saved, Erzimar quickly barked out the words to a spell that disintegrated the massive rock pinning the swordsman. Murgholm slid nervelessly to the rubble-strewn floor.
I should have thought of that at once! the wizard berated himself.
"Erzimar, quickly!" Gethred shouted.
"Selran, see to Murgholm," Erzimar barked.
The ranger stood unmoving, his face streaked with dust from the cave-in, his eyes wide and blank. The wizard ignored the ranger, fumbled with his belt pouch for a moment, and found a small tube of lacquered wood. He twisted off its top and drew out a scroll.
"One moment," he called to Gethred.
Isildra's screams and the venomous hissing of the dragon still continued overhead, but Erzimar forced the sounds from his consciousness and skillfully and steadily read the spell recorded on the scroll.
"Erzimar!" Gethred cried.
"We can fly!" the wizard shouted. "After the monster, quickly!"
Without waiting for the others, he willed himself into the air, darting up the narrow, twisting crevice to the sound of the fighting above. Gethred followed, a little more awkwardly, as did Bragor, his warhammer in hand. Selran stood unmoving below.
The crevice widened out into the floor of a larger cavern, a broad ledge or gallery with plenty of room for the dragon to spy down on creatures picking their way into its lair along the steep-sided path below. Erzimar whirled, expecting the dragon behind him-but there was Isildra, crumpled awkwardly on the stone floor, her head twisted around over her shoulder in a horrible manner, neck snapped. Yet her screams still echoed through the chamber, and the dragon's hissing rage as well.
A simple illusion.
"Watch out!" Erzimar cried to his companions. "We've been deceived!"
From the shadows of a deep cleft nearby, the dragon's cold, high-pitched voice whispered the words of another arcane spell-a spell of dismissing. Erzimar's magic lingered a heartbeat before unweaving all at once. He yelped, and plummeted back down into the crevice, his flying spell gone. Bragor fell as well, but Gethred was close enough to the edge of the crevice to catch himself on the edge, though his sword went clattering down into the depths.
Erzimar hit the far wall first full upon his back. His skull bounced from the stone, giving him a brief instant of merciful blackness, then he turned over in the air, struck the other wall, half-turned again, and landed badly in the uneven rubble at the bottom of the crevice. His right arm snapped like a twig, pinned between two stones. He screamed.
"Ah, that iss a pleasant ssound," Serpestrillvyth hissed from overhead. The dragon stalked back out into view over Gethred, who clung with both hands to the edge of the crevice. It ran its long forked tongue over its bloody fangs and moved close to the half-elf warrior. "You are not sso bold now, are you, my friend?"
Gethred glanced down to where his sword gleamed in the passage below. Hanging from the edge, he was completely helpless before the dragon.
"I'll show you bold," he spat.
Gethred he let himself drop. The warrior took the first impact well, bending his knees and glancing away from the wall, but his balance was thrown off. He cartwheeled in the air and landed on the uneven floor on his side with a sickening crunch. He grunted once and slid spinning into the awkward V of the crevice bottom, near where Bragor lay motionless.
The sword was a good six feet from his fingertips.
The dragon laughed again, and began to pick its way back down into the lower passage.
"You have courage, warrior. But your rashness hass undone you."
Erzimar pushed himself upright with his good arm. His back hurt horribly-likely broken as well-and he found himself staring at a white sliver of bone that stuck out from the side of his boot near his ankle. His head swam, but he could still cast a spell. He looked toward Gethred, and their eyes met in the darkness of the cavern.
"I can't rise, Erzimar," the half-elf whispered. He tried to grope his way toward the sword blade, but groaned and fell back. "Save yourself if you can, my friend. There is no shame in it."
Erzimar held the half-elfs gaze, and nodded. He could teleport-it only took a word-but he could never reach any of the others with his limbs broken. Numb with shock, he saw no other alternative.
"Selran," he gasped. "Come close if you want to live. I can teleport us away from here, but you must take my hand."
He reached out to the ranger.
Serpestrillvyth coiled down into the passageway. Its bright green scales gleamed in the dim light, and its eyes danced with malice. It cocked its head sideways, looking at the tracker.
"Kill the wizard," it said.
Eyes glazed, the ranger raised his bow, drawing the arrow's red fletching back to his ear. Erzimar stared up at Selran in horror, understanding finally that the ranger was not a coward, was not petrified with fear, but instead was enslaved by the dragon's enchantments, helpless to do anything unless Serpestrillvyth commanded it. Erzimar hesitated for one awful moment before he managed to begin speaking his spell.
"I can't stop it," the ranger sobbed. "Gods help me, I can't!"
His fingers parted, and the bowstring sang.
Erzimar grunted, and looked down at the arrow quivering in his breastbone. A deep hot hurt welled up in the center of his chest, and he reached up to pluck at the arrow, only to find his arm didn't work.
Did Serpestrillvyth dominate him when it took the Sundered Shields? he wondered dully. Or did it enslave him before that even, and use Selran to lead the previous company to their doom?
He tried to speak, to ask the ranger which it was, but soft darkness stole up from the floor and quieted his questions in its empty embrace.
The ranger stood weeping, his bow still clutched in his hand. The dragon hissed softly in pleasure and slowly slithered closer, bringing its great scaled head close to Selran's face.
"Ah, Sselran. Why do you weep? I did this, not you, little archer."
"Kill me," the ranger whispered. "Oh, by all the gods, kill me and have done with it."
"Kill you? When you have proven sso useful to me? No, I think I will renew my enchantmentss. You will sserve me a long time yet."
Serpestrillvyth coiled around the ranger, tracing its claw over Selran's heart.
"Now, go back to Pelldith Lake and tell them how these brave fellowss met such a poor end. Tell them they should ssend for more heroes, more dragonslay-erss, for I will be hungry in a tenday or two."
WAYLAID
Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR)
"You can't just go traipsing through Silverymoon Pass by yourself, girl! I don't care what sort of package you have to deliver, or to whom. It's the middle of winter! If an avalanche doesn't kill you, the beasts will! No book is worth all that."
Those words-delivered at Lynaelle Dawn-mantle's back as she had walked out the door of the Silverlode Arms two days previous-had seemed innocuous to the girl. But caught near the summit of the pass in a howling, stinging blizzard, with a huge white dragon rearing above her, Lynaelle realized with sudden clarity just how foolish she had been to ignore the proprietor's admonitions.
She desperately wished she was still sitting in the common room of the Silverlode, enjoying one of Hostwyn Bramblemark's fine meat-and-mushroom pies. Instead, gaping jaws of icy white descended toward the half-elf wizard from out of the swirling curtain of snow, a massive, tooth-lined cavern of a mouth that very easily could engulf her whole, and was just about to.