Finally the three enemies gave up. Finally they headed east.
“I’m safe,” Fiona said to herself. As the little girl had been when Fiona found her in the clearing, the female Knight was all alone.
The child sat on a mountainous rocky ledge, feet dangling over the side and legs idly kicking. She was a few hundred feet above a winding trail, looking down on a small merchant caravan and debating whether she should pay them a visit in her Ergothian seductress guise. There might be something inside one of their wagons that would please her master, and perhaps something that might also please her.
The shadow dragon lay deep inside the mountain, sleeping. He had been sleeping more than usual, his waking intervals shorter. Late yesterday afternoon, he spoke to her only briefly before he fell into one of his fitful slumbers that sent tremors through the chain. It was twilight now, and he still hadn’t awoken.
She watched the wagons until they disappeared from sight, wondering if she had allowed an exotic, tasty morsel or an especially pretty bauble to elude her. She watched as the sky darkened and the stars slowly winked into view. Everything here in Throt was dry and boring. The craggy brown mountains looked like the spine of some massive, dead beast. The air smelled like… nothing. No hint of rain. Nura missed the damp and suffocating warmth of the swamp with its tang of rotting vegetation and assortment of hideous and beautiful beasts. There were birds here, but so little variety to them, all blacks and browns, all with the same annoying chirp. There were lizards—small ones with curly tails, but most of them the drab color of the mountains. Nothing tasty about them.
If Dhamon had not been so seditious, she and the shadow dragon would still be basking in the glorious swamp. If Maldred had been more trustworthy… if only she had anticipated that there would be a problem with that fool.
She brooded about Maldred until the sky lightened and the rocks shuddered beneath her. She jumped to her feet, ran to a wide slash in the mountain. Standing just inside of the opening, she shed her child image and slithered inside the dusty cave as the snake Nura Bint-Drax.
There was scant luster left on the dragon’s scales, and he looked more gray than black.
“Master,” she intoned. “I live to serve you.” Nura Bint-Drax coiled low in front of the shadow dragon, not daring to move again until she felt the ground rumble in response. Then she raised herself high, resting back on her tail, hood flaring far back and eyes wide with pleasure. “Your plan is working?
Tell me, master.” Nura didn’t try to conceal her excitement. “You expected all this. You anticipated it. It is all part of your plan to force Dhamon Grimwulf to slay Sable?”
The dragon shook his massive head, barbels thrumming across the floor. His breath quickened, and the breeze from it struck Nura hot in the face. “Not exactly. I have discovered another way to produce the energy I need to live,” the dragon said.
Nura Bint-Drax slithered back a respectful distance, able to see more of the beautiful shadow dragon from this safer vantage point. This cave was not so dark as the one in the swamp, and that was the only good thing about it as far as she was concerned. She could get a better view of the shadow dragon.
“Khellendros, called Skie by men,” the shadow dragon began. “He once tried to craft a body for his love, Kitiara. Word among the dragons was he initially hoped to place her spirit in the body of a blue spawn. When that failed, he tried to rob Malys of her soul, intending to let Kitiara step into the body of the Red.”
The snake-woman’s eyes sparkled in fascination. “More, master. Tell me more.” Such tales, known only by dragons, were what Nura lived for.
“Khellendros might have succeeded, had things fallen into place properly. But I will succeed with Dhamon Grimwulf. I will not make Khellendros’ mistakes.”
“I don’t understand.” Nura Bint-Drax furrowed her brow, thinking. Dhamon was supposed to kill Sable, so the shadow dragon, whose physical form was dying, could use his magic to transfer his spirit inside the Black’s body.
“You forget, I can hear your thoughts,” the dragon rumbled with a rare chuckle. The dragon stretched as much as was comfortable within the confines of the cave, drawing a talon out toward the naga and scratching at the stony floor. “No, that was never the intent, Nura Bint-Drax. Dhamon… and the others I was cultivating… the best specimen was going to house my spirit when this body deteriorated. Dhamon has proven the strongest. He has adapted best to my magic. He is the one.”
“But Sable….?” The bewilderment was clear on her face.
“Sable was always just a means to an end. I intended to use the energy released from the overlord’s death to help power my spell. I am dying, Nura Bint-Drax. Living inside Dhamon’s shell is my best recourse.”
She gasped. “So it is Dhamon’s body that will save you!”
“Yes.”
“Your spirit will displace his.”
The dragon gave a slight nod. “Energy from the god Chaos birthed me, and energy from the dragons’ deaths in the Abyss nurtured me. Magic expended from the deaths during the dragonpurge strengthened me. And now…”
“I see. The energy from Sable’s death will help you live in the body of Dhamon Grimwulf.” Nura searched the dragon’s visage and saw her reflection in its dull eyes. She hung her head ruefully. “I would have gladly housed your spirit, master,” she said. “I would have gladly—”
“I know,” the shadow dragon returned, “but you are more valuable, to me, and to this world. Dhamon can be sacrificed.”
This pleased the naga, and she glided forward to caress the shadow dragon’s jaw. “Tell me more, please,” she entreated. “What are your plans? What should I do? What must we do to Dhamon Grimwulf?”
“At the moment, protect him.”
The shadow dragon briefly closed his eyes, and she feared he would fall into a deep sleep again, but he merely was taking pleasure from her ministrations. After a few moments his eyes again bathed the cave with their dull yellow glow.
“There is some interesting magic in the ogre-mage Maldred,” the dragon said, “and in the weapons he and Dhamon carry. There is magic in the wingless sivak. The deaths of Maldred and the sivak should release the necessary energy, combined with the destruction of enchanted trinkets I have gathered since the Chaos War.”
“Will that be enough?” Nura Bint-Drax asked skeptically.
“Not so much as the magic that beats in Sable’s heart,” the dragon quickly returned, its words sending more tremors through the rock. “But I only half-expected Dhamon to slay Sable. I had to buy time until his body was ready for my spirit. The magic will have to be enough. Meanwhile we will gather more to be certain.”
“Oh, I see. How very clever, master. We will begin with the horde hidden away in the Knights of Neraka’s stronghold in the Dargaard Mountains!” Nura had wondered why, when first they arrived in Throt, the shadow dragon had asked her to capture a Knight from those mountains and bring him to this cave.
“Yes. From that stronghold. The Knight has… told me of their vault.”
“Will it be difficult to obtain, master?”
“Not for you, my Nura.”
They left the following evening, when dusk overtook Throt and before the stars came out in the sky.
The dragon looked like a dark rain cloud moving swiftly with the wind. Nura rode on his back in her Ergothian female form. It wasn’t her favorite guise, but at times it well suited her purpose, and the human arms and legs were useful in gripping the dragon’s neck. It felt cold this high above the earth, and Nura endured no little measure of unaccustomed discomfort. She found herself wishing for the frail human trappings of furs.