“Fried ham,” said Balasar. “If your friend Torm truly takes a benevolent interest in the affairs of mortals, then let him prove it by providing fried ham.”
Medrash gave him a sour look. “The Loyal Fury has nothing to prove to you or anyone. And you might want to remember that giants have been known to build fires of their own.”
“And that smoke sometimes rises from holes in the ground in this foul kingdom,” Khouryn said. “Still, that does look like it’s coming from somebody’s campfires. Let’s find out.” He pointed to the left. “If we swing that way, we can come up on high ground overlooking whatever there is to see. And if it’s giants, we’ll be far enough away to disappear before they can bother us.”
Medrash nodded. “Onward.”
On the way up, rocks slid and clattered under the hooves of Khouryn’s mare, and for a moment he feared the tired beast was going to fall. She didn’t, though. She regained her footing and carried him up onto the ridge with his companions.
Where the view was well worth seeing. Although tiny with distance, the figures in the camp below were plainly dragonborn. He felt a surge of elation, which faded when he noticed his companions didn’t appear to share it.
Their attitude was a peculiar mix of emotions. Like him, they were relieved. But also surprised, and to varying degrees disgusted.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
For a moment no one replied, as if the answer was shameful. Then Medrash said, “Look at the banner.”
Khouryn did. The black flag had a silvery squiggle on it. Trying to make out what it represented, he squinted, then blinked in surprise. “Is that a dragon?”
“Yes,” the paladin said. “And as you’ve heard, dragons are the tyrants who held our ancestors as slaves. Yet there are those among us who preach that we’re kin to wyrms and that we should celebrate that kinship and forget the ancient debt of blood.”
Khouryn decided he’d just learned whom dragonborn spat at in the street.
“Or to put it another way,” Balasar said, “they fixated on one of the gods of this new world-Bahamut, is that what they call him?-the same way you did.”
Medrash glared. “If anyone but a clan brother made that comparison, I’d challenge him.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I am one.”
“So anyway,” Khouryn said, “these… cultists?”
“They call themselves the Platinum Cadre,” Balasar said.
“So anyway, this Platinum Cadre apparently fielded its own company to fight the ash giants. And we need help. So I assume we’re going down there, even if you find their creed objectionable.”
Medrash sighed. “We have no choice.” He urged his horse down the slope that led to the camp. Everyone else followed.
Khouryn rode beside Balasar. “He’s really not happy, is he?”
“No,” Balasar replied. “When the giants defeated us and killed so many, he put the blame on himself. And needing to ask dragon-lovers for help? That’s yet another disgrace. You can see that everybody else feels it too, although not as keenly. The rest of us are a little less fanatical about our honor and a little more interested in getting off Black Ash Plain alive.”
The dragonborn of the Platinum Cadre gathered to watch the riders approach. The majority wore mismatched bits of armor or none at all. Some carried axes intended for chopping wood and spears designed for hunting boar. A number had only round little scars where their piercings should have been.
They all stared, and Khouryn discerned that a good deal of their curiosity focused on himself. But he didn’t sense anything hostile about it.
Two dragonborn stepped forth from the crowd to greet the newcomers.
The one on the left was a big warrior with crimson scales, and scars where, at some point in the past, a blade had hacked away some of the frills around his left cheek and ear. Three silver chains dangled from the studs pierced into his lower jaw like a sparse, clinking excuse for a beard. Judging from the expert workmanship of his plate, Khouryn thought it likely that one of his own people’s armorers had made it. The deep blue surcoat bore the platinum-colored head of a dragon.
The one on the right was a female. Her brown hide was freckled with gold, with a pale, puckered spot on the left side of her brow ridge to show where she’d once carried her piercing. She wore a dark purple robe embroidered with silvery sigils and held the shadow-wood staff of a spellcaster. Unlike most dragonborn of either gender, who generally gave the impression of massive solidity, she swayed lithely, ever so slightly, as she swiveled her head to study the riders one at a time.
“Well met,” said Medrash, and whatever his true feelings, his tone was respectful. “Clan Daardendrien and Sir Khouryn Skulldark, our trusted ally, request assistance.”
“You’ll have it,” the warrior replied. “I’m Shestendeliath Patrin. I’m in command here. This is Yrjixtilex Nala, my lieutenant.”
“It’s just Nala now,” the wizard said.
“The day will come,” Patrin said, “when your clan will be proud to take you back.”
“I pray you’re right,” said Nala, “but either way it’s the last thing these people care about. Climb down from your horses, friends. By the looks of you, you need water, food, and rest. Perhaps the aid of a healer as well.”
“Thank you.” Khouryn clambered down off his steed.
“I understand supplies are hard to come by in this wasteland,” Medrash said. “But if you can do anything for our horses, that will place us even deeper in your debt.”
“Of course,” Patrin said. “We’re mostly a company of foot soldiers, but we have a few horses and feed for them in the supply carts. We can spare a little.”
As it turned out, breakfast wasn’t ham. It was lukewarm gruel, biscuits that needed the mold trimmed off the edges, and strips of jerky. But it was filling, and even Balasar appeared content with it.
Nala and Patrin sat at the dying fire along with Khouryn and the Daardendriens. At first the pair kept quiet and let the newcomers eat in peace. But as they were finishing up, the warrior in the blue surcoat said, “I know there must have been more than six of you when you rode onto Black Ash Plain. I’m sorry if it’s a painful subject, but what happened to the rest?”
Where Medrash was concerned, “painful” was surely an understatement. But he also no doubt recognized that a fellow defender of Tymanther, even a member of the Platinum Cadre, both needed and had a right to the information. He told the story of the fall of the bat, and of all that followed, in a calm, clear manner.
“So you see,” he concluded, “the ash giants have learned new tricks. They’re even more dangerous than they were before. And I hope you won’t take it badly if I repay your hospitality by presuming to give you some advice.”
Nala smiled. Even sitting cross-legged in the dirt, the skirt of her robe puddled around her, she still had the trick of swaying almost imperceptibly from side to side. “You don’t need to,” she told Medrash. “We can guess what you’re going to say. If a company of Daardendrien’s finest couldn’t defeat the giants, then plainly we perverse, crazy outcasts have no hope of doing so.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Medrash replied. “I don’t share your beliefs and never could, but I wouldn’t answer kindness with an insult. What I will say is that most of your troops are nowhere near as well armed as Sir Patrin. Some don’t appear in the best of health. I’ll hazard a guess that those same fellows haven’t spent much time in the training yard in recent years, nor has your company had much opportunity to drill together as a unit. So perhaps you’re not ready to march deep into enemy territory. Maybe you could better serve Tymanther by garrisoning a post along the border.”