“Dwarves are comfortable in caves. Guess it was too tempting.”
Rig was weary as well, but he was reluctant to allow the conversation to die. “It’s dark back there,” he said.
Fiona giggled. “Dwarves see very well in the dark. Where have you been all your life, Rig Mer-Krel?”
“On a ship mostly. No dwarves at sea.” She edged a little closer, and Rig felt the welcome warmth of her arm against his, then noticed her frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
She held up a small bowl-shaped piece of armor, one that was supposed to fit over her knee. “It’s dented. All that jostling around in the sack. I didn’t have anything to pad it with.”
The mariner reached to take it. His fingers brushed against hers, lingering, then finally moving to the metal, gently plucking it from her. “Shouldn’t be too hard to fix.” He turned his face toward hers. She was strong, as Shaon had been. But she wasn’t Shaon. She wasn’t a substitute for her, either. She was a knight: rigid, structured, and everything he wasn’t. But she was compelling in her own way. Red hair the color of sunset framed her face. And she was so very close.
Fiona turned her face close to his, raising her lips. He felt her breath against his cheek.
“Rig! Get out here. Hurry!” Feril stood in the cave entrance.
“You found Dhamon?” The mariner pushed himself to his feet, handing Fiona the armor piece.
The Kagonesti shook her head. “No. I lost all trace of him. But I found trouble.”
Feril led them up a steep rise, difficult to climb. The Kagonesti moved fast, waiting for them at the top. She didn’t give them time to catch their breath, however, as she led them through an uncomfortably narrow gap in the mountains.
From their cramped vantage point they stared out over a gravelly slope and into a small scrub-dotted valley painted orange by the setting sun. More than two dozen creatures the color of flame meandered across the floor, stopping to poke at patches of dirt and craning their necks to spy into crevices.
“Red spawn?” Fiona whispered.
Feril nodded. “I’ve never seen any like these before, but Palin told me they existed.”
“Probably Malystryx’s brood,” Rig said.
The creatures’ legs looked like columns of fire; their scalloped wings were the color of blood, their faces humanoid, with protruding jaws. A spiked ridge ran from the tops of their heads to the tips of their tails. The creatures looked similar to the blue spawn Rig and Feril had battled months past in Khellendros’s desert, but their shoulders were broader and their chests more muscular. Even from this distance they looked more intimidating than the blues.
“They breathe fire,” Feril said. “I saw one burn a bush just by opening its mouth.”
“Too many for the three of us.” Fiona kept her voice down. “But with Jasper and Groller, and Fury, maybe we could take them.”
“But what about the others?” Rig gestured toward the end of the small valley, where a dozen more red spawn milled about. Then he pointed to a crevice on the slope across from them. It was a cave opening, and other spawn were standing in the shadows. “Mountain’s crawlin’ with them. Bet they’re looking for Dhamon.”
Feril’s voice grew even softer. “There are a couple more not too far below us. They’re coming up. We can’t stay here long or they’ll see us. Dhamon doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Maybe they’re not after Dhamon.” Fiona tapped Rig’s shoulder. “You said Dhamon was being controlled by the red dragon. If that’s the case, the red dragon wouldn’t send her brood out looking for him, would she? She’d know exactly where he was.”
“Then what do you think they’re after?” Rig asked.
Fiona shrugged.
A dozen spawn in the center of the small valley were conferring, gesturing with long arms, sharp claws glinting. One of them pointed up toward the crevice.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” Feril suggested.
A half-dozen spawn took to the air just as Rig, Feril, and Fiona scrambled out of their hiding place. They hurried down the rocky slope, half-running, half-sliding, gravel rolling all around them. Their hands became scratched and blistered as they reached out to keep themselves from falling.
“Think they saw us?” Fiona asked.
“Maybe,” Rig grunted.
“Yes,” Feril insisted. The Kagonesti pointed up at a pair of red spawn who had materialized above them.
“Damn,” the mariner swore. “They’re fast.” He drew his cutlass. “Get back to the cave!”
There was a hiss of another blade being drawn. “I’ll fight alongside you,” Fiona declared. She glared up at the creatures.
“Come on, both of you!” Feril spat. “You’re too much in the open here.”
Fiona and Rig started to run, but by the time the cave mouth came into sight, a third spawn had joined the chase.
“Inside!” Feril darted inside the cave mouth.
Rig and Fiona took up a position just outside the mouth.
“Inside!” the Kagonesti repeated. “Rig, don’t argue with me. Hurry!”
The mariner was too busy plucking daggers from his waistband. He held three in his left hand, clutching the cutlass in his right. One of the three spawn was diving at him as he loosed the daggers.
The daggers passed through a ball of flame that erupted from the spawn’s mouth. The fire engulfed the spot that Rig and Fiona had vacated moments before.
“Couldn’t see if I scratched ’im,” Rig huffed as he slid into the cave a second after Fiona.
The Solamnic knight risked a glance. “I can’t tell. But all of them are still out there. And there’s more of them coming.”
“We’re sitting targets,” the mariner snapped. “Gonna be cooked worse than that boar in the village.”
Feril was hugging the shadows, her fingers splayed against the rock. She felt its coolness, its smooth and rough textures. Once before she had merged her senses with the stone floor—in Khellendros’s cave several months ago—causing the rock to run like water and flood the blue dragon’s guards. Now, once again, the stone felt liquid, pliable as clay. She began to shape it with her mind.
“Move,” she whispered to it. “Flow like a river.” She poured out her strength. Her senses separated from her body and merged into the cave wall. “Move. Flow,” she ordered.
Rig darted outside again, released three more daggers at the lead spawn. This time he knew he hit the mark. The creature bellowed and clutched its chest, flapping its wings furiously to stay aloft. Its claws frantically grasped at the hilts. It screamed once, then exploded in a great ball of orange flame. Though he was several yards away, the mariner’s skin blistered.
Two spawn immediately behind closed the distance and landed just outside the cave. Rig slashed at the one on the right, slicing through red scales, and drawing a line of brighter red blood along the spawn’s abdomen.
Fiona was suddenly to his left, thrusting forward with her sword. She heard the creature inhale, felt the rush of heated air, then heard the crackle of fire above her. She leapt forward, barreling into the spawn, knocking it back, and narrowly avoiding the ball of fire it had loosed behind her.
The mariner wasn’t so lucky. His spawn opened its mouth and breathed, just as the mariner plastered himself against the side of the cave entrance. Rig felt the searing heat against his legs. He screamed and dropped his cutlass, batting at the flames. Then he screamed again as red-hot claws raked his back. The spawn had jumped on top of him and was pressing him to the ground.
“Rig?” Fiona risked a glance over her shoulder as she brought her sword up to defend against her antagonist.
“I’m all right,” the mariner said between clenched teeth, as he pushed up, managing to knock his spawn off balance. His fingers fumbled at his waist for more daggers, tugging them free, and he hurled them without further delay. One struck his spawn in the chest. The other two flew wide of their mark.
“Rig, Fiona! Get in the cave!” Feril called. “Now!”