“Poison!” She felt a stab of realization, of deep pain. “The vile creatures poisoned you!” She spat on the oil on her fingers and wiped them off thoroughly on the grass. Then she spat on her fingers again and again, wiping them furiously on her tunic. The pain persisted but spread no farther, and she clenched and unclenched her fist as she climbed onto Dhamon’s snout and put her ear to a cavernous nostril. Her heart leaped. There was the faintest hint of emission, he breathed only very slightly, and she cursed herself for being a fool and thinking him dead. She splayed her hands wide on the ridge of his snout.
“Dhamon, I pray I have not dallied too long to save you.” Once again the magical spark blossomed inside of her, grew warm and moved down her arms until her fingers felt hot too, then the ache in her hand vanished. “I’m not a healer like Goldmoon and Jasper were. I don’t have their strength of healing magic.” She did have certain curative powers, and she’d called upon them several times when she was in the company of Dhamon and the others years ago. She’d cultivated that power in the years away from him, helping wounded refugees.
Refugees on the island of Cristyne who were ill, starving, some with broken limbs, she had always done what she could for them, and though she mourned the ones who were beyond her help, she had tried to learn from her mistakes. Once, long ago, Feril had aided wolves on Southern Ergoth that had eaten contaminated meat left by herders. She remembered the healing she had used on that occasion, summoning the memory of one favorite wolf she had saved. She’d coaxed his heart stronger, and she tried to do that with Dhamon now. She imagined his heart, huge and muscular. The energy flowed from her fingers and into his snout. Her mind pushed the energy down his neck and into his chest. As the Kagonesti worked, she bent her ear and listened for signs that her tactic might be successful.
“Be stronger, Dhamon Grimwulf. Stay with me.”
At first she heard only her own heart beating, the faint rustling of a soft breeze teasing the trees, the buzz of insects being drawn to the goblin bodies. For a moment, she thought she heard a man talking, an unfamiliar voice coming from the trees behind her. Then it was gone, and she heard Dhamon’s faint heart beat.
“Take my strength, draw from it,” she breathed, pushing the energy, augmenting it, and breathing in time with Dhamon. Now there was more force in each breath he took, and she could sense his heart slowly growing stronger.
At length Dhamon gave a loud snort, and after long minutes his eyes eased open. Feril turned so she could look into them, straddling his snout, fingers still splayed and working their spell. She gazed at her reflection in his dark eyes. She searched for the poison, finally sensing it, dark, oily, and potent, deep down.
“The poison’s strong, Dhamon. You need to be stronger than death.”
Feril pictured the poison, as real and as threatening an enemy as the Knights of Neraka she had stalked in this forest, and like the knights she’d hung by the trees as punishment, she would vanquish this menace. Her arcane energy continued to pulse into Dhamon, and after nearly an hour it gradually diluted the poison until it was no longer a serious threat. Her skin was slick with sweat from the exertion, the slight breeze doing little to soothe her. She was exhausted.
“You’ll be all right now, Dhamon.” She pushed herself off him and slid down, collapsing when her feet touched the grass. “I’m so weak.” She was careful not to have taken any of the poison into herself, as surely anything strong enough to fell a dragon would certainly kill her. Perhaps they’d used it on the sivak.
Where was Ragh? Looking around, she remembered— oh, over there.
She dragged herself up and staggered across the goblin bodies, falling more than once and coming up slick with blood. Feril finally reached the sivak—out of responsibility to Dhamon, who had been his friend, she should at least bury the strange creature. Peering at him now, she realized the draconian wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. He stared up at her, his mouth working. Surprised to find him alive, she bent over him so she could understand what he was saying.
“They had poison, the goblins did.” His voice was unusually soft and forced. “Took me unawares, the poison. Is Dhamon…”
“Unwell, but he will survive. It was indeed a virulent poison. And you? You don’t look very healthy…”
The branches of the white oak towering above them were thick, and not much moonlight was filtering down. Feril could see the many wounds lacing the sivak’s chest, the goblin spears holding his limbs to the ground.
“They tortured you,” she said, wondering how best to free him.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” the sivak said.
He grimaced as she tried to twist the spears off that were trapping his left arm. “Ouch! That hurts.” After a moment, with a dry chuckle, “Of course it, hurt before, too.”
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
“I don’t know. They wanted to know about Dhamon; they were waiting for him to come back. They didn’t know about you.”
She’d worked the spear free and moved on to another. Two more to go on this arm. The sivak had lost a lot of blood to the spears and the cuts. His blood had a sulfurous odor and was oddly congealed. “The goblins wanted to know what about Dhamon?”
“The knight leading them, he wanted to know where he was, what he was doing. He’d been looking for Dhamon, I guess. I didn’t tell him anything, though. To the lowest level of the Abyss with all of them.” He spat, choked, and coughed.
Two more spears came free, and painfully, Ragh began to move his left arm. “There were dozens, probably a hundred of the stinking goblin rats. I saw them running past me on their scaly little legs, all of them whooping and…”
“Shhh. I don’t need to hear your prattle. Only Habbakuk knows why I’m doing this anyway. You are no friend to me or to my kind,” her voice softened, “but Dhamon seems to like you well enough.” She continued to pull out the spears, breaking some of them off and working his legs free. At the same time she called upon her healing energies again, directing the warmth down her arms and into her fingers, which were gently stroking the sivak’s main wounds.
He ground his teeth together to keep from crying out. Feril knew he wasn’t about to show weakness in front of her. Some of his wounds had already started to heal over. In spite of herself, Feril felt a twinge of compassion for him.
“I wonder why they were so intent on finding—and killing—Dhamon.”
Ragh was still flat on his back. He clenched his fists, testing his muscles, and slowly moved his arms and legs, muttering and grimacing. “I thought they had killed me, too,” he said. “I thought I would bleed out my essence all over the ground.” He tried to sit up, but she pushed him firmly back down on the ground.
“They weren’t only looking for a dragon, they were looking for Dhamon by name? How is that possible? I thought you were the only one who knew that Dhamon was a dragon.”
Ragh closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “That Knight Commander, the one who was leading the goblins, did Dhamon manage to kill him?”
He didn’t see Feril shake her head.
“I don’t like this place.” Feril was talking to herself, carefully prodding the sivak’s wounds to make sure none were infected. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“Finally we agree on something, elf.”
“Yet in this lake I may discover a chance to give Dhamon his humanity back.” Still, it was as though she were talking to herself. “I need to be about that business as soon as possible, if we are to get away from here.” She nervously smoothed her tunic with the palms of her hands, spreading the blood around. Then she turned and surveyed the battlefield; not a goblin stirred.
“Can you stand, sivak?” She held out her hand to assist Ragh.
The draconian lumbered to his feet on his own power, wincing when he took a few steps on wobbly legs. “So we’re leaving soon? I’m all for that, but it doesn’t look like Dhamon’s going to be able to move for some time.” He nodded toward Dhamon, then started limping in that direction, stepping over goblin bodies.