Striking out toward the west, he angled down toward the foothills. If he had looked behind him, he would have seen giant black claws thrust up from the earth and bat aside falling rocks. He would have seen an immense snout, wide eyes taking in the carnage but finding no trace of the sivak, the elf, and the Dhamon-dragon.
Sable howled louder than she’d ever howled before. The mountains echoed her fury, and cracks grew wider in the granite all around her. Huge rock slabs fell, stone dust belched up everywhere, and the pass vanished as though it had never existed. Sable climbed to the top of the rubble. The black overlord looked to the sky, but Dhamon had already flown down and was out of her line of sight.
17
“Down there, Dhamon.” Feril held on for dear life and shouted to be heard above a gathering breeze. “Low in the foothills, to the north. See the people? Let’s go down there.”
Dhamon continued flying—past the foothills and over a thinning forest, happy to be high in the sky on this hot summer day. He didn’t slow until she nudged him harder and shouted louder.
“Turn back! Down there! I want to talk to those people down there, Dhamon. We shouldn’t leave the mountains. We were so close to that scale. Dhamon! We can’t give up!”
He let out a deep breath. He circled, studying the terrain and focusing on the swathe of the foothills that had intrigued Feril. There were shapes moving down there in a single file. At first, licking his lips, he mistook them for goats, but no, they were manlike, and so not very interesting to him. Gnomes or dwarves, perhaps…
To the west, he spied stone dust thick as fog, near where the wide mountain pass had been. The twisting spire from dwarven lore was destroyed. Dhamon stared sadly at the broken remains of the lovers’ legend, gone forever from maps.
“Closer to the foothills, Dhamon. Those people. Fly closer!”
Dhamon found a safe landing place on a small plateau a few miles away. Feril was quick to slide off. Ragh, still in a daze, crawled out of Dhamon’s mouth. The draconian had regained consciousness, but now he gingerly tested his legs, which had been battered by the falling rocks.
“We were close when the quake hit.” Feril spoke quickly, excitedly. “Look, here and here.” She pointed high in the mountains. Stone dust billowed everywhere. “Over there, east of the broken spire, things look fairly intact. It’s possible the scale isn’t completely buried, or at least not buried too deep. There are people over there to the north. I want to speak to them, Dhamon, about dragons in the area, any Knights of Neraka they might have spotted, and…”
“Slow down, elf.” Ragh sat down wearily. “I want to make sure the mountain’s stopped dancing. Been through plenty of quakes in my life. Once I was underground, these very mountains. Knew a draconian who died in one of those quakes. I couldn’t get to him in time. I don’t want to end up like he did.”
“The quake’s over,” Feril said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Ragh continued. He rubbed his sore thighs. “Sometimes the ground only pauses, like it’s catching its breath before it starts up again.”
Feril ran her fingers through her hair and looked back and forth between the sivak and Dhamon. She glanced up, seeing a flock of black birds heading west over the Kharolis peaks and past the ruined spire. The sky was becoming bluer, the stone dust and dirt that had been kicked up finally starting to settle.
“We shouldn’t give up on that scale,” she said. “We’re too close not to look and be sure.”
“I agree,” Dhamon rumbled softly, not wanting to aggravate the quaking. His eyes were wide, his expression hopeful. “Though it’s possible the quake buried it even deeper.”
“If it did, we can still dig for it,” Feril said. “I saw water down there by those people, a large pond, runoff from the mountain. I can use the water for scrying…”
“Hey, look closer—those are not people,” Ragh said, pointing across the plateau. “If you crane your neck, you can see them.” He gestured to the northeast. “They’re dwarves.”
Feril brightened. “Dwarves! Wonderful! Experienced travelers in these mountains might be able to help. Wait here for a little while, Dhamon. You don’t want to frighten them unnecessarily, and…”
He shook his head, closed his eyes, and began folding in upon himself.
“I’m coming—as a shadow.”
“That’s a good idea, elf. What with all this earth-shaking, we don’t need to get separated.”
“I don’t need you coming along, too, sivak. A draconian’s going to scare those dwarves as much as any dragon.”
Ragh spat. “I’ll keep my distance, Feril. Don’t want to set any of their stubby fingers to trembling, but at the first sign of the mountain shaking again, Dhamon had better become a dragon and fly us out of here. Scale or no scale.”
Dhamon was already transforming into a pool of black that flowed toward Feril’s shadow and merged with it. The Kagonesti looked at the shadow, admiring Dhamon’s handiwork and thinking no one would ever guess that it was him.
“Besides, dwarves and elves don’t get along so well,” Ragh continued, as he started picking his way down a slope and onto a narrow ledge. “Historically, they just don’t get along, suspicious of each other, I understand. They might not be too willing to talk with you. Funny, but you might actually need me.”
Agile as a cat, Feril slipped past him, moving effortlessly along a narrowing strip of flat rock, then climbing down what amounted to a natural set of steps. As they progressed, Dhamon’s shadow flitted back and forth between her and the sivak.
“I had a dwarf friend some years back,” Feril said proudly, “a very good friend.”
The sivak looked surprised that the Kagonesti had volunteered personal information.
“His name was Jasper Fireforge, and he was the nephew of the legendary Flint Fireforge. Jasper was one of Goldmoon’s most trusted champions. I treasured his friendship and count myself fortunate to have known him. He had a good heart.”
“Had?”
Feril paused, picking her way along the rock path carefully. She found a handhold on a small outcropping of sandstone to balance her descent. “Jasper died at the Window to the Stars portal. I assume Dhamon told you something about the events at the Window. Before that time…when Malys controlled Dhamon with the scale…Dhamon nearly killed Jasper. Of course, Dhamon wasn’t trying to kill him. He was trying to kill Goldmoon. Oh, it’s confusing. That was a long time ago.” Softer and a few feet down, she added, “A very, very long time ago.”
“So you like dwarves fine,” Ragh said, after he’d climbed down to another ledge.
“Yes, I get along with dwarves.” She was following a worn path that had been rutted by heavy rains. “Better than I get along with sivak draconians.”
They crested a hill festooned with sizeable chunks of granite and bands of striped slate and obsidian. The odd layering of rock suggested there was volcanic activity here at one time…or a lot of earthquakes that shifted things around.
“Tracks,” Feril noted, pointing to a patch of dirt cradled in a stony depression. The recent footprints were as wide as they were long. Four or five dwarves, the Kagonesti guessed, only minutes ahead of them.
Feril hurried her pace but stopped momentarily when the dwarves came into view. The dwarves were at the southern edge of a large pool up ahead—she could make out four of them clearly when she crested the next rise.
They were making camp at the narrow end of an egg-shaped basin that brushed up against a steep hill. The pool must have been formed by run-off from the mountains. This side of the Kharolis apparently saw much more rain.