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The night darkened. Or at least it seemed to. Jhesrhi assumed that in reality, the enchantment she’d cast to enable Gaedynn and herself to see on the moonless night was wearing off. She’d have to renew it soon.

Fortunately, that shouldn’t pose a problem. Though she still regretted the loss of the staff the wyrmkeeper had taken from her in Mourktar, the new one was a worthy tool in its own right, and her bond with it grew ever stronger. The red alloy rings were even turning yellow, apparently just because she was used to carrying a staff trimmed with gold.

“Do you know,” Gaedynn murmured, “I have to give credit where it’s due. You said Jaxanaedegor wouldn’t bother sending a search party into the Sky Riders, and we haven’t seen any sign of one.”

“Don’t start,” Jhesrhi said.

“On the other hand, I have to give credit to the dragon too. He didn’t send anyone because he believed there was nothing to find. And again, evidently—”

“It’s the last night of the new moon,” Jhesrhi said, gritting her teeth. “If we don’t find anything, we’ll head back to Soolabax in the morning. Meanwhile, stop complaining and look.”

“I am looking. I can do that and complain at the same time.”

But he fell silent again as they prowled through the pines that grew along the ridge. The horses, lucky beasts that they were, were presumably sleeping back in camp. Even with his sight sharpened, Gaedynn didn’t want to ride through the dark for fear he’d miss signs he would have noticed on foot.

A long, echoing, inhuman cry sounded from somewhere to the west. As one, Jhesrhi and Gaedynn pivoted in that direction.

“On the other hand …,” the archer said.

Her heart thumping faster, Jhesrhi took a breath. “I can’t tell if the creature making that noise is a dragon. I certainly can’t tell if it’s Tchazzar. But we’ve found the reason for the stories.”

“Come close to finding it, anyway. Let’s hope it keeps wailing to draw us in.”

It did, and its call reminded her of wounded men crying out in agony on the battlefield. As, stalking up one hillside and down the next, she and her companion approached the source, her staff warmed in her grip. The sensation made her even more eager.

Because the arcanist who’d fashioned the implement had been particularly interested in fire magic. And now it was reacting to the presence of a mighty blaze—or, given the absence of any telltale glow, something capable of producing one. Like a red dragon.

A hand grabbed her forearm, arresting her progress, startling her, and bringing the usual reflexive spasm of loathing.

“Sorry,” said Gaedynn, releasing her again, “but you have to watch where you’re stepping.”

She looked down at the patches of pale, whorled fungus in front of her. He was right. If she’d stepped on them, the spores would have stuck to her legs, producing painful pustules or worse.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but this is about the most unpleasant bit of the Sky Riders we’ve wandered into so far.” He waved a hand, inviting her to inspect the gnarled, blighted-looking trees and thickets.

“I noticed,” she lied.

“Was it poisoned by the same power that’s making our friend caterwaul?”

“I can’t tell. Maybe.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

They stalked on. Over hills and through hollows where noisome fungus flourished and other vegetation didn’t. The leaves on the trees were sparse and spotted, and bark had flaked away to reveal pockets of slimy rot in the sapwood.

Shadows shifted at the edges of her vision, settling when she turned her head to look at them directly. She’d seen the same phenomenon in Thay, on battlefields where necromancers had conjured. The darkness was struggling to give shape to something vile. It just wasn’t strong enough.

Her staff went from warm to hot until its touch would have blistered anyone else. Another cry sounded, and she could tell the source was close. Maybe just over the next rise. She and Gaedynn climbed to the crest of the hill and, lying on their stomachs, peeked over.

A dragon sprawled on the barren slope below. It was huger even than Jaxanaedegor, but also profoundly emaciated, although lack of food didn’t seem to be the problem. A scatter of bones suggested that it ate from time to time.

Or, more precisely, that someone fed it. For staples of some black substance clasped its legs and tail to the ground.

“It looks sick,” Gaedynn whispered, “but even so, I’m surprised those restraints can hold it.”

“They’re enchanted.” She could feel the magic inside them like an itch on her face. “Still, it surprises me too.”

“Have we seen enough to be sure that against all probability, you and Lord Nicos were right, and that’s Tchazzar?”

“We’ve seen all that we safely can, that’s for certain. Let’s get out of here.”

They started to crawl backward. Then something snapped and rustled overhead. They froze.

A wyrm almost as big as the prisoner plunged down to land beside it. Short horns encrusted the newcomer’s head, and rows of spines ran down the length of its body. The membranes connecting them looked puny and awkward compared to the wings of any dragon Jhesrhi had seen before, but she assumed that somehow they must suffice to carry it through the air.

It moved in what appeared to be a haze of grit, and as soon as it landed, several dust devils swirled up from the ground around its feet. Its eyes were pits of shadow with a sort of oily shimmer in the depths.

The prisoner raised its head and tried to spit fire at the newcomer, but the attack was too feeble even to reach its target. The brief, wavering glow revealed that the scales of both dragons were dull red.

The newcomer snarled. Jhesrhi thought she heard a kind of laughter in the noise. Then the wyrm snatched with a forefoot, caught the prisoner’s serpentine neck just behind the skull, slammed its head to the ground, and held it there.

The master wyrm stared down at the other. The prisoner withered a little more. Meanwhile, branches on the trees adjacent to the bare earth dropped their sickly leaves like it was autumn instead of spring. Blades of grass turned brown and dry.

And Jhesrhi felt a sudden weakness and gut-twisting sickness. She gripped the staff and recited a charm of protection to shield Gaedynn and herself, and the sensation passed.

“Thanks,” he gasped. “When we got out of Thay, I hoped we were done with vampires. Now I can’t empty my bladder without hitting some kind of vampire dragon.”

She wished he’d shut up. The terrible thing below them might hear even a whisper. Although it didn’t appear to; maybe it was too intent on its meal.

It seemed to go on feeding for a long time, while its victim shuddered and shriveled, and newly dead branches cracked under their own weight. At last it turned away. That would have been a good time for the prisoner to attempt another attack, but it was evidently too drained.

The life-drinker trotted a few steps, lashed its peculiar wings, and sprang into the air. In flight, it wobbled in a way that made it look unsteady, like it might plummet at any moment. But it gained altitude almost as quickly as a griffon.

Jhesrhi waited for it to disappear, and for one hundred heartbeats afterward. Then she turned to Gaedynn. “Now?”

“Now,” he said. “Let me lead, and stay under the trees as much as you can.”

Where it’s darkest, she thought, but he was right. The shadows’ impotent yearning for mayhem was a paltry threat compared to what was soaring on the night wind.

She and Gaedynn started down the hill. And ran straight into what was climbing up the other way.

The people, if that was what they were, had scarred, tattooed gray skin, dark braided hair, and eyes a featureless black like the dragon that had just flown away. Their garments were black as a crow as well, and the gloom seemed thicker in their vicinity than elsewhere, even though there was nothing hanging over them to cast a shadow. They weren’t walking like they were trying to be especially quiet, but they were anyway, and Jhesrhi sensed that silence came as naturally to them as to a cat.

“Easy, friends,” Gaedynn said. “We’re just peaceful travelers.”

The gray people appeared to laugh, although Jhesrhi couldn’t actually hear it. The darkness around them thickened, and the two men in front pulled off the chains wrapped around their waists. The links didn’t rattle. The warriors vanished and instantly reappeared almost within striking distance of Jhesrhi and Gaedynn. Preparing to attack, they spun their weapons.

Then arrows pierced their chests and they stumbled backward. As Gaedynn spoke his placatory words, he’d also gotten ready to shoot, and neither the chainfighters’ sudden shift through space nor their shroud of gloom had thrown off his aim.

The rest of the gray people—Jhesrhi still couldn’t make out exactly how many that was, but she thought at least half a dozen—howled in fury. She heard them at last, although the sound was faint and thin, like it was coming from miles away. They glided and flickered forward, while also spreading out to flank their foes.

Gaedynn and Jhesrhi gave ground. His hands were a blur as he loosed arrow after arrow. She shifted her staff into a central guard, and a rhyme to conjure fire leaped into her mind.

That was the influence of the staff. Though it was neither alive nor sentient, in its own way it yearned for the element to which it was most attuned.

But it would have to go unsatisfied at the moment. Flame in the dark could catch the eye of the wyrm that had flown away, or of something else she didn’t want to meet. She rattled off a different incantation and made a stabbing motion with the staff, and a dozen small knives appeared in the air around two of the chainfighters. They too stabbed. One gray warrior fell. The other scrambled clear of the effect, but with blood staining part of his shirt a different shade of black.

Jhesrhi hesitated, trying to decided whether to finish off the wounded man or attack someone else. In that instant, she sensed motion on her left, something different from the fast but steady rhythm of Gaedynn’s shooting.

She turned. A gray man with a dagger in either hand was lunging in on Gaedynn’s flank. And she couldn’t hit the enemy combatant with her magic, not in time to stop him from attacking, because the archer was in her way. All she could do was yell, “Watch out!”

Gaedynn pivoted. The gray man slashed, first with one blade, then the other. The archer tried to dodge. Standing behind him, Jhesrhi couldn’t tell if he succeeded either time.

But bands of darkness wrapped around him like a constricting serpent, crushing his arms and bow against his torso and binding his legs together. Off balance, he toppled to the ground.

That at least got him out of Jhesrhi’s way. Terrified that the gray warrior would bend down and finish him off, she jabbed the staff at the attacker and snarled a word of command. Raw force smashed in the dark man’s face and blew out the back of his skull.

At her feet, Gaedynn squirmed and strained. Good, he was still alive and able to struggle, but she couldn’t take the time to help him free himself. Despite the losses they’d already sustained, more of the gray people were advancing in their flitting, deliberate fashion. It was like they didn’t fear death at all.

She softened the earth beneath a chainfighter, and he plunged in up to his waist. Then suddenly, everything got even darker. She assumed it meant one of the enemy had crept in close to her.

Jhesrhi turned, looking for the threat. For a moment she saw a vague figure. Its dark eyes stared into hers, and then it was gone.

Hands grabbed her throat from behind. The iron grip cut off her air and seared her flesh as well.

She could no longer afford to care whether she showed a light in the darkness. Suddenly bereft of speech, she had to use the only magic she could still access quickly. She clutched the staff and, in her thoughts, recited words of command.

Flame erupted over her body like she’d soaked herself in oil. It didn’t hurt her, but it presumably burned her attacker, because the hands let go of her neck.

She pivoted to face the strangler, then felt a twinge of surprise because it was a gray woman. Not that that mattered. She threw the dark figure backward with a bolt of force.

But the strangler only flew a couple of paces. Then she slammed into one of the chainfighters who, plainly undaunted by Jhesrhi’s mantle of flame, were rapidly closing in on her.

She hated their single-minded bloodlust, their sheer uncanniness, and the prospect of them pressing in from all sides. She wanted the fight to be over, and the conjured fire responded to her desire. It lashed out all around her like the spokes of a wheel to blast and burn gray flesh. Her assailants reeled and dropped.

She took a deep breath, willed her own fiery halo and the patches of flame still dancing on the corpses to go out, and turned to see how Gaedynn was faring. A gray man crawling on the ground leered up at her and thrust a dagger at her belly.

Gaedynn heaved himself free of the loops of congealed darkness, scrambled, and grabbed the enemy warrior’s arm just before the blade could plunge home. The two combatants thrashed and rolled while Jhesrhi looked for a chance to smite the scarred man without hurting Gaedynn. Then the archer landed a short jab to his opponent’s throat. The gray man stopped struggling; suddenly all he could do was shake and choke. Using the heel of his palm Gaedynn hit him again, this time smashing his nose, and he stopped moving altogether.

Gaedynn turned and pulled his bow clear of the coils of darkness. “Are you all right? Those marks remind me of Thay, when a ghost would get its hands on somebody.”

She cautiously touched what she surmised to be hand-shaped bruises or discolorations on her neck. Now that the battle was over, they were really starting to sting. Still … “I don’t think they’re all that bad. How are you?”

“I wish we still had that healing balm, but really, the knife just scratched me. The brigandine stopped the worst of it.” He pulled the arrows from his quiver. He’d used a lot of them during the fight, and the pressure of the dark coils and rolling around on the ground had broken some of the rest. “Curse it! What were these bastards, anyway? Shades? Shadar-kai?”

“They were a long way from home if they were.” The Empire of Netheril, which bred men infused with the essence of darkness, lay two thousand miles to the west.

“True.” He grinned. “I just think it would be nice to have Netherese running around our part of the world. Because things aren’t nearly complicated enough already.”

“We should move out. In case something saw the flames.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Farther down the hill, they found yokes with buckets of water attached, and the carcasses of slaughtered deer. Jhesrhi inferred that the gray folk had dropped them when they decided to attack.

“Our foes were Tchazzar’s jailers,” she said, “charged with bringing him food and drink. They cleared out when the other dragon came to feed, for fear it would leech the strength out of them as well. When we met them, they were coming back.”

“Maybe.” Squatting beside it, Gaedynn was clearly more interested in examining one of the deer. “Look at this!”

She walked over and stood beside him. “What?”

He pointed. “Look at the striped pattern on the hindquarters.” He indicated one of the legs. “And here—no dew claw. During your time in Threskel, did you ever see a doe like this?”

“I don’t know. The elemental magi weren’t like your elves. They didn’t devote any time to teaching me woodcraft.”

“Well, I know I haven’t seen one before. It’s … peculiar.”

“You can ponder the mystery of its existence when we’re well away from here.”

He smiled. “I suppose that might be the prudent thing to do.”

They hurried onward, while the pain in the front and sides of her neck waxed and waned. Until Gaedynn finally halted and, turning in a complete circle, peered around.

“What is it?” Jhesrhi whispered.

“I think I must be lost,” he replied.

Jhesrhi wondered if he was making another poorly timed and pointless joke. “You don’t get lost.”

“No. I don’t. But we’ve walked far enough that we should be clear of the poisoned area. Yet we’re not.”

The hill rising in front of them wasn’t as utterly and obviously blighted as the dragon captive’s immediate vicinity. But when she looked closely, it was obviously tainted. Shadows seethed when they thought no one was looking. Twisted oaks sweated a pale, viscous fluid that reminded her of pus.

“And I can’t get my bearings,” Gaedynn continued. “The shape of the hills is off.”

“Keep walking,” Jhesrhi said. “We’ll come to something we recognize.”

They didn’t, though, and in time she began to suspect what had happened. But she had an irrational dread that somehow, saying it aloud would make it true. So she waited until what she supposed she could still call dawn. When the sky lightened from black to slate gray, but nothing recognizable as a sun rose to brighten it any further.

*    *    *    *    *

Columns of smoke ascended from behind a rise. Just the thought that someone might be cooking breakfast there made Khouryn’s mouth water and his belly growl.

Following their disastrous clash with the ash giants, he and the dragonborn survivors had tried to head east. Medrash wanted to tell the Lance Defenders about the threat of the lizard-bears, which apparently the enemy had never used before. But unfortunately, the riders kept spotting other giant war bands blocking the way to the Dustroad. Sometimes the giants spotted them too, and then they had to flee. Meanwhile their rations ran short, and only occasionally did they find potable water, or grass for their steeds. Two of the animals went lame.

“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.”

Patrin rose. “I regret dragging you to your feet again so soon, but I want to show you something.”

They all tramped over to one of the carts the cadre officer had mentioned. He picked up a sack that smelled of rot. The stink grew stronger when he dumped the contents out.

Those contents were severed ears, too big for a dwarf or human head, and the gray was their natural color. It was the brown and purple spots that betrayed decay.

“I know taking this sort of trophy is a little barbaric,” Patrin said. “But after the war is over, we need to be able to prove what we accomplished.”

“And then the doubters will see the truth and value of our path,” Nala said.

Medrash shook his head. “How did you accomplish this?”

“I just told you,” the wizard said, her upper body weaving a fraction of an inch from side to side. Khouryn wondered if the rhythmic motion was a symptom of some malady or just a nervous tic. “With Bahamut’s aid. By embracing the dragon nature inside us.”

“If you say so,” said Balasar, “but I think my clan brother was asking about tactics.”

Patrin shrugged. “Well, as to that, I doubt they’re different from what anyone else would use. But if you’d like to see us in action, I’m glad, because I have a proposition for you.”

“What’s that?” Medrash asked.

“You came to the Plain to fight and so did we. So join us.”

Medrash hesitated. “None of us wishes to accept your faith.”

Patrin smiled. “Well, I certainly don’t expect you to. I recognize the device on your shield, just as I know that when a paladin pledges himself to a god, the commitment lasts forever.”

Plainly even more perplexed than before, Medrash narrowed his eyes. “How do you know I’m a paladin?”

“Because like speaks to like. You might feel it too if not for your … preconceptions. But here’s the point. We won’t press you or any of these others to embrace our beliefs. If they come to Bahamut, let it be in their own time and for their own reasons. I want you because Clan Daardendrien has a reputation for valor, and so do the dwarves of East Rift. And because you have horses. They’re in sad shape now, but it’s nothing feed, rest, and a little magic won’t cure—and I need outriders.”

“We intended to head east,” said Balasar, “to report our experiences to the Lance Defenders.”

“Perfect,” Nala said. “That’s the way we’re headed. Now that we’ve tested ourselves in a couple of battles, we’re going where the giants are thickest.”

“I’d like to discuss this with my comrades,” Medrash said. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

A scowl flickered across Nala’s face, but Patrin said, “By all means.”

Medrash led his clan brothers and Khouryn several paces away from the Bahamut worshipers and the cart. “What do you all think?” he asked.

“I’ll do whatever you and Sir Balasar want,” said an umber-scaled Daardendrien warrior. “But can it be honorable to fight alongside dragon-lovers?”

“It might be more honorable than slinking home with nothing but defeat to report,” Balasar said. “Lunatics or not, this war band is winning its battles.”

“And if we ride with them,” Khouryn said, “we’ll share in any future victories. And even if they don’t locate any more of the enemy, it’s safer than traveling this wasteland alone.”

“I’ve always looked down on the Platinum Cadre,” Medrash said, “and now I feel ashamed. These warriors have done us nothing but good. Maybe saved our lives. Perhaps they aren’t mad or depraved but simply misguided.”

Balasar grinned. “So we accept Patrin’s offer.”

“If everyone agrees.”

Khouryn looked around the circle and saw that everyone did.

*    *    *    *    *

The day never brightened past a kind of filthy twilight. Even Jhesrhi’s golden hair and eyes couldn’t shine. In fact, for the first time Gaedynn could remember, she didn’t look beautiful.

Or maybe that was just because he was angry.

“Are you sure?” he asked, realizing even as the words left his lips just how stupid they were.

Jhesrhi waved a hand to indicate the wooded slopes around them. “You yourself told me that a lot of the trees and bushes are different, and even the contours of the hills. By all accounts, shadar-kai live in the Shadowfell as well as Netheril. And there’s no sun in the sky. What do you think?”

“That we’re in the Shadowfell.” From what he understood, it was a distorted shadow the mortal world cast to give form to an adjacent universe. Or something like that. “Even though the wizard in our little band never sensed we were going astray until it was far too late.”

She glared. “If your stories aren’t all lies, you and your elf friends used to visit other worlds on a regular basis. Voices of the Abyss, you actually used the trick to shake the Simbarchs’ army off our tail when we were marching through the Yuirwood. So don’t make out that I’m the one who should have noticed the transition!”

Her refusal to take the blame had the paradoxical effect of dissolving his annoyance. Perhaps because it was likely the way he would have responded himself.

“The elves took me to the Feywild.” A reflection of the mortal world as fair as the Shadowfell was foul. “Well, and on one unpleasant occasion, the Sildëyuir. But even then it was hardly the same thing as blundering into the Shadowfell. Still, it’s remotely conceivable you have a point. Perhaps we’re both to blame—or neither. Let’s agree on neither. But tell me this. How did it happen? We didn’t pass through a circle of standing stones or anything else that looked like a portal to me.”

“Or to me. But scholars say it’s possible for two worlds to overlap, often intermittently.”

“So in this case, a bit of the hills becomes a bit of the Shadowfell on the darkest nights. Because that’s when the two places are most alike.”

“I think so.”

He grinned. “I should have been a scholar myself.”

“It’s possible Tchazzar blundered into the Shadowfell during the time of Blue Fire, when all the worlds were in upheaval and congruencies were more common. Then the blight dragon—”

“That’s the wyrm that’s leeching his strength away?”

“I believe that’s what they’re called. Now that I’ve had time to think, I seem to recall reading about them in a bestiary, in the school where Aoth enrolled me to finish my training. Whatever it is, it somehow took Tchazzar prisoner and has been feeding off him ever since. I suspect the process degrades reality and helps keep the breach between the worlds from healing.”

“Very interesting, and I’d love to hear more about it. But preferably after you whisk us home.”

Jhesrhi shook her head, and a lock of her tangled hair flopped down over her forehead. “I can’t.”

“Nonsense. Don’t expect to hear this often, but you can do damn near anything. I’ve seen it.”

“You’ve seen me do impressive things with elemental magic. I don’t know how to shift us between worlds.”

“Didn’t you do it at the Dread Ring? Twice?”

“Wizards who truly understood the magic essentially just carried me along like baggage. And we only traveled in spirit. Our physical forms stayed put.”

“Still, I know you. You were paying attention, and you must have learned something.”

She hesitated. “Not enough. Besides, such rituals generally involve special articles, other spellcasters lending support—or, ideally, both.”

“So improvise. Our poor horses are wondering what’s become of us.”

She frowned. “I suppose I can try. It will be dangerous, but maybe no more dangerous than trying to survive in the Shadowfell for a whole month. Or longer. We don’t know that the planes mesh every new moon without fail, or that we’d succeed in finding our way from one to the other when they do.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Just stand watch—the Foehammer only knows what the magic could attract—and be ready to hurry to me when I call you.”

He looked around for a suitable sentry post and decided a little elevation might help him spot a potential threat before it noticed him. He ran to a twisted tree that resembled a white elm, jumped, clutched for handholds, and tried to haul himself upward. Bark tore and crumbled beneath his fingers, and he almost fell, but not quite. He balanced in the lowest fork and laid one of his few remaining arrows on his bow.

Jhesrhi prowled around below him. He suspected she was looking for a bare, level piece of ground. When she found it, she started chanting under her breath and drawing lines in the dirt with the metal cap on the butt of her staff. Like the rings that encircled the wood at intervals, the ferrule was mostly golden now, with only a couple of flecks and streaks of red.

The soil shifted a little even after her staff moved on. It looked like it was trying to fill in the ruts she’d just inscribed. She recited her words of power a trifle louder and the subtle crawling stopped.

It only took a relatively short time to complete the pentagram, which was noticeably less elaborate than others Gaedynn had watched Jhesrhi draw. He wondered if that was because she didn’t know what she was doing. Since she was uncertain what figure was truly appropriate, she’d settled for a basic emblem of power and protection.

She stood in the center of the star and circle, took a deep breath, then started a new incantation. She spoke in a language Gaedynn didn’t know, so he had no idea what she was saying. But some of the words created a sort of itch inside his head.

She spoke for a long while before reaching the end. He sensed she was waiting. When nothing happened, she took a breath, shifted her stance, and—speaking a little louder—started over again. She punctuated certain phrases by lifting her staff over her head, then jamming the ferrule back into the dirt.

After several repetitions, each performed in a somewhat different fashion, Gaedynn noticed that the air felt thick and it seemed an effort just to draw a breath. But it wasn’t only the air that was different. He had a sense that the whole world, or at least the part of it within view, was heavy and sore like a boil that needed to burst.

She’s doing it, he thought, and waited eagerly for her to call him to her side. He was still waiting when a gray-black bat hurtled down from the sky.

Its head and body were the size of a dwarf’s, although its leathery wings made it look bigger than a man. As it streaked at Jhesrhi, its long tail stopped whipping and curled into stiffness. The animal was readying a blow like the strike of a whip.

The bat’s dark coloration made it hard to see in the shadowy world. Despite his vigilance, Gaedynn hadn’t spotted it until it had nearly closed the distance to its target. He only had time for a single shot.

He drew and released. The arrow plunged into the bat’s torso. Spasmodic, it veered, tumbled, and slammed to the ground several strides to the right of the pentagram. Where it flopped and flopped, but appeared capable of nothing more.

Gaedynn looked back at the sky and spotted another bat. It was diving at Jhesrhi too, and he dealt with it as he had the first, only better. The shot was a clean kill, and the beast plummeted like a stone.

He looked for a third bat. He didn’t find one, but abruptly heard a fierce baying that clawed at his nerves. He took a breath and willed fear away, and then the big black hounds surged over a rise.

Like the shadar-kai the previous night, they flickered ahead through space as they charged, gaining ground faster than should have been possible. It made them difficult to aim at too. Gaedynn invested a precious moment studying the unnatural motion so he could guess where they’d reappear.

He dropped one and then another. It wasn’t good enough. There were still too many and they were still advancing too fast. Jhesrhi needed to turn her magic on them.

But she just kept chanting. Either she was in a trance, like the wizards mired in their own ritual back in Luthcheq, or she didn’t dare interrupt the spell for fear of what the forces she’d raised would do if she relinquished control.

Damn you, woman, he thought. He sprang down out of the elm and shouted, “Over here, you filthy beasts! I’m the one killing you! Attack me!” He loosed at another hound. The shaft punched deep into its neck.

His ploy worked, if one wanted to think of it that way. The hounds turned and charged him.

He shot two more, and then had to drop his bow and snatch out his scimitar. The remaining four or five—everything was happening too fast for an accurate count—encircled him. They lunged and snapped, snarling, gray foam flying from their jaws.

He turned, slashed, and dodged—and somehow kept himself from being bitten and dragged down for the first couple of heartbeats. He even split the skull of one of the beasts.

It gave him a surge of satisfaction but not of hope. Khouryn could probably have cut his way clear of the nightmare, but he was the best hand-to-hand combatant Gaedynn had ever seen. He himself was merely good, and he suspected that wasn’t going to be enough.

He hoped he was buying Jhesrhi enough time to get home.

Then something whistled. And, mad with rage as they’d appeared, the hounds drew away from him. Panting, he turned in the direction of the sound.

A little way up the slope, a shadar-kai sat on a black horse. By the light of day—or what passed for it there—Gaedynn saw that the rider’s raised facial scars formed geometric patterns and must have been cut deliberately. He held a lance and wore a chain coiled on his hip.

Gray-skinned, black-haired, and clad in dark garments like the horseman—but hunched, stunted, and coarse-featured—small figures stood to the sides of his steed. One held the wooden syrinx that had evidently called back the hounds.

Gaedynn realized the shadar-kai was a hunter. And the halfling-sized creatures were servants charged with the management of his coursing beasts.

The rider lowered his lance and spurred his horse. Either he was worried that his intended prey would hurt more of his animals, or he’d decided it would be more fun to kill Gaedynn with his own hands. Either way, he must have been confident of his prowess.

The black horse accelerated to a gallop. Gaedynn forced himself to stand still while the shadar-kai and the point of his lance raced closer. Dodge too soon, and his foe would compensate.

The dark horse and rider vanished and reappeared immediately, just an arm’s length short of striking distance.

Gaedynn hurled himself to the side. He avoided the lance, but not quite the horse. The animal’s shoulder clipped him with bruising force and knocked him staggering. As he fought to regain his balance, something brushed his head, and he realized the shadar-kai was trying to catch him by the hair. He managed to twist away from that too, and the steed and rider pounded past.

As he regained his footing, Gaedynn felt angry with himself for not guessing that the horse might be able to shift through space like half the other creatures in the vile place. But that particular anger could only hinder him, so he took a breath and tried to exhale it away. I know now, he told himself. That’s what’s important.

Even so, the same trick nearly served to surprise him again. As the shadar-kai wheeled his mount, a subtle flicker lined it up with Gaedynn an instant sooner than mere conventional movement would have allowed. It started forward, disappeared, and reappeared.

Right where Gaedynn had estimated it would. He stepped diagonally, past the head of the lance and to the side of the horse, and sliced its foreleg just above the knee.

The beast pitched forward onto the ground, and the shadar-kai tumbled out of the saddle. He landed on the wrong side of his thrashing horse, and Gaedynn moved to scramble around it.

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something small rushing in on his flank. He wrenched himself around and parried a low thrust from a jagged-edged dagger that would have crippled him as he’d crippled the horse. His assailant was one of the stunted servants—who could apparently blink through space too, or maybe he was just sneaky. Gaedynn slashed his neck and his body dissolved in a puff of cold, black vapor.

The stuff got in Gaedynn’s eyes, and for one terrifying instant he was blind. Then he blinked his vision clear.

Just in time to see the fallen rider vanish and reappear, still sprawled on the ground, among his servants. His face contorted; he spoke. Gaedynn couldn’t hear his voice, but he saw his lips move.

He did hear it when the little hunchback with the pipes blew a different note. And when the remaining hounds bayed and ran at him again.

He wondered if he had time to kill the horse and put it at his back, but decided the dogs wouldn’t have much trouble climbing over the carcass even if he did. Then a red spark flew into the midst of the onrushing beasts and exploded into a ragged burst of flame. The detonation tore the hounds apart.

The shadar-kai and his servants turned toward Jhesrhi. Too late. She snapped a word of command and jabbed the head of her staff at them. The hunter burst into flame. Then fire leaped from his body to the servant with the syrinx, and from him to another stunted creature, in a manner that reminded Gaedynn of water cascading down a series of ledges. In a moment, all the dark figures were burning. And flailing.

When they stopped doing the latter because there was little left of them but smoldering black husks, Gaedynn turned to Jhesrhi. “It wouldn’t have hurt my pride,” he said, “if you’d done that a little sooner.”

She shook her head, perhaps to convey that she hadn’t been able to—or simply that as usual, she didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. “Are you all right?”

“Somewhat miraculously, yes.” He looked around and retrieved his bow. He checked his quiver and found he had two arrows left.

“Do you think this shadar-kai was hunting us specifically? Because of what happened last night?”

“I don’t know and don’t particularly care. I just want you to get back to work before someone or something else shows up to bother us.”

“It’s no use.”

“What are you talking about? I felt something happening.”

“That was all you were going to feel. I just don’t know how to break through.”

He tried not to let the depth of his disappointment show in his face or his tone. “Ah, well. I’m sure we can last a month here if we have to.” And maybe afterward they could take a pleasure cruise on the River Styx.

Cheeks puffing, Jhesrhi exhaled sharply like she was blowing out a candle. For an instant, wind gusted and howled and all the little fires left by her two attacks died. “I have thought of one other thing that might get us home sooner.”

“Then tell me, please.”

She did, and when she finished, he felt a mix of dismay and admiration.

“Bravo,” he said. “That’s as crazy a scheme as I’ve ever heard. Easily crazier than invading Thay with nothing but the strength of the Wizards’ Reach behind us.”

She scowled. “Then you don’t want to try it?”

He grinned. “Actually, I do. But right now we need to clear out of here. Then we should find a place where we can go to ground, at least temporarily. We’ll proceed with your idea come nightfall.”

Waiting until night wouldn’t ensure they went undetected, not in a world populated by creatures that saw well in the dark. But he hoped that like the orcs and goblin-kin with which he was familiar, they couldn’t see as far in the dark as a man could in the light.

Once the Shadowfell was black as a coinlender’s heart, with just a few faint stars gleaming in the sky and a feeling of sheer poisonous wrongness suffusing the air like a stench, he and Jhesrhi crept back to the hill where Tchazzar lay imprisoned. They kept watch long enough for him to start feeling hopeful that the dragon truly was alone, with nothing but his weakness and the staples to prevent his escape.

Then suddenly, one of the shadar-kai’s small servants appeared on the hillside. Then another. Gaedynn peered closer and discerned that the dark little men were emerging from a hole in the ground like a line of ants.

Once he and Jhesrhi spotted the mouth of that tunnel, they soon noticed others, and the traffic that came and went, shadar-kai and other things that looked stranger and more dangerous still. Evidently, most of the time the hill was full of them, although they cleared out when the blight wyrm came to feed.

“Curse it,” Jhesrhi whispered. “It won’t work.”

“Yes it will,” Gaedynn replied. “It’s just that you only came up with half a workable plan. Fortunately I, clever fellow that I am, have now devised the rest.”

“Which is?”

“Do you remember wondering if the shadar-kai huntsman was hunting us specifically?”

She scowled. “Of course.”

“Well, if they weren’t before, we’re going to make them start.”