Lying on his belly, Will peered down at the ogres shambling along the bottom of the ravine. Some of them glanced up from time to time, but didn’t see him. The gorge was too deep, and he was too adept at hiding.

Still, shadowing giant-kin through unfamiliar territory was demanding, nerve-wracking work, and particularly unpleasant when one couldn’t see a point to it. As Will mounted his pony and rode back to the spot where Pavel waited, he could feel his patience fraying thin.

“Did you get lost?” Pavel asked in a nasty tone. The lanky cleric stood holding his roan horse in a stand of gnarled, stunted trees. His days in Thar had given a haggard edge to his keen, handsome features. The hem of his cloak and stray strands of his hair stirred in the chilly, fitful breeze.

“Nice,” said Will. “You loaf up here while I do the work, but naturally, it doesn’t stop you griping.”

“I wasn’t complaining that you took your time,” said the priest. “I was honestly worried about you. The feebleminded can come to grief when they go off by themselves.”

“You’d know, I suppose,” Will replied. “Your ogres are headed down a gully. We can parallel their track by keeping to the high ground. If you, in your idiocy, still think it’s worth doing.”

“That rat pellet you call a brain hasn’t squeezed out any better ideas.” As if he’d suddenly glimpsed something from the corner of his eye, Pavel pivoted and peered upward. “Get under cover!”

Will leaped off the pony, and he and the priest dragged their mounts into the center of the twisted trees. It was difficult. The low-hanging branches swiped and jabbed at the animals, who tried to balk.

It was only when he’d concealed himself and the pony as well as possible that Will took the time to look for whatever Pavel had spotted. After a second, he saw it too, a serpentine, bat-winged shape wheeling against the leaden, overcast sky.

The wyrm was azure. Blues were desert-dwellers, and Will had never encountered one before. He wondered if, maddened by the Rage, the reptile had wandered all the way from far Anauroch in search of prey.

Wherever it had come from, he wished it hadn’t.

“These trees are miserable cover,” he whispered. The branches above them had begun to put forth new leaves, but not in any great profusion. “Can you do something?”

“I could try,” Pavel said, “but a patch of fog suddenly billowing into existence might catch the creature’s attention all by itself. We’re better off just crouching low and keeping still. I will wrap us in silence, to keep the animals quiet.”

He gripped his sun amulet, murmured a prayer, and the world hushed, though Will could still feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Finally, inevitably, the moment he dreaded arrived. The blue swooped lower … but not at them. It had spotted the ogres instead, and was making a pass over the ravine. Will heaved a sigh of relief.

Somewhat to the halfling’s surprise, the blue didn’t attack at once. Rather, it climbed high into the sky again, then circled. The gray clouds started changing, massing into looming shapes like anvils. Light flickered in their bellies. The wind blew harder, flinging grit into the air.

Pavel tied his horse to a branch, then beckoned for Will to follow him. Keeping low, the halfling obeyed, but only until they’d skulked to the edge of the trees, where he heard the wind howling, and the ogres clamoring down in their gorge. The blue hadn’t yet attacked them with fang, talon, or breath weapon, but it had done something on its initial pass. Will just hadn’t been able to tell. In any case, the important thing was that he and Pavel could talk.

“Hold it!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing, breaking cover?”

“If we’re lucky,” said Pavel, “the blue won’t notice us. It’s busy changing the weather.”

“But why risk it?”

“To help the ogres,” Pavel replied as he crept forward.

“I’ve never hated you,” observed Will, following, “as much as I do right now.”

As they stalked toward the ravine, Will felt as exposed and vulnerable as ever in his life. Even an expert housebreaker generally required cover to go undetected, and the barren moor had little to offer. He silently prayed to Brandobaris, Master of Stealth, to hide him and his demented friend, too.

And perhaps the god heard, for the blue didn’t dive at them. Not yet.

As they reached the ravine, thunder boomed. Will peered cautiously over the edge, then narrowed his eyes in surprise. Because to all appearances, the terrain at the bottom had changed, from hard, pebbly ground to muck, patches of which steamed, bubbled, and looked as if they’d burn the foot of anyone who trod in them. Stranger still, the lower portions of the gully walls had disappeared to reveal further expanses of the same hellish mud flats. Most of the ogres regarded the altered landscape with alarm and confusion. The shaman with the blood-red eye chanted and lashed his flint-tipped spear through a mystic pass, but whatever magic he was attempting, it didn’t seem to be working.

“The blue cast an illusion.” said Pavel.

“Obviously,” said Will, “but why?”

Raindrops started falling.

“For that,” said the priest.

He brandished his pendant, recited a prayer, and grew taller, more impressive, the very definition of strength and wisdom. It was a glamour he used to make it easier to influence others. He stood up straight, revealing himself to the ogres. From the way the long-armed brutes with their warty hides gawked, it was obvious they could see him, though Will suspected that from their vantage point, Pavel appeared to be floating in midair.

“What you’re seeing isn’t real,” Pavel called. Lightning flared, thunder roared, and the rain started hammering down in earnest. “You’re still in the ravine. Grope around, find the walls, and climb out, or at least, partway up.”

His magically augmented force of personality wasn’t enough to deflect the ogres’ reflexive hatred of humans. Several heaved their long, heavy spears. He had to leap backward to avoid being spitted.

Will was still hunkered down behind a bump in the ground. He popped up just long enough to spin his warsling and let fly. The skiprock cracked into one ogre’s skull, then rebounded to strike another in the ear. The brutes lurched off balance, their heads bloodied.

“I’ll kill the next fool who raises a weapon,” he shouted.

Pavel stepped back to the brink of the gully. “You’re caught in an illusion.”

The ogre with the crimson eye snarled like a beast. “I know that, sun priest, but I can break us free. My god is stronger than yours.” He gripped his spear in both oversized knotted fists and raised it over his head in what was plainly the start of an invocation.

“I didn’t cause this,” Pavel said, “a dragon did.” That made the shaman hesitate, and his followers babble. “The point was to disorient you and stop you from moving, and to hold you in place for the next attack. It’s coming now. Listen, and you’ll hear it.”

Will strained, and after a moment caught the sound despite the intermittent bang of thunder and the constant drumming of the rain. It was a steady roaring, hurtling down the channel below him.

The shaman heard it, too. “Feel around!” he shouted. “Grab on to something and climb, if you can!”

The ogres had perhaps three seconds to obey his commands. Then the wall of water raced into view.

Will knew that even the torrential rain couldn’t have produced a flash flood so quickly. The blue must have employed still more magic to amplify the force and volume of the surging water. It slammed into the ogres like a battering ram and swept over them like an avalanche, so that all but the few who’d managed to clamber highest on the invisible walls were lost from sight. The halfling was certain the rest were as good as dead.

But when the water level dropped, he saw he was mistaken. Some ogres lay broken or had simply disappeared, but the majority, reeling, coughing, and sputtering, remained. They wouldn’t for long, though, unless they pulled themselves together.

“Get ready to fight!” he shouted. “The dragon’s coming right behind the flood. It’s almost on top of you!”

He couldn’t see the blue yet. The sheets of rain hid it. But it would follow up fast.

Still knee-deep in streaming water, the ogres lifted their spears, stone axes, and war clubs.

“Spread out!” Pavel shouted, and some of them waded apart.

A moment later, a vertical thunderbolt blazed down the gully and through the midst of them. Those whom it struck were charred black and killed. The ogres on the periphery of the dazzling, sizzling flare, or who received some of its force through the water on the ground, jerked in agony.

The blue lunged into view. Perhaps because the ravine was too narrow for it to comfortably spread its wings, it had opted to fight on the ground. It raked, and tore one still-paralyzed ogre apart; struck, and bit another in two.

The giant-kin plainly needed someone to buy them time to rally. Will had no idea it was going to be him until he leaped over the edge of the ravine.

Will was an accomplished climber and acrobat. Still, as he half rolled, half scrambled down the nearly vertical slope, he was pushing his skills to the limit. The rocky outcroppings were slick with rain, and once he dropped low enough to enter the heart of the illusion, he couldn’t even see them anymore. He had to rely on pure instinct to snatch for handholds in what appeared to be empty air.

Somehow he found the first of them, then realized he couldn’t just tumble on down to the gully floor and attack the dragon’s belly as he’d initially intended. The water was deep enough to submerge him completely, and would likely sweep him away. He certainly wouldn’t be able to fight.

In desperation, he kicked off from the slope, trying to turn his barely controlled fall into a leap that would carry him where he needed to land. He slammed down atop the blue’s heaving back at the juncture of the wings. He grabbed hold of a scale to anchor himself, drew his hornblade, an enchanted, exquisitely balanced halfling sword, and plunged it into the dragon’s flesh.

The blue jerked, nearly breaking his grip on it. The enormous, wedge-shaped head with its ragged ears and the long horn jutting up from the tip of the snout swiveled around. It jaws gaped, and it struck.

Will flipped backward to avoid the attack, and would scarcely have been surprised if he’d kept on helplessly rolling right off the dragon’s bucking, rain-slick back. But he grabbed, managed to grip another scale, and stabbed with the hunting sword. Striking a shower of popping sparks, a tiny fraction of the lightning that was a part of the blue’s essence, the point glanced off the creature’s natural armor.

The dragon stretched its neck back, reaching with its jaws. The angle was awkward for it, but it was renewing the attack so quickly that Will scarcely had time to find his balance, while the shuddering, inclined surface beneath him was treacherous in the extreme. Dodging would be even harder. Maybe too hard.

But before the blue could strike, a glowing mace, red like the sun at dawn, appeared above its head. The hovering weapon swung despite the lack of a corporeal hand to wield it and bashed the wyrm’s mask. At the same time, a ball of flame splashed against the blue’s sinuous neck. Will knew Pavel had conjured the former attack, and assumed the ogre with the red eye was responsible for the latter.

The assaults must have hurt. The blue snapped its head forward and charged, rushing the shaman, whose hand burned like a torch. The sudden jerk nearly broke Will’s grip on the wyrm’s hide, but not quite, and he stabbed once more, driving the point several inches into into flesh. For a moment, the sword seemed to vibrate in his grip, and the muscles in his arm jumped and clenched.

A rank of ogres with leveled spears stood between the blue and their leader. It smashed through, trampling one defender to pulp, but at least they’d slowed it momentarily, and driven a couple lances into its chest. The shaman retreated and lobbed more fire. Other giant-kin splashed through the stream to engage their colossal foe. Pavel’s mace of light streaked through the air and bashed the reptile in one slit-pupiled eye. At the same time, the human discharged a bright ray of light from his out-thrust hand. The beam burned a hole in the dragon’s wing.

Will kept on cutting and stabbing. He rather hoped the blue had forgotten him, but no. The end of its sinuous tail suddenly whipped up and around to flick him away like a troublesome fly. He wrenched himself aside to avoid the first swat and leaped over the second one. He knew he couldn’t keep dodging for long.

Then, however, raising a prodigious splash, the blue fell on its belly. Apparently the ogres had wounded at least two of its legs to such a degree that they couldn’t support it anymore. The wyrm’s wings pounded as it tried to take flight, but it couldn’t quite manage without a running or jumping start.

The blue laid about furiously. More ogres perished, seared and withered by a fresh blast of lightning from its maw, torn to pieces between its fangs, or shattered by hammering blows of its tail. It just wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t even falter.

The shaman ran at it, rammed his spear into the base of its neck, and scrambled on to fling himself at its chest. The giant-kin’s body sported countless stiff spikes like a porcupine’s quills. No doubt he’d sprouted them via enchantment, and as he slammed himself repeatedly against the dragon, the spines stabbed it again and again.

The blue lurched partway onto its side and lifted its foreleg to claw at the shaman. But before it could, Pavel’s flying mace smashed it in the center of its brow. Bone crunched. The creature convulsed, nearly flinging the halfling from his perch.

The blue spat another thunderbolt, but into the air, not at any foe. Then the head at the end of the long neck toppled into the coursing stream like a collapsing tower. Rustling, an enormous wing flopped down, too, after which the drake lay motionless.

The shaman clambered up over the blue’s carcass toward Will. The halfling had no choice but to fight. With the water still high, and giant-kin gathered all around, he had nowhere to run.

“Stop!” Pavel shouted. The command carried a palpable charge of magic, and the shaman froze in place.

Will considered cutting him down before mobility returned, but instinct stayed his hand.

“If you have any sense,” Pavel called, “you can see that we want to be your friends. We’ve been trailing you for days, waiting for an opportunity to make contact.”

“Without you dumping our arses in the stewpot,” muttered Will.

The shaman glowered up at Pavel, then finally growled, “Climb down, little sun priest, and we’ll talk.”

Wearing her dragon form, perched on a mountainside with her companions, Kara took a final look at the scene across the valley. She didn’t look hopeful. The situation hadn’t changed for the better since she’d first observed it.

Sure enough, her keen sight confirmed the discouraging truth. The Monastery of the Yellow Rose, a huge fortress perched atop a different peak overlooking the shining white expanse of the Glacier of the White Worm, was still besieged. A score of dragons, a motley collection of reds, fangs, and other species, crawled or lay motionless about the landscape, while several others glided in circles overhead, watching the stronghold from on high. The only time the vista had materially changed had been when the wyrms mounted an assault, an attack so furious it was a miracle of valor that the monks had managed to repel it, their massive fortifications notwithstanding.

“Are we sure we all want to do this?” Kara asked. “It will be dangerous, and if we do get in, it may well be impossible to get out again.”

Dorn shrugged. “Pavel’s convinced Sammaster spent a long time in the monastery—in disguise, I guess—learning something important, and I think this proves it. Those wyrms don’t look like they’re in frenzy. They’re too patient. I think they’re still sane, and the lich sent them here to make sure nobody else gets a chance to read whatever he discovered.”

“He likely found out somebody stole his folio,” said Raryn, leaning on his harpoon. “We expected it to happen eventually. Now he’s trying to cover his trail.”

“Anyway,” said Dorn, “if this is a site that he particularly wants to keep people out of, then plainly, we need to find out what’s inside.”

“But you and Raryn aren’t scholars,” Kara said. “You likely won’t be able to contribute much to the research.”

“We can stand with you against whatever trouble rears its head,” Dorn replied. “It’s what we came to do.”

Raryn nodded and said, “We’ll stick.”

Kara sighed. “I just think—”

“Enough!” Chatulio snapped. Having abandoned the appearance of a horse, he too stood revealed as the dragon he was. His bright blue eyes, shining orange scales, and the gap in his upper front teeth usually made him look merry—to other wyrms, anyway—but at the moment, they didn’t mask his irritability. “The small folk are set on coming, so let’s get on with it.”

Plainly, the Rage was eating at him. At least Kara had her human guise to armor her much of the time, but Chatulio could only resist the madness by simple force of will. She was worried about him, but knew it would be useless to speak of it

“All right,” she said, crouching low. “We’ll get ready.”

Dorn swung himself onto her back, and Raryn clambered onto Chatulio. The copper chanted an incantation. Rainbows rippled through the air, a tingling danced across Kara’s scales, and at the end, Chatulio and Raryn faded away.

They weren’t really gone. The master illusionist had simply veiled himself and the dwarf in invisibility. In fact, he’d done the same for Kara and Dorn, though the effect didn’t keep the song dragon and half-golem from seeing themselves.

“I’m going,” Chatulio said.

A snap of wings revealed he’d taken flight. Kara flexed her legs, leaped, and followed him.

Dorn sat on her back more easily than the first time she’d carried him. She wondered wistfully if he could ever come to love flying the way she did.

She found an updraft and rode it high above the mountains, so high the air must have been brutally cold for a human, though Dorn didn’t complain. As per the plan, Chatulio rose with her. If she listened intently, she could hear the occasional rustle of his pinions.

Once they’d ascended high enough, they winged their way toward the monastery, making their approach far above the gliding, wheeling chromatic wyrms. If they descended in a tight spiral, it might be possible to slip past them undetected—or so they hoped. A huge red peered upward. Plainly, the drake had sensed the presence of the newcomers even from far below.

Kara was bitterly disappointed, but also recognized that in a sense, she and her comrades were lucky the chromatic wyrms had detected them before they even started their descent. The fact that they were still hundreds of yards above the foe might allow them to escape unharmed.

Kara lifted one wing and dipped the other, turning, preparing to withdraw. Meanwhile, the red snarled words of power. At the spell’s conclusion, magic throbbed through the cold, thin mountain air, and Chatulio and Raryn popped into view.

Kara gasped, and Dorn cursed, but not because they could see their friends. Visible or not, Chatulio and Raryn might still have been able to get away safely. Rather, it was because, talons poised for combat, the copper was diving to engage the chromatics, carrying the dwarf helplessly along.

Malazan beat her wings, climbing, searching for an updraft. She coveted the satisfaction of killing the copper all by herself, before any of her comrades could fly high and close enough to get in on the sport.

The red needed some diversion to make her forget her frustrations. She’d initially assumed that she and the other chromatics could take the monastery in a day or two. She’d likewise expected that, since she was the oldest dragon present and manifestly the greatest in might and cunning, all the others would grovel to her and give her their unquestioning obedience. Sadly, she’d known disappointment on all counts.

Of course, time would change everything for the better. The stronghold must fall eventually, Sammaster’s human lackeys would transform her, and possessed of a dracolich’s power, she’d slaughter any wyrm who’d shown her less than absolute subservience. After that, her reputation secure, she could go home to her lair and the treasure horde she loved above all things.

Soon, she promised herself. But in the meantime, killing one of her metallic cousins might brighten her mood.

The enchantment she’d cast in the air around the monastery to keep anyone from escaping via spells of flight and concealment, didn’t allow her to see the copper’s companion, but it gave her a general sense of the creature’s location. Thus, she knew it when that wyrm dived, plummeting even faster than its comrade, and she laughed with delight. It wouldn’t matter even if the second wyrm was an ancient gold. Two metal drakes still wouldn’t be able to defeat the half dozen chromatics Malazan had in the air. Apparently the Rage had both newcomers too addled to care how gravely they were outnumbered, and so they were both going to die.

She felt less pleased, though, when the wyrm who was still invisible started to chant in a high, sweet, vibrant voice that suggested she was probably a song dragon. Malazan recognized a spell of coercion when she heard it, and realized the reptile had dived not to hurl herself into a suicidal battle but to get close enough to constrain the copper’s will.

The copper jerked as the charm sunk its claws into his mind. “Flee!” the song dragon cried. “Escape!”

He obediently pounded his wings to arrest his plunging descent.

Too late, Malazan thought. He’d already swooped too low, and so, for that matter, had the song drake. If they exerted themselves, the chromatics could catch both of them. The red roared to her subordinates, urging them to fly faster and climb higher. Then she snarled a spell to wipe away the song dragon’s concealment, bringing her slim blue-diamond body shimmering into view. The singer had a rider, too, a grotesque hulk who appeared to be half human meat and half iron.

One of Malazan’s minions sent a mote of yellow light streaking upward at the copper. He veered, dodging, and when the spark exploded into a mass of flame, he was at the periphery of the blast. It still must have seared him, but even the odd-looking white-haired, ruddy-faced dwarf on his back survived.

The crystal-blue dragon sang, holding a single throbbing note that became a prodigious thunderclap. The deafening peal drove a lance of pain through Malazan’s ears and made her flounder in the air. Some of her worthless minions swerved off course or dropped lower, losing distance they’d labored hard to gain. The red female bellowed in fury.

The copper and song dragon fled toward the mountains to the north, zigzagging in an attempt to avoid their pursuers’ conjured flares of flame and lightning, showers of acid and hailstones, and bursts of blighting darkness. Occasionally, the fugitives sent their own attack spells sizzling back to singe one of their foes, or tangle its wings in a mammoth spiderweb. For the most part, though, they wove defensive enchantments. The copper conjured several illusory images of himself to befuddle his assailants. The song drake cloaked herself in a protective aura of light.

The riders clinging precariously to the “benevolent” dragons’ backs evidently lacked the magical skills to cast any powerful spells of their own. Whenever the vertiginous chase afforded them a target, however, they loosed arrows that flew straight and pierced deep.

It didn’t matter, though. Nothing they could do mattered. Malazan and her subordinates were going to catch them. Indeed, she was nearly close enough to stop casting spells and use her fiery breath when a thick, pearly fog swirled into existence around her.

She could have dispelled the magical cloud, but she’d drawn so close that she chose to drive onward instead, trusting to hearing and scent to guide her to her prey. Then she plunged into the second sort of vapor concealed within the drifting coils of the first. Her belly twisted with nausea. Elsewhere in the mist, her lackeys retched.

Beating her wings, defying her dizziness and the cramping in her guts, she climbed above the fog bank, whereupon her sickness ended as abruptly as it had begun. Better still, she could see the copper and song dragon once more. They were only a little way ahead, and had finally dropped to the same altitude as their pursuers.

Malazan cried to her warriors, urging them forward but scarcely caring if they heeded or not. In her present savage humor, she was sure she could kill a copper and a song wyrm all by herself and enjoy the exercise.

She sucked in a breath, spewed forth her fire, and caught the copper square in the blaze. One of his wings burned away like paper. Wreathed in flame, the screaming dwarf fell from his back. She flew on and drove her talons into the copper’s body.

At that instant, his body exploded into dozens of small, darting copper-dragon masks, which laughed derisively before bursting. The song drake, her rider, and the plummeting dwarf vanished at the same time.

Illusion. A trick to divert and delay. Malazan climbed once more, cast about, and spotted the real copper and song dragon beating their way into a pass. A moment later, another mass of fog flowed into existence to hide them from view.

They’d increased their lead significantly, but perhaps not enough. If Malazan invoked the godlike anger she could summon at will, brought the blood-sweat seeping forth to glaze her scales, it would magnify her already prodigious strength and stamina. Then she could surely overtake them, and rip them to pieces when she did.

The problem was that she didn’t no how long it would take, or what might happen in her absence. Accordingly, fiercely as her instincts goaded her to pursue, she wheeled and led her subordinates back to the monastery.

A little weary from the chase, she landed on the high crag that was her customary perch. Soon, much to her displeasure, Ishenalyr came gliding to light unbidden beside her.

The ancient green with the long, high crest and rows of hornlets over the eyes was smaller than Malazan, but larger than any other wyrm participating in the siege. He stank of the poison smoke he could exhale at will, and bore arcane runes and sigils carved on his scales.

Malazan had enhanced her natural abilities by learning to use the ferocity that was a fundamental part of a dragon’s nature. As she understood it, Ishenalyr had mastered certain petty tricks by walking a different path, a discipline that involved stifling one’s passions as well as self-mutilation. It sounded perverse and stupid to her, and was one reason she disliked him. The main cause, though, was the way he critiqued her strategies and second-guessed her orders, his clear though not quite openly declared conviction that Sammaster should have chosen him to command the company.

The “hidecarved” green had been on the ground when the song and copper dragons made their approach, and thus hadn’t participated in the chase. Accordingly, he appeared fresh where she was battered and winded, and that ratcheted her antipathy up yet another notch.

Still, he could prove a useful tool to crack the monastery open, and so she managed to hold back the fire warming her gullet.

“What?” she demanded.

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” said Ishenalyr in his prissy, superior way.

“Your ‘concern’ is an insult,” she spat. “What could puny creatures like that do to me?”

“Apparently,” said Ishenalyr, “outwit and evade you.”

“I would have caught them had I cared to chase them any farther, but it was sufficient to drive them off. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason we’re here is to destroy the monks and their archives.”

“Still, it’s remarkable that the dread Malazan let enemies escape. I hope frenzy isn’t rotting your faculties.”

“That’s two insults,” she said. “I beg you, puke up a third.” Rather to her regret, he prudently stood mute. “Why should I absent myself from the battleground just to kill a couple of our ‘kindly’ kin? Such creatures are doomed one and all to permanent lunacy. Isn’t that as cruel a fate as any I could give them?”

It pleased her that, for all his glibness, Ishenalyr couldn’t come up with an argument for that.

The blue dragon was dead, but its conjured storm howled on. Yagoth Devil-eye had found an overhang of rock under which he could sit, hold court, and stay relatively dry. There was only enough room for one to lounge comfortably, though. Those who came to confer with him had to stand in the cold, pelting rain, and he rather liked it that way.

At the moment, the human and halfling awaited his pleasure. Bundled up in their hoods and cloaks, their layers of “civilized” clothing, they looked puny and effete as such little vermin generally did, but they’d already demonstrated during the fight with the drake that the appearance was misleading. They were two of the rare human or demihuman bugs who might prove a match for an ogre in a one-on-one fight.

The question was, what in the name of the Great Claw did they want? Their presence surely portended something important. They’d arrived at the same time as the blue wyrm, and Yagoth had never in his life seen a dragon of that color before, hadn’t even known that they existed. The reptile must have been an omen, but of what, he wasn’t yet sure.

When he’d observed everything about the strangers that two eyes could reveal, Yagoth closed the left to peer with the blood-red one alone. His shaman powers had awakened after a manticore ripped open his face, and occasionally the blemished eye revealed secrets imperceptible to normal sight. Often enough, its unblinking stare made folk quail, and that could be useful, too. But it failed to show him anything unusual, and the human and halfling bore its regard without flinching.

Yagoth growled, “Who are you?”

“I’m Pavel Shemov,” said the human, “a servant of the Morninglord, as you already noticed. My companion is Will Turnstone.”

“My people are hungry,” said Yagoth. “Tell me why I shouldn’t ‘dump your arses in the stewpot.’”

Will grinned. “I didn’t realize you heard that.”

Yagoth spat. “I hear everything I need to hear.”

“It would be foolish to kill us,” said Pavel, “when we can help you.”

“How?” the ogre asked.

“Do you know what a Rage of Dragons is?” the human asked.

“I’m not stupid, sun priest. Don’t hint that I am.”

“I didn’t mean any insult,” Pavel said. “If you know what a Rage is, you likely also know we’re in the middle of one. Flights of wyrms are rampaging across all Faerûn, not just Thar. What you may not know—Will and I only recently discovered it ourselves—is that this Rage is the worst ever. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s never going to end of its own accord.”

Yagoth snorted. “Ridiculous.”

“I assure you, it’s so. Perhaps you know a spell to sort truth from lies. If so, cast it. I won’t resist.”

The shaman frowned, pondering. Pavel really did sound sincere. Which didn’t necessarily mean he knew what he was talking about, but unlike many of his kind, Yagoth was too canny to dismiss the learning of human scholars and spellcasters out of hand.

“Even if it is true,” Yagoth said, “so what?”

“In ancient times,” said Pavel, “the wise knew things about the Rage that we modern clerics and wizards have forgotten. Will and I belong to a band of folk trying to recover that lore so we can use it to restore the wyrms to their senses.”

Puzzled, Yagoth cocked his head and asked, “You think I know the cure?”

“No,” Pavel said. “No living person does. If the knowledge still exists, it’s preserved in all-but-forgotten shrines and the like. Will and I came to Thar seeking one such site.”

“Only it wasn’t where my idiot partner expected it to be,” said Will.

“I have a map …” Pavel paused as if trying to judge whether Yagoth knew what such a thing was. “But I hesitate to take it out where I’m standing. The rain will soak it.”

Yagoth wasn’t sure whether to laugh or take offense at the lanky man’s effrontery. He shifted over a bit and said, “Squeeze in under the rock, then, if you’ve got the nerve.”

Many humans, Yagoth knew, would have hesitated to come so close, and once they did, might well have gagged at what they claimed was the stink of an ogre’s warty skin. Pavel, however, simply said, “Thank you,” and entered the cramped space without any display of trepidation or distaste.

The human produced a piece of parchment from inside his mantle, unfolded it, and held it for Yagoth to see.

“This is the lake,” said Pavel, pointing, “that your clan passed a few days back. I thought the site would be there, but all we found were the worn remnants of a few standing stones. Yet, unless I’m completely mistaken, the ruin must be somewhere in this region—” he drew a circle with his fingertip—“and it should be near a body of water.”

Yagoth leered, comprehending at last. “You think I can point you in the right direction.”

“Can you?” Pavel asked. “This is your country, and I suspect that, as a shaman, you have some interest in old places of power.”

“Even if I can,” Yagoth said, “why should I?”

“My guess,” said Will, a drop of water escaping the top edge of his hood to drip across his face, “is that you’re trying to lead your tribe to a place of safety. Caves, maybe. Unfortunately, it’s pointless. Over the long run, there won’t be any safe havens. The wyrms will keep roaming and killing till they’ve eaten us all, and I guarantee, you ogres may think of yourselves as big and strong, but you’re just a mouthful of lunch to a dragon, the same as halflings and humans.”

Yagoth glared at him and said, “We’ve killed the drakes that threatened us.”

Will glanced back at the scene behind him, at the ogres bearing enormous, grisly wounds, and the females wailing for those slain outright by the blue wyrm.

“Right, on second thought, you’re doing splendidly. Forget I said anything.”

“The point,” said Pavel, “is that your folk and mine have a common interest in ending the Rage, so why not help us do it? It won’t cost you anything.”

“It could cost the lives of my followers,” Yagoth said.

Pavel’s brown eyes narrowed. “I don’t follow.”

“I know where there’s a second lake,” Yagoth said, “with ruined temples overlooking it. I could mark the location on this badly drawn, misleading map of yours. But you still wouldn’t find it hidden among the hills. You’ll only reach it if we ogres turn around and take you.”

Pavel and Will exchanged glances. Yagoth was sure he knew what they were thinking: Spending an hour or two among “savage,” man-eating giant-kin was a daunting prospect. Lingering for days in their company might be tantamount to suicide.

Yet Pavel turned back to Yagoth and said, “If you’re willing, we’d be grateful to have you as our guides. Since we’re going to travel together, may I use my skills to tend your wounded? I don’t mean to disparage your own abilities, but there are more injured folk than any one healer can manage alone.”

Yagoth smirked and said, “I guess you don’t want any sick ogres slowing down the march. Don’t worry, they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let them. But do what you want.”

In point of fact, it was a good idea. Yagoth’s patron Vaprak, a god of carnage and destruction, was niggardly when it came to granting healing magic to his shamans. A priest of soft, nurturing Lathander might do more in a day to restore the strength of the troupe than Yagoth could do in a tenday.

Though Pavel’s services wouldn’t lull Yagoth into dropping his guard, or make him falter when the time came to kill the human and his insolent halfling friend.

Thar had once been the site of a mighty kingdom of ogres and orcs, one so ancient that even they only vaguely remembered it. That bygone age had indeed left a scatter of ruins behind, if one knew where to look. According to legend, buried in those haunted sites were enchanted weapons and other valuable relics.

So Yagoth found it plausible that Pavel and Will truly had come seeking some sort of long-lost treasure or lore, and once they located it, he’d dispose of them and seize the booty for himself. Even if they were after exactly what they claimed, he saw no reason to permit them to carry the secret away. For in that case, the prize was essentially the power to control dragons, wasn’t it, and Yagoth could rise high wielding a weapon like that. He could unite and rule the warring tribes of Thar like old King Vorbyx come again, with a blue wyrm for his emblem.

In Raryn’s opinion, the trouble with magical fog was that no one could see through it from either side. As he and Chatulio flew onward, he kept peering backward. He invariably saw that nothing had poked a reptilian snout through the cloud Kara had conjured to shroud the mouth of the pass. Still, he would have felt more secure had he possessed some way of knowing what lay beyond the mist—of verifying that the chromatic dragons, that colossal red and the others, truly had abandoned the chase.

In fact, the dwarf was so busy looking over his shoulder and casting about in general—because his experience as a hunter had taught him that flying predators could appear just about anywhere—that it took a while for Chatulio’s muttering to snag his attention. The gods only knew how long the copper had been ranting under his breath.

“Stupid,” Chatulio snarled, “stupid, incompetent, useless. Crazy!”

He used one forefoot to rake at the other. The talons drew blood.

“Don’t!” Raryn said, patting the base of the copper’s neck as he might gentle a pony. The gesture felt wrong—Chatulio was a sentient being, not an animal—but he had to try to reach his companion somehow.

“Crazy!” Chatulio repeated.

He slashed himself again.

“No,” Raryn insisted. Dorn and Kara were flying ahead of their comrades. Raryn considered calling out to them for help, but he had a feeling Chatulio might react badly to that. “The Rage had you for a second, but you’re all right now.”

“I’m supposed to be the illusionist,” Chatulio said. “The trickster. The sneak. My magic should have slipped us past the chromatics, but I’ve lost my cunning. The frenzy has eaten it away.”

“It was just bad luck,” Raryn said. “When spell fights spell, the outcome is always uncertain. I’m so sorcerer, but even I know that.”

“Then I was going to throw away my life, and yours, too. At that moment, I didn’t even remember you were on my back. I just wanted to kill something. Kara and Dorn had to risk themselves to save us.”

“Back at the village,” Raryn said, “it was Kara who became confused. It’s happening to all of you, and there’s no point in feeling ashamed. Don’t you see, exaggerated self-hatred is simply another way the Rage gnaws at you.”

“You don’t know,” Chatulio said. “It’s not happening to you, so you can’t understand.”

It seemed to Raryn that the dragon was waxing even more hysterical. What if, wracked with self-loathing, Chatulio decided simply to fold his wings and fall out of the sky? In all likelihood, neither of them would survive. The ranger realized he’d better involve his other comrades after all. If nothing else, maybe Kara could shackle the copper’s will with another charm.

Raryn drew in a breath and placed two fingers before his mouth to whistle, but Chatulio twisted his neck and said, “What’s that?”

Chatulio’s enormous body and outstretched wings largely obstructed his rider’s view of the landscape directly below. Raryn had to shift forward to see what the copper had noticed, but then he spotted it easily enough. A dead human lay amid a tumble of rocks on an escarpment.

“We should take a closer look,” Raryn said.

The corpse had distracted Chatulio from his poisonous self-absorption. Maybe, if the diversion lasted for a while, the copper wouldn’t slip back into the same mood.

Raryn whistled, and Kara’s head whipped backward. Maybe she thought he’d signaled to warn that the chromatics had reappeared, and he made haste to reassure her.

“We’re all right,” he shouted, “but Chatulio spotted a dead man. We want to see if we can figure out who he was, and what he’s doing out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“All right,” the song dragon said, and her lustrous lavender eyes narrowed.

Raryn had a hunch she’d just noticed the fresh blood on Chatulio’s forefeet, but if so, she evidently decided not to mention it.

Still keeping an eye out for signs of pursuit, the drakes wheeled, glided, and set lightly down on the steep incline where the dead man lay. Raryn and Dorn swung themselves down from the reptiles’ backs, and they all clambered toward the body. With their sharp talons and prodigious strength, the wings and tails they poised to enhance their balance, Kara and Chatulio moved almost as nimbly as they would on a horizontal surface. Raryn had learned to climb on the icy crags of the Great Glacier, and he too had little difficulty. It was Dorn who floundered, slid, and sent loose pebbles and dirt bouncing and streaming down the mountainside. In the dwarf’s opinion, the big human with his iron limbs wasn’t clumsy, but he thought he was, and accordingly, he acted like it. Fortunately, in combat he forgot to limp and lurch.

The corpse was burned and blistered, as if by a black or green dragon’s corrosive breath. The disfigurement made it difficult to tell much about the victim, but it looked to Raryn as if he’d been relatively young, and had dressed all in gray. Judging from the bloated belly, and the leakage around the mouth and nostrils, he’d been dead for a few days, though the local animals, evidently disliking the acidic tang underlying the commonplace reek of putrefaction, had left him alone.

“Poor man,” Kara sighed.

“Poor monk, maybe,” said Dorn. “This Monastery of the Yellow Rose is dedicated to Ilmater, isn’t it, and the servants of the Broken God wear gray.”

“I think you may be right,” Chatulio said.

“So,” Dorn asked, “what is he doing out here instead of in the stronghold?”

“The monks travel all over Damara on various errands,” Kara said. “Perhaps he was simply away from home when the chromatics arrived to lay siege to the place.”

“Maybe,” the half-golem said, sunlight glinting on his iron arm and half-mask. “But there’s another possibility. Many castles are built with secret tunnels underneath. Maybe this lad used such a passage to come out. If so, we can go in the same way.”

“If we can find it,” Chatulio said.

“Raryn can backtrack him,” said Dorn, “even over these rocks.”

“I’ll try,” said the dwarf, though he recognized, as his comrades perhaps did not, that even if he found the hidden gateway to a subterranean path, there was a good chance the road would only take them to their deaths.