The Temple of Yellow Skulls (11 page)

Fear and anger fought each other in her voice. Albanon could guess why. The way he felt about Nu Alin was the way she felt about Vestapalk. The dragon had slaughtered her father and her friends. She’d thought her vengeance against the monster was done. To discover that it might not be, that Vestapalk might
still be alive, must have been like a knife twisting inside her. He reached out for her. “Shara—”

She jerked away from his hand. “We need Uldane. If Vestapalk is still alive, he needs to know. He needs to be a part of this.”

“There’s no time,” Kri said. His words were cold. “It’s been a month since the Voidharrow was released. We need to find out what’s become of it without delay.”

Shara glared at him. “But Uldane—”

“Uldane travels without you. You need to travel without him.” Kri looked at both of them. “Make what arrangements you have to while I find a mount. We leave Fallcrest immediately.”

“Immediately?” Albanon said. “Today? It won’t be daylight for much longer by the time we’re on the road.”

“Then we travel in the dark and let Ioun guide our steps,” said Kri. He paused, his expression softening briefly. “I understand your tredpidation, Shara. I pray that Vestapalk is dead.”

“And if he isn’t?” asked Albanon.

Shara squeezed her hands into fists. “Then we kill him all over again.”

L
ow whistles and chirps heralded the hunters’ return, echoing down from the heights of the chasm. Members of the tribe lifted their heads to listen, then responded with their own chirping chorus. Here in their nest—newly established though it might be—there was no need for stealth. They were under the protection of the Great One just as he was under theirs. Though he slept, his majesty protected his loyal tribe. No predators would approach knowing that the dragon was there!

Within the rocky crevice he had claimed as his own, Tiktag woke to the sound of the hunters’ welcome. He twitched aside the hanging flap of rough leather that served as a door and listened intently to the calls—the night’s hunting had been good—then snatched up his staff and scurried out to meet the hunters.

His sudden appearance drew a yip of surprise from Sistree. His apprentice threw himself onto his scaly belly before Tiktag. “The Great One remains quiet, wyrmpriest!”

Tiktag rewarded him with a poke from the butt of his staff. Not too hard—Sistree was useful and fairly reliable. If he remembered his place, he might live to become a wyrmpriest in his own right. Tiktag had picked him out from among the other kobolds, declared that he bore the signs of a servant of the Great One, and put him to work watching over Vestapalk when Tiktag’s own weariness overcame him.

“Prepare,” he instructed him. Sistree rose to his feet and darted away into the shadows. Tiktag continued on through the litter of the nest to the base of the chasm walls, where the clutch-guardians and hatchlings swarmed in excitement. They gave way before him, falling silent before the priest who had led them out of fear and into the protection of the Great One. Tiktag raised his head, shaking it so that the feathers and cast-off scales that decorated the bony plates of his skull headdress rustled. The nearest clutch-guardians cooed softly and reached out to stroke the ornaments reverently. One even caught Tiktag’s tail and dragged claws along its length, scratching at loosened and dulled scales. Tiktag allowed them a moment, then swatted them all away and looked up the height of the chasm wall.

Far overhead, beyond the top of the chasm and up in the ceiling of the cavern above, the broken gap that opened to the outside world was glowing pink with the coming dawn. That distant glow made silhouettes of the hunters, a full dozen of the fastest and most cunning of the tribe’s adults, as they climbed down the ropes that had been laid against the ragged stone face.

A hump distorted the back of each hunter. Tiktag caught the smell of fresh, bloody meat. Saliva ran inside his mouth, but he swallowed. At his side, a hatchling whimpered and shifted, reaching up with tiny arms. Tiktag knocked it back
with his staff. “The master eats first!” he snapped. The hatchling mewled and ducked behind a clutch-guardian, but she pushed it away, too.

One by one, the hunters dropped to the floor of the chasm. Each came and knelt before Tiktag, unstrapping the burden they carried on their back and holding out enormous chunks of dark red flesh. The day had brought a deer into the hunters’ traps. The tribe whistled their admiration. Steeped in poison—a substitute for the taint of Vestapalk’s own poisonous breath—it would provide tempting sustenance for their draconic master.

The whistles fell silent, however, as the last hunter leaped from the ropes—and did not approach Tiktag. The wyrmpriest’s twitching nostrils told him that her bundle contained the tender and delectable organs of the deer. But the hunter didn’t move. Her eyes swept the waiting tribe. Tiktag saw a few of the other kobolds twitch as they met her gaze.

He banged his staff on the ground then shook it at her. “Knaknak! Present your offering for the Great One!”

The hunter raised her snout defiantly. “No.”

With a collective hiss, the tribe pulled away from her blasphemy. Some kobolds didn’t pull away quite as quickly. Knaknak seemed to draw strength from this hesitant show of support. She faced Tiktag. “The tribe is hungry.”

“The Great One honors you by accepting your worship!”

“He eats the food we gather,” said Knaknak. “Where is the honor in that? What else has he done for us?”

“He protects the tribe with his presence.”

Knaknak pointed up. “There is a cavern full of tombs between us and the surface. If anything knew we were here, fear of the sleeping undead would frighten them off more than
a wounded dragon. We haven’t even seen Vestapalk since you convinced us to follow you here a moon’s passage ago!”

The tribe hissed again at the hunter’s flagrant use of the dragon’s name, but Tiktag’s tail stiffened.

It hadn’t taken him long after he’d given Vestapalk his oath of protection to realize that one kobold wouldn’t be able to nurse a dragon back to health. The task of protecting and providing food for his master as he lay broken and vulnerable at the bottom of the chasm would challenge an entire tribe of kobolds. Tiktag had such a tribe at his command—halfway across the Nentir Vale in the hills of the Gardbury Downs. But fortunately his people thrived in scattered niches across the land, making their way in the shadow of greater creatures. Praying that Vestapalk would be all right for a day or two on his own, Tiktag had drawn up his courage and climbed back up the wall of the chasm. He’d ventured among the ancient tombs of the cavern above and found a narrow passage back to the surface.

From there, it didn’t take long for him to find a tribe of kobolds in need of inspiration and guidance and to convince them that their future lay in serving Vestapalk. The first thing he’d had the tribe do was work together to move Vestapalk’s unconscious body to a fully enclosed cave that split off from the chasm. Then he’d set the hunters to searching for food while the clutch-guardians watched over the nest and he and Sistree watched over the entrance to Vestapalk’s resting place.

And one hunter—
one hunter
—dared to question the wisdom of his plan? Tiktag snarled and thrust his staff at Knaknak once more.

This time he focused his will and all of the awe he felt for his master through it. Devotion and rage and hatred boiled
through the staff and, for an instant, a seething ball of bright green energy took shape at its end.

Then the ball spat from the staff to Knaknak. It changed as it moved, from compact and swirling to something that wasn’t quite liquid and wasn’t quite gas. It splattered across Knaknak. Where it touched, steaming fumes rose up. The hunter’s eyes bulged. She wheezed and staggered—then collapsed. Her body jerked feebly as she succumbed to the poison. Tiktag turned on the rest of the tribe and raised his staff high.

“We serve the Great One! Never forget that.” Wide eyes stared at him and only him. No one spared another glance for Knaknak. Triumph warmed Tiktag. He swept his staff over the other hunters, still kneeling. “The trough is waiting. Take the meat there and I will take it before our master. We perform a sacred duty by caring for him. He protects us now, and when he regains his full might, he will reward the faithful and punish the reluctant—”

“Tiktag!
Tiktag!”
Sistree came charging from the back of the tribe, bashing clutch-guardians and hatchlings aside in his haste. He slid to a stop before Tiktag and threw himself on the ground. His whole body shook with every breath. “The Great One is awake!”

Tiktag froze. Every member of the tribe froze, eyes wide and tails curving downward.

Then, yipping and screeching, every one of the hunters sprinted along the chasm with their bloody offerings held high. The clutch-guardians and the hatchlings streamed after them. Cursing and laying about him with his staff, Tiktag tried to keep up. “Place the food in the trough!” he shouted. “I will take it before our master! Only the servants of the Great One may look upon him!”

He threw a glance at Sistree, running beside him. “No one else saw, did they?” he demanded and Sistree shook his head. Tiktag whistled with relief. “What exactly did you see?”

“I heard movement,” Sistree wheezed. “I kneeled down and put just my head into the Great One’s cave as you told me. He was uncoiling his tail and stretching his wings. His head was up and he was looking around.” The other kobold looked around, then grabbed Tiktag’s arm and pulled him close. “There was something else, though,” he murmured urgently. “When we dragged him to his resting place, he was green, yes? A green dragon?”

Tiktag’s skinny gut clenched, but he nodded. Sistree just looked confused. “But now his scales are red!”

Terror gnawed at Tiktag. He pushed it aside. “The Great One moves to a new stage of his life!” he said with false excitement. “He is like a tree with leaves that change color before winter.”

Sistree’s eyes opened wide. “Leaves die in winter! The Great One is dying?”

Tiktag cursed silently and cuffed Sistree. “It means he’s getting stronger. Just don’t say anything to the others. Control them while I talk to the Great One.”

The fear of Vestapalk that he had worked to instill in the tribe—along with his eerily well-timed pronouncement of rewards and punishments, no doubt—had kept the hunters at the feeding trough with the others crowded around them. Red meat filled the trough; the tribe looked at Tiktag expectantly. On other occasions, Tiktag would have pronounced a blessing in his master’s name, cast his poisonous magic upon the meat, then dragged the trough on its rough wheels into the other cave. He hesitated and considered bringing the meat in case Vestapalk had woken too hungry to distinguish his priest from his dinner.

A long sigh from the unseen dragon made his decision for him. Putting his back to the tribe, Tiktag hurried around the corner and into the cave.

Sistree was right. Vestapalk was awake—and the green dragon had turned red. Not in the manner of the fire breathers among dragons, but each green scale was now outlined by angry crimson. It was as if flesh hot with infection peeked through from beneath the scales—except that with every motion, the stuff glowed briefly where Vestapalk’s muscles shifted and bent, like embers when a fire was stirred up. Tiktag stopped just inside the cave, just out of sight of the tribe, and stared.

Vestapalk hadn’t noticed his entrance. He was too busy staring at his legs, his chest, his flanks and wings, as if seeing them for the first time. Maybe, Tiktag thought, he was.

When the wyrmpriest had first climbed into the chasm in search of his fallen master, he’d found Vestapalk broken and injured. The dragon’s powerful limbs had been bent, his graceful neck twisted, one wing left in tatters, a terrible gash cut deep into his belly. As horrible as the injuries to Vestapalk’s body were, though, there had been something else that had disturbed Tiktag more.

Where his master’s blood showed in wounds and smears across his green scales, the red liquid shimmered with streaks of silver. It
glowed
, as Tiktag had once seen a ruby held before a candle glow. As he had watched over Vestapalk on that first awful night, he’d seen that glowing red spread, appearing first around the dragon’s eyes and across his snout before making its way between the scales along the length of his body like some spreading disease.

Tiktag had stared in horror, terrified of what might be happening to his master, until exhaustion had driven him into sleep.

When he’d woken to Vestapalk’s thin, dry laughter, the glow was gone. Vestapalk’s wounds were crusted scabs. As he swore his oath to watch over his wounded master, Tiktag could almost—almost—believe he had imagined it all. But he knew he hadn’t. Sometimes when he watched over Vestapalk, he thought he could see a faint silvery-red light in the tiny trickle of venom that leaked between the dragon’s jaws.

More than anything else, that was the reason he kept Vestapalk’s new tribe away from their master except for when they’d moved his unconscious body into the cave. How would the others react if the glowing red stuff revealed itself again? Dragons had no flaws. They were perfect beings.

And here were Tiktag’s fears come to pass.

The red taint wasn’t the only change, Tiktag realized as he stared. Vestapalk had grown thin, as if fever had eaten away at his body. His torso and limbs were thin, skin shrunk tight to corded muscles. His belly was wasting away in the manner of a starving animal. Even his tail seemed narrower. Yet somehow the dragon had still grown. He had been big before, but now he was even larger. If he reared back, his head might brush the roof of the cave. He had been majestic. Now he was awe-inspiring. And more than a little frightening.

Vestapalk still had not noticed him. Tiktag swallowed and stepped forward. He could feel the heat that rolled off him. The fever hadn’t passed yet, not entirely. “Master,” he said.

There was no reaction. Vestapalk continued staring at himself, running talons along limbs that had healed while he slept and over belly scales marked only by a dark line where the deepest wound had been. For the first time, Tiktag noticed strange blisters bigger than his fist forming along the joints of Vestapalk’s limbs. He swallowed and called again. “Master!”