“Now what?”

Cam glanced at Dorna, who was regarding him expectantly. They were crouched behind a boulder in the lair of Tymofarrar, watching as the white dragon used a claw to pick the remnants of his last meal from his teeth.

That’s a young dragon? Admittedly, Camden had absolutely no prior experience with dragons of any kind, save the pseudodragons that one or two of the palace mages kept as familiars, but ‘young’ to him implied ‘small’. Tymofarrar’s head was easily as long as Cam was tall, the fangs in his mouth a handsbreadth in length and cruelly pointed.

“I’m thinking.” Between the two of them, making their way through the cave system without drawing the attention of too many of the kobolds living there had been a relatively simple task. Dorna had found and disabled more traps than could be counted, and the few fights they had been forced into had been easily won, the dead bodies stashed in the nearest available nooks and crannies and the two invaders fading back into the shadows by the time others arrived to investigate.

The kobolds knew that something was up, but few of them seemed to share Deekin’s intelligence, and they wound up racing about in noisy, easy to avoid mobs. A few of them had possessed sufficient presence of mind to set up a guard outside their master’s lair, but they had been quickly routed when, in a bit of innovation that he was rather proud of, Cam had opened the gate on the pen restraining a sizeable herd of cattle, presumably kept to sate the dragon’s appetite.

The resulting stampede had left the way clear, and on one of the corpses, Cam had found the shortsword that was now sheathed at his hip, its blade glittering with frost. He doubted that the enchantments on the weapon would be of any use against the opponent they faced now, though, even if white dragons weren’t immune to frost magics. Hells, he’d known going in that fighting was not an option; trouble was, he wasn’t sure just what his options were now. Should they approach him openly, or wait until he fell asleep and try to search the lair for clues that might help in negotiations, or –

“You might as well come out where I can see you.” The dragon’s rumbling voice held an undeniable touch of amusement. “I just ate, so I’m really not feeling like searching myself, and the kobolds are most displeased with you. If I have to call them in to flush you out, they’re not likely to be gentle.”

Camden stiffened, exchanging a chagrined look with Dorna. “Stay here,” he whispered. With luck, if things went wrong, she could make her way back out as stealthily as she had come. She glared at him but stayed put as he stood and moved from behind the boulder, his hands open at his side, well away from his weapons.

The massive head turned to regard him, the eyes a midnight blue that almost hid the black of the cat-slitted pupils. “Both of you, if you please; dwarf as well as human,” he said lazily, a single, slate-grey claw tapping on the stone beneath his paws. “My sense of smell is quite keen.”

Dorna moved to stand beside him, her expression stoic. He’d definitely picked the right companion for this venture, Cam decided. Mischa would undoubtedly be waving her sword by now, and the gods only knew what Xanos would do.

“Closer, now,” Tymofarrar ordered them. “No reason for us to shout at each other across the cavern, is there?” His eyes never left them as they complied, his tongue flickering out to test the air as they drew near. “You don’t look like dragonslayers,” he mused slyly. “Thought you’d have a go at sneaking in and helping yourself to my hoard?”

“We wanted to know why your kobolds attacked Hilltop and robbed Master Drogan’s school,” Cam replied matter-of-factly, his voice giving no hint of the anger and frustration seething in him. The murder of the townspeople and Drogan’s poisoning had been carried out on the instructions of this smug lizard, but there was not a damn thing that he could do to take revenge. Recovering the artifacts had to take precedence…right after keeping the two of them alive.

For now, he promised silently, but if I ever find a way to get to you…

The dragon threw back his head, his laugh booming through the cavern. “Oh, you are bold ones,” he exclaimed delightedly. “Watching you make fools of my loyal subjects, as simple a task as that might be, has been entertaining enough that I decided to let you proceed. I suppose that before I eat you, I could reward you for that entertainment by indulging your question.” He shifted his massive body, wings rustling slightly as he extended his head toward Camden.

“Because I wanted to,” he purred. “I desired the items that the dwarf possessed, so I took them.”

Cam clenched his teeth, managing not to flinch as the dragon’s hot breath washed over him, redolent with the stench of raw meat and offal. “But you don’t have them now, do you?” He replied, forcing calmness into his voice and mind; if there was a way to turn the situation to their advantage, they couldn’t afford to miss it. “And there’s no way that your kobolds will be able to get them back from the gnolls.”

The dragon’s head drew back and upward, the eyes narrowing in sudden anger, and Cam felt his heart sink. “What is this?” he hissed suspiciously. “Some new trick of J’nah’s? She robs me, then has the effrontery to mock me? I’ll send your gnawed bones back to her in a burlap sack!”

“Do that, and there’ll be paladins swarmin’ through these caves within the week, out for yer scaly head,” Dorna spoke up, glaring at the creature. “They know that ye be the one behind the deaths in Hilltop, and they’ll not rest until yer dead!”

“She’s right,” Cam put in, quickly picking up the direction of her thought and building on it, seeing the sudden apprehension rippling across Tymofarrar’s face at the mention of paladins. “I don’t know who this J’nah is, but if she had any part in the attack, we might be able to convince the paladins to let you be. If she tricked you, for instance…” He trailed off suggestively.

“She betrayed me!” the dragon burst out with a petulance that was the first real indication of his youth. “It was she who told me of the artifacts and created the plan to steal them. She gave me the magical powder that my kobolds used to pass the wards; she said that all she wanted as her share was the tower, but then her gnolls stole everything! She is the one to blame!”

“We might be able to convince ‘em of that,” Dorna told him, “if ye can tell us where she can be found.”

“The gnolls have a lair in the High Forest,” Tymofarrar grumbled. “Beyond that, I do not know. She always appeared here.” His expression turned sly again. “As a gesture of goodwill, I can offer an item that will bind her magics, making it much easier to kill her.”

So, he had been planning a betrayal of his own, and J’nah had merely beaten him to the punch. “I think that would convince the paladins of the sincerity of your remorse at being so misled,” he replied magnanimously, tipping Dorna a wink as the dragon rose and lumbered toward the rear of the cavern, which was shrouded in shadow. There was the jingle of coins sliding against each other, then moments later, the dragon returned to them, a small glass phylactery dangling from his jaws on a black silken cord. The phylactery was filled with a dusky red powder.

“Toss that at her feet,” Tymofarrar rumbled as he lowered the phylactery into Camden’s hand, his eyes glittering with spiteful pleasure. “It will last for a minute at most, but that should be more than enough time for the paladins to dispose of her, and if you can convince them to part with her lying head, I will pay you a handsome reward. I rather fancy the notion of watching the kobolds kick it around for a few years.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Cam agreed, “but you know how paladins are. Will we be attacked by your kobolds if we try to leave by the way we came in?”

The dragon raised his head, sibilant words falling from his mouth and drifting unintelligibly around their ears; a large stone rolled to the side, daylight illuminating the time-worn walls of the suddenly revealed tunnel.

“Go now,” Tymofarrar ordered in the manner of a monarch granting a generous boon, “and do not neglect to tell the paladins of my willingness to aid them in the destruction of an evil as great as J’nah.”

“I’ll tell them as soon as they arrive,” Camden promised with full sincerity.

“One more thing,” the dragon called after him before he reached the mouth of the tunnel, “if you encounter a kobold who calls himself Deekin, I’ll double your reward if you bring him along with J’nah’s head. He is a poor excuse for a bard, but it would set a bad example if I let him get away with trying to escape.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Cam agreed as readily as he had to the first behest, glad that he had forgotten to make mention of the kobold earlier in the conversation.

No sooner had they emerged into a ravine on the far side of the tunnel than the air around the opening shimmered and blurred into a wall of seemingly solid rock. Camden reached out a hand, touching the rough surface; if it was an illusion, it was a complex one.

By unspoken agreement, the pair remained silent until they were well away from the area.

“A shame t’ leave the scaly bastard alive,” Dorna grumbled as they reached the spot where they had left their packs hidden beneath some bushes.

Cam nodded. “No way that we could take him on,” he said resignedly. “Doesn’t mean that we can’t bring in someone who can, though,” he added. “Nice touch with the paladins, by the way,” he congratulated her. “I didn’t think he could get any whiter.”

“That did get his attention quite nicely, didn’t it?” the dwarf smirked. “I figured if the kobolds were the best he could manage for lackeys, he couldn’t be too damn high’n mighty.” She gave him a sly wink. “Ye will remember to tell those paladins just how helpful he was, right?”

“Just as soon as I see them,” he replied with a wicked grin. They’d faced down a dragon in his lair and not only lived to tell about it, but obtained more information, and a possible weapon. He felt that a bit of smugness could be permitted. “I notice that his loyal subjects didn’t seem to have told him everything about how the artifacts were lost; he didn’t know that someone besides the gnolls had the hand.”

“Sure, an’ would ye be admittin’ that ye’d given the thing away as a useless trinket, if yer master was the type t’ eat those that displeased him?” Dorna snorted. “Don’t be so sure that they didn’t tell him about that Deekin stealin’ the tower, though.”

“No,” Cam agreed. “He wouldn’t want us to know about that. If that was the one piece that this J’nah was interested in, then he’d damn sure want it for himself. I wonder who she is?” he mused.

“If the lizard was tryin’ t’ get the pallies to do her in for him, then she’s not likely t’ be one that we can take on alone, either,” the dwarf morosely.

“Maybe not the two of us,” Cam murmured, rolling the phylactery between his fingers thoughtfully before wrapping it in a handkerchief and tucking it into his pack, “but with this, the four of us might stand a chance.”

“Four?” Dorna’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Ye don’t mean t’ say that yer actually considerin’ bringing Her Holiness along?”

“She’s the best fighter of any of us,” Camden replied seriously. “I’ll try to recruit some help from the Hilltop guard, but from what I’ve seen, she’s better than them, too.”

“She can fight well enough,” the dwarf agreed with a sour expression, “but she’s got all the tactical ability of a bugbear.”

“Tactics are my job,” Cam reminded her with a cocky grin.

“An’ ye really think she’ll be keen on takin’ orders from ye now?” Dorna inquired pointedly, her skepticism evident.

“She will if she wants to come along,” Cam said flatly, hoping that his idiocy the night before they had left had not pushed Mischa to the point that she would be unwilling to accept him as a leader. Never thought about that, did you, you jackass? “For now, I’d like to find out if Ayala has heard of this J’nah, and let her take a look at that red powder, see if it will really give us an edge or if it’s just a trick of the dragon’s.” He shouldered his pack, waiting for Dorna to do the same before activating the focus crystal set into his ring.

The brief disorientation of the teleport had barely faded when the pair found themselves facing a highly agitated Nani.

“I tried to talk them out of it, Cam,” she exclaimed, wringing her hands in distress. “I tried, but Mischa was dead set on going; she’d been in a right foul mood ever since the two of you left, and when Burk showed up with the news, there was no reasoning with her –”

“What news?” Camden grasped her shoulders, trying to calm her enough to get some sense out of her. “Where did they go?” No need to ask who ‘they’ were.

“Chasing slavers.” Ayala strode into the room, her green eyes sparking with irritation. “A caravan of traders was ambushed outside of Hilltop, and the local guard has evidently been so cowed by their encounter with the kobolds that they are unwilling to brave larger opponents. She shook her head in disgust. “Mischa insisted upon going, and Xanos wasn’t about to chance losing out on any glory to be gained.”

Releasing Nani, Cam exchanged a glance with Dorna, seeing in the dwarf’s eyes the same mixture of exasperation and foreboding that was rising within him. “How long?”

“They left a bit over an hour ago,” the elf replied. “Were you able to find the dragon?”

He nodded, lowering his pack to the floor and pulling out the phylactery. “He claims that someone named J’nah controls the gnolls, and that the attack was her idea. He slid the glass amulet from the handkerchief. “He said that this could help to defeat her; see if you can figure out what it is, and we’ll decide what to do when we get back with Mischa and Xanos.”

“There’s no time for that,” Ayala said with a dismissive gesture as she accepted the phylactery from him. “They’ll have to bear the consequences of their own impetuousness. The recovery of the artifacts – ”

“Is of secondary importance,” Cam cut her off, his eyes narrowed in anger, “and Master Drogan would be the first to say so. Mischa and Xanos are his responsibility, and as his senior student, that makes them my responsibility.”

“One who hopes to join the Harpers should not dismiss their interests so lightly,” she informed him in a terse voice.

“Guess I’ll just have to take that chance, then,” he shot back with deliberate flippancy. “I’m beginning to get the feeling I wouldn’t be a good match, anyway.”

“Nor would I,” Dorna put in, glaring indignantly at the elf.

She watched them in silence for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “Do as you wish, then,” she said simply. “I will attempt to determine the properties of the phylactery and its contents before you return…if you return.”

Ignoring the jab, Cam turned to Nani. “Where were they going?”

“Northeast of Hilltop, Burk said,” the cook replied, glaring daggers at Ayala. “Said it looked as though the captives been taken down into the canyon.”

Cam nodded. “We’d better move, then,” he said, checking the weapons at his hips and making certain that his throwing daggers were still set securely in their sheaths on his belt.

When they were gone, Nani turned on Ayala, her blue eyes sparking with anger. “And is that the type that you Harpers are recruiting these days? Those who would ignore lives at risk to chase down dusty antiques whose powers aren’t even known?”

The elf regarded her calmly. “We seek those able to focus their attention to doing the greatest good for the greatest number,” she replied, a faint smile crossing her face as she added, “but we also try not to recruit individuals who are ruled by their own ambitions, or can be herded about like sheep.” Turning, she made her way upstairs, leaving the housekeeper to stare after her, shaking her head bemusedly.

OOO

Not for the first time, Camden wished that Master Drogan kept horses at the school; even if they weren’t permitted to use them in their trials, they would be damn useful for running errands and for certain situations when timeliness was important.

Now, for example.

He supposed that Drogan had assumed that his teleporting ability would always be available to them. At least they still had their rings, each set with a fresh focus crystal; without them, they would still have been a full day’s walk away from the school.

The last few hours had fortunately been physically undemanding, meaning that he and Dorna still had sufficient energy reserves for the cross country run, skirting the northern edge of Hilltop (neither of them was in any mood to deal with the Guard) and making for the mouth of the box canyon known as the Gouge for the way that it appeared suddenly, digging into the earth a hundred feet deep and perhaps two hundred across at its widest point, running just over a mile before ending in a blind wall, as though the enormous blade that had raked the ground had been withdrawn abruptly. The interior was thick with trees and underbrush, and erosion had carved multiple caves into the sheer walls, aided not infrequently by the hands of those who had discovered that the place was an excellent spot to cache stolen and smuggled goods.

Drogan had warned them away from the Gouge, only conducting trials there when he had inspected it himself to ensure that no outlaw bands of any size were currently in residence. Things had been quiet in the area since just before Mischa’s arrival at the school.

No longer. The sounds of combat became audible as they entered the canyon, along with the cries of women and children. Cam lengthened his stride from an energy-conserving, ground-eating lope to an all out sprint, unsheathing short sword and dagger as he left Dorna and her much shorter legs behind.

The sounds grew louder as he forced his way through the undergrowth, finally coming upon a game trail that showed signs of recent use by creatures moving on two legs and wearing boots. Twisting, he followed it until it opened abruptly into a clearing against the canyon wall. He remembered this place: a spring bubbling up out of the rock made it a choice spot for bandits to set up.

His eyes flashed around the clearing, quickly assimilating what he saw. There looked to have been over a dozen slavers, but Mischa and Xanos had managed to reduce that number by at least half, judging from the number of bodies laying about.

The situation was deteriorating rapidly, however. The two students were widely separated, Xanos beset by two of the remaining slavers, blood staining his robes as he held them off with a sword in one hand while the other blazed with blue flame. He had exhausted his stronger spells, then, if he was resorting to Burning Hands.

Further away, Mischa had her back to the canyon wall as she faced four opponents, all of whom had evidently developed a healthy respect for the two-handed sword that she wielded. Her plate armor had afforded her better protection than the half-orc’s cloth, but she was clearly wounded, blood streaming down her face beneath the helm she wore and most of her weight supported on her left leg, her right hampered by a blow that had deeply dented the armor over her thigh.

Without breaking stride, Cam sheathed his fighting dagger and drew two of his four balanced daggers, throwing them one after the other in a smooth motion, striking the nearest of Xanos’ opponents in the back of the knee and upper thigh, where the leather armor gave no protection. Neither hit was fatal, or likely even particularly incapacitating, but the unexpected pain provided a distraction that the fighter-mage was quick to take advantage of, the tip of his sword finding the gap beneath the leather gorget protecting the man’s throat and withdrawing in a gout of blood.

“Couldn’t stand to let Xanos get all the glory, eh, Camden?” he bellowed by way of greeting as he turned his full attention to his one remaining foe, his eyes burning with a savage glee.

Camden didn’t pause to answer; the half-orc’s odds were now considerably better than Mischa’s. One of the four had made the mistake of turning in response to Xanos’ shout, and the greatsword lashed out, cutting through the leather armor and biting deep into his chest, but in exploiting the opening, Mischa had left herself vulnerable. A compactly built half elf wearing chain mail stepped in, swinging a mace (likely the same one that had injured her leg) in a savage arc that ended at her left shoulder with a clash of metal and an audible crunch of bone.

She never made a sound, but her left hand fell limply to her side as she struggled to adjust her remaining grip on the greatsword. Fresh into battle, she might have managed it for a time, but in her current condition, the tip was already wavering badly.

Snatching the last two daggers from his belt, Cam let them fly, each to a different target. One struck home, and a burly, dark-bearded human collapsed, clutching at the blade that had buried itself deep in the back of his right knee. The second skated harmlessly off the leather armor protecting the shoulder, and the target, another half-elf, rangier and armed with twin daggers, spun to face him as he drew his own dagger and dropped into a fighting stance.

The half-elf with the mace lunged forward again, but something sang through the air inches from Cam’s head, and a crossbow bolt sprouted from the half-elf’s throat, announcing Dorna’s arrival to the fight.

The dagger wielding slaver wove toward Cam in a half crouch, his expression alert and cunning, filled with hate. He lunged, hands flashing in a series of feinting strikes. Cam blocked most of them, but felt a thin line of fire trace down the inside of his left arm as one of the attacks connected. He flexed his fingers on the hilt of the dagger: no damage to muscle or tendon, and the cut was a shallow one, the bleeding light.

He dodged to the side as his adversary launched another attack virtually identical to the first, his style more reminiscent of first blood duels than a fight to the death. Cam escaped without further wounds, but the half-elf attacked again almost immediately, seemingly in a berzerker’s rage now, heedless of his opponent’s weapons. He again stepped to the side, evading the attack as easily as he would the blind charge of an angry bull, his dagger hand sweeping in low, beneath the flashing blades, burying his weapon to the hilt in the half-elf’s gut and twisting it free.

Even as the slaver dropped to his knees, Camden was spinning to complete the combination, the frost on the blade of the shortsword washed red as it slashed deep into his opponent’s throat. The half-elf gave him a mocking smile, his eyes glinting spitefully as his last breath escaped him in a visible mist, cooled by the strike of the enchanted blade.

Cam stepped back as the slaver collapsed facedown on the ground, his eyes already sweeping the clearing, taking stock of the situation. The slaver who had been facing Xanos was down with one of Dorna’s bolts in his back, and Mischa had driven her sword into the chest of the one that Cam had wounded and was leaning on the weapon for support. Nothing else was moving.

His heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, he took an unsteady step forward, seeing for the first time the cave that had been turned into a cage, and the women and children of the caravan imprisoned behind the makeshift wooden bars.

“What in the Nine Hells were the two of you thinking?” He was shouting, but his voice sounded strangely hollow in his ears, and his eyes seemed suddenly unwilling to focus. His muscles abruptly betrayed him, and he fell to the ground, dagger and sword slipping from his fingers.

Poisoned blade, you idiot, he realized with chagrin, his mind feeling oddly detached. No wonder the half-elf had contented himself with striking to wound, and no wonder he had looked so damn smug when he died.

His mind still wrapped in a cocoon of shock, he tried to push himself upright again even as a swirl of darkness dragged him down hard, Xanos’ shout in his ears and his last sight that of Mischa hobbling toward him, her face ghost pale beneath the blood.