Whisper of Venom

“And for practice,” Medrash said. “You all need more before we ride south. I suggest you get on with it.”

The riders stared back at him for a moment, then sullenly started turning their mounts around. An archer set his horse cantering, then loosed at a target. The arrow pierced the outer ring.

Meanwhile, Medrash rose in his stirrups and peered. Balasar looked where his kinsman was looking. Two of the cultists were helping the fellow who’d taken the blow from the lance get back on his feet. Evidently he wasn’t badly injured.

Medrash then regarded the group as a whole. “Get out of here,” he said. “Before your presence provokes them all over again.”

A brown-scaled female named Vishva stepped from the front of the crowd. Like a number of the cultists, she had little puckered scars on her face. They were the spots where she’d worn her piercings before her clan expelled her.

“With all respect,” she said, “we can’t do that. We came here for a purpose.”

“I don’t care,” Medrash replied.

She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “Those few of us who were closest to Nala, who understood what she was actually doing and helped her make the talismans, went to ground when she disappeared. The rest of us want to go on fighting the giants.”

Medrash snorted. “That’s out of the question.”

“We need to prove our loyalty and atone for our transgressions.”

“Well, you’ll have to find another way to do it. Even if Tarhun would tolerate your presence in the ranks, the Lance Defenders and the rest of the army wouldn’t. They’d treat you as these fellows”-he jerked his head to indicate his fellow mounted warriors-“wanted to treat you.”

“Maybe not,” Vishva said. “Not if Clan Daardendrien and the very warriors who unmasked Nala sponsor us.”

Balasar laughed. “What a good idea! In case you haven’t noticed, the fight against Nala made Medrash and me heroes. Why would we want to jump down into the mud with you?”

“If you won’t vouch for us,” Vishva said, “then we’ll march without it, alone if need be. And if it’s only to lay down our lives, so be it. At least we’ll die with our honor restored, like Patrin.”

Medrash scowled. “Wait here.” He rode a little distance from the cultists. Balasar followed.

“What do you think?” Medrash asked.

“I think I’m surprised you’d even bother to inquire,” Balasar said. “You despise the very idea of dragon worship, remember? Our elders raised us to despise it. And since these people are still flying their ba

“We said we were trying to save them as much as everyone else,” said Medrash.

“You and Khouryn said that,” Balasar said. “I was busy trying to figure out where the cart had gone and keeping an eye out for trouble.”

“How have we saved them if they die on Black Ash Plain or at the hands of their own people before they even get there?” asked Medrash.

“We saved them from Nala’s lies,” said Balasar. “If they turn right around and commit suicide, that’s their problem.”

“Even if we could convince them to stay home, what sort of lives would they have?” Medrash asked. “People have always scorned them. They’ll hate and persecute them now. Unless they can redeem themselves.”

“Is this about you feeling guilty over Patrin?” said Balasar. “Because you’re a warrior from a warlike clan. It looks stupid if you feel bad just because you killed somebody.”

“I keep remembering how he said that Bahamut and Torm were friends, and we should be too,” Medrash said. “I remember that it felt … right to fight alongside him. And in the end, even though he realized I’d given him his death, he saved us from the mob.”

“I liked him too,” Balasar said. “But shepherding his fellow idiots won’t bring him back.”

“You’re the one who spent time with them. So tell me, are they deranged or depraved beyond all hope of redemption?”

Balasar sighed. “No. Nala dirtied them up a little, but essentially they’re just people. They joined the Cadre because they were unhappy. It’s not all that different from when you pledged yourself to Torm.”

Medrash smiled a crooked smile. “I don’t like the comparison, but we can save that for another time.” Sunlight glinting on the white studs in his face, mail clinking, he urged his horse back toward the cultists. Balasar clucked, bumped his mount with his heels, and rode after him.

Medrash raked the dragon-worshipers with a stern gaze. “You claim you want to atone,” he said. “But you still carry Nala’s taint. Right now, even as you’re asking for our help, some of you are swaying back and forth.”

“Can you cleanse us?” Vishva replied. “Nothing would please us more.”

“Are you sure?” Medrash said. “If I break your ties to Tiamat, you’ll lose her gifts. You won’t be able to use your breath attacks more often than any other dragonborn. You won’t feel the fury that fills you with strength and burns away your fear. As far as Balasar and I are concerned, that … weakening is necessary. We won’t sponsor warriors who fight like rabid beasts and gorge on the raw flesh of the fallen. But it means that for you, battle will be more dangerous than before.”

“We want to be clean,” Vishva said. Other cultists called out in agreement.

“Then you will be.” Medrash slid his lance back into the sheath attached to his saddle, then raised high his hand in its steel gauntlet. He whispered something too softly for Balasar to make out the words.

Brightness pulsed from the gauntlet like the slow, steady beats of a heart at rest. Each pulse gave Balasar a kind of pleasant, invigorating jolt, like a plunge into cold water on a hot day.

But the cultists didn’t look invigorated. They grimaced and cringed away from the light.

Medrash whispered faster, and the glow throbbed faster too. The distinct shocks of exhilaration Balasar had been experiencing blurred into a continual soaring elation.

The cultists fell to the ground and thrashed. Dark fumes rose from their bodies, five from each. The strands of vapor coiled and twisted around one another like serpentine necks supporting heads that wanted to peer in all directions at once.

The smoke, if that was the proper term for it, looked filthy. Poisonous. Even Balasar’s euphoria didn’t prevent a pang of loathing. If I’d let it in during my initiation, he thought, that stuff would be inside me too.

As they pulled free of the cultists’ bodies, the lengths of vapor whipped one way and another as if they too were convulsing in pain. Some looped around and struck like serpents, seemingly trying to stab their way back inside the flesh that had hitherto sheltered them. But each glanced off like a sword skipping off a shield.

Then, all at once, they leaped at Medrash. Balasar opened his mouth to shout a warning. A final burst of brilliance flared from the paladin’s gauntlet, and the vapors frayed to nothing midway to their target.

The light went out of Medrash’s hand, and his arm flopped down at his side. His body slumped as if he was about to collapse onto his horse’s neck.

Trying for a better look at his clan brother’s face, Balasar leaned down. “Are you all right?”

Medrash swallowed. “Yes,” he rasped, and then, with a visible effort, sat up straight. “It’s just that that was … taxing.”

“I don’t see why,” Balasar said. “All you did was the break the hold of a goddess on dozens of people at once. A hatchling could have done it.”

Medrash smiled slightly. “Next time we’ll find that particular hatchling and give the job to him.”

The members of the Cadre started slowly and shakily drawing themselves to their feet.

“Is everyone all right?” Medrash asked.

“I … think so,” Vishva quavered. “That hurt. It really hurt. But it’s better now.”