The Spectral Blaze

“He thought I might be able to provide additional insight,” Sphorrid said. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the reco

Oraxes swallowed. “It will be easiest to show you on a map,” he said, then realized he didn’t remember where Aoth kept them. He looked around and felt a twinge of alarm when he failed to spot them. But, like a dutiful subordinate, Ramed hurried across the tent, opened a chest, lifted out a roll of lambskin, and spread it on the tabletop.

That left Oraxes to concoct a tale of flying and searching from place to place and to stuff it with enough detail to make it convincing. Sphorrid put up with the tedious story for a while, but finally said. “Excuse me, Captain, but let’s stab to the heart of the matter. Did you find some trace of rebel holdouts and traitor necromancers or not?”

Oraxes took a breath and pointed at a place on the map that was a little farther along his imaginary route. “Right here, on a hill overlooking the crossroads, there was a campsite where someone burned a carving of a red dragon in the fire. The scraps of wood that survived had symbols of hatred and murder cut into them.”

Sphorrid gave him a skeptical look. “I thought you were searching for cu

Inwardly Oraxes winced. If he weren’t so nervous, he wouldn’t have slipped up like that! “The intent is the important thing.”

“With respect, Captain, the important thing is whether you’re making any real progress. If not, Chessenta could use your sellswords in the campaign against the dragonborn. The Church can pursue the work of ferreting out rebels and blasphemers closer to home.”

Meralaine laughed. Both Oraxes and Sphorrid turned to her in surprise.

“I’m sorry, my lords,” she said. “Truly. But it’s comical to see you scowl and bluster when there’s nothing to quarrel about.”

The wyrmkeeper cocked his head. “Explain.”

“Captain Fezim has a methodical mind,” she said. “It’s probably what makes him a good commander. But it also makes him a dull storyteller, and tonight is a case in point. His inclination is to describe every step of his journey instead of skipping to the discovery in the end. But I’ve already suffered through the tale once, so I can tell you the trail eventually led him to a place where His Majesty’s enemies meet to scheme and work their sorcery. The site of an ancient battle in the Sky Riders.”

Oraxes assumed she meant the place where she and Alasklerbanbastos had summoned the dead to frighten Tchazzar. “Yes,” he said, touching his finger to the map again, “right here.”

Sphorrid smiled a wry, less arrogant smile that almost made him likable for a moment. “The wizard’s right, Captain. We could have had a less contentious discussion if you’d told me this at the start. But never mind. Just tell me what you intend to do about it.”

What indeed? “According to my information,” Oraxes said, “the coven will gather tomorrow night. We’ll attack them when they do. If we sneak up on them with a small force, maybe we can take them alive and interrogate them. Then we can find out if they’re agents of Jaxanaedegor, diehards loyal to the memory of Alasklerbanbastos, or maybe even in the pay of the dragonborn.”

Sphorrid narrowed his eyes and considered. Then he said, “That does sound like a sensible way to proceed. My acolytes and I will accompany you, of course.”

“Fine,” Oraxes said. “But for now, I’ve had a long journey, and this is my tent. Ramed will find you suitable quarters and provide for your mounts as well.”

After the wyrmkeepers left, he flopped down in a chair. Meralaine gri

“Did I say what you wanted me to say?” he asked. “When you started talking about a coven and the place in the hills, I had to guess.”

“You read my mind exactly. It was clear that the only way to satisfy the bastards is to actually show them some rebels. So we will.”

“Are there any ghosts left haunting that patch of ground? You and Alasklerbanbastos raised a bunch of them, and then those were all destroyed.”

“I’ll call some new ones somehow.”

He smiled. “And then we use them to put on another pantomime. Why not? If the trick fooled Tchazzar, it ought to fool his servants too.”

Her silver-skewer piercings gleaming in the glow of the floating orbs of light, Biri walked toward Balasar, and he felt the usual contradictory pulls, the inclination to enjoy the undeniable pleasure of her company pitting itself against the urge to draw away. But at the moment, there was really no question of how he would behave. A warrior of Clan Daardendrien didn’t spurn a comrade in a strange and dangerous place.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “After Nellis Saradexma vouched for us, the empress accepted our offer. She even loaned us the big red dragonflies so we could get to the mountains faster. But these men act like they don’t want our help.”

She was referring to the Imaskari soldiers and war wizards who’d accompanied the dragonborn into the caverns. Uniformed in somber colors, their pale skins mottled with dark streaks and spots in a way that, so far as Balasar was aware, made them unique among humans, they were courteous enough. But when they thought no outlander was looking, their expressions betrayed varying degrees of skepticism, amusement, and impatience.

“I think it’s a matter of professional pride,” Balasar murmured back. “They already explored these particular tu

“But Khouryn is a dwarf.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to them that it does to us. Not if they believe they’re just as at home underground as his people are.”

Biri gave him a puzzled look. “Is that what they believe?”

“I don’t know and don’t intend to ask. If it’s not already common knowledge, they may not want outsiders to know. But have you ever wondered where they spent all those centuries between the fall of their old empire and the founding of the new one? Or why the new one is called High Imaskar?”

She smiled at him. “You think like a wizard.”

He normally took compliments as his due, but for some reason, hers always disconcerted him, although he trusted it didn’t show. “I doubt that. My poor tutors had to thrash me on a regular basis just to inspire me to learn my letters and numbers.”

She chuckled then her face turned serious again. “Do you think the Imaskari could be right that there’s nothing to find?”

He shrugged. “Alasklerbanbastos didn’t show Jhesrhi where to search. He just told her. Then she passed the information along to Khouryn when they were mainly worried about sneaking him out of the War College. So it could have gotten muddled along the way. But I doubt it. Jhesrhi and Khouryn are both sharp, and Gestanius’s creatures have to be slithering under the mountains somewhere. Why don’t we go inquire how things are going?”

They headed for the front of the column. Warriors of the Platinum Cadre greeted them or nodded as they passed. Like any sensible dragonborn, Balasar had no use for religion, and a wyrm-worshiping religion least of all. But he was still glad the cultists had forgiven him for infiltrating their fellowship to spy.

Peering in all directions, Khouryn was prowling around at the point where the pale, steady shine of the floating orbs faded out. He’d explained that was intentional. There were things a dwarf could see in the dark but not in the light and vice versa. Operating at the leading edge of the illumination made it easy to switch back and forth between the two modes of sight.