Skein of Shadows (dungeons and dragons) Read online

  “Not when that library is under the control of the Silver Flame, no,” Sabira answered. “Unless, of course, you happen to be a Flamer yourself. Or an agent of theirs.”

  She waited a beat.

  “Are you?”

  Skraad leaned forward to hear the dwarf’s answer, a frown forming around his long tusks. Sabira wasn’t surprised; he’d incapacitated one of the Silver Flame guards and was likely now wanted in Stormreach as a result. She imagined the orc wouldn’t be too happy to learn it had all been some ruse on Greddark’s part.

  Not that she really thought the dwarf was working for the Church. Though the Flamers would sometimes commit a lesser evil to thwart a greater, she didn’t think that pragmatism stretched so far as to include working with a suspected murderer and the cousin of an Aurum member. And even if it did, Aggar would never have sent Greddark to help her if he’d known his cousin was freelancing for some Archbishop or another when he was supposed to be working for her.

  If he’d known.

  Greddark snorted derisively.

  “Despite my friend Andri’s best efforts-no, I am most decidedly not one of the Purified, and my temporary appropriation of one of their sacred texts was done without the Church’s knowledge, or approval.”

  “Not quite without their knowledge,” Skraad growled, rubbing the spot on his arm where he’d taken the Flamer bolt. But the orc seemed satisfied with Greddark’s answer and settled back into his seat on the long bench with a minimum of grousing.

  “Fine,” Sabira said, not willing to let the inquisitive off so easily. “So you did steal a book. The question remains. Why?”

  He hesitated, and she imagined he was going through the same list of options that she had earlier. She wondered what his choice would be.

  Surprisingly, he went with honesty.

  “It’s a dictionary of ancient Draconic,” he said, withdrawing the tome from inside his shirt and passing it to her.

  Sabira took the slim volume from him and carefully examined it. The writing on the leather cover, though unfamiliar to her, was crisp and utilitarian, with none of the gilt, scrolling embellishments she would have expected from such a valuable tome. Inside, the pages were thick and yellow with age, and smelled vaguely of old, stale incense. She closed it and offered it to Skraad and the warforged in turn. Only Jester accepted, taking the proffered book and leafing through it, turning the pages almost reverently.

  “Still doesn’t answer the question.”

  “It’s that fragment of prophecy ir’Dayne was looking at-the one carved on the chunk of obsidian. Something’s bugging me about the translation. When I heard there was a Flamer library in Stormreach, I figured Olladra was giving me an opportunity to figure it out.”

  “You read Draconic?” Skraad asked, though whether it was surprise or disdain that colored the orc’s words, Sabira couldn’t be certain.

  Greddark nodded. “Pretty well. And speak a little. You hang out with a paladin of the Silver Flame for a couple of months, you’ll learn it too. Whether you want to or not.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You remember words from a rock that you glanced at for all of five and a half heartbeats-written, I might add, in a language with which you’re not entirely conversant-well enough to later look them up in a reference book to ascertain their precise meaning? Because you think a Wayfinder with years of experience doing exactly that got it wrong?” She must have raised her voice, because Xujil glanced back from the front of the wagon, his dark face impenetrable.

  Greddark shrugged.

  “More or less.”

  “More or less,” she repeated, making an effort to keep her tone even. “So what is it about the translation that you don’t like?”

  Greddark cleared his throat and recited the lines.

  “When the Anvil next is silent

  The Book is closed, the Warder dreams.”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  “Yes, that’s what it said. It’s referring to when those three moons are dark. So?”

  “ So, it uses three different words-‘silent,’ ‘closed,’ and ‘dreams.’ But there’s a specific word in Draconic for that phase of the moons. Why not just use that word, if that’s what was really meant?”

  Sabira shrugged.

  “Poetic license?” She looked over at Jester, who nodded.

  “It does add to the verse’s lyricism.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it was a mistranslation, and those words don’t mean what we’ve been told they mean. That’s why I needed the dictionary-to find out for sure.”

  Sabira scoffed.

  “Wonderful. I’m sure once I explain that to Archbishop Dryden, he’ll completely understand the need for removing it from the library. Oh, and for skewering one of his guards in the process.”

  “Well, if you really think he needs to know. About the book, I mean. I’m sure he’ll hear about the guard-though I should point out here that that wasn’t technically my fault.” He glanced over at Skraad, who was beginning to frown again. It wasn’t a particularly reassuring sight.

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t know about the book? Isn’t that why the Flamers were chasing you?” Sabira had to work hard to keep her voice from going up a half-octave again out of sheer frustration.

  Greddark actually had the audacity to look affronted.

  “Please. Not only am I a master inquisitive, an artificer, and a security specialist, I am also a member of the House that bears the Mark of Warding. I could have removed half that library’s inventory without anyone being the wiser.” He moved his hand to his chin, then checked himself. Sabira imagined he’d been going to pull at the beard that was no longer there-or at least not of any length to facilitate worrying. “That’s not what triggered the pursuit.”

  Sabira raised her eyebrows and waited expectantly for him to continue, but the dwarf was still in a huff over her questioning his thieving skills and refused to do so. She bit back a longsuffering sigh and prodded him.

  “So what did?”

  The inquisitive-artificer-security specialist-book thief actually looked sheepish.

  “I’m pretty sure I killed one of his pets.”

  Archbishop Dryden had two huge iron defenders who followed him around like the dogs they were modeled after. She was pretty sure he’d even named them-Tira and Jaela, after the paladin who’d merged with the Silver Flame and the girl who served as that Flame’s current Keeper.

  “You killed one of the Archbishop’s dogs?” Sabira asked slowly, making sure she’d heard the dwarf aright.

  “They’re not dogs. They’re constructs-and not even particularly useful ones. I can’t understand why the artificers here in Stormreach insist on churning the things out like everbright lanterns. They should try something a little more challenging, like those furry little flying messengers. At least those can talk. I use one myself-a customized and improved version, of course.”

  Of course. Sabira watched as Skraad’s frown turned to a scowl. His right hand was flexing ominously. She wondered if he would attack Greddark.

  She wondered if she’d bother to try to stop him.

  “I don’t understand what the fuss is, frankly. It’s not as if they’re warforged-they don’t have souls. Easy enough to rebuild the thing from its original schematics. Maybe use some adamantine in the teeth this time-they break much too easily.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention that to the Archbishop,” Sabira said acidly. “Maybe over tea.”

  “Look, the Hostforsaken thing jumped on me for no reason. It was self-defense, plain and simple. Barristers would fall all over themselves to take this case, it’s so cut-and-dried. Easy money.”

  “Did the iron defender attack you before or after you took the book out of the library?”

  Sabira and Greddark both looked at Jester in surprise.

  “After. But I disabled the alarm spells at the library entrance,” the dwarf replied, somewhat defensively.

  The red-armored warforged held the
book up, with the inside of the back cover facing them. A small sigil was sketched on the flyleaf, glowing a faint red.

  “Yes, but did you disable the one in the book?”

  “Onatar’s impotence!” Greddark swore as the warforged closed the book and handed it back to him.

  “Well,” Skraad quipped, no longer scowling. If anything, he looked amused. “I’d guess the Archbishop knows about the book now.”

  They rode in silence for some time after Greddark deactivated the rune. The wind was beginning to pick up, and Sabira was considering cutting a strip off the bottom of her cloak to use as a mask against the blowing sand when Greddark leaned forward suddenly, peering out the back of the wagon with a frown on his face.

  “Hey, Jester. You still have that spyglass handy?”

  The warforged nodded and produced the instrument from a pouch tied to a metal loop built into his hip plate, handing it over to Greddark.

  “What, you like the sand so much, you want to see it close up?” Sabira asked skeptically as the dwarf extended the telescoping glass to its full length and placed it up against his eye. “Don’t worry-even moving as fast as we are, I have a feeling it’s going to catch up with us sooner rather than later.”

  Greddark ignored her.

  “The clarity with this glass is amazing-where did you get it? I used to have one-got broken in a tussle with some shifters back in Thrane-but it didn’t have near the distance this one does. Some truly fine craftsmanship went into this.”

  Oh, for the love of Olladra’s weighted dice! Was the dwarf really waxing poetic about a spyglass, of all things?

  “I… acquired it in the Cannith enclave, from an artificer there,” the warforged admitted, not sounding particularly sheepish about it.

  “Well, next time you’re there, maybe you could acquire his schematics for it too,” Greddark commented as he pulled the glass away from his eye so he could examine its exterior appreciatively. “I’d be willing to pay handsomely for them.”

  Sabira stared at the dwarf for a moment, not quite sure she’d heard him right, but figuring she probably had.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just try to solicit a burglary in front of a Sentinel Marshal,” she said.

  “Good idea,” Greddark replied, bringing the spyglass up to his eye and peering through it at the approaching dust cloud. “Since you don’t technically have any jurisdiction here in the desert and you can’t arrest me for a crime that I haven’t actually committed yet, anyway.”

  Sabira narrowed her eyes. Greddark, looking through the glass, couldn’t see her expression, but the others in the back of the wagon could, and they all moved surreptitiously away from the dwarf.

  “Actually,” she said, casually unharnessing her urgrosh and laying it across her lap, Siberys spear tip pointed at the dwarf, “my jurisdiction is wherever my shard axe and I say it is. Something a confessed thief who is also wanted by House Medani might want to keep in mind before he starts planning additional crime sprees in my presence. Especially since Medani bounties are notoriously generous-even better than Marshal fees, sometimes. Don’t make me curious to find out how much better, hmm?”

  She liked Greddark well enough, and she had no real interest in either arresting him for petty theft or turning him over to the Medanis, but he’d challenged her authority in front of men she was supposed to lead, and there was only ever one appropriate response to that. Slapping him down-hard-before anyone else had any similar ideas.

  Greddark moved the glass away from his eye and glanced down at her shard axe, one eyebrow arching upward at what he saw. She’d positioned the weapon in such a way that a quick forward thrust would ensure that there would be no more Forgemaidens in his near future, if ever. They were awfully far from a House Jorasco healing center, and there were some wounds you didn’t really want to trust to a potion.

  He inclined his head to her with a grudging grin.

  “So noted. All future crime sprees will be planned out of your hearing, to give you plausible deniability. Satisfied?”

  “Hardly ever,” she replied with a smirk of her own, pulling the urgrosh back a bit as the others in the wagon visibly relaxed. “But it’ll do. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s so interesting about that dust cloud?”

  Greddark didn’t answer immediately. Instead he held the glass back up to his eye with one hand while he fumbled inside his shirt with the other. He pulled out a stylus and began scribbling numbers and equations on the side of a nearby crate, muttering under his breath as he did so.

  He finally returned the spyglass to Jester-somewhat reluctantly, Sabira couldn’t help but notice-and spent a few more moments scribbling on the crate. Then he circled a number several times, nodding in satisfaction.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “ What’s what you thought?” Sabira asked impatiently.

  When Greddark turned so he could address everyone in the back of the wagon, Sabira knew they’d have to endure a lecture before getting an answer. She repressed an annoyed sigh. She’d been through enough training talks as she’d worked her way up the ranks in House Deneith to know that any sign of apathy would only make the lecturer go on that much longer. She’d become passably good at feigning interest over the years, but it was a skill she still hadn’t fully mastered. She wondered briefly if the trick with the shard axe would work a second time, to encourage the dwarf to get to the point faster, but she decided against it. If he was anything like the other tinkerers she’d known, she’d wind up having to actually impale him to get him to stop talking. It wasn’t worth wasting a healing potion over.

  “I don’t know how familiar you all are with prevailing wind patterns…”

  Sabira nearly groaned. Maybe it was worth it, after all.

  “… winds in this part of Xen’drik should be from east to west, so any storm powered by those winds would also follow that route. We are traveling southwest at the moment, so the wind should be coming at us predominantly from behind, on the left. And, indeed, if you look outside, you’ll see that the various ropes, tails, and robes are being blown to the right.”

  “So… what’s so noteworthy about that?”

  “Well, my dear Marshal, if you look at the dust cloud, you’ll notice that it is not approaching us from the left, but from the right. In other words, it’s moving against the prevailing wind. And making headway.”

  Sabira looked. The dwarf was right.

  “It’s not a natural dust storm.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No,” Greddark replied. “I’m not sure it’s a storm at all.”

  “Well, what else could it be?”

  The answer came from the back of the caravan, a series of metallic cries carried up the line of wagons on the unnatural wind.

  “ ’Ware the dragon!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mol, Barrakas 9, 998 YK

  The Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.

  Jester dug his spyglass out again and handed it over to Sabira without being asked. She held the instrument up to her eye and was momentarily disoriented as the leading edge of the dust storm zoomed into focus so sharply she would swear she could make out individual grains of sand as they sped through the air. She blinked twice, then began scanning the sky.

  “Low and to the left.”

  That didn’t bode well. It meant the dragon was smart, creating the storm to distract them while it approached from another direction to avoid detection. Likely not a juvenile, then. So they’d have to deal with spells in addition to the dragon’s breath weapon and other physical attacks. Wonderful.

  Sabira ran through a mental list of dragons that would be most comfortable in this hot, dry environment. It was short, but sobering. Copper, brass, red, maybe blue. But any dragon could live anywhere; the Blademarks drove that into the head of every recruit during their long hours of training. You had to be prepared for anything when dealing with one of the magical flying reptiles.

  She’d never faced one herself, though
she’d been drilled in how best to defeat those most likely to be found on Khorvaire. The closest she’d come had been her battle with those yrthaks over the Thunder Sea just two months ago. A lot of good men had fallen that day. If they had to fight off a true dragon, a lot more would fall on this one.

  Sabira finally caught sight of the dragon, skimming low over the dunes as it approached.

  It was nothing like the dragons in the books she’d studied during her training. The reptile was covered in brownish-gray scales everywhere except for its head, which was covered in a mass of thick, short horns and resembled nothing so much as a lamprey, or perhaps a morning star crafted by an overeager smith. Winglike membranes stretched between two parallel lines of spines that ran along the length of the creature’s back, from the base of its spiked head to the tip of its tail.

  “What in the name of Olladra’s larder is that?” she asked as she handed the spyglass back to Jester, vaguely repulsed.

  “A sand dragon,” Brannan answered. He’d given the controls over to Xujil and climbed into the back of the wagon, rummaging around in one of the crates. He came up with a handful of green-fletched bolts and a crossbow, which he held out expectantly. “Well? I certainly can’t operate the thing.”

  Sabira took the weapon impatiently from him and selected a bolt. But before she could load it into the groove, Greddark snatched it out of her hand.

  “What the-?”

  The dwarf ignored her exclamation, instead examining the bolt with a furrowed brow. Then he turned a baleful eye on the Wayfinder.

  “You just happen to have bolts enchanted to pierce dragon scales?”

  “Actually, I happen to have bolts enchanted to pierce any number of things. This crate alone holds silver bolts, bolts blessed by practitioners of every known religion on Eberron-and some unknown ones-and bolts that will bring a giant to its knees… probably even some that might do the same to a dwarf, if I dig deep enough.” The Wayfinder flashed that perfect smile. “You never know what you might face on an expedition. It pays to be prepared for every eventuality, no matter how unlikely. It’s kept me in business this long.”