Downfall

Maldred appraised the mariner for a moment. "She has fire," he said finally. "And a rare sword arm."

"This isn't like her," Rig stated. "Agreeing to help the likes of you. Thieves. Liars. Freeing ogres. I don't understand it."

Maldred shrugged and headed to the front of the column.

"Not like her," Rig repeated. "By the blessed memory of Habbakuk, what is going on with her? And with me?" I should leave, he told himself. But I can't leave her. Not alone with the likes of these people. And I want my damn glaive back.

The column was moving. Rig took a last look at the ogre bodies encircling the massive cypress tree. Already lizards were scampering over the corpses, biting at the exposed flesh. A raven was perched on a stout ogre's stomach, plucking at the skin through a rent in the armor. Shuddering, the mariner followed the last of the ogres, fingers still squeezing the pommel of his sword, eyes darting all around looking for movement in the vines. For a moment he wished more serpent-vines would appear and whisk away Dhamon and Maldred and all the ogres. Then it would be just he and the Solamnic Knight again.

The mercenaries were forced to make their way single-file, the swamp so overgrown that at times they were practically squeezing between cypress trunks. Rig lost sight of Fiona, Maldred, and Dhamon shortly after they'd left the clearing. He was worried about the Solamnic, furious over the loss of his glaive. In the back of his mind he kept visualizing the small footprints and telling himself he should talk to Fiona again, make her listen, cut their losses, and get out of here. Around him all he could see were the dark shapes of trees, barely discernible in the light of the few torches the ogres carried.

"I'm going to die here," he thought, not meaning to say the words out loud. "To snakes or treachery."

They hadn't traveled far, a mile or perhaps a little more, when the night's blackness gave way to the lights of torches and fires burning merrily ahead. There were sounds-snaps, cries, curses, grunts. The ogres were moving quickly now.

At the front of the column, Dhamon brushed aside a veil of moss and caught a first look at the Trueheart Mines. Crates of rocks filled a stretch of marshy ground that had been cleared with axes and was now dotted with decaying stumps. The mine itself was a great hole in the ground, a gaping pit from which light beamed out, and into which thick ropes tied about a few cypress giants led. There was a smaller maw, this set into a low hill, and light shone out of that, too.

Ogres were moving around, shadows of the creatures that followed Dhamon and Maldred. They looked emaciated, their flesh and what was left of their clothes hanging on them, their eyes vacant. Some were climbing up the rope out of the hole, crates filled with ore strapped to their backs. It looked like it was all they could do to make it to the surface, crawling on hands and knees until their black spawn guards undid the clamps that held the crates. The crates emptied, they were again strapped to the ogres' backs, and the creatures returned to the mines.

The spawn were hideous, resembling draconians to an extent, but they were jet black like a starless sky. Their wings were short and dull compared to the scales on their torsos that gleamed wetly in the light. Their snouts were vaguely equine, covered in tiny scales, and their eyes were a drab yellow, narrowed in malevolence. They had stumpy black tails, which were constantly twitching, claws that were constantly opening and closing. A stunted spiny ridge ran from the tops of their heads to nearly the tips of their tails. Their breath escaped from them in a hiss, making the clearing sound like it was filled with snakes and instantly bringing back memories of the ensorcelled vines.

The sight of the spawn sent a shiver down Dhamon's back. They were repulsive and unnatural, and he wondered just how many of them Donnag's forces had managed to slay in the «nest» the ogre chieftain said they'd found. Dhamon knew from his association with the sorcerer Palin Majere that spawn were created by the dragon overlords. The great dragons used something of themselves and something from a true draconian, and they used human captives for the bodies. Those ingredients, coupled with a powerful spell, brought the spawn into existence, and somehow made them unswervingly loyal to the Uragon who created them. They did the dragon's bidding without question, and they seemed to take delight in killing things.

Dhamon had fought their like before, namely the red spawn of Malys. His lip involuntarily curled up in a snarl at the memory mixed with the sight before him.