“That’s just the point,” Tas said. “Look at it. The creature isn’t moving or reacting to anything. It’s just sitting there. I always thought that dragons would be more lively, don’t you know?”
“Go up and tickle its foot!” Flint snorted. “Then you’ll see lively!”
“I think I’ll do that,” the kender said. Before the dwarf could say a word, Tasslehoff crept out of the brush, flitting from shadow to shadow as he drew near the camp. Flint could have torn his beard out in frustration, but it would have been disastrous to try and stop him now. The dwarf could do nothing but follow.
“Tanis!”
The half-elf heard someone calling him from across a huge chasm. He tried to answer, but his mouth was stuffed with something sticky. He shook his head. Then he felt an arm around his shoulders, helping him sit up. He opened his eyes. It was night. Judging by the flickering light, a huge fire blazed brightly somewhere. Sturm’s face, looking concerned, was near his. Tanis sighed and reached out his hand to clasp the knight’s shoulder. He tried to speak and was forced to pull off bits of the sticky substance that clung to his face and mouth like cobwebs.
“I’m all right,” Tanis said when he could talk. “Where are we?” He glanced around. “Is everyone here? Anyone hurt?”
“We’re in a draconian camp,” Sturm said, helping the half-elf stand. “Tasslehoff and Flint are missing and Raistlin’s hurt.”
“Badly?” Tanis asked, alarmed by the serious expression on Sturm’s face.
“Not good,” the knight replied.
“Poisoned dart,” Riverwind said. Tanis turned toward the Plainsman and got his first clear look at their prison. They were inside a cage made of bamboo. Draconian guards stood outside, their long, curved swords drawn and ready. Beyond the cage, hundreds of draconians milled around a campfire. And above the campfire . . .
“Yes,” Sturm said, seeing Tanis’s startled expression. “A dragon. More children’s stories. Raistlin would gloat.”
“Raistlin-” Tanis went over to the mage who was lying in a corner of the cage, covered in his cloak. The young mage was feverish and shaking with chills. Goldmoon knelt beside him, her hand on his forehead, stroking back the white hair. He was unconscious. His head tossed fitfully, and he murmured strange words, sometimes shouting out garbled commands. Caramon, his face nearly as pale as his brother’s, sat beside him. Goldmoon met Tanis’s questioning gaze and shook her head sadly, her eyes large and gleaming in the reflected firelight. Riverwind came over to stand beside Tanis.
“She found this in his neck,” he said, carefully holding up a feathered dart between thumb and forefinger. He glanced at the mage without love but with a certain amount of pity. “Who can say what poison burns in his blood?”
“If we had the staff-” Goldmoon said.
“Right,” Tanis said. “Where is it?”
“There,” Sturm said, his mouth twisting wryly. He pointed.
Tanis peered past hundreds of draconians and saw the staff lying on Goldmoon’s fur blanket in front of the black dragon. Reaching out, Tanis grasped a bar of the cage. “We could break out,” he told Sturm. “Caramon could snap this like a twig.”
“Tasslehoff could snap it like a twig if he were here,” Sturm said. “Of course, then we’ve only got a few hundred of these creatures to take care of-not to mention the dragon.”
“All right. Don’t rub it in.” Tanis sighed. “Any idea what happened to Flint and Tas?”
“Riverwind said he heard a splash just after Tas yelled out that we were being ambushed. If they were lucky, they dived off the log and escaped into the swamp. If not-” Sturm didn’t finish.
Tanis closed his eyes to shut out the firelight. He felt tired, tired of fighting, tired of killing, tired of slogging through the muck. He thought longingly of lying down and sinking back into sleep. Instead, he opened his eyes, stalked over to the cage, and rattled the bars. A draconian guard turned around, sword raised.
“You speak Common?” Tanis asked in the very lowest, crudest form of the Common language used on Krynn.
“I speak Common. Apparently better than you do, elven scum,” the draconian sneered. “What do you want?”