“What can we do?” the first demanded.
“You are a healer, you must help us!” the second
rasped.
Jastom smiled reassuringly. “Of course, of course. Fear
not, friends. I have a potion right here.” He waved a hand,
and the small purple bottle filled with the noxious
concoction appeared in his hand. The draconians stared at
it greedily. “Mosswine’s Miraculous Elixir cures all. Even
scale rot.” “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Grimm
grumbled. Jastom’s face fell. “Oh, dear,” he said
worriedly. “What is it?” The first draconian positively
shrieked, clenching its talon-tipped fingers and beating its
leathery wings in agitation.
“I’m afraid this is our very last potion,” Jastom said,
the picture of despair. “There isn’t enough for both of
you.” He set the potion down on the floor, backing away.
He spread his hands wide in a gesture of deep regret. “I’m
terribly sorry, but you’ll have to decide which of you gets
it.”
The two draconians glared at each other, tongues
hissing and yellow eyes flashing.
They lunged for the bottle.
*****
“Well, they seemed to have hit upon the only really
fair solution to their dilemma,” Jastom observed dryly.
The two draconians lay upon the floor of the tent,
frozen in a fatal embrace. The remnants of the purple
bottle lay next to them, crushed into tiny shards. The fight
had been swift and violent. The two draconians had
grappled over the elixir and in the process each had driven
a cruelly barbed dagger into the other’s heart. Instantly the
pair of them had turned a dull gray and toppled heavily to
the floor. Such was the magical nature of the creatures
that, once dead, they changed to stone.
“Reorx’s Beard, will you look at that!” Grimm
whispered. Even as the two watched, the bodies of the
draconians began to crumble. In moments nothing
remained but their armor, the daggers, and a pile of dust.
Jastom reached down and brushed the gray powder
from one of the barbed daggers. He grinned nervously. “I
think we’ve just found our way out of here, Grimm.”
Moments later, Jastom crawled through a slit in the back
wall of the tent and peered into the deepening purple
shadows of twilight. He motioned for Grimm to follow.
The dwarf stumbled clumsily through the opening, falling
on his face with a curse. Jastom hauled the dwarf to his
feet by the belt and shot him a warning look to be quiet.
The two made their way through the darkened camp.
Jastom froze each time he heard the approach of booted
feet, but they faded before a soldier came within sight. A
silvery glow was beginning to touch the eastern horizon.
The moon Solinari would be rising soon, casting its bright,
gauzy light over the land. They had to hurry. They
couldn’t hope to avoid the eyes of the soldiers once the
moon lifted into the sky.
They rounded the comer of a long tent and then
quickly ducked back behind cover. Carefully, Jastom
peered around the comer. Beyond was a wide circle lit by
the ruddy light of a dozen flickering torches thrust into the
ground. Jastom’s eyes widened at the spectacle he saw
before him.
“I can fly! I can fly!” a slurred, rasping voice shrieked
excitedly. It was Commander Skaahzak.
He careened wildly through midair, suspended from a
tree branch by a rope looped under his arms. Two
draconians grunted as they pulled on the rope, heaving the
commander higher yet. Skaahzak whooped with glee, his
small, useless wings flapping feebly. His eyes burned
hotly with the fire of madness.
“It’s the goblin’s gruel,” Grimm muttered softly. “It’s
addled his brains. But he’ll stop laughing soon, when it
catches his blood on fire.”
A score of soldiers watched Skaahzak spin wildly on
the end of the rope, none of them daring to laugh at the
peculiar sight. Suddenly Jastom saw Lieutenant Durm
standing at the edge of the torchlight, apart from the
others, his eyes glittering like hard, colorless gems. Once
again, his lips wore a faint, mirthless smile, but what
exactly it portended was beyond Jastom’s ken.
Quickly Jastom ducked behind the tent. “Durm is
there,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t think he saw me.”