Fairman, who had been a long-standing enforcer in the Faithguards, looked helplessly at the high priest. He knows his life is forfeit, Kelryn thought with an agreeable thrill of pleasure. But he also knows that the difference between a quick and merciful execution or a slow, lingering death by torture would depend upon the answers he gives.

"It was the skull, Master. I had a dream, and I saw the skull."

Kelryn froze, chilled more than he cared to admit by the words. "And where was it?" He tried, successfully, he thought, to keep the tension out of his voice.

"I don't know. It was dark, but I could see it clearly. And I heard it calling, telling me to go."

"And you chose to obey the voice of a dream rather than the doctrines and the commands of your high priest."

Fairman looked at Kelryn with an unspoken plea in his eyes. He really wants me to understand, thought the priest, mystified by the sincerity of the doomed man.

"I-I had no choice," Fairman said miserably. "Even when I awakened, I saw those eyeless sockets, heard a summons… calling me, making me move."

"I see." Kelryn did not, in fact, understand the strange compulsion. Still, he was worried. He had lost more than a dozen of his once faithful followers in the last decades. Though that wasn't a terrible rate of attrition, those fugitives his Faithguards recaptured always reported a similar dream.

"You know, of course, that your treachery cannot be abided."

"I know, Master," declared Fairman miserably. He drew a breath, apparently trying to decide if he should say anything further.

"Speak, my good son," the priest urged gently.

"There was something else in the dream-and in my thoughts, when I was awakened."

"Something else…?"

"It was a kender, Master. The skull became a kender, and then it was the kender I was chasing. He was important. He was the skull, it seemed, though the bone was not of his own body."

"A kender?" Kelryn mused, trying to keep his voice casual. But despite his bored facade, his alarm deepened. He himself had dreamed about a mysterious kender on more than one occasion, and fifty years ago Cantor Blacksword had ranted something about one of the diminutive wanderers as well. What could it mean?

"Yes… a kender who was afraid, lord. In my dream, he was afraid of me, afraid because I knew his name."

Kelryn Darewind had little concern for kender as a rule. Though these portents were mildly disturbing, the high priest's mind had turned inevitably toward other, more immediate, issues. Indeed, as Fairman babbled away his last minutes, the high priest's thoughts wandered.

He vividly remembered the maiden waiting for him beyond the nearby door. Suddenly he wanted her very badly. With a curt command, he summoned Warden Thilt.

"That is not important," he declared with an abrupt, breathless determination. He turned to Warden Thilt. "Take him to the dungeons. Kill him with a single strike."

"Thank you, Master!" cried Fairman pathetically, falling forward to wrap his arms around the high priest's feet.

But Kelryn was already up and walking, taking long strides toward the white door. His mind was aflame, full of the mental image of the young woman. He was sure the reality would not be a disappointment. Behind him, he heard low sobs as Fairman was lifted to his feet and escorted without a great deal of force toward the stone-covered trapdoor that led into the temple's nether reaches.

The woman was waiting, and she was even more beautiful and willing than Kelryn had dared to hope. He enjoyed her through the rest of the morning, and she seemed more than happy to devote her considerable skill to the advancement of her faith.

Only later, as he lay in languid half-consciousness, did Kelryn's thoughts turn back to the hapless Fairman. The man had been dead for several hours when the priest sat up, cursing softly at his own thoughtlessness. He should have been more patient, more thorough as he questioned the traitor about his dream.

Specifically, he should have asked what the kender's name was.

CHAPTER 12

351 AC

Second Bakukal, Gildember

"Stop them!" High Priest Kelryn Darewind cried, standing on the wall above the gates of his temple compound, commanding the Faithguards to steady the bar that held shut the wide portals.

But the force of the mob in the streets would not be denied. Though Kelryn quickly descended, joining his men to throw his own weight against the gates, the bar splintered like a toothpick, and slowly the massive barriers of the gates were forced inward.

As soon as there was a narrow opening, people began to stream into the courtyard of the Sect of the Black Robe. The force of the crowd swelled the gap, and Kelryn abandoned the lost effort, falling back as the gates swung wide and a great throng of terrified humans charged into the high-walled compound. Even worse, he saw several kender ambling along with the crowd, unaffected by the hysteria that gripped the humans.

The refugees scattered through all portions of the temple grounds, filling the chapel, spilling through the gardens and drill grounds, pouring into the barracks, even seeking refuge in the bloodstained dungeons beneath the temple floor.

"Try to fix the gates after the throng is through," growled the high priest. "And by all that you value, get rid of the kender! Kill them if they won't leave!"

Warden Horec, the most recent chief of the Faith-guards, saluted and promised to do his best, though they both tacitly acknowledged that the force of the mob was a thing that no mere human could be expected to control. Still, he knew his master's aversion to the small folk, and he would make certain that any kender within the compound was quickly discovered and tossed over the wall.

Furious, Kelryn pushed his way through the crowd into the temple, then climbed the spiral stairway to the blessed solitude offered by the high tower. Two strapping Faithguards stood at the foot of the steps, barring passage-at least, thus far-to any trespasser who tried to follow.

The view from above offered little consolation. Kelryn could see many places where Haven was burning, the fires ignited by the cruel red dragons under the command of the villainous highlord, Verminaard. As he watched, the priest saw one of the massive serpents glide between two towering pillars of smoke. Banking gracefully, the wyrm uttered a shriek in the air above a crowded avenue, sending people spilling in panic toward any shelter they could find.

It was just such a panic that had driven the throng into the Temple of Fistandantilus. For days the news had been clear and harsh: Armies were marching on Haven, and the city would inevitably fall. As to his sect, the high priest was determined to do what he could to make sure it survived.

Kelryn touched the comforting weight of the bloodstone and wished that he could pray to Fistandantilus for help-wished that there really was a god that would protect him, that would see to the safety of his faithful follower.

As if to mock his hopes, the gliding red dragon dipped low, jaws gaping as it belched a great cloud of flame along a row of buildings not far from the temple. The structures, mostly taverns, ignited immediately, and moments later panicked folk came diving out of the doorways. Many of the victims were aflame, and they rolled in the street, screaming in agony, only to be ignored by their fellow citizens who fled past, desperate for any suggestion of safety.

Haven had fallen, as Kelryn, and everyone else who had a grasp of reality, had known it would. The dragon-armies that had swept southward from Abanasinia were clearly unstoppable, a horde of flying serpents, cruel riders, and teeming hordes of men and monsters on the ground. There were even rumors that the elves of Qua-linesti were withdrawing from their ancestral home, taking ships across the Straits of Algoni toward the imagined safety of Southern Ergoth.