Nala’s ritual circle covered the patch of floor immediately in front of the idol. Intricately rendered in several colors, the figure was in its essence a wheel with S-shaped spokes.

The glass globes that Raiann crafted and Nala enchanted sat on a simple wooden rack convenient to both workspaces. Pinpoints of light from the votive candles reflected in the curves.

This, or something like it, was exactly what Khouryn and his comrades had needed to find. Yet for a moment, he felt less overjoyed than stunned by the sheer audacity and enormity of Nala’s scheme. She hadn’t just seized on the opportunity a menace afforded to foist her noisome creed on her fellow dragonborn. She’d help create the threat by crafting weapons to make the giants more dangerous than they’d ever been before.

“I said the barbarians had never made anything as fine-as civilized-as those orbs,” Balasar remarked at length. “Do you remember me saying that?”

“I remember Nala destroying every talisman we captured as soon as she could get her hands on it,” Medrash answered. “To make sure no mage or diviner could possibly figure out who fashioned it.”

Balasar strode to an improvised desk, a sarcophagus with parchment and writing implements on top and a stool positioned beside it. He picked up a couple of papers and, squinting in what for him was inadequate light, skimmed the text. “Who’s Skuthosiin?”

“A dragon,” said Khouryn, “who used to live hereabouts. He died during the Spellplague.”

“Don’t bet on it. We’ll have to go through these notes at length, but it seems Nala’s in communication with him.”

“I assume,” Medrash said, “that we can obtain other samples of Nala’s handwriting for comparison.”

Balasar laughed. “Oh yes. We have her. We absolutely have her. When Tarhun-” His eyes widened. “Watch out!”

Khouryn pivoted. Glaring, swaying slightly from side to side, Nala stood between them and the door Medrash had forced open.

Khouryn rushed her. The Daardendriens did too. She whirled and bolted for the corridor. As she dived through the door, she hissed a phrase in what he suspected was Draconic.

The door swung shut, nearly bashing Khouryn in the nose. He tried repeating the syllables Nala had spoken. Evidently he didn’t have them exactly right, because the mass of stone refused to pivot.

“Let me,” Medrash said. He planted his hands on the door, rattled off his prayer or mantra, and shoved. The door grated partway open as it had before.

But by the time they stepped back out into the passage, Nala was gone. They couldn’t even hear her footsteps.

Jhesrhi stood up. “Majesty,” she said, “I’m sure-”

Tchazzar whirled. His glare silenced her. “They can speak for themselves,” he rapped.

Jhesrhi swallowed. “Yes, Majesty.”

The dragon turned back to the other folk seated around the campfire. “Would anyone else like to speak words of blame?” Evidently, no one did. He fixed his eyes on Gaedynn. “Then perhaps you, sir archer, would care to expand on what you said before.”

Jhesrhi gazed at Gaedynn too, and hoped he’d understand what she wanted to convey: Control your tongue. Don’t antagonize him any further.

Gaedynn took a breath and let it out. Then, a tightness evident in his normally light, flippant baritone, he said, “Majesty, if it seemed I spoke words of reproach, then I ask your pardon for expressing myself poorly. I meant that I must not have understood the battle plan, because events didn’t unfold as I anticipated.”

Tchazzar sneered. “No, they probably didn’t. Because I’m surrounded by incompetence and disloyalty. And that’s the reason we didn’t win today. Take this little bitch, for example.” Quick as a striking serpent, he grabbed Meralaine and jerked her to her feet.

She yelped, and Oraxes’s jaw and neck muscles bunched, betraying a desperate resolve. It was Aoth’s turn to give a silent, surreptitious signal-he made a little patting motion, telling the boy to stay put. He then stood up himself, but slowly enough that Tchazzar might not interpret the action as challenging.

“I brought Meralaine north,” said Aoth, his voice as mild and devoid of aggression as his movements. “That makes her a warrior of the Brotherhood, or as good as, and my responsibility. To discipline, if need be. Please tell me how she’s offended.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tchazzar replied. “I ordered her not to use necromancy, and yet she stinks of the grave.”

“Our foes summoned the dead,” Aoth replied. “She simply used her art to dismiss and control them. We might have fared far worse if she hadn’t.”

“It’s true, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said.

“Maybe,” Tchazzar said through gritted teeth. “Maybe.” He let go of Meralaine. Caught by surprise, she staggered a step and almost fell on her rump. “But who will justify what this one did?” He rounded on Shala.

Shala met his glare without flinching. “How have I displeased Your Majesty?”

“Do you think me deaf? That I didn’t hear my troops shouting your name? You want the throne back, don’t you, traitor? You’re sowing the seeds of a coup.”

“Majesty, someone had to lead after Lord Hasos was incapacitated, and I didn’t tell the men what to chant. They simply fell back into an old habit, and I was too busy to correct them.”

“Stand up,” Tchazzar said, and Shala did. “Give me your sword.” She drew the weapon and handed it to him.

Firelight ran along the blade as he sighted down its length. “A fine weapon,” he said. “With a proud history, I imagine.”

“Yes, Majesty,” Shala said. “Ishual Karanok used it to defend Chessenta during the Spellplague.”

One hand gripping the leather-wrapped hilt and the other the blade, Tchazzar held the sword at eye level. He then hissed a charm of weakening, the words so charged with malignancy that they made Jhesrhi’s ears ache and her stomach churn.

When he finished, he thrust the sword back at Shala pommel first. “Break it,” he said.

She hesitated. “Majesty?”

“You just told me it’s the blade of a war hero. Break it to show me you understand you are no longer a war hero and never will be again.”

Her square, plain features betraying nothing, Shala took the sword in both hands and did as he’d commanded. He crowed when the weapon snapped like a dry stick.

“Let that be a lesson to all of you!” Tchazzar cried. “Understand that you are blessed! Of all the peoples in all Faerun, only Chessentans have a god incarnate guiding and protecting them every day of their lives. Never doubt or question! Be grateful and rejoice!”

A part of Jhesrhi wanted to say that was exactly how everyone felt. It seemed the best way to calm him down. But the words caught in her throat, and it appeared that nobody else was moved to speak them either.

Tchazzar took in their silence and shuddered. He grew a little taller, and his nose and jaws protruded a trifle from the rest of his face. A wisp of smoke curled from one nostril, and Gaedynn’s hand slipped toward the spot on the ground where he’d set his bow.

I have to stop this, Jhesrhi thought. She struggled to figure out how, and then a putrid stench filled her nose and nearly made her gag. “Look up!” Aoth shouted, and she did.

A cloud of mist spilled down from the sky. As it reached the ground, it drew in on itself, thickening and taking on a definite, bat-winged form. Slanted yellow eyes gleamed in a scaly, wedge-shaped head.

Jhesrhi felt an odd mix of fear and relief. Fear because she’d discerned how powerful Jaxanaedegor was when she and Gaedynn were his prisoners. Relief because Tchazzar had a new target for his ire, and because for some mad reason the vampiric green had intruded without any of his minions. Which ought to mean that, his prowess notwithstanding, she and her comrades could destroy him.

Everyone who wasn’t already standing scrambled to his feet. Aoth leveled his spear, and blue light seethed around the point. Jhesrhi gripped her staff with both hands and felt the pseudomind inside exult when she called for fire. Tchazzar grew to colossal size in a heartbeat, and Oraxes jumped aside to keep the red wyrm’s writhing, lengthening tail from knocking him down.