The Captive Flame by Richard Lee Byers

Author:Richard Lee Byers [Byers, Richard Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7869-5752-1
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2010-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

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29 TARSAKH-GREENGRASS

THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

Fires burned in the southwest. Khouryn couldn’t see the flames, but no one could miss the columns of black smoke, even against a gray sky.

He clucked and urged his dappled mare forward. The dragonborn bred big, powerful horses to bear their weight, and though his was the smallest Perra had to offer, she was still an enormous steed for a dwarf. But he’d ridden all sorts of mounts since leaving East Rift, and he managed well enough.

He caught up with Medrash and Balasar, who sat silently contemplating the smoke like everyone else. “What is it?” he asked.

“War,” Medrash said.

Wonderful, Khouryn thought sourly. Because his wife and home were on the far side of that war, and with Vigilant gone he couldn’t just fly over it, now could he?

“Pick up the pace!” Perra called. Evidently the sight of the smoke made it seem even more urgent that she confer with her master as soon as possible.

So they rode or marched faster, and by the end of the morning, Djerad Thymar came into view. For some time afterward, Khouryn kept squinting at it. He was sure some trick of perspective was making the place look bigger than it really was.

But it wasn’t so. The closer they approached, the more obvious it became that the dragonborn had built themselves a veritable mountain of a city. The structure rested on a colossal block of granite. On top of that, hundreds of gigantic pillars supported a kind of pyramid with a flattened apex. In its totality, the edifice towered more than a thousand feet high.

Since sighting the smoke, the ambassador and her retainers had been taciturn. But now Balasar noticed Khouryn staring, and grinned a fierce-looking reptilian grin. “Impressed?”

“I’d have to say yes,” Khouryn replied.

“I hear you dwarves build things just as grand.”

“We do. But we start with caverns and dig and carve. To begin in the open air with nothing more than a piece of ground, quarry all those big, heavy pieces of stone, haul them cross-country, set them one on top of another, layer on layer …” Khouryn shook his head. “Your ancestors must have been out of their minds.”

Medrash looked over his shoulder. “Keep up,” he said.

The paladin’s curt manner reminded Khouryn that grim times had come to Tymanther, not that he needed reminding. There were numerous indications as the company crossed the fields surrounding the city. Though he couldn’t quite make out what sort of beasts they were riding, he spotted several aerial cavalry patrols taking off from the platform at the top of the truncated pyramid. Meanwhile, drums thumped out a somber cadence from the open, colonnaded space underneath the bottom. He inferred the sound was a call to arms, a funerary observance, or both.

A wide ramp led up the outside of the slab. Farmers, soldiers, and other folk drew to the edges to let the ambassador’s party by. At the top, Khouryn and his companions passed into shadow. The pyramid perched above them blocked out much of the sky.

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