Forgotten Realms: Lost Empires, Book 04 - The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey

Author:Lynn Abbey [Abbey, Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-1566-8
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2018-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

9

6 Eleint, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

The Greypeak Mountains

Blue skies greeted the quartet and their horses when they left the cave the next morning. Tiep complained of a headache and tired easily, but was otherwise on the mend. They put him up on Hopper and covered more ground in the morning alone than they’d covered since they’d crossed the Dawn Pass Trail.

In the afternoon, a trio of red dragons flew freely overhead—a mother and her young, by the look of them. The first time they spiraled between the peaks, Sheemzher had led a pell-mell charge from the stone ledges to the bogs where they’d cowered, dreading an attack that didn’t come. The second time the dragons swooped, they held their ground and watched an aerial dance of fire and grace. By the third and fourth times, they had better things to think about and just kept walking.

The ground was rising. There was more stone, less boggy forest. Sheemzher said they could push on with torches and reach Dekanter after dark, or camp above the last bog and arrive mid-morning at their destination. Dru thought of who and what they might find among Ghistpok goblins and decided he rather wait until daylight.

No one spoke out against Dru’s caution.

The night was quiet with the clouds rolling back after midnight. There was no dawn, just a gradual brightening of the gray sky. Rozt’a said she’d seen something that might have been one of the misshapen goblins shortly before she’d awakened Dru.

“Makes sense,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “They’re goblins, after all. They don’t like the sun. Yesterday would have been misery for them. They’d have spent the day hiding from the light.”

Rozt’a nodded, “Then today they’re hungry and hunting. Let’s get out of here fast.”

They did, but not before filling all their skins with water, all the horse nets with grass and shoots, and gathering fresh rushes and green wood poles for making torches. Dru could cast a durable light spell. It would last the better part of a day or night and he could control its brightness with a thought, but only complete fools would venture underground without torches and the natural means to light them.

After they’d gathered all their gear, Sheemzher proposed that they march straight into Ghistpok’s colony.

“People good. Ghistpok good! Remember Sheemzher. Welcome Sheemzher. Welcome all.”

Dru and Rozt’a harmonized on the word “No!” and the goblin assured them that they could get into the mines without introducing themselves to Ghistpok. There were ancient air shafts opening onto something he called the High Trail. All was going according to plan along the High Trail until they stumbled against a rockslide at an inconvenient narrows. There wasn’t space to turn the horses around. The animals had to be coaxed backward to a wide spot. The goblin apologized continuously for his mistake.

Six years was a long time. Even ordinary mountains changed in that time, and Druhallen remembered what Amarandaris had told him about the futility of maps in Dekanter. Druhallen

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