CHAPTER 4

Trevor stopped suddenly, but easily, as he came within sight of Dragon's Death. Shera barely managed to avoid a collision with his broad back.

"What - " she stopped in horror as Trevor stepped aside and she caught a full view of the valley below. The ground was scorched black and pitted with giant craters. There was nothing green, nothing alive to be seen; all the flora and fauna had long ago been destroyed and with them, the things that depended on them. A thick blanket of heavy smoke permeated the area, crawling along the ground like a wounded animal. Even the cloudless sky seemed dark and sickly - a final warning to turn back.

"Lor camas ter sastamis valk. Ton pasu." Trevor turned and waited for the rest of the main party to catch up.

Melinda raised an eyebrow and hurried to join him. She recognized the phrase as a kind of benediction but it made little sense. "Trevor, what is pasu? I don't recognise the word."

Trevor sighed. "It is the little death. The ignoble passing. This land," he waved his hand, "has suffered pasu and its spirit cries in remembered pain."

Melinda nodded, in partial understanding. She had forgotten how acutely his kind felt the pains of the world.

Shera bit her lip. "I'd heard tales of Dragon's Death but this...this is something else entirely." She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself. "Such emptyness. How can anything possibly survive the journey through that pass?"

Gan ran a meaty hand through his thinning hair. "From what talk I've heard in my journeys, Trothivyr is incredibly old for a dragon. That makes him both very cunning and very powerful. He is not, however, evil. Exceedingly chaotic, yes, but not evil. Depending on his mood, Trothivyr may either bury you in riches or flay your skin from your bones."

Shera snorted. "That gives me little comfort; I think I prefer an evil dragon to this Trothivyr."

Renu pulled on her belt, she looked down to meet his gaze, even for a gnome he was short. "Speak for yourself girlie, at least with Trothivyr we might get lucky and live, an evil wyrm wouldn't give us that much hope."

"Perhaps. But evil is predictable; you know it will try to kill you so you face it head on. I'd rather have an enemy I know is my enemy than an enemy I'm not sure of."

F'loro issued a faint half smile at this. "Best yet is to keep no enemies."

Renu wrinkled his nose and murmered into his beard, "Speaks the necromancer."

Shera gripped the gnome's shoulder and hissed, "Keep your peace. He has long since given up that dark practice."

"You say." He shook off Shera's hand and continued in a louder voice, "So what's the plan?"

Trevor sighed loudly, "There is no plan, we just walk in and hope the dragon doesn't kill us. I'd had a plan but with Ranchut so tight on our asses the dragon's chaos is our only ally."

"Oh, look Shera, it's your chance; you have your choice of facing Ranchut who is the epitomy of evil or a chaotic dragon."

"Don't even joke about that you..." Shera shook her head and left the thought uncompleted. The last thing they needed was more conflict within the group. Jorgran's failure to rejoin them was strain enough. For all that he was a pompous, arrogant, bull headed pig, he was usually reliable. Of course, Trevor's apparent unconcern for both Jorgran's and Sacha's safety did little to help matters. If ever there was an example of uncompromising stubborness, Trevor was it. Even so, she supposed she should be fair; Trevor probably had his reasons after all.

She tried to reason thing through, putting emotion aside. "I supposed... we should split up, then."

A look of alarm crossed Gan's face. "We'll never survive alone. We'd never have made it this far..."

Trevor silenced him with a glare. "She's right. If we go together, either we all come out alive or none of us. We can't risk that chance. Someone has to make it to the border, to prove that it can be done. If we go seperately, some of us may well die, but the rest will move on. It's a sacrifice for the group."

Shera shouldn't have said anything, but the words were out before she could think. "Of course. After all, we've alread sacrifice Jorgran and Sacha."

A dark cloud passed Trevor's face. "They're fine. We can find them again, when we need to."

"How?"

Trevor simply smiled, and turned to Melinda.

Melinda stammered. "Trever... I can't find them. I didn't know you would want me to, so... I no longer have Jorgran's token."

The glimmer of hope that Shera had been entertaining died. Without an item of value, Melinda's magic was as worthless as a pistol with no powder.

Melinda was almost in tears, which was unusual. "I'm sorry... you told me to take only what we needed, and..."

Trevor rested a claming hand on the Fae's shoulder. "It's all right, t'pari," he said, a word Shera didn't recognize. "You don't need them. We have another token."

Shera fumed. "No, we took none of Jorgran's things, they were all empty weight. And Sascha carried everything she owned; you know that." She racked her brain. "Unless... Jorgran traded weapons with me. Would you be able to use that?"

Melinda shook her head, sadly. "Fae magic through an iron blade? Besides, he took that off a corpse just a few weeks ago. It has no connection."

Trevor remained adament, however. "No matter." His eyes passed over each of the party in turn, and settled to rest upon F'loro.

"It's always me, when suspicion's to be laid, you know that? I should take offense." The former necromancer showed no surprise.

"What did you take from her?"

"A trifle, really, but it's rather personal. Perhaps someone else has something you could use. Maybe Melinda actually saved one of those awful love poems he's always writing her."

"I grow tired of dealing with you, Bonelord."

F'loro smirked. "You forbid me from keeping to my old vows, and when I learn a new trade..."

"Picking pockets is not a trade," Shera interrupted.

F'loro smiled and continued. "When I learn a new trade, a rather established and respected one, I might add, you frown on that as well. And now that it's actually proven of some good, you still ridicule me?"

Trevor snarled, and Shera jumped half a foot back, even though his back was to her. F'loro, on the other hand, remained nonplussed.

"Perhaps we could discuss this in private..."

Trevor leaned close and breathed heavilly in the man's face. "Give me all that you took, or I will tear you in half."

The humor dropped from F'loro's eyes, but a look of purpose remained. "I beg of you, noble Trychtari, let us step aside. There are forces in motion that it would be best to keep hidden."

Trevor would have none of it, though, and across his body muscles stood out in sharp relief as he tried to contain his rage.

F'loro sighed. "Have it your way, then." His hand flashed inside his robe, and with a glint of steel Shera saw a dagger fly from a hidden sheath. Her hand was on her sword before she realized that he did not mean to attack Trevor. He held the dagger at arm's length, directly under Trevor's nose, a proud defiance in his eyes. Slowly, deliberately, he uncurled his fingers enough for the group to see the sigil on the dagger's hilt.

Gan gasped aloud, Trevor cursed, and Melinda dropped her head in defeat. The dagger bore the symbol of A'Tnari.

Shera's knuckles grew white as her fingers convulsed about her sword hilt. "This...this was Sacha's?" It couldn't be. The Reeves had utterly destroyed the royal line after the wars. There were rumors, of course - rumors that members of the kingsguard had born a portion of the family to safety and that they waited in hiding until the fruition of the Thorn Prophesy. The sort of rumors that hungry and desperate people whisper to themselves in the dark of the night when hope is bleakest.

She peered closer at the blade. "What is that?"

F'loro shrugged. "No metal I've seen before, and I should know better than most. It doesn't matter, it should serve well enough for our purposes."

Melinda raised glistening eyes to meet F'loro's steady gaze. "Why did you not say something earlier?"

F'loro pulled his hand back and looked hard at Trevor. "I can't say."

"Can't or won't?"

"Won't then, if you must know." He threw the dagger into the ground at Melinda's feet, "there is your token, now work your glamour."

Melinda bent and picked the blade from the ground. Wrapping her hand around the hilt, careful to avoid the strange blade incase their was even an hint of cold iron in it, she closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

Trevor placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, "Not yet, Melinda, we won't need to find them unless we make it through the pass. No sense in letting Ranchut know where we are until then. You know he'll be prepared to trace your magic, if he hasn't already killed them."

Shera stared at the dagger in Melinda's hands. "It doesn't make any sense, though. Sacha couldn't have been A'Tnari...are you sure that's hers?"

F'loro shrugged. "It was hers. Whether by birthright or some other means, I cannot say."

"Bah, such questions will hold. Now is the time to worry about that dragon beast." Gan looked to Trevor. "Do you suggest groups or every man for himself?"

"Groups of two. Melinda and I, you and Renu, F'loro and Shera." Trevor glanced at the position of the sun. "Melinda and I will start out now. You and Renu follow in one hour and F'loro and Shera an hour after that. We will meet up again at the foothills of Marikna." Trevor sighed. "This is not how I would have it but we are pressed for time. Come Melinda."