Azure bonds - Kate Novak [174]
The lizard nodded.
Alias frowned a little, still dissatisfied with leaving Nameless alone. Akabar thought to himself, she must care about him more than she knows.
"All right, Dragonbait. Which way?"
The saurial led them to a gap in the crenelations. A single set of stairs, steep, narrow, and without a railing, wound along the outside of the tower. Alias's frown grew deeper when she saw they would have to go down in single file.
"I'm going to go first until we reach a door," Alias said. "May I borrow your sword just a little while longer, Dragon-bait?"
The saurial cocked his head in the manner that Alias usually assumed meant he hadn't understood the question. Now she was beginning to believe it simply meant he didn't want to answer the question. The fragrance of violets filled the air. She held the strange weapon out, thinking he might be uncomfortable allowing someone else to wield it.
"If you'd rather have it back, I'll understand," she said, but the lizard shook his head and pushed her hand away gently, indicating she should keep the blade.
When this is over, we're going to learn to talk together, she promised herself. She started down the stairs, Dragonbait behind her, followed by Akabar. Olive brought up the rear. The halfling sighed at the steepness of the stairs, though their narrowness did not disturb her in the least. She trotted down them casually. Akahar, however, pressed himself against the wall of the tower and kept his eves on his feet.
Nameless waited until Olive's head disappeared below the level of the wall, then counted to twenty before limping to the staircase, gripping his wounded side. Half concealed by a large, fanged crenelation, he watched them descend. When they'd entered the first door, the true bard started down the stairs himself. He reached the first door and passed by it, continuing farther down the staircase. His only hope lay in the possibility that the tower had not given up all its secrets to its new owner.
On the ground far below, outside the tower's protective shell, a cloaked figure lowered the hand that had been shielding his eyes from the sky's light. Carefully, he removed the eye-cusps that gave him the sight of an eagle and replaced them in the small egg that was their home. He sighed, and his breath circled like fog through the transparent envelope that surrounded him. Then he took up his staff and made his way over the broken terrain of gemstones to the Citadel of White Exile.
When the companions had passed through the door, and Dragonbait had pushed past Alias to scout ahead, he had left Hill Cleaver still in her grasp. Without a weapon, the swordswoman was only a human of soft flesh and toolusing hands, while the saurial felt quite confident with his claws and powerful jaws.
The passages were lighted by the stones of the wall, which shone from within-a benefit of the citadel's position. Akabar was reminded of the light that had come from behind the elven wall that had imprisoned the Abomination of Moander, but these walls glowed with a rosy light that gave them all a ruddy hue.
Thev passed through one chamber, then another. Both had held some furniture, but recently had been stripped bare. The dust on the floor was disturbed as though several heavy objects had been dragged across it. The small prints of the pseudo-halfling crossed the rooms, as well as a set of large, heavier boots, nearly giant size.
They came to a pair of doors made of crystal that, like the the walls, glowed from within. The doors opened at a touch.
A large hall lay beyond. Dragonbait froze upon entering the room. It was not arranged the way it had been more than a month ago when he'd been dragged through it. There had been a long feasting table, and the walls had been covered with banners of some of the Realms' older nations. The table and banners were gone, replaced by twelve biers. Each funeral stand was occupied by a body.
Alias's first guess was that the