Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [141]
As the paladin helped him to rise, Finder shouted, "We can't stay here!"
Dragonbait was inclined to agree, but when he saw the wild-eyed look in the swordswoman's eyes, he was sure he'd never convince her to leave. The smell of her grief for Akabar permeated the air.
"Akabar is gone!" Finder shouted. "There's no hope for him! If you don't help me get Alias away from here, she'll die!"
Dragonbait nodded. He took the hand the bard offered him and moved toward Alias.
"Sister," he called out, "give me your hand."
Alias looked up at her saurial brother, confused. She didn't question him; she simply reached up and grabbed his paw. Dragonbait clenched her fingers with all his strength. Then Alias saw Finder standing behind the paladin. The bard held the finder's stone in his hand.
"No!" Alias shrieked.
Finder sang to the finder's stone, and the three adventurers glowed brightly for an instant, then disappeared. When they reappeared in the Singing Cave, Alias was still shrieking. She jerked her hand away from Dragonbait's and pointed the paladin's flaming sword at the bard's heart.
Finder dropped Dragonbait's hand. "I'll be back," he said. Then he sang to his magic stone again and vanished.
*****
By the time Olive reached the top of the pile, it was beginning to tremble alarmingly. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but it seemed to be moving toward the east side of the vale. The halfling looked around at the dead bodies and the shaking greenery and started to shiver.
Olive screamed out Dragonbait's name, trying to discern in the darkness if he was one of the corpses. A vine sprang up from the pile right in front of the halfling. An eye was visible on the end of it, round and glassy, like a fish's.
Olive gasped and took a step backward. More vines began popping out of the surface of the pile all around the halfling, each tipped with some sort of eye-a saurial's eye, or a wild cat's eye, or a bird's eye. Then more vines appeared with mouths on their ends- fanged lizards' mouths, birds' beaks, a beaver's mouth. The mouths all began calling out Moander's name in a cacophonous chorus that set the halfling's heart pounding with fear.
Olive moved cautiously away toward the edge of the pile. She'd slide down somehow; even falling to the ground would be preferable to becoming part of those eyes and mouths. A feline-mouthed vine lunged toward her, and the halfling shrieked.
Before the vine could strike her, strong hands grabbed her and lifted her off the top of the pile.
Olive gasped from the shock, then sighed with relief. She swiveled her head, expecting to see Akabar or Grypht. Her eyes widened in astonishment at the sight of her rescuer.
"Didn't I tell you that you had to be more careful, little Lady Luck?" Finder Wyvernspur said as he soared northward with the halfling wrapped in his arms.
*****
Grypht looked up from the exhausted form of a small flying saurial at the cleric, Sweetleaf, who stood over him anxiously.
"Excuse me, High One," the cleric said, "but we have a problem in the vale.
The-"
"I'll set a backfire soon to keep the fire from spreading," Grypht said.
"There's time yet. Don't worry, Sweetleaf."
"It's not the fire, High One," the cleric explained. "It's Moander. It's been resurrected."
Grypht stood up and looked into the vale. Sweetleaf was right. Moander had been resurrected, and it was heading eastward, straight toward them.
The wizard had never really believed that rescuing Dragonbait and recovering the saurial workers would halt Moander's resurrection. If anything, he had realized, it would precipitate the event, but since the Mouth of Moander had the seed and intended to use it that night, there hadn't seemed any reason to put off the inevitable. Grypht had hoped, however, that he would have had more time to get his people back on their feet.
The mountain of greenery slid slowly but steadily across the ground, pushed along by some unseen magical force. Grypht shuddered to think just how much power Moander