Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [73]
"I can see that," Joel muttered. "By what? I seem to have misplaced my Volo's guide to Gehenna."
"It's a barghest," Holly explained. "Remember? Finder mentioned them when he was telling us about Gehenna. They can shapeshift into wild dogs."
Joel recalled the last words Finder spoke in his dream. "Barghests use fear," he quoted.
"Yes," Holly said. "They can cast several different spells, including those to effect the emotions of their prey. This one must have cast magic to make us fear our own campsite. I was so afraid that I abandoned you and Jas and Emilo and fled right into a snare. Then something bashed me on the head."
"Me, too," Joel acknowledged. Even with Finder's warning, he hadn't managed to see through the barghest's trick. "Except I tripped on you before getting smashed in the head. What else do you know about barghests?" he asked the paladin, hoping to learn something that might help free them.
"They leave their young in the Realms to forage for themselves. The young tend to live with goblins. The immature barghests eat people, preferably heroes. That's how they grow in strength. There was one terrorizing travelers around Daggerdale a year or so ago. I was with the party that hunted it down. According to Elminster, when they gain enough power, barghests return to Gehenna, but sometimes they return sooner, before they're ready, if they're fireballed in their canine form. I think that's what happened to this one. It's not as tall as most of them and its skin isn't quite all blue. That's how you tell when a barghest is mature."
A great wolflike dog appeared out of the darkness and immediately transformed into another barghest. The second barghest sat down beside the first. This creature, like the first, was about seven feet tall with purplish skin. "Lucky us," the bard murmured. "There's two of them, but they're not fully grown."
The barghests made growling sounds at each other, speaking in a language Joel did not know.
Holly smiled suddenly. "Emilo took off on the carpet with Jas. They weren't captured."
Joel gave a sigh of relief. He'd been feeling guilty about abandoning the pair, but they were probably safer than he. "You can understand the barghests?" he asked the paladin.
Holly nodded. "A little," she said. "They're arguing about who gets which one of us."
"This might be a good time to break the harps Finder gave us and go back to Fermata," Joel said.
"Probably," Holly agreed. "Can you reach your harp?"
Joel wriggled in his bindings. "Um… no."
"Me either," Holly said.
Suddenly, from the outer ridge of the canyon, someone shouted, "Hey, dog-breath!"
"It's Emilo!" Joel whispered excitedly. He craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the kender, hoping to warn him away.
Emilo stood alone on the ridge, the finder's stone shining at his feet. He held his thumbs up to his temples and wriggled his fingers at the barghests. "Why don't you go back to your doggie shapes? Then you could round up some sheep."
The barghests rose to their feet. One moved farther down the canyon, while the other began to move toward Emilo.
"Isn't mutton your favorite meat?" the kender shouted. "But tough to catch, I bet. Those sheep are smart. Why, their brains must be two, three times larger than the ones in your thick skulls."
The barghest moving toward Emilo growled.
"I sure hope he knows what he's doing," Holly muttered. "That second one is sneaking off to come up behind him."
"Don't forget, Jas is out there somewhere, too," the bard said. He rolled over, sat up, and began wriggling toward the pool of lava.
"Joel, be careful," Holly whispered. "What are you doing?"
"Most monsters agree that there's no meat sweeter than kender," Emilo said chattily. "Unfortunately kender are just about the cleverest game around, so there's no chance you two will ever be able to judge for yourselves. Unless you find a dead one lying around somewhere. Not above eating carrion, are you?"
The barghest howled and began scrambling up the slope toward Emilo.
Joel sat with his back to the pool of lava and wriggled