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.Gripping Saskia's hair in his fist, he emptied the tankard over her head."To the Company of the Chimera.Many heads, one purpose.""Lie still," Grummond ordered, his greasy hands working the tip of the dart from Saskia's leg.The company's surgeon was a smashed nose half-ore who had seen more battle with his one good eye than all the rest of the company together."Fightin' the captain," Grummond scoffed.Pressing his hands to either side of the wound, Grummond leaned into her leg and sank his teeth into the tip of the dart.With a jerk of his head he tore the dart loose and spat it onto the floor."Were you half drunk or half daft?""The dwarf thinks too highly of himself," Saskia said, "and he's guiled you all into fearing him.""Tombli's a war-caster o' Abbathor.Nothing but trouble, that one." The half-ore poured a rust colored syrup over the ragged wound and gave her thigh a slap."His father was an exile o' the Rift Clans, his mother a duergar princess.Ain't no dwarfhold gonna adopt a half-gray bastard.Tombli's been takin' that pain out on the world ever since.""If he's such an almighty priest, how come you do all our healing?""Not every priest's a healer," Grummond said, his one good eye on the door."But if n you hate him so much, why stay with the Chimeras?"Saskia shrugged."A wolf needs a pack, an Uthgardt needs a tribe.It is the way of things."Grummond studied her.He had known many barbarians, but there was something different about Saskia.The North-lander had no mirth to match her melancholy.She didn't fight out of bitterness, like Tombli, or greed, like the company.Instead it was as if a war-worm had curled up inside her belly, giving her a hunger for battle that refused to be sated.The only challenge worthy of her respect would be the one that killed her.Anything less merited only disdain and scorn.Grummond turned to put away his oils and salves and said, "So how'd you witch up that bit o' magic?""What do you mean?""The flash, the boom!" Grummond laughed."I lost a pair o' gold crowns to that pretty little trick.""I don't know what you're talking about," Saskia growled, something ancient and cruel flashing in her blue eyes."All right," Grummond held up his hands in defense."Didn't mean nothin' by it.You know who your friends are."A shout went up from the common room."Gruumsh's blood," the half-ore swore."What now?"Tombli leaned into the room, jerked a thumb at Saskia, and said, "Get up and put some civilized clothes on.I need your eyes."A band of trappers had ridden into the waystation.The company gathered to meet them, crowding around the men and their heavy iron cage.By the time Saskia had limped outside Tombli was already engaged in a shouting match with a swarthy Calishite, trying to drive down the trapper's price by bluff and bluster.The man's armor was brutally torn in several places and a long bandage wrapped the length of his leg.Whatever wasin the cage had given the trapper and his fellows a hard time of it.Saskia eased through the crowd then stopped short.The trappers had caught a dragon.Saskia had seen images of drakes before.She had seen the likenesses of great wyrms inked onto scraped hides, carved from ivory and wood, gilded in gold and silver, and painted on cavern walls.But the miniature dragon, no larger than a cat, had something every representation had lacked.Like an exotic sword polished to a razor's edge, the dragon was beautiful.Long lines of sinewy muscle tensed and corded beneath glossy scales the color of wine.A pair of sharp horns curled above dark eyes that flashed violet, framing a savage maw filled with needle-sharp teeth.Its delicate wings strained anxiously against the tight confines of the cage, and the body ended in a serpentine tail tipped with a single ivory barb.Tombli whispered from Saskia's elbow, "What in the Nine Hells is it?"Saskia struggled to translate the Uthgardt word to Common, but the best she could manage was a vulgar approximation of: "Apseudodragon."Tombli snorted."A sort-of-dragon?" He spun back on the Calishite and shouted, "Cheating son of a djinni! One hundred golden lions and not a falcon more!"While Tombli and the Calishite fell back into vicious bargaining, Saskia knelt before the cage.The wyrm's gemstone eyes were timeless, utterly indifferent to the concerns of man.Its scaled kin had reigned long before the press of cities and farms, and would exist long after the last eldritch tower crumbled to dust.Free me, sister.Saskia flinched.She hadn't heard Uthgardt spoken since she had fled her home.The dragon hissed with impatience.Again the words leaped into her mind.Free me!As a girl Saskia had been plagued by dreams in which entire flights of great wyrms filled the skies.Worse, her dreams had worked tiny miracles on the world around her.When Saskia had nightmares, lights danced across the northern skies, sentries reported watch fires flaring blue and red, and rusting blades were made bright.The tribe's aging shaman, terrified of what he couldn't explain, declared her visions to be portents of evil and did everything in his power to purge her of the wicked taint.But every ritual and ceremony failed and in the end Saskia was branded a witch, damned by an untapped potential she couldn't control.Free me!"No," Saskia said, her voice a fierce whisper.Her eyes narrowed to shards of ice and her words slipped into Uthgardt."I sacrificed fortunes to your troves, swore my spirit to your totem and placed my body upon your altar." She spat on the ground."Your kin denied me."Before Saskia could stand, the dragon's long tail shot between the bars of the cage.It struck once, as delicate as a lover's caress, slashing a crimson arc across her cheek.Saskia fell backward, her blood flaring as the dragon's poison charged through her veins.The weight of her own body bore down upon her like a coat of wet furs.Her head lolled weakly and her fingers went numb.As the sky darkened, her ears were filled with the thunder of a roaring drum.Once more the voice leaped unbidden into her mind.We did not deny you.You denied us.Saskia slept and as she slept, she remembered.She was standing on a steep slope, knee deep in drifting snow.Before her rose a towering chain of granite peaks that stretched to the sky.The Spine of the World.Behind her the mountains fell away through rolling clouds of snow and blowing ice.A relentless wind hammered her body, threatening to pluck her from the mountain and hurl her into the whirling white abyss.Her cheeks were black with frost, her fingers and toes were numb with cold, and her eyes burned from days of seeing nothing but endless expanses of white.Kicking and punching holds into the slope, Saskia continued her climb.A tenday ago the elders of her village had given her a choice: leave the tribe forever or submit to the Trial of the Dragon.Saskia had chosen the trial: to travel alone through the wilderness, without weapons or provisions, to the summit of the Uthgarheis, the lonely peak that ruled the Spine of the World
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