Temple of the Dragonslayer (15 page)

It was an ogre.

The bestial giant came lumbering from behind an ancient oak tree. It fixed its bloodshot eyes on Davyn and Nearra and grinned.

“It’s about time you two got here,” the ogre rumbled, its words almost unintelligible. “Ugo worked up powerful hunger while waitin’.” The ogre began to salivate, and thick drool ran out of one corner of his mouth and dripped in long, sticky strands to the forest floor.

Ugo stomped toward them, dragging a large bleached bone that served as a crude club. He stared at Nearra and licked his lips with a gray-black tongue.

During the flight through the forest, Davyn had kept hold of his bow, though he had dropped the arrow he’d nocked somewhere along the way. But he had more in his quiver. He drew one now, nocked it, and took aim at Ugo’s heart.

The ogre stopped his advance and frowned in puzzlement. “You want to hurt Ugo?”

Davyn released his bowstring and sent the arrow flying.

Ugo was too slow to avoid or block Davyn’s arrow, and the shaft struck his chest. But though the point stuck, the ogre didn’t appear to be in any pain. In fact, he laughed and brushed the arrow away as if it were nothing more than an annoying insect.

“Ugo not hurt by arrow.” The ogre pulled down the collar of his animal-hide tunic to reveal a vest made of reptile scale underneath. The ogre grinned as he let his tunic collar slip back into place. “Ugo now have armor made from wyvern scales. Wizard give as payment.”

“Then I’ll just have to aim a bit higher, won’t I?” Davyn started to draw another arrow from his quiver, but before he could nock it, Ugo bellowed and charged. Though the ogre was slow, Davyn didn’t want to risk taking the time to try another shot. It was unlikely he’d slay the ogre with a single arrow, but the man-beast could easily kill them with a single blow of his
bone club. They needed to keep out of the ogre’s reach if they wanted to stay alive.

Davyn let the arrow fall back into the quiver and grabbed Nearra’s hand.

“Come on!” he shouted. “We can’t outfight him, but we can outrun him!”

Nearra didn’t move. Davyn thought she might be frozen with fear. He tugged on her hand, trying to get her moving before the ogre could get close enough to take a swing at them with his club. But no matter how hard he pulled, Nearra didn’t budge. It was as if she’d turned to stone.

Davyn glanced toward Ugo and saw that the ogre was almost upon them.

Davyn knew they had only one other chance: his ring. He’d never been able to use it more than three times a day, but he knew it was theoretically possible. It was only a matter of willpower and inner strength.

Davyn concentrated as hard as he could, and imagined all the arrows in his quiver flying out and shooting toward Ugo, piercing his tough hide as if he were an ogre-shaped pincushion.

One arrow trembled, and then another. But before any of them could rise into the air, a white-hot bolt of pain lanced through Davyn’s skull. The young ranger cried out as he began to lose consciousness.

Forgive me, Nearra, he thought. The world spun around him and everything began to grow dark. He felt his hand let go of Nearra’s, and then he was falling toward the ground.

C
atriona easily found Davyn and Nearra’s trail. She could see the broken branches, snapped twigs, and crushed plants that they’d left in their wake, and what’s more, she could hear them crashing through the forest somewhere ahead of her.

At first Catriona had been glad that Davyn had taken Nearra off the trail, but now she was beginning to worry. Instinct told her that something wasn’t right, that Davyn wasn’t simply trying to get Nearra safely away from the goblins. He was taking Nearra too far from the road and moving too fast, as if he were trying to get away from the rest of them as well as the goblins.

The Knights of Solamnia worshiped Paladine, the chief god of Good, and though Catriona wasn’t a Knight, she hoped more than anything to redeem herself and prove worthy of becoming one someday. She whispered a prayer for Nearra’s safety and hoped Paladine was listening.

She heard a noise and glanced over her shoulder. She saw Sindri struggling to catch up to her. The kender was fit and agile, but his legs were far shorter than Catriona’s, and there was no way he could hope to keep pace with her.

She found herself suddenly torn between two oaths: should
she continue running as fast as she could to catch up to Nearra and Davyn, or should she slow down so that she didn’t outdistance Sindri? She had sworn to protect both of them, but by trying to help only one, she could well be putting the other’s life in danger. And there was no way she could possibly protect both. But what if, by choosing one over the other, she caused harm to come to the one she didn’t choose? She’d failed her aunt when the bandits had attacked, and Leyana had paid for Catriona’s cowardice with her life. Catriona was determined not to fail anyone else again—ever.

She finally decided that Nearra needed her the most. Sindri had more experience at dealing with the hazards of traveling than did Nearra, who in a very real sense had only a day and a half of experience to draw on. Besides, Sindri had his magic to protect him, though exactly how he had suddenly become capable of performing spells of telekinesis, Catriona didn’t know.

“I’m going to try to catch up to Davyn and Nearra!” she called back to Sindri.

“Go ahead!” the kender shouted in reply. “I’ll find you!”

Sindri sounded excited, as if she’d just proposed they play a game of hide and seek.

Kender, she thought, with a mix of fondness and exasperation. Not for the first time, she envied Sindri’s ability to resist fear or indecision. Then she focused her thoughts on running as fast as she could.

She continued following Davyn and Nearra’s trail until she came to a copper-colored boulder. She nearly tripped as the ground began to slope downward, but she managed to maintain her footing and kept on running.

Catriona found them in time to see Davyn fall to the ground. Catriona wasn’t sure what had happened to the ranger. From what she could see, it didn’t look as if the ogre had been close enough to strike him. But whatever had caused Davyn to lose consciousness, she couldn’t worry about him now. It was Nearra whom she was sworn to protect.

Nearra stood motionless as the ogre approached her. She’s paralyzed with terror, Catriona guessed. Not that she could blame Nearra. The ogre might not have been as fearsome as Slean, but he was formidable enough in his own right.

“In the name of the Knights of Solamnia, I command you to stop!” Catriona shouted, managing to keep the fear she felt out of her voice. Though technically she had no right to say this, she hoped that by evoking the name of the Knights, she might catch the ogre’s attention. She had no illusions that the creature would obey her. She merely hoped to distract him long enough so she could reach him before he could harm Nearra.

The ogre turned to look at Catriona and blinked several times.

“Ugo kill you next. You wait turn.”

“I would rather go first, if it’s all the same to you.” Catriona continued to approach the ogre, moving slowly and circling to his right, hoping to lure the beast away from Nearra and Davyn.

The ogre followed Catriona with his gaze, then turned back to look at Nearra. “This one could be trying to fool Ugo. Might run away if I kill you first.” The ogre’s face then brightened. “Ugo know! Ugo break blond girl’s legs so she can’t run, then Ugo kill you first!”

Before Catriona could say anything else, Ugo raised his bone club, obviously intending to take a sideways swipe at Nearra and shatter her legs.

Catriona knew there was no more time for talk. She shouted a battle cry and charged, short sword in hand, hoping she could reach the ogre before it could harm Nearra.

Sindri was breathing hard when he finally caught up to Catriona. The chase had been great fun, even if he had snagged his cape on a branch and torn it. But when he saw the scene that awaited him, Sindri knew this was no longer a game.

A huge ogre stood in front of a motionless Nearra, while Davyn lay on the ground, not moving. Catriona was running to attack the great man-beast, obviously hoping to protect the others. Kender didn’t feel fear for their own safety, but they were concerned for the safety of others, especially those they counted as their friends.

Sindri ran to help Catriona, though he didn’t know exactly what he could do. He was reluctant to try a telekinesis spell. The last one he’d attempted hadn’t worked. He might well have only once chance at the ogre, and he wanted to make it count.

Catriona ran past the ogre’s left side and slashed out with her sword. The blade cut through the ogre’s animal-hide tunic but scraped against some sort of armor underneath. From the ogre’s lack of reaction and the lack of blood, Sindri figured that Catriona’s strike had done little if any damage.

Sindri drew near the ogre, and he knew that if he was going to do anything, now was the time. He hadn’t checked his cape pockets in a while. Perhaps he’d conjured something useful since last he’d looked.

Ugo turned away from Nearra and swung his bone club at Catriona’s head. But the warrior was too smart and the ogre too slow. Catriona ducked the blow with ease. And as the club swished through the air over her head, she sliced her sword across the bottom of Ugo’s forearm. Blackish-green blood gushed from the wound, and this time the ogre bellowed in pain and rage.

Sindri searched his pockets. Let’s see, he thought, an ivory carving of a griffin, a necklace made of some sort of animal teeth, a brass doorknob …

“That’ll do,” the kender said to himself. He pulled out the doorknob, took aim, and threw. Sindri wasn’t the most powerfully muscled being on Krynn, but he had good aim. The doorknob struck the ogre on the left temple with a meaty thud!

Snarling, Ugo turned to see who his latest assailant was. “A kender!” he roared. “Ugo hates kender! Taste awful!”

Catriona took advantage of the distraction Sindri had provided and again swung her sword at the ogre’s wounded hand. This time she sliced the back of Ugo’s forearm, releasing another gout of blood. She’d also done enough damage to the muscles and tendons to make it difficult for the man-beast to hold onto his heavy club. It slipped from Ugo’s fingers and fell to the ground.

Sindri cheered upon seeing that Catriona had disarmed the ogre, but the kender knew that armed or not, the creature remained extremely dangerous.

“Try to get Nearra away from here!” Catriona shouted. “I’ll deal with this—” But her words were cut off as Ugo flicked his bleeding arm toward the warrior. Spatters of blood hit Catriona on the face, getting into her eyes and momentarily blinding her. Sindri knew that a moment was all the time the ogre needed. And the kender didn’t think he had any more doorknobs in his cape pockets.

Elidor had raced ahead into the woods, at first trying to lose the others. But he had been unable to shake the minotaur. Jax had spotted Elidor’s trail instantly and was now stomping through the underbrush only a few yards behind the elf.

After throwing Jax’s steel coins to distract the goblins, Elidor doubted he’d be able to maintain the fiction of being a guide any longer. Though he’d had few dealings with minotaurs in his young life, he knew that they were probably the most stubborn creatures on Krynn, especially when it came to matters of honor. Jax wouldn’t stop pursuing Elidor until he’d caught the elf and made him pay—in every sense of the word. The only way out that Elidor could see was to find the others and somehow talk them into convincing Jax to let him go. It was a slim chance, he knew, but he couldn’t think of anything else.