Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,193

seemed far more interested in objects that represented forms, such as dragons, animals, and things that might have been, in a vague way, referred to as human.

The leader, who still held him by the arm, suddenly cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something outside. Dru strained, but heard nothing but the clatter of rubble as the avians tossed bits of ceiling away in order to burrow deeper into the wreckage. A breath later, the rest had paused in their work, also listening.

Dru heard nothing save the beat of his own heart… until he realized that the clap-clap pattern could hardly be coming from him if the others heard it. No, the sounds issued from an unknown location near the main hall, and were getting closer by the second.

Rising, the Seekers looked to their leader. He eyed Dru, then tugged the spellcaster around him and tossed him toward the doorway. Stumbling, Dru stepped out into the corridor. The unsettling clap-clap sounds continued to rise in volume, in some way as familiar to the sorcerer as the icons had been earlier. He tried to recall what made that sort of sound, but his attempt to harness his scattered thoughts into something functional was cut off by a harsh shove from the Seekers’ leader. Lacking any choice in the matter—and that was becoming too common a way for one who had grown knowing there was little he could not have—Dru walked slowly down the corridor in the direction of the noise’s source. The avians followed, spreading out as they moved. Two took to the air, hovering near the ceiling.

The sounds echoed continuously throughout the vast structure, almost to the point where it grew difficult for the hapless sorcerer to estimate where he had to turn. He turned back, and as if knowing his confusion, the leader pointed ahead.

“Thank you,” Dru whispered in bitter tones. There was no hope of avoiding a confrontation with whatever sought out the party. It did not sound like the massive creatures who burrowed beneath the earth—the Vraad would have expected their footfalls to be near silent, considering that blood enemies lurked somewhere within the edifice—and neither did he think it was the elves, whom he had still not seen. They, too, would have taken more caution.

What then lurked in the main hall and had the effrontery to move without care of detection into a place of possible danger?

He was so near now that the clap-clap sounds made it impossible to wonder further. The avian leader put a taloned hand around his neck, essentially turning the Vraad into a living shield. The two of them, with the others following as if all were puppets commanded by the same strings, stepped into the main hall and, all too soon, the confrontation.

Behind him, the avian started, almost losing his grip on the human. Dru could in no way blame him.

It was a stallion of the deepest ebony, an impossible and grand creature more massive than any the sorcerer had ever seen. As it slowed to a halt, the clap-clap noise, the sound of its hooves striking the hard surface of the floor, died. The steed stood taller than either the human or the avian. The animal shook its head, sending the wild mane fluttering. It looked at the two tiny figures before it as if they were specks of dust needing to be swept away and began pawing at the rock-hard floor.

Dru tried to step back, but the leader’s stiff form prevented him from doing so. Before the eyes of the party, the stallion continued to paw at the floor with its hoof… and was quickly succeeding in gouging a crevice in it!

The steed lifted its head high and, instead of a loud neigh, laughed at their dismay.

X

LOCHIVAN CEASED SCREAMING the moment he felt the hands upon him, knowing that he had already shamed himself before his clan. The raging wind and the stormy heavens could not take his mind from that fact.

“Have no fear concerning your reaction to the cross-over,” he heard Esad, his brother, whisper. “Most of us screamed and the rest have all felt the pain. No one will speak of it when Father arrives.”

The newly arrived Vraad gazed down at his naked form, at last feeling the effects of the storm. “My clothing—” He looked up at Esad, who was clad in armor identical to that which they had been forced to abandon back in Nimth… along with their old bodies. The armor