Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,265

lands of Melenea, they had chosen to use it as little as possible. Food had been the one necessary use. The duo had walked most of the way, limiting teleportation and flight to those areas most stable.

Exhausted by their ordeal, they had finally dared to rest for a time. Sharissa had suffered most since her life had been more sheltered than his. Gerrod allowed her to sleep while he merely rested. It was during that time that Dru had reached out to the Vraad, telling them of Rendel.

“It was that which frightened me, Master Zeree,” the young Tezerenee had said, his face buried deep in the folds of his hood. “I had aided your daughter, but being a Vraad, would you have seen that as sufficient cause to spare me if you, like the rest, were hunting the dragon lord’s children?”

In the end, Gerrod had known he would have to face Dru, if only because the other sorcerer was the only one who knew some path out. Alone, he could never begin anew the recreation of the Tezerenee method. He had not been all that certain he wanted to, either. It had always left him feeling disturbed, as if the final fusion of Vraad mind with dragon-forged host bodies would be some monstrous hybrid.

“How many are across, now?” Gerrod asked, returning Dru to the present. “How much longer?”

“A third are through, maybe a little more.” The immigrating Vraad were crossing in groups of about one hundred, an unmentioned but symbolic reference to the founders that he had decided on. The bands, bringing only what their animals and themselves could carry, were entering the border region as soon as those before them had vanished into the woods. It kept the pace consistent enough to prevent a mad rush by those still waiting. “A good thing we have never numbered more than several thousand. This would have never worked otherwise.”

“Will it be the same over there?”

“I doubt it.” Gerrod seemed to want more of an answer, but Dru had none. There were too many question marks.

“What did happen to Melenea?”

He had tried to put that behind him, but the younger Vraad would not let him. This was the third time he had skirted around the fate of the enchantress, possibly because he could not believe she was gone. Dru could understand that; even now, he sometimes felt as if her eyes were on him. “Are you afraid you might join her?”

His companion swallowed. Dru had meant it as a joke, but Gerrod was still nervous about his own fate. “No! No,” the other replied quickly. “It’s just that… that…” He looked directly at Dru, who tried his best to perceive eyes somewhere within the hood. “It’s just that I still feel as if she’s left some last treat for us. The way she left the one that killed Rendel.”

Gerrod had taken his brother’s death with little remorse. It was disconcerting, however, to note that the Tezerenee had felt the same as he had about the enchantress. What was there about Melenea that she could still haunt them after Dru had meted out justice to her?

Below, a commotion attracted their attention. A rider was approaching, one who had returned from the other realm and raced to the citadel as if a horde were closing in behind him.

“Tiel Bokalee,” Gerrod said. “He is one of Silesti’s new dogs.” Silesti wanted to make an example of the young Tezerenee now that Rendel was beyond him. He had only grudgingly allowed that the hooded Vraad was nothing like his clan and had been as summarily abandoned by the patriarch as the rest.

The newcomer, an unremarkable example of Vraad perfection, was dismounting when the two of them arrived in the courtyard. His hand twitched as if something had bitten him. The latest of the storm’s minor assaults; everyone in the courtyard had been struck with pains of varying degree that came and went without warning. It was perhaps not so minor an assault. One Vraad was comatose; the searing pain in his head having ravaged his brain. No one assumed he would recover, but Dru intended on bringing him anyway.

“Dru Zeree.” Tiel Bokalee acknowledged him with a bow. Gerrod received a dark glance, but nothing more. “We have a visitor. One of the dragon clan.”

Gerrod turned away even though it would have been impossible to read his emotions if he had not.

Dru considered the rampant possibilities before responding. This was not the time to begin a war