Chapter 14 - Part 3

Pellhomno galloped between the trees, maintaining a decent speed as he neared the pass between the hills. His leather barding creaked, and he kept glancing over his humanoid shoulder to see if he was being followed. He had only a few arrows left, but at least his great bow was enchanted to hurt the shape-shifting ancient evil ones. Assuming that it found out he had been tracking it, he might have a decent chance at hurting it should it decide to find its pursuer.

I’d be dead of course, Pellhomno thought to himself, making his four legs move faster. The centaur was no fool. Even if he hurt the thing, it would kill him. Pellhomno’s master would take care of it, now that its trail had been verified.

He climbed the pass with his hooves, pulling out a whistle as he did so. It made a series of high-pitched sounds. If his master had gotten the message, then Pellhomno could gives the information and then rest easy with a jug of wine while the fiend got picked off like a fly.

Pellhomno smelled ozone right before the massive blue head poked from around an outcropping of rock. “Ah, excellent, you are here!” the dragon said. “I was wondering if you could identify some of these flowers for me.”

Pellhomno smiled. Meschashmal was one of the largest and most powerful members of the Chamber, but the great blue had a mad passion for horticulture that often sidetracked it. “Sir, I have news on the fiend, and on Drorin,” the centaur told it.

Meschashmal sighed. “The poor halfling, he is dead, is he not?” Pellhomno nodded. “I was afraid of that. I felt something through the spell I cast, but I was unsure. The fiend killed him?”

“Not directly,” the centaur explained. “He’s been hidden for a while, apparently he posed as an intelligence officer for one of the warring kingdoms. He arranged for a large military strike on the town Drorin was in. There were terrible civilian casualties.”

“Tsk, tsk,” the dragon said. “You would think with their short lifespans that these people would learn to live peacefully. Poor Drorin. He probably knew somehow that he would bring death to the town and that it would haunt him. All right, business then. Where’s the fiend now?”

The centaur unrolled a map and showed where the tiger-thing’s movements had been over the past week. Meschashmal complimented the centaur and then launched himself into the air. The zakya was dead before the sun set, blasted by lightning that it never saw coming.