The Eye of the Chained God Read Free Page B

worked.
    Of course, it had only been six days. Whether he or the townsfolk could keep up the punishing pace was a question that pulled at the back of Roghar’s mind.
    Still, it was better than doing nothing.
    “Roghar!”
    He turned at the call and saw Uldane skipping across the uneven top of the wall. The halfling moved with sure-footed agility, bounding lightly from stone to stone in spite of the waterskins that hung off him like swollen fruit. Without pausing, he shrugged off one of the skins and tossed it to Roghar. It hit the dragonborn’s palm with a wet smack and shimmied under his thick fingers. Roghar could feel the delicious cool and was, for a moment, sorely tempted to guzzle it down. He contented himself with pulling the stopper and taking a quick gulp before passing it on to the nearest worker. Uldane passed him a second, then a third, then a fourth skin. Roghar redistributed them all. Uldane shook his head.
    “You’re just a paragon of virtue, aren’t you?” He held up the last waterskin. “This is mine. You can’t give it away. I’m only sharing it with you.”
    Roghar smiled at that. “Bahamut doesn’t require his faithful to deny themselves.”
    “Well, you look like you’re trying to.” Uldane passed the skin to him.
    “I reward those who have earned it.” He aimed a stream from the neck of the skin into his waiting mouth—and nearly choked in surprise on wine instead of water. He spluttered and licked his blunt snout.
    Uldane gave him a wide grin. “So do I. Don’t you dare give that skin back until you’ve drunk your fill, Roghar.”
    The paladin took another drink, then paused. “Where did this come from?”
    Uldane actually looked offended. “Do you really think I’d take something from someone in Fallcrest right now? That would be like stealing from a beggar’s bowl!”
    “Where?”
    “Buried in the stores of the Glowing Tower, so it practically belongs to us. Or to Albanon anyway.” He slouched back, his arms crossed. “And he’s not going to notice any more than he’s noticing
anything
right now.”
    Roghar regarded Uldane thoughtfully as he directed another jet of wine down his throat. Then he wiped his snout and handed the skin to Uldane. “You’ve noticed it too?”
    “It’s hard to miss, isn’t it? We were going to go after Vestapalk. We were going to cut the head off the snake and end the plague. Instead …” Uldane shrugged. “We’re building walls. I mean, not that it isn’t a fine wall, but why are we trapping ourselves behind it?”
    A proverb of Bahamut’s priesthood rose to Roghar’s tongue: The shield is enough for many. Not everyone was capable of carrying the fight to the enemy. Building the wall was as useful as striking beyond it.
    The proverb didn’t escape his mouth. Instead he said, “I know what you mean.” He took back the wineskin before Uldane had a chance to drink, swallowed, and looked down over the empty, smoking streets of the lower town spread out below. Down there on the Market Green, he, Uldane, the warlock Tempest, and the wizard Albanon had destroyed the ancient bodystealer Nu Alin, the very first of the plague demons created by the foul substance known as the Voidharrow.
    The creature’s death had been the end of the attack—the end of the battle for Fallcrest as the remaining demons scattered without his command to drive them on. The four of them had returned to the upper town in triumph, filled with plans to strike out after Vestapalk. They even had a clue where to find Vestapalk, thanks to lingering collective memories held by Belen, a human defender of Fallcrest who had been possessed by Nu Alin before his destruction. Vestapalk, their ultimate enemy, had taken a lair in a volcano west of Fallcrest, beyond the Ogrefist Hills that formed one edge of the Nentir Vale, using his command of the Voidharrow to transform it into something he called the Plaguedeep. Belen had experienced the knowledge through her communion with