The Rite by Richard Lee Byers

the Rage, so why not help us do it? it won’t cost you anything.”
    “it could cost the lives of my followers,” Yagoth said. Pavel’s brown eyes narrowed. “I don’t follow.”
    “I know where there’s a second lake,” Yagoth said, “with ruined temples overlooking it. I could mark the location on this badly drawn, misleading map of yours. But you still wouldn’t find it hidden among the hills. You’ll only reach it if, we ogres turn around and take you.”
    Pavel and Will exchanged glances. Yagoth was sure he knew what they were thinking: Spending an hour or two among “savage,” man-eating giantkin was a daunting prospect. Lingering for days in their company might be tantamount to suicide.
    Yet Pavel turned back to Yagoth and said, “if you’re willing, we’d be grateful to have you as our guides. Since we’re going to travel together, may I use my skills to tend your wounded? I don’t mean to disparage your own abilities, but there are more injured folk than any one healer can manage alone.”
    Yagoth smirked and said, “I guess you don’t want any sick ogres slowing down the march. Don’t worry, they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let them. But do what you want.”
    In point of fact, it was a good idea. Yagoth’s patron Vaprak, a god of carnage and destruction, was niggardly when it came to granting healing magic to his shamans. A priest of soft, nurturing Lathander might do more in a day to restore the strength of the troupe than Yagoth could do in a tenday.
    Though Pavel’s services wouldn’t lull Yagoth into dropping his guard, or make him falter when the time came to kill the human and his insolent halting friend.
    Thar had once been the site of a mighty kingdom of ogres and orcs, one so ancient that even they only vaguely remembered it. That bygone age had indeed left a scatter of ruins behind, if one knew where to look. According to legend, buried in those haunted sites were enchanted weapons and other valuable relics.
    So Yagoth found it plausible that Pavel and Will truly had come seeking some sort of long-lost treasure or lore, and once they located it, he’d dispose of them and seize the booty for himself. Even if they were after exactly what they claimed, he saw no reason to permit them to carry the secret away. For in that case, the prize was essentially the power to control dragons, wasn’t it, and Yagoth could rise high wielding a weapon like that. He could unite and rule the warring tribes of Thar like old King Vorbyx come again, with a blue wyrm for his emblem.
     
    In Raryn’s opinion, the trouble with magical fog was that no one could see through it from either side. As he and Ghatulio flew onward, he kept peering backward. He invariably saw that nothing had poked a reptilian snout through the cloud Kara had conjured to shroud the mouth of the pass. Still, he would have felt more secure had he possessed some way of knowing what lay beyond the mist—of verifying that the chromatic dragons, that colossal red and the others, truly had abandoned the chase.
    In fact, the dwarf was so busy looking over his shoulder and casting about in general—because his experience as a hunter had taught him that flying predators could appear just about anywhere—that it took a while for Chatulio’s muttering to snag his attention. The gods only knew how long the copper had been ranting under his breath.
    “Stupid,” Chatulio snarled, “stupid, incompetent, useless. Crazy!”
    He used one forefoot to rake at the other. The talons drew blood.
    “Don’t!” Raryn said, patting the base of the copper’s neck as he might gentle a pony. The gesture felt wrong—Chatulio was a sentient being, not an animal—but he had to try to reach his companion somehow.
    “Crazy!” Chatulio repeated.
    He slashed himself again.
    “No,” Raryn insisted. Dorn and Kara were flying ahead of their comrades. Raryn considered calling out to them for help, but he had a feeling Chatulio might react badly to that. “The