Two

Indeed, this chapter is much shorter than most chapters I write. The point is that it says what it needs to say; I couldn't think of a way to describe the scene in more words.

“What could have done this?” Dilliane asked, her sword dragging at the ground as she walked through the rubble.

“It’s not what,” Lidda said nervously, “But who.  Look here.”  And she bent down.  When she came back up, in her hand was a sigil of some sort - it was a symbol of an empire long gone.  “This,” the bard continued, “Is the sign of Inheritance.  It was used to mark the new prince before he became king.  It was one of the symbols used in a particular ancient empire which had been involved with one Cyan Bloodbane during the time that he was still alive.”

Brom curiously levered his dagger backward, removing something from under the rubble.  An emerald.  He picked it up and tucked it away in his pouch.

Milian looked about himself.  The rubble was charred and dark.  Adran was picking through the pieces, grabbing a piece of something or other here and there, and sniffing it.  Eventually he came across something he liked.  “This,” he said, speaking directly to Dillian and Milian as they prodded the charred ruin with their swords, “Is singed kobold skin.”

“No,” Milian insisted, “That’s a helmet.”

Dillian looked carefully at the helmet Adran was holding.  “He doesn’t mean that, he means that, she said, walking up and touching the bit of skin that was stuck onto the inside of the helmet.”

Milian stared for a moment, then sniffed it intently.  “Oh, Paladine, no.”  He looked straight into the helmet and saw the burning kobold skin.  “The cult did it.  It had to have been the cult, because if you examine the skin closely, there’s a symbol of Cyan Bloodbane subtly burnt into his helmet.

Milian reached into the inside of the helmet and peeled the skin off, wincing at the extreme heat.  The helmet was exposed for all to see, with Cyan Bloodbane’s mark, a single claw, burned in black onto the inside of the helm.

Author's Note

The second chapter of my novel based in the Dragonlance world! What do you think of it?