Dragons of Autumn Twilight dc-1

by Margaret Weis

  The move took the draconian by surprise. The creature sucked in its breath and jumped back off the log to the bank below. Tas, momentarily off balance, regained his feet quickly and wondered what to do next. He glanced around and saw another draconian on the bank. They were, he was puzzled to notice, not armed. Before he could consider this oddity, he heard a roar behind him. He had forgotten the dwarf.

  "What is it?" Flint shouted.

  "Draco-thing-a-ma-jiggers," Tas said, gripping his hoopak and peering through the mists. "Two ahead! Here they come!"

  "Well, confound it, get out of my way!" Flint snarled. Reaching behind, he fumbled for his axe.

  "Where am I supposed to go?" Tas shouted wildly.

  "Duck!" yelled the dwarf.

  The kender ducked, throwing himself down on the log as one of the draconians came toward him, its clawed hands outstretched. Flint swung his axe in a mighty blow that would have decapitated the draconian if it had come anywhere near it. Unfortunately, the dwarf miscalculated and the blade whistied harmlessly in front of the draconian who was waving its hands in the air and chanting strange words.

  The momentum of Flint's swing spun the dwarf around. His feet slipped on the slimy log, and, with a loud cry, the dwarf tumbled backwards into the water.

  Tasslehoff, having been around Raistlin for years, recognized that the draconian was casting a magic spell. Lying face down on the log, his hoopak staff clutched in his hand, the kender figured he had about one and a half seconds to consider what to do. The dwarf was gasping and spluttering in the water beneath him. Not inches away, the draconian was clearly reaching a stunning conclusion to his spellcasting. Deciding that anything was better than being magicked, Tas took a deep breath and dove off the log.

  "Tanis! Ambush!"

  "Damn!" swore Caramon as the kender's voice floated to them out of the mist somewhere ahead.

  They all began running toward the sound, cursing the vines and the tree branches that blocked their way. Crashing out through the forest, they saw the fallen ironclaw bridge. Four draconians ran out of the shadows, blocking their path.

  Suddenly the companions were plunged into darkness too thick to see their own hands, much less their comrades.

  "Magic!" Tanis heard Raistlin hiss. "These are magic-users. Stand aside. You cannot fight them."

  Then Tanis heard the mage cry out in agony.

  "Raist!" Caramon shouted. «Where-ugh-» There was a groan and the sound of a heavy body thudding to the ground.

  Tanis heard the draconians chanting. Even as he fumbled for his sword, he was suddenly covered, head to toe, in a thick, gooey substance that clogged up his nose and mouth. Struggling to free himself, he only enmeshed himself further. He heard Sturm swearing next to him, Goldmoon cried out, Riverwind's voice was choked off, then drowsiness overcame him. Tanis sank to his knees, still fighting to free himself from the weblike substance that glued his hands to his sides. Then he fell forward on his face and sank into an unnatural sleep.

  14

  Prisoners of the draconians

  Laying on the ground, panting for breath, Tasslehoff watched as the draconians prepared to carry off his unconscious friends. The kender was well-hidden beneath a bush near the swamp. The dwarf was stretched out next to him, knocked out cold. Tas glanced at him in remorse. He'd had no choice. In his panic, Flint had dragged the kender down in the cold water. If he hadn't clunked the dwarf over the head with his hoopak staff, neither of them would have surfaced alive. He'd hauled the comatose dwarf up out of the water and hidden him beneath a bush.

  Then Tasslehoff watched helplessly as the draconians bound his friends magically in what looked like strong spider webs. Tas saw they were all apparently unconscious-or dead- because they didn't struggle or put up a fight.

  The kender did get a certain amount of grim amusement out of watching the draconians try to pick up Goldmoon's staff. Evidently they recognized it, for they croaked over it in their gutteral language and made gestures of glee. One-presumably the leader-reached out to grasp it. There was a flash of blue light. Giving a screeching cry, the draconian dropped the staff and hopped up and down on the bank, uttering words Tas assumed were impolite. The leader finally came up with an ingenious idea. Pulling a fur blanket from Goldmoon's pack, the draconian laid it down on the ground. The creature picked up a stick and used it to roll the staff onto the blanket. Then it gingerly wrapped the staff in the fur and lifted it up triumphantly. The draconians lifted the webbed bodies of the kender's friends and bore them away. Other draconians followed behind, carrying the companions' packs and their weapons.

  As the draconians marched along a path very near the hidden kender, Flint suddenly groaned and stirred. Tas clamped his hand over the dwarf's mouth. The draconians didn't seem to hear and kept moving. Tas could see his friends clearly in the fading afternoon light as the draconians passed. They seemed to be sound asleep. Caramon was even snoring. The kender remembered Raistlin's sleep spell and figured that was what the draconians had used on his friends.

  Flint groaned again. One of the draconians near the end of the line stopped and peered into the brush. Tas picked up his hoopak and held it over the dwarf's head-just in case. But it wasn't needed. The draconian shrugged and muttered to itself, then hurried to catch up with its squad. Sighing in relief, Tas took his hand off the dwarf's mouth. Flint blinked and opened his eyes.

  "What happened?" The dwarf moaned, his hand on his head.

  "You fell off the bridge and hit your head on a log," Tas said glibly.

  "I did?" Flint looked suspicious. "I don't remember that. I remember one of those draconian things coming at me and I remember falling into the water-"

  Well, you did, so don't argue," Tas said hurriedly, getting to his feet. "Can you walk?"

  "Of course I can walk," the dwarf snapped. He stood up, a little wobbly, but erect. "Where is everybody?"

  "The draconians captured them and carried them off."

  "All of them?" Flints mouth fell open. "Just like that?"

  "These draconians were magic-users," Tas said impatiently, anxious to get started. "They cast spells, I guess. They didn't hurt them, except for Raistlin. I think they did something terrible to him. I saw him as they passed. He looked awful. But he's the only one." The kender tugged on the dwarf's wet sleeve. "Let's go-we've got to follow them."

  "Yeah, sure," Flint mumbled, looking around. Then he put his hand on head again. "Where's my helm?"

  "At the bottom of the swamp," Tas said in exasperation. "Do you want to go in after it?"

  The dwarf gave the murky water a horrified glance, shivered, and turned away hurriedly. He put his hand to his head again and felt a large bump. "I sure don't remember hitting my head," he muttered. Then a sudden thought struck him. He felt around his back wildly. "My axe!" he cried.

  "Hush!" Tas scolded. "At least you're alive. Now we've got to rescue the others."

  "And how do you propose to do that without any weapons except that overgrown slingshot?" Flint grumbled, stumping along after the fast-moving kender.

  "We'll think of something," Tas said confidently, though he felt as if his heart were getting tangled up his feet, it had sunk so low.

  The kender picked up the draconians' trail without any trouble. It was obviously an old and well-used trail; it looked as though hundreds of draconian feet had tramped along it. Tasslehoff, examining the tracks, suddenly realized that they might be walking into a large camp of the monsters. He shrugged. No use worrying about such minor details.

  Unfortunately, Flint didn't share the same philosophy. "There's a whole damn army up there!" the dwarf gasped, grabbing the kender by the shoulder.

  "Yes, well-" Tas paused to consider the situation. He brightened. "That's all the better. The more of them there are, the less chance they'll have of seeing us." He started off again. Flint frowned. There was something wrong with that logic, but right now he couldn't figure out what, and he was too wet and chilled to argue. Besides, he was thinking
the same thing the kender was; the only other choice they had was to escape into the swamp themselves and leave their friends in the hands of the draconians. And that was no choice at all.

  They walked another half hour. The sun sank into the mist, giving it a blood-red tinge, and night fell swiftly in the mirky swamp.

  Soon they saw a blazing light ahead of them. They left the trail and sneaked into the brush. The kender moved silently as a mouse; the dwarf stepped on sticks that snapped beneath his feet, ran into trees, and blundered through the brush. Fortunately, the draconian camp was celebrating and probably wouldn't have heard an army of dwarves approaching. Flint and Tas knelt just beyond the firelight and watched. The dwarf suddenly grabbed the kender with such violence that he nearly pulled him over.

  "Great Reorx!" Flint swore, pointing. "A dragon!"

  Tas was too stunned to say anything. He and the dwarf watched in amazed horror as the draconians danced and prostrated themselves before a giant black dragon. The creature lurked inside the remaining half shell of a crumbled domed ruin. Its head was higher than the treetops, its wings span was enormous. One of the draconians, wearing robes, bent before the dragon, gesturing to the staff as it lay on the ground with the captured weapons.

  "There's something strange about that dragon," Tas whispered after watching for a few moments.

  "Like they're not supposed to exist?"

  "That's just the point," Tas said. "Look at it. The creature isn't moving or reacting to anything. It's just sitting there. I always thought that dragons would be more lively, don't you know?"

  "Go up and tickle its foot!" Flint snorted. "Then you'll see lively!"

  "I think I'll do that," the kender said. Before the dwarf could say a word, Tasslehoff crept out of the brush, flitting from shadow to shadow as he drew near the camp. Flint could have torn his beard out in frustration, but it would have been disastrous to try and stop him now. The dwarf could do nothing but follow.

  "Tanis!"

  The half-elf heard someone calling him from across a huge chasm. He tried to answer, but his mouth was stuffed with something sticky. He shook his head. Then he felt an arm around his shoulders, helping him sit up. He opened his eyes. It was night. Judging by the flickering light, a huge fire blazed brightly somewhere. Sturm's face, looking concerned, was near his. Tanis sighed and reached out his hand to clasp the knight's shoulder. He tried to speak and was forced to pull off bits of the sticky substance that clung to his face and mouth like cobwebs.

  "I'm all right," Tanis said when he could talk. "Where are we?" He glanced around. "Is everyone here? Anyone hurt?"

  "We're in a draconian camp," Sturm said, helping the half-elf stand. "Tasslehoff and Flint are missing and Raistlin's hurt."

  "Badly?" Tanis asked, alarmed by the serious expression on Sturm's face.

  "Not good," the knight replied.

  "Poisoned dart," Riverwind said. Tanis turned toward the Plainsman and got his first clear look at their prison. They were inside a cage made of bamboo. Draconian guards stood outside, their long, curved swords drawn and ready. Beyond the cage, hundreds of draconians milled around a campfire. And above the campfire…

  "Yes," Sturm said, seeing Tanis's startled expression. "A dragon. More children's stories. Raistlin would gloat."

  "Raistlin-" Tanis went over to the mage who was lying in a corner of the cage, covered in his cloak. The young mage was feverish and shaking with chills. Goldmoon knelt beside him, her hand on his forehead, stroking back the white hair. He was unconscious. His head tossed fitfully, and he murmured strange words, sometimes shouting out garbled commands. Caramon, his face nearly as pale as his brother's, sat beside him. Goldmoon met Tanis's questioning gaze and shook her head sadly, her eyes large and gleaming in the reflected firelight. Riverwind came over to stand beside Tanis.

  "She found this in his neck," he said, carefully holding up a feathered dart between thumb and forefinger. He glanced at the mage without love but with a certain amount of pity. "Who can say what poison burns in his blood?"

  "If we had the staff-" Goldmoon said.

  "Right," Tanis said. "Where is it?"

  "There," Sturm said, his mouth twisting wryly. He pointed.

  Tanis peered past hundreds of draconians and saw the staff lying on Goldmoon's fur blanket in front of the black dragon. Reaching out, Tanis grasped a bar of the cage. "We could break out," he told Sturm. "Caramon could snap this like a twig."

  "Tasslehoff could snap it like a twig if he were here," Sturm said. "Of course, then we've only got a few hundred of these creatures to take care of-not to mention the dragon."

  "All right. Don't rub it in." Tanis sighed. "Any idea what happened to Flint and Tas?"

  "Riverwind said he heard a splash just after Tas yelled out that we were being ambushed. If they were lucky, they dived off the log and escaped into the swamp. If not-" Sturm didn't finish.

  Tanis closed his eyes to shut out the firelight. He felt tired, tired of fighting, tired of killing, tired of slogging through the muck. He thought longingly of lying down and sinking back into sleep. Instead, he opened his eyes, stalked over to the cage, and rattled the bars. A draconian guard turned around, sword raised.

  "You speak Common?" Tanis asked in the very lowest, crudest form of the Common language used on Krynn.

  "I speak Common. Apparently better than you do, elven scum," the draconian sneered. "What do you want?"

  "One of our party is injured. We ask that you treat him. Give him an antidote to this poison dart."

  "Poison?" The draconian peered into the cage. "Ah, yes, the magic-user." The creature gurgled deep in its throat, a sound obviously meant to be laughter. "Sick, is he? Yes, the poison acts swiftly. Can't have a magic-user around. Even behind bars they're deadly. But don't worry. He won't be lonely-the rest of you will be joining him soon enough. In fact, you should envy him. Your deaths will not be nearly so quick."

  The draconian turned its back and said something to its partner, jerking its clawed thumb in the direction of the cage. Both of them croaked their gurgling laughter. Tanis, feeling disgust and rage welling up deep inside of him, looked back at Raistlin.

  The mage was rapidly growing worse. Goldmoon put her hand on Raistlin's neck, feeling for the life beat, and then shook her head. Caramon made a moaning sound. Then his glance shifted to the two draconians, laughing and talking together outside.

  "Stop-Caramon!" Tanis yelled, but it was too late.

  With a roar like a wounded animal, the huge warrior leaped toward the draconians. Bamboo gave way before him, the shards splintering and cutting into his skin. Mad with the desire to kill, Caramon never noticed. Tanis jumped on his back as the warrior crashed past him, but Caramon shook him off as easily as a bear shakes off an annoying fly.

  "Caramon, you fool-" Sturm grunted as he and Riverwind both threw themselves on the warrior. But Caramon's rage carried him on.

  Whirling, one draconian raised its sword, but Caramon sent the weapon flying. The creature hit the ground, knocked senseless by a blow from the big man's fist. Within seconds, there were six draconians, bows and arrows in their hands, surrounding the warrior. Sturm and Riverwind wrestled Caramon to the ground. Sturm, sitting on him, shoved his face into the mud until he felt Caramon relax beneath him and heard him give a strangled sob.

  At that instant, a high-pitched, shrill voice screeched through the camp. "Bring the warrior to me!" said the dragon.

  Tanis felt the hair rise on his neck. The draconians lowered their weapons and turned to face the dragon, staring in astonishment and muttering among themselves. Riverwind and Sturm got to their feet. Caramon lay on the ground, choking with sobs. The draconian guards glanced at each other uneasily, while those standing near the dragon backed off hurriedly and formed an immense semicircle around it.

  One of the creatures, whom Tanis supposed by the insignia on its armor to be some sort of captain, stalked up to a robed draconian who was staring, open-mouthed, at the black dragon.

/>   "What's going on?" the captain demanded. The draconian spoke in the Common Tongue. Tanis, listening closely, realized they were of different species-the robed draconians were apparently the magic-users and the priests. Presumably, the two could not communicate in their own languages. The military draconian was clearly upset.

  "Where is that Bozak priest of yours? He must tell us what to do!"

  "The higher of my order is not here." The robed draconian quickly regained his composure. "One of them flew here and took him to confer with Lord Verminaard about the staff."

  "But the dragon never speaks when the priest is not here."

  The captain lowered his voice. "My boys don't like it. You better do something quickly!"

  "What is this delay?" The dragons voice shrieked like a wailing wind. "Bring me the warrior!"

  "Do as the dragon says." The robed draconian motioned quickly with a clawed hand. Several draconians rushed over, shoved Tanis and Riverwind and Sturm back into the shattered cage, and lifted the bleeding Caramon up by the arms. They dragged him over to stand before the dragon, his back to the blazing fire. Near him lay the blue crystal staff, Raistlin's staff, their weapons, and their packs.

  Caramon raised his head to confront the monster, his eyes blurred with tears and blood from the many cuts the bamboo had inflicted on his face. The dragon loomed above him, seen dimly through the smoke rising from the bonfire.

  "We mete out justice swiftly and surely, human scum," the dragon hissed. As it spoke, it beat its huge wings, fanning them slowly. The draconians gasped and began to back up, some stumbling over themselves as they hurried to get out of the monster's way. Obviously they knew what was coming.