Trail of the Black Wyrm - Chris Pierson

by Dragonlance

  Essana studied the Keeper. There was something peculiar about this man: a hesitation she hadn’t sensed in the others. The Keeper was worried about her. He had been a healer; it was his task to keep her and the baby alive and healthy. And in doing so he had grown attached to her.

  “You should rest,” he said. “You are better, but you still aren’t well.”

  Weakly, she held up a hand. “First, tell me one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “What about me?” Essana asked. “What will happen to me, when my child becomes lord of all Taladas?”

  He stared at her, silent. He knew the answer, she sensed, but didn’t want to speak it.

  Then he didn’t have to. The door opened. One of the other Brethren came in, flanked by two yaggol. “Keeper,” he said.

  The Keeper turned, looked across the room. “Teacher. What is it?”

  “The Master wishes to speak with you, at once.”

  Another silence fell. The Keeper glanced at Essana. She watched him, wondering if he would answer her question. He didn’t, which meant once her son came into the world, she would leave it. If she were still around to witness the Faceless Emperor’s return, it would be as a ghost only, lost and striving between worlds.

  The Keeper left the room, left her alone. She lay there, bound to the bed by magic, and staring into the darkness, thinking. She began to sob, and only stopped when sleep claimed her.

  Chapter

  6

  KRISTOPHAN, THE IMPERIAL LEAGUE

  Forlo dreamed again, though he did not want to.

  Dreams had troubled his sleep ever since Hawkbluff, his last battle as marshal of the Sixth Legion, long before he ever heard of the Hooded One. He woke every night, his whole body tingling, his heart thundering against his ribs. It used to be he dreamed of that final clash, against the undead hordes of the mad Thenolite bishop, Ondelos … but the battle never reached its ending, never came to the point when he and the bishop met. Only shortly before he rode to meet the Uigan horde did he learn what was truly at work: Shedara told him that a spell was buried deep within his mind, blocking his memory of that day. But the magic was slipping, and that caused the nameless terrors that left him sweat-soaked and shivering in the dim hours before dawn. Together, they had entered his dreams and discovered what had truly happened at Hawkbluff.

  He had killed children. Dozens of them.

  They weren’t real children, he’d told himself. Bishop Ondelos had murdered them, then raised them again as blood-hungering ghouls to protect him in his temple. They would have torn Forlo to pieces, if he hadn’t cut them down … but that made it no easier, hewing through their ranks, watching them pull down and slaughter his men.

  Children.

  His friend, Grath—dead now, at the Lost Road—had paid a wizard to ensorcel him so he couldn’t remember that day. It had been a mistake, but a well-meaning one. Knowing was terrible, but it was still better than the dreams.

  Since the day Shedara lifted the spell, not a single night had passed when he had woken screaming—even after the shadow-fiends took Essana.

  Now, though … now the nightmares had returned, different and yet the same. Even as this new one began, he knew how the dream would end. They always ended this way now. There was no way he could stop it.

  The setting of his visions had changed—it was no longer the temple of Hith in Hawkbluff. He was in a stairway, running up the midst of a tower. He had never seen the place before, though there was something familiar about it. The tower was unpleasant to look at, all carven black stone, its walls hewn into ridges, like the ribs of some enormous serpent. Coils of smoke hung in the air, rising from iron braziers. It stank of brimstone, hot metal, and … faintly … the sweetness of burning flesh. A constant, rumbling roar battered his ears.

  In the dream he was climbing, moving up the steps with sword in hand, alone. He didn’t know what lay behind him, but he didn’t look either. He was afraid to see what might be following him. Something terrible had happened … was happening … here.

  A flickering, red glow shone down from above. He’d seen enough villages razed to recognize that gleam: something was burning, well beyond control. The air grew warm, stifling. Sweat sprung from his pores. He kept climbing, his mouth dry, and as he rounded the curve of the stairway, he saw the source of the light.

  It was a window, tall and crowned with a pointed arch. Sheets of flame ran up the pane, bathing the other side of the glass. He stopped, staring: the tower’s lower reaches must be on fire! But that wasn’t possible. The place was solid rock. What stone could burn like that? Raising his sword, he crept toward the window, through waves of eye-watering heat, and peered outside.

  For a time, all he could see was fire. Its warmth seared his face, and he could smell his beard scorching, but he couldn’t look away. Then, like curtains, the flames parted, and he gazed out in his dream at a true nightmare.

  All around the tower was a sea of molten rock, glowing red and golden about islets of black stone. Jagged mountains rose in the distance, wreathed in haze. Crimson lightning shattered one of the peaks as he watched. Looking upon it, he knew this was Hith’s Cauldron, the Wound of the World, which no living man had crossed. Which meant the tower had to be …

  “You are in the Chaldar.”

  Forlo whirled, his eyes wide. His blade whipped around, and would have taken off the head of the one who spoke, had he stood a little closer. The man was cloaked, head to foot, in blue satin. A deep hood hid his face. A wizard. Forlo could almost smell the man’s magic through the miasma. He brought his sword back around, pointed it at the shadowed cowl.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The man’s head tilted. “I had hoped you would guess. We have met before, though we have never seen each other.”

  “Speak plainly,” Forlo said, moving his blade an inch closer to the man. “I’ve never had patience for riddles.”

  “Yet the riddles are your own,” the man replied.

  He reached out, quick as a striking scorpion, and seized Forlo’s weapon. His hand wrapped around its blade—which should have cost him his fingers, but the razor-sharp steel did not cut his flesh. With a vicious yank, he pulled it from Forlo’s hand and cast it, clattering, back down the stairs.

  “This is your dream,” he said. “Your mind makes it.”

  Though he was disarmed, Forlo refused to back down. He glared at the wizard. “Then I can make you show your face.”

  “Yes. If you wish to see it.”

  Forlo drew the dagger from his belt.

  “Ah,” said the man. “You’re as stubborn as I suspected. Very well.”

  With that, he reached up, took hold of his hood, and drew it back. Forlo stared, the knife falling from his hand. It hit the stairs with a bone-jarring clash.

  The face Forlo beheld was his own … not as it was, but as he remembered it. Younger. Beardless. The dark hair still full and thick, the skin unlined, unscarred. But there was something different, too, and he soon realized what it was: the eyes. His eyes were hazel. This man’s were deep blue.

  Essana’s shade.

  A sound escaped him, one he knew well. It was the grunt of a man who’d taken a spear through the gut.

  The familiarity that had been nagging at him throughout the dream became clear now. He’d seen this man in his nightmares of Hawkbluff, although in those dreams, this one had been only a child. It had always been the last thing he saw, the final horror before waking.

  His unborn son, grown to manhood.

  The man smiled. It was Essana’s smile, not his. He shuddered.

  Then, as quickly as he’d grabbed the sword, he reached out and shoved Forlo. The blow drove the wind from Forlo’s lungs as he stumbled back, back—into the window. Forlo cried out, feeling the glass break, hot shards slashing his flesh. He flailed, trying to hold on, but could not. For an instant, he teetered on the sill.

  “Farewell, Father,” said the man.

  And Forlo fell,
out into the flames. He screamed, and fire rushed down his throat. The agony was unbearable. The surface of the molten sea rushed up toward him.…

  “Easy, now. Easy.”

  Forlo’s eyes opened. Spears of golden light stabbed his brain. He could only sense simple things: an ache in his stomach, where the shadow-fiends had wounded him; the rasping ring of someone sharpening a sword; an awful sourness in his mouth, like something had crawled inside and died. He tried to speak, but his tongue was too heavy, like a slab of meat in his mouth.

  “Rest,” said the voice again. He knew that voice, but couldn’t think from where. “You nearly didn’t make it, Barreth. If the fever had lasted another day, your brains would have boiled in your skull.”

  Wincing, he forced his eyes to focus. The glare that had blinded him condensed to a single, dim candle flame. All around him were shadows, swathing a small, windowless room of red-brown stone. He lay upon a canvas cot. There was a thick, wooden door, bound and barred with iron. A prison cell? Where was he?

  Then the one who had spoken leaned over him, and Forlo’s heart froze. The owner of the voice was an aged minotaur, his brown coat frosted with gray that ran to white around his muzzle. His left hand was missing, a three-tined steel claw in its place. His right eye was milky-white, surrounded by gnarled flesh.

  “Vuldak,” Forlo groaned, sitting up. “You’re still alive.…”

  He’d known Vuldak in his youth. When he became an officer in the imperial legions, the minotaurs had forced him to prove his worth as a warrior. It was a normal rite of passage among the bull-men for their leaders to demonstrate their mettle upon the sands of Kristophan’s gladiatorial arena. Forlo had fought on those sands, some twenty years ago, and had come to know Vuldak well. The one-handed minotaur had been a physician, closing cuts, setting broken bones, and easing the passing of gladiators too badly hurt to survive. Vuldak had been old even then, and Forlo would have bet a fortune he was long dead.

  He was still trying to sit up when a wave of nausea clenched his insides. He collapsed, then rolled on his side and tried to vomit. His stomach was empty, however, so he could only heave until he lay light-headed and weak, a rope of spit hanging from his lips.

  “I said easy, didn’t I?” Vuldak asked, wiping Forlo’s mouth with a rag. “You were cut up bad. You need to regain your strength before the trials.”

  Forlo regarded him blearily. “Trials? Where are we?”

  “Kristophan,” the old bull-man said. “The arena, of course. Would I be anywhere else?”

  Forlo blinked, trying to piece things together. Flashes of memory, barely more than shadows, played through his mind: the greathall of the keep, and a savage-looking elf. The window of his bedchamber. A camp of imperial soldiers, in black and gold. A bed of straw in a cart, jouncing as it rumbled along a road. And now … this place.

  “What am I doing here?” he wondered.

  Vuldak shook his head and held a bowl of water to Forlo’s lips. “Drink,” he said. Forlo drank. “You’ve been arrested, Barreth. Treason, deserting your command. You’re at the arena, awaiting trial. Your barbarian friend is here, too.”

  “Hult?” Forlo asked. He looked left and right. “Where is he?”

  “Chained in the lower dungeons. He’s fierce, that one,” the old minotaur said, chuckling. “Grabbed a guard’s club and nearly beat him to death with it when they tried to part the two of you. He owes you his life—they would have killed him there, but they had orders not to. Rekhaz wants the two of you brought before His Imperial Majesty together.”

  Forlo slumped. “Rekhaz is emperor now?”

  Vuldak sighed. “Yes, to my sorrow,” he replied. “And he’s not happy, my friend. Not happy with you at all.”

  Minotaur justice was not known for its clemency, though the bull-men always strove to be fair, in their way. Those accused of a crime were allowed to plead their case, but only the wealthy could afford to pay tribunes to argue for them against the state. Most, particularly humans dwelling within the League, had to defend themselves. The council of magistrates usually consisted of a number of high-ranking officers: never fewer than three, sometimes as many as eleven, depending on the crime. Though famed for their cruelty in battle, the minotaurs did not torture their captives, nor did they coerce them into lying after they swore to tell the truth. Such unfairness was for dishonorable races, not the chosen people of Sargas. And even for those convicted of the greatest crimes—even regicides—there were ways to escape sentencing.

  There were always options.

  Forlo thought about this as he waited in an antechamber off the Hall of Laws. Heavy iron chains bound his ankles and wrists, and half a dozen bull-men with crossbows watched him as he stared at the tall, bronze doors that led to the court, the imperial axe-and-horns etched into their surface. Beyond, low voices murmured.

  Hult squatted nearby, his stubbled head bowed, his face dark with anger. The minotaurs had docked his long braid, and he bore dark bruises over half his body. They’d brought him in here, half an hour ago, bellowing and raining blows on their backs with his bare fists. They’d had to knock him half unconscious with their cudgels to subdue him. Now he sulked, wiping at the trickle of blood that leaked from his nose and glowering at the world.

  He’s better off here than I’d be among his people, Forlo thought, and knew it was true. Minotaurs were harsh, but the Uigan killed foreigners for the sport of it. Chovuk’s horde had sacked two towns, Malton and Rudil, and the tales told by survivors were gruesome.

  Vuldak tried to inspect Hult’s wounds, but the barbarian snarled and lashed out with his chains, earning him another thump from one of the guards. The physic turned to Forlo instead.

  “You have no chance,” he said. “Be sure of that. Rekhaz wants your head even more than he wanted the throne, I think.”

  Forlo nodded. The emperor—who had won his crown by slaying his chief rivals in battle—had little use for him now. Forlo had been a favorite of Ambeoutin, the previous emperor, who had died with all his heirs when an earthquake destroyed half of Kristophan, including the imperial palace. Rekhaz had disliked him for that favoritism and had become an enemy when Forlo resigned his commission after Hawkbluff. Forlo had made things worse by refusing to help Rekhaz in his campaign for the throne, then—when the danger of the Uigan became clear—begging for troops to aid in the empire’s defense. Rekhaz had given him just one cohort of humans, trusting Forlo would die in the fighting. As that hadn’t happened, the new emperor now wanted to settle matters for good.

  He pictured the imperial executioner—a monstrous bull-man with red eyes—honing the blade of his great-axe on a spinning grindstone. He could almost hear the shriek of the steel, feel the heat of the sparks showering from its edge. Soon enough, if Rekhaz had his way, that edge would cleave through his neck. After that, they would coat his head with pitch and stake it before the gates of Kristophan, and give his body to the dogs. That was minotaur justice.

  But there was another way. Another option.

  He heard footsteps, then the bronze doors clicked and swung wide. Three minotaurs entered: a pair of soldiers, clad in full imperial regalia and the black-and-gold of the Fourth, with a bailiff in gray robes. The bailiff looked at Forlo, his eyes dark.

  “Barreth Forlo, once lord of Coldhope Holding,” he proclaimed, “you are called to answer the charges of desertion and treason against the Imperial League and its sovereign, Emperor Rekhaz the Fierce. Come forward. The savage as well.”

  Forlo took a deep breath and let it out. Vuldak leaned close, one last time. “I would say farewell, my friend,” the old physic said, “but that seems unlikely.”

  “True,” Forlo said. “But I can say it to you. Fair wind at your back, my friend.”

  “And a full mug before you,” Vuldak replied. The old soldiers’ good-bye. Vuldak turned and left, while Hult’s guards prodded and shoved him forward.

  Together they entered the Hall of Laws, a broad room of gleaming green serpentine
, thirty feet high, with a vaulted ceiling painted to show Sargas, the Horned God, with a broadsword in either hand. One gleamed in sunlight; the other dripped with blood. Hewn bodies and severed heads lay piled around the god’s feet. On either wall of the Hall, arrow-slit windows cast stark lines of sunlight across the floor. At the far end was a dais with nine steps, atop which stood a long bench of blood-red stone. Behind the bench sat seven minotaurs in robes of rich, scarlet brocade. All but one wore masks of brass and silver, crafted to hide their identities. Forlo recognized three of them, anyway: Lord Mettar, Lord Omat, Lord Skai … marshals in the legions, the Seventh and Fourth and First. Rivals, all, who had resented the fact that he, a human, had commanded the Sixth. They would be against him, and he had no doubt the three other magistrates had been chosen for the same reason. This was a kender court—only for show. Again he heard the whetstone on the headsman’s axe.

  The magistrate in the center wore no mask. He rose from his seat as Forlo and Hult approached, a white-furred giant nearly nine feet tall, clad in gilded plate armor beneath his robes. A golden crown, spiked with dragon’s teeth, sat upon his brow, and rings of platinum and ivory adorned his long, curving horns. His nostrils flared as Forlo drew near.

  “Hail, Rekhaz, Emperor of the Imperial League and the Conquered Lands,” declared the bailiff, “and protector of the lands beyond the Run.”

  Forlo snorted; he couldn’t help it. The honorific was preposterous, after what had happened to Malton and Rudil, after Rekhaz’s failure to protect against the Uigan. The minotaurs had no lands beyond the Run anymore. Rekhaz didn’t find it funny, however, and his eyes brimmed with fury. At a nod from him, one of the guards grabbed Forlo and threw him to the floor. Hult snarled, but they clouted him with their clubs and he fell as well.

  “You dare mock me?” thundered Rekhaz. “You, who threw aside the chance to serve your empire? Who abandoned your men after battle to skulk back to your keep? Who consorts with one of the very wretches you swore to fight?”