D& D - Mystara 02 Dragonking of Mystara

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  The big gold dragon knew this place was the crumbling image of an age only the dragons now recalled, frozen in time at the moment of its destruction. Marthaen allowed himself only a brief moment to glance about, quietly impressed. He could see that Darmouk was no natural cavern. In some ancient time, tremendous forces of magic had lifted the ceiling of the main cavern, at the same time pushing up the ridge of stone directly above. What he didn't know was who had accomplished such a thing, whether the dwarves had once known such powerful spells, or if it had been a gift to them from Kagyar himself, or even from the legendary wizards of Blackmoor.

  He turned to his sister. "You must seek that old fool of a drake. I go to find Kardyer."

  "Will you fight him?" Kharendaen asked, trying to hide her concern.

  "I must," Marthaen told her. "Do not be concerned. If he is like other renegade kings, he will be too sure of himself to be cautious."

  Marthaen hurried into the darkness of the passages, seeking the heart of the lair. Kharendaen followed him for a time before she turned aside, seeking the lower levels. Her brother paused for a moment, watching her as she descended a wide double stairway into the darkness below. He was worried about her, and he had not wanted her to come. He knew the Dragonlord was in here somewhere; they had seen the evidence of that outside the entrance.

  The chambers and corridors of the sanctuary stood silent, as if the place had been abandoned when the renegades had flown out to meet the invading golds. But Marthaen knew that he didn't dare take that for granted. Even though Kardyer was one of the largest red dragons in the world, he had not yet come out to fight. He would wait in the darkness of his lair, knowing that the leader of the gold dragons would come to him. They were both aware that this fight was inevitable. As they stalked one another in this dark and ancient place, the only question was who would find the other first, hoping then to gain some advantage over his enemy.

  Marthaen's search was a brief one, since the main corridor led him directly to a vast central chamber, which obviously served as Kardyer's personal lair. He stood for a moment in the doorway, looking around. Crudely-made cushions, fashioned from the rough hides of some great beasts, were scattered about amid discarded bones. A square dais at the back of the chamber appeared to serve Kardyer as both bed and throne, a place where he could recline while looking down upon the rest of his court. A stairway to either side of the dais led down into the lower levels.

  The chamber appeared to be empty, at least until Marthaen heard the rattle of a heavy chain. Poking his head cautiously inside the room, he was able to look around the doorway into a large alcove that had been hidden from him before. A red dragon, a young female, lay chained to a bolt set in the wall, held by a massive collar of steel fastened about her neck. Marthaen moved slowly into the room, anxious to determine if she was indeed a prisoner. Suddenly she saw him and leaped up, then drew back in growing alarm.

  Then Marthaen saw for the first time that her wings were gone, ripped away at the shoulder so long ago that even the wounds had been concealed within new armor. Marthaen paused for a moment, seething with fury at the cruelty of the renegades and regarding the young creature before him with pity. One of the worst nightmares of dragons was the fear of losing their wings, the loss of their great freedom and boundless joy of flight. There was no greater punishment, including death, for a dragon, and he wondered what she could possibly have done to deserve this. Perhaps her crime was nothing more than trying to flee this place of fear, the loss of her wings and the heavy chain

  meant to insure her loyalty.

  The young dragon continued to draw back from him until she was pressed against the stone wall at the back of the room, shaking with fear. Marthaen wondered if she had ever before seen a gold dragon. He also wondered, in growing fury and revulsion, whether she had ever in her young life been approached by a male who had given her anything besides violent matings and abuse. She didn't appear to be more than eighty, perhaps a hundred years old, and every day of her life had probably been spent in this dark hell.

  "Do you understand me?" he asked. "I am going to break your collar and free you. Then you can leave this place, and Kardyer will not follow you. If the Dragonlord does not kill him, I will."

  She seemed to understand, cautiously moving closer to him and holding out her neck, though she still shook with fear. Marthaen inspected the collar and found it to be simple yet effective, a band of thick steel that had been bent around her neck and held in place by two massive rivets that passed through holes in two of her crest plates. The holes appeared to have been seared through the plates with a white-hot rod. It was simple enough for him to free her, casting a spell which made the metal of the rivets as brittle as ice. They shattered easily as he took the two ends of the metal band in his strong claws and bent it slowly apart.

  The young female reacted to her freedom in a way he hadn't expected, smashing all of her wiry strength against him to send him crashing over backward. She was on him before he could recover, knocking the breath from him. At the same time, she clamped her jaws firmly into his neck. She lacked the size and strength to break his neck outright and began to saw with her fangs in an effort to penetrate his armor. She had never learned the meaning of kindness or trust; all she knew was that she had waited all her life to hurt someone worse than she had been hurt.

  Marthaen had made the mistake of compassion, and he seemed likely to lose his life to a mad dragon half his size because of his mistake. Suddenly a bolt of power blazed out of the darkness to one side of the dais, catching the young dragon in the chest and sweeping her off Marthaen to send her crashing against the wall of the alcove where she had been chained. She shook her head numbly, then crouched to spring, snarling in fury. A second bolt of power struck her in the head, slaying her in an instant even as it hurtled her against the wall a second time. She collapsed limply to the stone floor, her head crushed, her neck broken.

  Marthaen waited where he lay, afraid of rising into the path of one of those death-dealing bolts. When he was convinced the brief battle was over, he rolled over and sat up on his haunches. The Dragonlord appeared out of the shadows, putting away his sword to free his hands so that he could remove his helmet. When Marthaen brought his head close to speak softly, Thelvyn reached out and hugged his nose. The huge dragon drew back sharply in profound surprise.

  "Dragonlord, please!" he declared.

  "Sorry," Thelvyn said contritely. "I thought you were Kharendaen in the darkness. You do look like her, you know."

  "Keep your hands off my sister as well," Marthaen grumbled, then shook his head. "Excuse my bad temper. I hate being made a fool, especially by myself."

  "I can't fault your compassion," Thelvyn said. "I hated to do that. I could see she was hardly more than a child. I would have tried to free her myself."

  "Perhaps you gave her the only freedom she could have," Marthaen said slowly. "I should have realized that a child raised in torment by mad dragons would have become as mad as any of her captors. But no matter. We must find Kardyer at once. Only you and I have the power to fight him, and I do not want him slaying any of my companions."

  "Is Kharendaen here?" Thelvyn asked.

  "I could not stop her from coming," he answered. "She has gone into the lower levels seeking Sir George Kirbey."

  "What?" Thelvyn demanded in disbelief, turning on the gold dragon in his fury. "Does a dragon have to be mad to be able to think? Where do you suppose Kardyer has gone? He knows that we've come to rescue Sir George. That's

  where he'll be waiting."

  Marthaen rumbled in anger, as much at himself as at Kardyer. "Find him, then. You can move more quickly in these passages than I can ever hope to."

  Thelvyn turned and hurried back to the dais, descending the nearest of the stairways at a run even as he fastened his helmet and drew his enchanted sword. The gold dragon followed as quickly as he could, although the stairs were so narrow and steep that he had to climb cautiously. Never in his life had he s
ought any battle in greater fury—or greater fear.

  *****

  Kharendaen slipped quietly through the dark passages in the depths of the ancient sanctuary. As a cleric, she was a fighting dragon only when necessary, but she had fought renegades in the past with the Dragonlord. She would fight now if she had to, although she preferred to avoid battle if she could. The only one she did not wish to face was Kardyer himself, knowing that she was no match for the renegade king. She was fearful for her brother's safety and privately hoped that the Dragonlord would find Kardyer first.

  As she searched the dark passages, she tried to think just where Kardyer would be most likely to keep his prisoner, especially considering that this had been the sanctuary of an Immortal. The lower passages seemed the most secure, although not completely—not to a dragon, at least. The passage was difficult, often tight, with many blind corridors and stairways that were too small for a dragon to enter, but not a man or any of the evil creatures Kardyer had gathered for his army. He would want his prisoners where he could see them, and he would want his treasury where he could get at it in a hurry. In either case, it would be a place where anyone would have to go past him to get there, and where there were no passages to allow others to go where a dragon could not.

  At first she wondered if she had come to the wrong place. Perhaps she would be more likely to find what she was searching for in the larger passages of the upper level. There was a great deal of territory to search in this place, and her time was limited. Occasionally she could hear sounds of the battle raging in the city above. The gold dragons, outnumbered but superior in size, strength, and magic, were locked in a fierce struggle against the renegades. They needed her help, but they especially needed the skills and leadership of Marthaen and the power of the Dragonlord to protect them. She wanted to be done with this, so that she could leave this dark and fearful place. The very stones seemed to echo the madness and despair of the renegades.

  Then, just as Kharendaen was becoming convinced that she must search elsewhere, she discovered that she had come the right way after all. Kardyer had apparently kept his vile slaves busy through the years turning the lower levels of the ancient structure into a vault secure enough to hold his secrets. The main passage had been sealed with a great latticework of steel bands, too heavy to be broken or easily destroyed with dragonfire, set in a massive frame that was bolted into the stone walls, floor, and ceiling. Even dragons would have had a difficult time forcing their way through this, yet Kharendaen felt that she didn't have the time to seek a way around this barrier.

  The gold dragon sat back on her haunches as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her spell, not her powers as a cleric but the magic that was unique to dragons. After a moment, her form began to glow vaguely, encased within a pale, shimmering light so that she appeared almost transparent. She rose slowly, careful not to disturb the spell, and began to move forward with utmost care. Her tapered nose pressed up against the lattice of steel bands and then passed through unhindered. She stepped forward cautiously, moving like a ghost through the barrier until her entire length was safely beyond the barrier. Only then did she pause once again to glance back. The glimmering light faded to leave her real and solid once more.

  She continued her search, observing that all the smaller side passages were sealed off with blocks of cut stone. She didn't have to go far before she came abruptly to a large open area, with stairs on either side leading upward. The floor of the center of that chamber was open in a large, square-sided pit, with wide steps leading downward to either side. She descended once again, certain now that she must be close to her goal. The steps ended at the back of a short alcove, which opened up on a passage of tremendous proportions, very wide and just barely high enough that she could have spread her wings and flown.

  She noticed that she had now descended so far that this part of the sanctuary had not been built from great stones but was carved from the native stone with an absolute precision that only dwarves could manage. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all perfectly smooth, the corners sharp and straight. As she explored, she found that the first passage only served to link two long corridors of equal proportions, each lined to either side with chambers of great size behind heavy wooden doors. The northern half of each of the main passages had been closed off by Kardyer's slaves. Thick walls of stone sealed the passages, except for a low window that was closed by steel bars. The passages leading back remained open.

  Kharendaen realized immediately what this place must have been. There were storage vaults here as large as warehouses, rows upon rows of them, extending back as far as she could see. In ancient times, the ancestors of the dwarves had kept their treasures here, where valuable goods could be stored under the watchful eyes of Kagyar and his clerics. Now it served as Kardyer's treasury and dungeon.

  "Kharendaen!"

  She turned sharply at the sound of her name, tracing the call to its source. The voice had been that of Sir George himself, and she found him peering at her from behind the bars of the heavy wooden door of one of the cells.

  "I hardly expected to see you," he said. "I thought you were in exile."

  "Seldaek summoned me," she explained. "I brought gold dragons to fight the renegades, but Seldaek had gone to get the Dragonlord, and he is here as well."

  "Kardyer has the keys," the old knight said. "As you can

  see, the locks are all fairly new."

  "I can get you out," she assured him. "The wood of these doors may have been preserved by magic or other means, but it is still thousands of years old. Stand back."

  She turned, intending to give the door a snap with her tail. But as she did, she suddenly found herself face-to-face with the largest red dragon she had ever seen. Kardyer had slipped up silently behind her while she had been speaking with Sir George, waiting patiently, with an unsettling lack of concern, for her to notice him.

  Startled, she drew back her head instinctively, but she had been taken by surprise, and the huge red moved more quickly than she could defend herself. One of his large, powerful claws closed with crushing strength around the top of her neck, just below her jaw, while the other took firm hold of the top of her right foreleg immediately beneath her shoulder, a surprisingly forceful grip that she could not hope to break because of his great size and strength. He tossed her over on her stomach easily. Then, walking backward on his hind legs, he drew her out into the open area at the intersection of the corridors.

  Very certain of his absolute power over the young gold, Kardyer then lay down on the floor on top of her, never releasing his hold but pinning her even tighter with a portion of his weight while he bent her neck backward painfully. He lifted his head to stare at her appraisingly, still with that same self-assured lack of concern. Kharendaen could not even struggle, knowing that he possessed the strength to break her neck in an instant, even one-handed.

  "My goodness, such prizes there are to be found in my vaults," he said, thrusting his head close to hers so that his breath was warm in her ear. "Now, why would a dragon want to wear a saddle? For the sake of an old mandrake who will never fly again? I've heard stories about a gold female who wears a saddle because the Dragonlord rides her."

  Kharendaen did not answer, knowing it would be pointless. She was trying to summon the magic to protect herself, but her mind was confused by a fear unlike any she had ever known.

  "Do you think I plan to kill you?" Kardyer asked, bringing his head around to stare into her eyes, twisting her own neck painfully so that she had to look up at him. "It seems a shame that I must, since you are too dangerous to try to keep. It's been so long since I've seen a gold, I had forgotten just how beautiful and graceful they can be."

  Then Kharendaen knew why she was so afraid. Kardyer pulled himself around until he was lying with his heavy chest pressing into the middle of her back. Again he used his crushing strength to force his powerful tail beneath her own to thrust it aside. He moved quickly before she could struggle, trapping her t
ail beneath one of his hind legs while turning her hips so that he was pressed against her, holding her tight with his own weight.

  "Kharendaen!"

  Kardyer lifted his head sharply, then relaxed again into almost smug self-confidence. Marthaen was trapped on the wrong side of the barrier, able to see them both clearly through the low opening but unable to force even his head between the bars. The big gold drew back in fury and desperation, tearing at the bars and the stone that prevented him from saving his sister.

  "You cannot get through, brave dragon," Kardyer said smoothly. "Do you think perhaps you can find some way around the barrier before I can have my way with this fine lady, or do you prefer to stay and watch? Either way, I'll wait for you."

  "Leave my sister alone!" Marthaen roared in his anger and helplessness. "By the Great One himself, I'll make you die slowly in torment for the next hundred years!"

  "Your sister indeed," Kardyer repeated. "Then by all means, stay and watch. This should give you special joy."

  Marthaen drew back abrupdy from the opening. Grinning in vile satisfaction, Kardyer stared down at the helpless cleric beneath him, anticipating his pleasure. He lifted his head sharply, aware that the darkness behind the barrier was suddenly filled with a stark white radiance. The stone of one corner of the barrier began to glow a dull red only a moment before it exploded in a hail of splintered stone. Kardyer was forced to turn his head away, protecting his eyes from the deadly shards of hot stone. After a moment, he turned back, hissing in fury, but in the next instant a beam of force shot through the shattered barrier to strike his hand sharply, snapping the bones and compelling him to release his death grip on Kharendaen's neck.

  Kardyer roared in pain and fury, then fell silent in dread. A figure in black armor stepped through the hole blasted through the barrier, already lifting a long sword in a menacing gesture to aim the point directly at his face. The renegade was beyond reason by that time, confused by pain and fear, yet blinded by tremendous fury, even indignation, at the audacity at this puny enemy to attack him. He rose to leap forward in battle, and that gave Thelvyn the clear shot he needed. His sword glowed briefly, then discharged a bolt of intense power, striking Kardyer in the chest with such devastating force that the red dragon was hurtled backward into passage beyond.