The Black Talon: Ogre Titans, Volume One (Dragonlance: Ogre Titans, Vol. 1)

by Richard A. Knaak

  The moment the visions dimmed and retreated, Dauroth cried out from gratitude. Tears flowed down his cheeks. He questioned nothing that the spirit had granted him, for never in a hundred lifetimes could he have learned all that he knew. The ogre knew the spells, the history … he knew it all.

  “You are the beginning,” the shade proclaimed, slowly dissipating. “You shall be the end. You shall bring to Krynn the Golden Age again, and all will sing your name.”

  Then Dauroth had found himself alone again, but no longer did he feel alone. Indeed, the ogre mage felt surrounded by others, for the ghosts of all the High Ogres stood with him.

  Thinking back, he had been so eager to begin. He had grabbed his paltry findings and possessions and, in only minutes after that grand encounter, had headed in search of what he knew he would need to accomplish his goal, including one of the most important and rare ingredients—the blood of elves.

  So much had happened since that time, so much that continued to propel him closer to his goal. Yet there had been setbacks along the way too. At times Dauroth wondered if he was still on the right path, whether things were happening too slowly.

  Dauroth had prayed for some sort of sign, some hint that he was still the chosen one. For the longest time, his prayers had gone unanswered, and he’d feared the worst. Then, just when he was growing desperate, the golden teardrop had fallen into his hands.

  Dauroth stared deeper and deeper into the artifact, staring at his own face looking back at him until—it was like a transition to dreaming—he suddenly stood within the teardrop, staring out at his colossal form. Then the huge Dauroth faded and the one within the teardrop turned and slowly began to drift in an ecstasy through a golden land.

  He knew that place, for, despite its brilliant hue, it was the very valley in which his sanctum lay. Dauroth’s astral form came upon a blinding, sun-drenched tree with a crown that swept across the sky. Pausing, he knelt at its base, paying homage. Yes, there at those roots he had spotted the tiny, glistening object. It should have been easy for anyone to find, but it had lain there waiting for him. The moment that he had plucked it up, he had known it for what it was and how it had been meant to stir anew his determination to succeed.

  Dauroth’s spirit form drifted on eagerly. In the sky distant creatures that might have been birds or something much larger soared by. The land below was lush with vegetation, all of it bathed in the same wondrous gold. Even Dauroth’s flesh—or the facsimile of it—had taken on that warm hue.

  Hovering a few inches above the ground, the Titan easily rose over one hill after another. His speed multiplied. In barely the time it took to blink, Dauroth crossed the edge of the hidden valley—

  And froze there, completely in awe despite the fact that he had witnessed that sight in his mind several times before.

  It was a gleaming city cast in mirrorlike gold and sparkling diamond colors. Banners fluttered from its proud, turreted towers, and mingled within, Dauroth could see the sweeping, arched roofs of other great structures. Unfortunately, there was little more to see, for a vast, metal wall surrounded the city, a wall several times the height of the Titan. Above the roofs, sleek avian creatures soared in great numbers.

  With an almost shy, childlike expression, Dauroth darted forward again. Perhaps he would be permitted …

  But a huge ball of light suddenly burst before him. As he shielded his eyes, Dauroth made out something in the midst of the light. He did not need to see it coalesce to know what it was, for each time he sought the golden city, the guardian materialized.

  For a brief moment, it evinced the shape and color of a Titan, but then it turned into something else equally astonishing. It was a being forged of magnificent gold. Dauroth sometimes termed the being a male, although there was nothing of either gender apparent in its appearance.

  The golden guardian raised a hand toward him. Although it had no mouth, the Titan heard in his head words of a musical tongue; that which he himself spoke was but a pale imitation. As it had been since his first time there, Dauroth understood each word clearly as if he’d been born to the language.

  It is not yet earned… not yet… soon perhaps.

  In the mortal world, Dauroth’s body nearly jerked awake. Within the teardrop, his spirit form briefly lost cohesion. Only his strict discipline enabled the Titan leader to recover.

  Each time he had confronted the guardian in the past, it had uttered those same words. More times than Dauroth cared to recall, he had been sent back with those words echoing through his mind like a condemnation. It is not yet earned… not yet…

  But never before had the guardian added the last two words.

  Both the body and spirit of Dauroth smiled. He was close to achieving his ultimate goal. The city was in reach.

  The city held the final secrets that he needed to restore the glory of the ogre race and transform all of Krynn.

  Its hand still raised against Dauroth, the guardian repeated one last time, It is not yet earned… not yet…

  The last two words—those words of tremendous hope—were not repeated, and Dauroth feared that perhaps he had imagined them the first time. The city, the landscape, and their golden guardian began to fade. Dauroth felt the tug of his mortal shell, demanding that he return to the earthly plane. Yet the blue-skinned sorcerer fought to linger in the vision, silently demanding to hear the encouragement he had heard earlier.

  And as the last of the guardian faded, those words came again.

  But soon perhaps… it said in its toneless voice. Soon perhaps… it echoed, much to his delight.

  With that, Dauroth ceased his struggle to remain free of his corporeal form. The tension built up by his resistance caused him to snap awake in the meditation chamber, his body wracked with pain and his head pounding so harshly that it felt as if it were about to explode. Yet those sensations quickly passed, urged away by his utter exuberance. Dauroth leaped to his feet, stretching one hand out to catch the teardrop, which suddenly no longer had the power to hover and was about to fall.

  With utmost reverence, the robed spellcaster placed the artifact in a small ivory chest atop a shelf in the wall. Dauroth uttered a single syllable and a faint red glow surrounded the chest. A moment later, the container itself faded away, as though it were smoke blown on the wind.

  He was so close … so very close.

  He started as he sensed an approaching presence. Identifying the newcomer, Dauroth nodded. In the next second, the door to the chamber swung open.

  Safrag bowed low as he entered. In the tongue that Dauroth had created, he said, “Venerable One, may this humble apprentice approach you with words of possible import?”

  To the lead Titan’s ears—which had just heard what he was certain was the pure language of the High Ogres—Safrag might as well have been speaking in the debased tongue used in Kern and Blöde. Nothing else—absolutely nothing—was more than a befouled bastardization of the perfect music with which the golden guardian had assured him of his future.

  Still, Dauroth forced himself to reply in the same debased tongue, reminding himself that someday soon all would change.

  “You may speak, Safrag.”

  The other Titan’s expression grew anxious, an unbecoming look for one of Dauroth’s proud chosen. If Safrag did not have a good reason for his uncertainty, Dauroth would have to reconsider his value as an apprentice.

  “Master, I would not speak out of turn, naturally, and this is so delicate a matter—”

  Dauroth’s stare cut him short. “Proceed, Safrag.”

  The apprentice bowed his head low. His words sounded more strident than musical, evidence of his mounting distress. “Master, it concerns one who should be above reproach, one for whom my respect is second only to that which I have for you … I speak of none other than Hundjal.”

  For Safrag to even suggest something amiss with Dauroth’s most promising convert worried the elder Titan. Dauroth had been grooming Hundjal to eventually take over all dealings wit
h the others, so the lead Titan could delve completely into his research and further hasten the return of the Golden Age.

  The Titan leader ushered his apprentice inside and sealed the door with a simple gesture of his hand. Eyes blazing as golden as the world in the teardrop, Dauroth demanded, “And what potential offense is it that good Hundjal has committed?”

  Safrag winced, for even his angry master no longer sounded as if he sang his words. “Master—Master, I fear that Hundjal seeks the forbidden. I fear that Hundjal has delved into the legend of the Fire Rose.”

  Dauroth couldn’t help it; he flinched. His expression must have been terrifying, for Safrag nearly flattened himself against the door. The lead Titan immediately took a calming breath, which, at least outwardly, appeared to work.

  “It has been forbidden by those who know of it to even speak the name,” he reminded Safrag coldly.

  The studious Safrag kept his head low. “And if I must be punished, Master, for speaking it, so be it.”

  Dauroth stared past his second apprentice. “Yet the crime that is most heinous is to dare disturb even the memory of that foul artifact. Worse even is to hope to make the legend into truth.”

  “Perhaps Hundjal does not understand the implications.”

  That defense sounded weak, especially to Dauroth. Of all of them, Hundjal likely understood best—nearly as well as his mentor—the danger of resurrecting the dream of the Fire Rose. If Safrag was right … Well, there was no choice but to investigate.

  “From this point on, Safrag, you will neither speak nor even think of the Fire Rose. I will study Hundjal and determine his innocence or guilt.”

  “Yes, great Dauroth.” The door behind the younger Titan swung open without warning. Safrag needed no other hint to understand that he had been dismissed. He slipped into the hall and scurried away.

  “Hundjal … ” Dauroth muttered. “Hundjal, if you have disobeyed me in this—you of all who should know better—you will envy Falstoch. Yes, you will.”

  Baring his teeth, the sorcerer suddenly whirled from the doorway and rushed deeper into the recesses of his sanctum. A change came over Dauroth, one that would have set even the most powerful Titans—including the select few who were a part of the Black Talon—on fearful edge. They would have seen a Dauroth unfamiliar to them, a Dauroth in a cold sweat.

  To those who observed the master spellcaster’s chamber from outside, it would have appeared a normal-sized room. But as with the rest of the edifice in which he dwelled, Dauroth’s domain did not follow physical laws, and in fact, there were rooms within rooms within rooms, all shifting according to his desires.

  And one of those hidden rooms took form before the Titan, who flung open the iron door protecting it and stepped into an even larger and certainly more arcane place.

  The vast room was covered in ice and filled with a coldness that even Dauroth felt with a shiver. Great mounds resembling snow-shrouded stalagmites dotted the bizarre inner chamber. More than twenty of those stood at intervals in the path between Dauroth and the other side of the room.

  And there, half buried in ice, stood a black, metal chest chained with long, silver tendrils.

  Dauroth took a step toward the chest, and the first of the mounds immediately shattered. A grotesque form shook free the last remnants of its prison and stepped forward to confront the sorcerer. It had the size and shape of an ogre, but one with only vestiges of skin and armor over its yellowed bones. Black, hollow eye sockets somehow glared murderously as the undead creature menaced the Titan leader with a huge, worn axe.

  “Asymnopti isidiu,” sang Dauroth.

  The grotesque guardian stumbled to a halt, then retreated to his original position. As if time were reversing itself, the skeleton’s icy shell swiftly reformed around it.

  As Dauroth moved on, the rest of the mounds remained quiescent. His command to the first undead to return to his sleep also had affected all the others. However, the way to avoid his monstrous guardians was not merely a case of knowing the right magical phrases. The warriors—chosen from strong, living ogres whom Dauroth poisoned, then stripped of their flesh—were enchanted to obey only his voice, no other.

  There were other, more subtle safeguards, but the Titan leader silently nullified those as he moved deeper inside. He had no patience for anything standing in his way.

  As Dauroth approached the chest, the silver tendrils became fanged serpents that stretched for his wrist. He let the first one bite him, at which point it collapsed into a simple strand of rope. The other serpents likewise transformed harmlessly.

  But with nothing between himself and the chest, Dauroth hesitated. A part of him wanted to rush from that dread magical place, while another longed to examine the chest’s contents. At last, a combination of both fear and desire forced him to open the sinister box.

  Instantly, a fiery white light burst from the chest. Dauroth turned away for a moment then forced himself to look again.

  And in the center of the chest, floating in a clear liquid that was not water, was a tiny, pointed fragment—no larger than a pea—that looked as if it were made of iridescent pearl. Within the fragment, a fiery force that occasionally tinted the piece bright orange-red shifted about like a caged animal. Dauroth was uncertain whether that force lived or not but preferred to err on the side of caution, so he didn’t intend to disturb it.

  Yet the Titan already sensed the growing heat and, indeed, the first trickle of melting ice reached his ears a breath later. More important, he found his fingers reaching toward the fragment in spite of his efforts to resist.

  Exerting tremendous willpower, Dauroth grasped the lid and shut the chest tightly. Only then did he exhale. Around him, the chamber quickly cooled.

  Although the strain of the moment was still upon him, Dauroth felt some relief. Neither Hundjal nor anyone else had found their way into the chamber. The secret was safe, for the moment.

  But as he retreated to the doorway, the Titan felt a growing heat within him that tempted him to return to the chest. Dauroth fought the temptation and finally managed to exit into the main chamber. Once there, he made a gesture, sending the icy chamber back into hiding from the mortal plane.

  The desire to go back and hold the fragment in his hands lingered, to use the powerful artifact as he had only once before.

  That single incident had proven to be costly.

  Dauroth suddenly felt unsteady on his feet. A chair quickly summoned by magic gave him respite just before he would have collapsed. His weakness shocked him but also served as a grim reminder of just how dangerous his unholy prize was.

  He held out his hand. A shadow briefly crossed it, leaving in its wake a goblet filled with a clear liquid of Dauroth’s concoction. The Titan quickly sipped from the goblet, feeling his composure and strength returning. Yet even after he had downed the entire drink, he remained apprehensive, as if, somehow by checking on the fragment’s security, Dauroth had actually set into motion something he would not be able to stop.

  But that was absurd, the sorcerer thought. Surely, that was absurd …

  Dauroth rose, banishing the goblet at the same time. Hundjal’s innocence or guilt had to be determined. It had to be done quickly and quietly. The secret of the Fire Rose had to remain a secret. That tiny fragment was the most important discovery of his researches.

  That fragment was so potent that even Dauroth shuddered to think what would happen if the complete artifact ever again saw light.

  VI

  THE JAKA HWUNAR

  Ogre life was brutal, and it was twice as brutal for a warrior defeated or shamed. An ogre was measured by his victories, and only one loss could completely alter his standing.

  When any chieftain, khan, or lord of the race had a fresh victory to crow long about, an elaborate party was in order.

  The minotaur empire had its Great Circus, a huge, oval stadium in which tens of thousands could sit and watch huge spectacles and duels between skilled gladiators. Stories of the ba
ttles that took place in the Great Circus were known as far away as the island of Northern Ergoth, off the western edge of Ansalon.

  The ogres had a similar arena, which, when first constructed, had been considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. Even with its dome long gone, it was still an imposing structure rivaling in size that of the cursed horned ones. However, like all else in Kern or Blöde, it had suffered the ravages of time and neglect and uncivilized behavior. Its dome was gone. Its surrounding walls—once covered with elegant reliefs of griffons and athletes—had either been scoured flat by the elements or battered into ruins during the many vicious power struggles that had decimated the once-proud capital over the centuries. The statues that had stood atop the gates had long been reduced to merely the sandaled feet of some forgotten ruler or the paws of the city’s guardian.

  Within the arena—called the Jaka Hwunar by ogres, which roughly translated to the Place of Glorious Blooding in the Common tongue—the signs of decline and decay were also prevalent. The rows of marble benches, which long ago had lost their woven, padded backings, were cracked and mottled. Some parts were broken or missing, due to generations of enthusiastic onlookers bashing at the marble with their clubs. Large rocks and fragments from the wall had been scavenged to fill gaps, but if anything, that added to the ugliness of the setting.

  Reaching one of the benches was a precarious job, for the steps and walkways had also suffered over the years. Those areas not worn away by multitudes of heavy feet constantly treading the surface were likely cracked from the same clubs, dropped or pounded, that had brutalized the once-pristine marble seats.

  Yet despite such destruction, the Jaka Hwunar had never fallen into disuse in all its long history. Every ruler had shed blood there to prove his power and delight his subjects, who generally reveled in such entertainment. It was a place where warriors vied against other warriors for status, where ogres engaged in competitions with savage beasts, and it was also a place for the public shaming and execution of rivals.