Dalamar the Dark

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  He ran, and he had a sword in his hand. How had he come by it? He couldn't recall. They had not all been elves who'd died in that slaughter he left behind, and this sword, covered in blood, bore the garnet-eyed head of a dark dragon engraved on the hilt. Shuddering, he tightened his grip on the sword, the weight of the steel heavy and awkward in his hand. He had never lifted a weapon like this, none of any kind. No matter. He had it, and he didn't know what in the name of all gods he would do with it, but he knew it as well as he knew his own name: He would never let the sword go.

  Tellin staggered, then stopped, struggling for breath, trying to listen both ahead and behind. He heard the din of battle behind, the roaring of dragons, the screams of the dying, the exultant cries of those who killed and turned to kill again, elf and foeman. He heard nothing ahead. Would there be Wildrunners on the lip of the glen to greet him-or to see him pounding down the forest paths, deem him an enemy, and kill him? It hardly mattered if they gathered him in or filled him full of arrows. It only mattered that he reach the glen and scream his warning, or give it with his last breath, dying.

  Branches whipped his face, and he left his blood on the leaves. Roots reached to trip him, felling him as though he were an axed tree. The third time he fell, the breath blasted out of his lungs, leaving him lying face in the dirt, gasping. He clawed at the ground, shuddering, and when at last he could breathe again, he climbed to his feet.

  Behind him the forest was on fire.

  Tellin saw no flames. He heard no crackling or even the hushed roar of trees being consumed. He smelled the smoke, that's how he knew.

  "Dear gods," he groaned, his voice a harsh croaking. "O E'li who has so long watched over us, shield us now!"

  And then, sorry for the breath wasted, Tellin stumbled on.

  The ground dropped down now, and the paths looked familiar, recognizable as the ones he'd take from the glen. Then they'd been rising. Now they fell, and he regretted that, for a lowering path is harder to run than a climbing one. No matter. He must run.

  He didn't see the dragon, the red scar against the sky like a smear of blood on an iron shield, until he came within sight of the first Wildrunners standing guard at the head of the trail. The four must have heard him running, for they stood with strung bows, waiting. Tellin flung up his arms, and he saw the sword in his fist too late to remember to drop it.

  Four arrows knocked to bowstrings. Four Wildrunners pulled back to let loose the shafts. Breathless, he could not cry out his name or even shout Friend!

  No need. No arrow flew. No Wildrunner challenged him. A voice shouted from far down in the glen. "Dragon! Dragon!"

  The beast dropped down from the sky, darting like a lance in the clear sky-path over the glen. As one, the four Wildrunners loosed their shafts, sending their arrows buzzing into the sky. The steely points bounced harmlessly from the dragon's scaled hide. Upon the beast's back, a red-armored warrior, helmed and bearing a sword in his gloved fist, howled such a scream that the dragon itself must echo.

  Chapter 8

  The dragon came roaring fire over the treetops, turned, and rose higher. On the turn it dropped again, shooting down the length of the glen like a spear loosed by a furious god. Upon its back the red-armored rider howled, a sentence of death in the ears of each mage, Wildrunner, and in the heart of one cleric. Yet, even as smoke rolled down from the north, great roiling billows black against the sky, upon the edge of the glen the Wildrunners stood their ground, never looking north, never fretting the fire as they swiftly nocked a second flight of arrows and loosed them against the dragon. Bolt after bolt, they bounded from the dragon's hide, and only one came close to the mark, the dragon's only vulnerable place—the eye.

  On the floor of the glen Dalamar watched, the dregs of magic like a poison of lethargy in his blood, his muscles trembling with exhaustion, and tried to track the flight of each arrow, knowing that each shaft would fail its target. All around him the voices of mages swirled, weary voices, ragged with strain, shredding under the weight of panic and exhaustion. They sounded like children, querulous and frightened, helpless to affect what must happen, the slaughter sure to come.

  And at the top of the glen, there beside the tree where he'd earlier sat to meditate, Lord Tellin Windglimmer stood, a long sword clasped in his two hands.

  In the name of all gods, Dalamar thought, where did he come from-and what is he going to do with that sword?

  Dalamar could not guess, and yet the sight of the cleric, long sword in hand, jolted him from his lethargy. The dragon came nearer. Dalamar grabbed one mage by the arm, then another, shoving them ahead of him, south along the floor of the ravine.

  "Get up into the forest!" he shouted, yanking a woman up from the ground where she'd fallen after the unweaving of the magic. "Get up to the high ground and into the forest!"

  She went, scrambling on hands and knees, panting, sobbing, and maybe praying. She left little prints of blood behind, the marks of her hands where the stone scraped them raw. Others followed, the stronger helping those who had not yet recovered their strength. One after another, they found the path and dared the way up. The wind of the dragon's passing buffeted them, rocking Dalamar back on his heels. The beast turned again, and the tip of its wing swept two mages from the perilous path, sending them screaming to the floor of the glen.

  Tellin's voice came echoing from above, suddenly sharp and loud as that of any commander on the battle ground. He swung his sword once over his head to get the attention of the mages still on the path, then pointed the blade into the forest.

  "Get to the trees! The dragon can't follow there! Hurry!"

  They ran. They scrambled and fell and crawled to their feet again, one by one clawing their way up the path to the woods. The dragon made another pass, another long roaring shot through the narrow glen. The red-armored rider leaned out and low, cutting the legs out from another mage, roaring with laughter as the elf fell, bleeding, screaming, and rolling into the glen. Unstoppable, the dragon soared high again, climbing.

  Tellin shouted, "Dalamar! Come on! Up here!"

  But Dalamar didn't move. He stood in the glen with the two mages who had died in the magic, Ylle Savath with her thick white hair spilled all around her and Benen Summergrace whose face had once reflected such wild joy as to make her look like a woman in grip of passion. Deep in Dalamar a fire burned, and it was a fire of rage.

  "Dalamar!" Tellin stood inches from the edge of the drop into the glen. Behind him a Wildrunner whipped another arrow from her quiver. She fit it swiftly to the string. "Come out of there!"

  High in the sky, away north over the trees, the dragon banked and dropped, ready to make the last pass.

  Dalamar put his back to the path. He stood braced, legs wide, and reached deep down into himself to see what strength he had left for magic. Some, some.

  "Dalamar!" Tellin shouted. "Come out!"

  He didn't heed. He refused to let himself hear anything now but the sound of the sky, the sound of the dragon coming for him. He counted his strength and thought it enough. He searched within for all the spells he knew-and counted them worthless, for they were only the small simple spells he'd been grudgingly allowed. There were others, dark, secret spells learned in the summer, but he had been a long time away from those tutors, the books hidden in his cave outside of Silvanost. He hadn't read the words of those spells in too long, and he dared not try to cast them from memory. To mis-speak even a word… the spells could fall useless or kill him. And they were small spells, too, no matter if he'd read them only an hour ago and could cast them with perfect accuracy. Against a dragon they would do as much good as spitting.

  Yet, perhaps there was one spell, one every mage knew no matter the color of his robe, no matter which of the three gods of magic heard his prayers.

  "Dalamar!"

  Out the corner of his eye, he saw Tellin on the top of the glen, his robes stained with mud and blood and sweat. The cleric stood braced and ready, the thick, heavy broadsword
in his two hands awkwardly gripped. Idiot! Dalamar thought. He'll swing himself off the path if he tries to use it.

  Like thunder, the dragon roared. In his ears, in his heart, Dalamar heard the mage's laughter echoing between the walls of the glen like the bellow of a wind-wild sea.

  "I see you, mageling. You are mine!"

  "No!" Tellin shouted, and the voice of the cleric, used to soft prayers and gentle chanting, ripped through the glen, bounding off the walls like curses. "Dalamar! Get out!"

  Dalamar held his ground. He need shout only one word, two little syllables, and shout them with all the force in his lungs and all the strength of magic left in him after this long day's work. How much was that? How much?

  Whatever strength he had, whatever meager power exhaustion didn't claim… it would have to be enough.

  Larger and larger the dragon grew as it came closer, trimming its wide wings for speed. It seemed to Dalamar that he saw nothing now but the maw of the beast and the red-gloved hand of the mage reaching for him. With all the breath in his lungs, with all the strength in his heart, Dalamar shouted, "Shirak!" and a great ball of light burst overhead, flaring in the air between him and the dragon.

  The beast roared, then screamed high in pain.

  On the high side of the glen a Wildrunner cursed, blinded by the light. In the same moment, another cheered, his voice rising up in bloodthirsty caroling. "Again! Let fly those arrows again! Archers!"

  Blinded by his own light, Dalamar stumbled and turned, reaching out to find the wall of the glen and tripping over the hem of his robe after the first step. Screaming, the dragon rose up high to the treetops, then shrieked in the sky, blinded not by light but by the green and gold arrows of the Wildrunners. Sightless, it staggered in flight, then fell, dropping hard, and the sound of it hitting the trees was the sound of storm coming down, crashing and cracking and the slow aching scream of trees being split apart and torn up by the roots. One wing broke close to the dragon's shoulder, and the other was pierced through by raw splintered trees, pinning it.

  "The dragon's down!" shouted one of the archers. Above the dragon's screams that voice sounded like no more than insect buzzing. Still, Dalamar heard it, and he knew what words the Wildrunner shouted. "It's down! Swords! Swords! Go! Go! Go!"

  Howling, they went, Wildrunners tearing into the ruined forest. The sound of them at the killing filled up the forest, echoing to the sky-the shouts of savage glee, and the thunderous roaring of the dragon, the blind beast thrashing and crippled.

  Dalamar, sightless as the dragon, stumbled forward, staggering over the stiffening body of Ylle Savath. He was saved from falling when a hand grabbed his arm hard.

  Tellin! Tellin, of course.

  "You!" Dalamar cried, laughing, his knees gone weak with relief. "You, my lord cleric with your sword! You should run take your part in the kill."

  The dazzle still on his eyes, he heard a soft hissing, a sound like snakes.

  "That's why I'm here," said a low, heavy voice right beside his ear. "A dark mage come to rid the world of elf-mages."

  All the sounds of the dying dragon and the cheering Wildrunners faded, no more distinct now than if a thick wet fog had come to dampen them. A chill slithered down Dalamar's spine. Mind racing, Dalamar tried to remember if he'd heard the sound of the cleric's death-cry in all the fighting. Sight slowly clearing, he saw that the hand on his arm was red-gloved and much larger than Tellin's.

  Dalamar's ears rang with the din of the dragon's death. Someone cried out, a long rending shriek that ended in a bubbling sob. One of the Wildrunners had come too close to his prey Then the cries changed, so suddenly that the elf fighters couldn't have had time to know their luckless companion was dead.

  Fire! Fire! Fire in the woods!

  All this Dalamar heard as he looked up into the black eye-slits of a dragon helm, and looking in there was like looking into the swirl of a maelstrom-or into the eyes of a madman.

  A dagger sang from its sheath, shining dully in the sunless day. "Don't move, my mageling."

  Dalamar stood still as stone. The tip of the dagger pressed against his throat pricked sharply to assure the mage's meaning. Move, then die. He barely breathed, but he noted that his captor's voice was slurred now, as though he were a drunkard speaking, or a man who'd taken a terrible blow to the head. The dragon's screams shook the air, even so far down as the floor of the glen. Dalamar felt ground beneath his booted feet vibrating to the thrashing of the beast. The red-armored warrior moaned, a soft sobbing.

  Dalamar's stomach tightened with sudden understanding. This mage had been riding the dragon, and some who did that liked to forge a link with the dragon, mind to mind. The slurred speech, the dull, lightless eyes-these told Dalamar the mage had not managed to break the link before the beast went down. He was still somewhere in the mind of the dying dragon, feeling its death, perhaps soon to die with it. Hope sprang in Dalamar, with the adrenaline and blood running hot in his veins. But no matter what ran in him, still the mage stood with the tip of a dagger pressed cold against his throat, and whatever strength he was losing as the dragon died, his hand was still steady on the dagger's grip.

  Softly, a step. Dalamar heard and never lifted his eyes. Still, he smelled the sweat of the one who stood there behind the mage and above him on the path. Mingled with the stink of sweat and blood was another, softer scent-temple incense of the kind that drifts always through the trees in Silvanost, the heady fragrance sailing out from the white temples erected to white gods and smelling in all seasons like the forest in autumn. Lord Tellin Windglimmer stood upon the path at the narrow part where earlier that day Dalamar had plucked him back from a fall. He had his sword in hand, gripped tightly, lifted high. In his eyes shone a terror to speak of the choice he must make, that choice and chance taken all in an instant-kill the mage or see Dalamar die.

  The red-armored rider straightened suddenly, as though he knew someone was behind him. He turned, his hand still on Dalamar, and he screamed, a high and terrible sound winding up to the sky. His rage and the dragon's in whose mind he yet partly dwelt, his pain and the dragon's, all those unwound in his scream.

  "Fire!" they shouted up there in the forest. More voices than those of the few Wildrunners shouted, many more. Soldiers were coming down through the forest, retreating before the dragonarmy. "Clear out! Fire!"

  The mage lifted his hand, and Dalamar knew the gestures of magic. No matter which path a mage follows, the dance of hands is always the same. The moaning voice issuing from within the helm sounded hollow, and the words it spoke twined one 'round another in a complex pattern of sound growing darker and darker. As did the sound, so did the glen, for the air purpled as though a thousand dusks came to fill the space between the stony walls. It crept up from the ground, hiding the bodies of Ylle Savath and Benen Summergrace.

  Tellin's face shone white in the gathering gloom. His sword came up, the blade so long and heavy that it nearly overbalanced him. Paladine's cleric, E'li's acolyte promised to the temple from his birth, swung down that blade with all the strength in his young arms, striking to kill. And if E'li lived in that cleric's heart, it was Kiri-Jolith himself who sharpened his eye and made heavy his hand. The blade hit the armor and rang as it must not have done since it felt the last stroke of the forgeman's hammer. It bounded back on Tellin, who swung again, wildly, staggering at the edge of the path. This time the blade found softer resistance, cutting flesh at the elbow joint of the armor.

  The red warrior whirled away screaming, high and piercing. He flung back his head, cursing while blood poured from the wound, darker than the crimson armor.

  "You are dead!" he shouted to the sky, to the cleric whose sword had cut him. The link with the dragon was gone, severed by pain. His eyes shone bright and blue as blades. "You are dead!"

  Out of the dusk a hand reached, ghostly, curse-born, and made of red mist like blood. Cold to his bones, Dalamar saw the hand grow with each moment, until it seemed to blot out the sky above th
e glen. Behind, Tellin choked and gagged. Dalamar turned swiftly on his heel in time to see the cleric fall to his knees. The sword tumbled from his hand, clattered on the stone, and went end over end into the glen.

  "My lord!"

  Tellin's face grew red, and his eyes bulged wide-a man strangling. In the sky over the glen, the hand was now a fist showing white knuckles.

  "No!" In rage, Dalamar whirled on the red-armored mage. "Let him go!"

  The mage laughed-a bitter, groaning sound-and fell over onto the stony floor of the glen in a rattling, clanking heap. Tellin gagged and crashed to his knees. Now his lips were turning blue, his face white.

  "Tellin…"

  Dalamar scrambled up the path and caught the cleric just as he collapsed. In the sky, the hand remained, squeezing. In Dalamar's arms, the cleric choked, a haze of disbelief on his eyes, as though the hand he saw, that red hand hanging over the glen, were the hand of some terrible demon.

  "E'li." The name of the god came out from his blue lips like a groan of agony. He lifted his own hand, but not so far. His eyes on Dalamar's, the last of light and life fading, he said again, "E'li…"

  But the god who had not answered the prayers of all the elves in Silvanesti in many long months did not answer the dying prayer of his cleric now. The light went from the eyes of Lord Tellin Windglimmer, and the soul departed from his body. Only lifeless clay remained, heavy in Dalamar's arms, the burden of it weighing far more than it would have seemed to in life. The magic-made hand faded, drifting away like mist before a breeze. Upon the floor of the glen lay the remains of Ylle Savath and Benen Summergrace, of the cleric felled by the dragon, and the red-armored mage himself.

  There was not much of the last. No body lay there-only the helm and armor, and these were empty, a shell. What had been of the mage was gone, fallen to earth. Nothing but dust lay within the armor. Ah, but he wasn't dead, though no flesh lay within the armor. Like a ghost on the night, a wailing ran along Dalamar's nerves, not a sound to hear but a thing to feel, as one feels the first cold wind of winter.