The History of Krynn: Vol V

by Dragon Lance

  “There will be time for him later,” Deathfyre growled. “Now I need you here. See these humans? They come to us with lances, cruel weapons that have already rent flights of whites and greens.”

  Corro, the mighty black, fell into formation beside them. He snorted, flexing his midnight wings, with many of his inky clan trailing behind. As Corro passed, Tombfyre felt a new presence, and with awe he watched a mighty cloud seethe upward, growing into a solid entity.

  “Show courage, my kin-dragons!” roared the elder red. “Our queen approaches, and if we can win this fight, she will hold sway over all the world!”

  Deathfyre led his red dragons in a wedge of lethal flight, bellowing furiously at the sight of the metallic serpents winging toward them. Tombfyre pressed ahead, savage and eager, fires of fury burning in his belly.

  Now he saw that the good dragons had saddled themselves with riders, a single human warrior astride each of the serpents. Sunlight glinted from the silvery metal shafts of their wicked lances, but Tombfyre chortled aloud at the realization that his enemies had handicapped themselves with all of this clumsy, unnecessary weight.

  The two formations swept closer, and the red dragon bellowed a cry of battle, ordering his serpents into a dive. Corro spat a drool of acid, snarling loudly, leading the remaining blacks and greens – those that had survived the first clash with the Dragonlances. Many blues and whites pulled alongside, and more than sixty of the Dark Queen’s wyrms swept downward in an awful wedge of death.

  The metallic dragons closed swiftly, with those curiously shining weapons raised, the wyrms bugling bold challenges of their own. Don’t they see the odds? Tombfyre was amazed and a little shaken by the foe’s tenacity.

  “Lances?” declared blue Azurus, gliding beside Deathfyre with a disdainful snort. “As if they could strike us down with mere pinpricks!”

  “Beware,” countered Deathfyre, “for those are more than pins.”

  The blue looked scornful, and Tombfyre himself was amazed to hear his sire speak of caution.

  “Spread out!” warned Deathfyre, urging the blues and whites to give them room, knowing that the eruption of red dragon breath would be deadly even to his own allies and that the lethal frost of the whites and the crackling lightning of the blues could prove equally harmful to the serpents of his own wing. It was far better to attack the enemy with a widespread formation, concentrating all the breath attacks against different portions of the sky.

  Azurus led the way, bringing his blues through a plunging curve, sweeping toward the head of the metal dragon flight. Some of these silver and gold wyrms rose toward the blues, while the rest winged on, bearing steadily toward the reds or warily eyeing the whites that swerved outward to make an attack from the other flank.

  Lightning crackled as Azurus spat a flaming bolt at the lead dragon, a large gold. But that serpent twisted away, leaving a cascade of sparks spilling from the dragon-scale shield protecting the rider. Then the lance of the leading attacker ripped through the blue membrane of a broad wing. Mighty Azurus, greatest of the blues, lurched and flapped pathetically, veering to the side, then toppling onto his back while the shredded membrane trailed behind him. With a shrieking cry of fury that swelled to disbelief, then curdled into sheer terror, he tumbled from the skies.

  Other keen lances ripped into the blues, and in a few shocking instants, a half-dozen of the sleek, powerful dragons had fallen. The metal serpents veered and dodged, maneuvering to avoid the effects of the deadly lightning breath. Now the dragons of Paladine attacked aggressively, spewing acid and cold and flame of their own, bearing the riders and those wicked lances into the midst of a swirling aerial melee. Slashing with metallic talon and fang, the good dragons desperately sought to rend the evil serpents who escaped the initial killing onslaught.

  The whites swept inward, but they were met by a trio of silvers, immune to the frosty blast of white dragonbreath. The metal serpents emerged from the cloud of icy spumes, three riders crouched behind their shields, lances poised steadily, aimed at the ranks of wounded enemy dragons. With piercing stabs, the serpents of Paladine drove relentlessly through the scattering whites, stabbing and slashing many of the alabaster wyrms out of the sky.

  For long, deadly moments, the formations wheeled through the sky, an aerial dance of exquisite beauty and lethal consequence. The evil wyrms struggled for the advantage of height, but even bearing their burdensome riders, the good dragons stayed close, stabbing and burning, knocking down one after another of the Dark Queen’s serpents. When the chromatic dragons separated, then swept inward for a concentrated attack, the knights on their dragons managed to hold them at bay. Meeting the onslaught with outstretched lances, they forced the attackers to veer up, down, sideways, as the dragons of metal wheeled through a protective circle, each lancer guarding the flank of the man and dragon before him.

  Suddenly a great presence loomed in the sky as clouds congealed into a shape, straining to achieve solidity. Again Tombfyre felt a shiver of awe, of lethal and immortal presence. Was it the queen? Would she come here, to Krynn, riding the victory of her legions? Tombfyre saw the writhing heads, the smoky clouds that formed the great immortal body now taking form, and his heart flared with hope.

  But one after another of Deathfyre’s wyrms were slain, and though a few of the good dragons and their riders were knocked out of the air, the battle developed catastrophically for the red dragon’s wing. The serpents of the Dark Queen surged from high altitude or tried to sweep upward from below. But always they were met with those terrible lances, the weapons relentlessly cutting and piercing and killing.

  Finally, with a shrill cry, Deathfyre dived away and led the surviving serpents of the Dark Queen in headlong flight, while the good dragons maintained their defensive spiral, apparently content to let the attackers go – until a mighty silver, mounted by an armored knight, appeared out of nowhere. The tip of his lance ripped through Deathfyre’s flank, and with a ground-shaking scream, the villainous red dragon, the ancient harbinger of evil who had lived for two thousand years, flipped onto his back and plunged, lifeless, toward the bloodstained plain.

  Tombfyre shrieked in rage as he saw his sire fall. But still more of those deadly lances rushed closer, an encircling ring of death, and he knew that this battle was lost.

  “We will marshal our forces and return with a hundred dragons!” he bellowed in fury, though the cry sounded hollow even in his own ears. In truth, they had been soundly defeated, his dragons all but driven from the skies.

  “My son, scion of Deathfyre … hear the will of your queen.”

  The words reached Tombfyre, and they were clear and precise, as if Takhisis spoke to him from close proximity. He whipped his head around, gaping at the sight of a massive, cloudy shape crowned by five writhing heads of smoke. The heads wailed and twitched, as if the immortal goddess were suffering grievous pain.

  “Speak, my queen, giver and taker of all life!” the red dragon begged.

  He saw the Queen of Darkness herself as she shimmered in the air. Again he felt a moment of soaring hope …

  … but then he sensed the whole truth. A terrible lance had pierced the gut of the five-headed monstrosity, and he understood that more than a battle had been lost. He thought of the silvers who had killed his sire, who had evaded him in the skies to the south, and he cried out in anguished frustration as he watched the dark goddess fade into the skies.

  He knew he should fly, should seek and kill his enemies.

  But he couldn’t move.

  “My chromatic children, you are banished, exiled. It is the price of my survival. You must come with me!”

  The will of the Dark Queen reached him through space, and he saw the awful truth: By oath had Huma freed the Dark Queen, and by that oath was Tombfyre bound as well.

  Takhisis would withdraw from Krynn, and as she had pledged to Huma, a vow made in exchange for her life, she would bear her children away with her, ordering them into exile from the world.
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  But as always the Queen of Darkness sought to work betrayal.

  And as the chromatic dragons were pulled toward the Abyss, Tombfyre was given a lair of comfort and safety deep in the bowels of the world.

  And he felt a destiny of greatness and majesty laid upon his shoulders.

  CHAPTER 35

  FAREWELL TO ANSALON

  (1027 PC)

  A wild elf brave, Ashtaway, reached Lectral only a few hours after the grievously wounded dragon had sounded the ram’s horn. Marked by the spiral tattoos of black ink that had marked his clan since the time of Kagonos, the warrior found the shallow cave in which the silver serpent had sought shelter. Aided by a Kagonesti maid, Hammana, the brave brought venison to the injured dragon, while the healing skills of the elfmaid helped to stanch the bleeding of his worst injuries.

  Slowly, dreamily, he allowed them to tend him, welcomed their ministrations and their company. For a long time, he remained under their care, depending on Ashtaway for food, relying upon Hammana’s poultices to heal his many wounds. Though the brave was often absent, the maid stayed at his side for many days, and the large dragon welcomed her presence. At the same time, Lectral was aware of a deep irony: He had come to save the Kagonesti, and instead it was they who had saved him.

  And in his darker moments, when the two elves left him alone, he acknowledged a deeper truth. He had not flown southward solely to serve the Kagonesti, to fulfill a sense of his own duty. Rather, he had also done so to avoid the painful reality of Heart’s choice, her love for a human. Unaware of the course of the war raging in the north, he remained lost in his own musings, occasionally brightened by the presence of the two wild elves.

  As he watched them together, saw the tenderness in their mutual looks and hesitant touches, perceived their concern for each other and the longing in Hammana’s eyes when Ashtaway was absent. He realized they were in love with each other. He found the knowledge both heartening and sad. The attraction seemed very natural, their joy together almost palpable – and he could only think of Heart. Could she possibly feel this same kind of affection for her knight?

  Over the course of a season or more, his injuries slowly healed, though one rear leg and his wings remained badly damaged, so much so that he still couldn’t fly. Then, late on a warm day, after Hammana had gone back to her village, Lectral heard a rustle of silver wings and saw a familiar snout peering at him from the sunlit woods beyond his shallow cave.

  “Silvara!” he declared, his heart pounding with a joy he had thought vanished forever.

  The silver female padded into the small cave. “I am glad I found you, Honored Elder. I feared for you more than I can say.”

  “And you, Little Sister – you’re a sight more welcome than you can possibly know.”

  “You’re hurt!” she declared, moving forward to inspect the red scars of his wounds.

  “I have been well cared for. I will live and probably even fly again, given time. But now, tell me of the war, the dragons and their lancers in the skies …?”

  “The war is over. The dragons of Takhisis are gone, sent from the world by the Dark Queen herself, in a vow forced upon her by the knight Huma, in exchange for her own life.”

  “Heart was right about him, then. … He is a man of true greatness.” Lectral felt a stab of shame, sharpened by the fact that he couldn’t completely banish a flush of jealousy.

  Silvara lowered her head, and with a growing ache of grief, he suspected the next thing she would have to tell him.

  “And what of Heart?” he asked, barely daring to breathe.

  “The cost of our victory was high. She was slain, perishing at the same time as her knight,” the silver female replied.

  Lectral was silent for a long time. His thoughts churned in a stormy mixture of guilt and grief, wanting to blame the human knight for the death of his nestmate. With another rush of shame, he found that he could not. If anyone was to blame, it was he.

  “Have you heard of the red dragons … of the one called Tombfyre?” Lectral thought of the wicked serpent who had taunted and fought him, and now he trembled in profound rage. If he was unable to save her, at least he could look forward to revenge!

  But Silvara looked at him sadly, as if uncertain that he could understand her words. “Banished like all the others. He has departed from Krynn together with all his evil kin-dragons. But there is more, and that is what brings me to you. I come to tell you that we are departing from Ansalon as well.”

  “We? The silvers?” Lectral was stunned.

  “All of us … all the dragons of Paladine.”

  “But why? Did you not say that the war was won?”

  “It is another part of the oath, so that the people of the world can rule themselves without the interference of mighty beings.”

  She told him of the sacred vow that had taken the Dark Queen and all her dragons from Ansalon, and of the price that the good dragons were to pay as well. They would journey to a place called the Dragon Isles, where they would live out their lives and their generations.

  “These islands are said to be idyllic realms, perfect of clime, with space for all the metal clans.” As she spoke, her eyes turned outward, fixing upon the forests and mountains beyond, and he sensed that, like him, she wasn’t ready to leave all they knew behind.

  “But how can I go? I cannot fly,” he declared.

  “Saytica will bear you, but you must assume the form of a two-legs. She comes tonight.” Silvara told him that Saytica had been a heroine of the war, bearing the knight who had struck down mighty Deathfyre, the leader of the Dark Queen’s wyrms.

  And when the mighty silver female came to him later that night, Lectral was able to shift his body. He chose the shape of the white-bearded sage, the same form that had been favored by Darlantan so many centuries before. Finally Lectral straddled the strong, silver shoulders and rode through the skies on the back of Saytica.

  They passed over the lands vacated by the fleeing armies of Garic Drakan. The mighty silver flier remained silent, sensing the distress of her battered, grieving clan-dragon. All around them were the other silvers, a great airborne armada soaring through the cool air, starlight glimmering from a multitude of reflective wings.

  Lectral looked helplessly, saw the horizon of the High Kharolis passing to the left, but already the snowy skyline of the mountain ridges had vanished into the distance.

  And already, too, it seemed that his once vivid memories of the place were beginning to fade.

  Easy Pickings

  (ca 1021 PC)

  “Caught ’em wit’ the river behind ’em – more better for killin’,” Chaltiford growled, excitement pounding within his barrel-sized chest.

  “Stupid place to ride,” agreed Delmarkiam Slashmaster, Chaltiford’s tribal chief.

  The two ogres stood on a grassy embankment overlooking a river valley. A file of armored riders – Knights of Solamnia – patrolled the near bank, moving steadily downstream. With the vast army of Huma and his dragons rumored to be far to the north, this detachment – better than three score knights – certainly faced terrible danger.

  Though all the war chiefs had advanced to the lip of the promontory, as yet they had not been observed. Chaltiford’s kinsmen, six dozen strong, hunkered down out of sight, as did the other numerous companies of the hulking, brutish humanoids. As the chieftain of a small tribe, Delmarkiam commanded a band of his village mates and cousins.

  “They’ll git too far away,” Chaltiford warned.

  Indeed, Chaltiford’s company needed to strike fast – else the human riders would soon slip out of range.

  “Charge!” bellowed Delmarkiam, never one for long command conferences.

  Twenty chiefs shared approximately the same thought process, and a long, rippling bellow rumbled from the heights alongside the river. Now the knights looked up, immediately wheeling their heavy chargers toward the threat. Chaltiford imagined their fear as a thousand ogres pounded toward them, and the thought pie
rced him with a chill of pleasure.

  The dozen clans of ogres, all united under the banner of the Dark Queen, pressed forward. For brief minutes – the time it took to charge a half mile – Chalt relished one of the most glorious episodes in his long and violent life. The hulking brutes, charging line abreast, made the very ground rumble beneath their awesome onslaught!

  Before them, the small company of heavily armored knights wheeled their horses in a tight circle, but they were not able to protect their flanks. And the river behind them, too deep to ford, effectively blocked their retreat.

  A great stallion reared before Chaltiford, and he smashed at it with his club, breaking the steed’s leg. The rider’s sword slashed downward, biting the ogre’s wrist, but Delmarkiam Slashmaster thrust his stone-tipped blade between Chaltiford and the knight.

  The human grunted, wounded in the belly, and Chaltiford’s club rose again, sweeping the luckless fellow from his horse. Eight or ten ogres crowded near to eagerly administer the final blows, while Delmarkiam slit the horse’s throat as an afterthought.

  Raising his bloody club, Chaltiford howled in triumph. His chieftain at his side, the ogre lieutenant lumbered deeper into the fray, pursuing his next victim.

  But the knights resisted with surprising discipline and impressive ferocity. After the first clash they drew their horses tightly together. The ogres tried valiantly, but could not press close enough to drag the insolent humans from their saddles.

  The knights made a series of gutsy countercharges, keeping their brutish opponents off balance. Chaltiford admired their bravery even as he lusted for their blood, but his club remained unwetted by further bloodletting. Howling in frustration, he hurled himself against the wall of bucking horses, falling back with bruises from many an iron-shod hoof.