The History of Krynn: Vol V

by Dragon Lance

  More than one eyebrow was raised at that. Huma did not wait for questions, instead plunging immediately into his thoughts.

  “Buoron, Kaz, milord Avondale. I know that you three will join with me. You know the Dragonlance; you know what it can do. If twenty lances are all that stand between us and defeat by the Dark Queen, then we should thank Paladine we have even those and use them to the utmost.”

  “You should have been a cleric, Huma, for your faith is stronger than any I have ever known.” There was no mockery in Lord Guy’s tone.

  There was a knock on the Grand Master’s chamber door, and one of the Knights of the Rose who made up the ruling knight’s guard entered. “Grand Master, Knight Bennett wishes to speak with you.”

  “I summoned him from the Keep walls some time ago. Where has he been?”

  “He did not say, milord.”

  Lord Oswal glanced at Huma and then nodded slowly. “Allow him to enter.”

  “Milord.” The guard spoke to someone in the hall and then stood at attention. Bennett, looking more like his father than Huma had ever seen him, stalked imperiously into the room. He saluted his uncle deferentially and acknowledged the presence of the others politely, though he stared long and hard at the Ergothian commander.

  “What is it, Bennett?”

  “Unc – Grand Master, I have been studying the Dragonlances.”

  The elder knight’s expression darkened. “Who gave you permission?”

  Some of the imperiousness vanished. “I did it of my own accord. I could not help it, after you spoke to me of it following Huma’s – his disappearance.”

  Bennett looked at Huma as he talked, but the latter could read nothing in the stiff, hawklike features.

  “And?”

  His nephew’s eyes widened, the mask fell away, and both Huma and Lord Oswal were astonished at the wonder that spread over Bennett’s face as he spoke. “They were smooth to the touch – so smooth they must cut the air effortlessly. I’ve never seen a point so sharp, nor a metal so bright – so alive. I’ve heard that many doubt the authenticity of the lances, but I cannot believe but these were sent to us by Paladine, through his chosen champion.”

  For the first time ever, Huma felt a deep respect emanating from the Grand Master’s nephew, and directed at Huma himself.

  Lord Oswal was no less surprised. Kaz snorted quietly in derision, but the look Bennett threw him caused him to stop immediately.

  “I want to be one of them, Grand Master. I counted but twenty and I know not if we will have any more, but I want to be one of them. It is what I have trained for – to give myself in service to the Triumvirate and to Paladine. I will face any test if needed to prove I am worthy.” Bennett exhaled and his shoulders slumped. He had bared himself to all present and now awaited judgment.

  The Grand Master looked from Huma to Avondale and then back to his nephew.

  “Knight Bennett, you are, I see, the son of my brother – my brother before the strain of leadership tore us apart. If you can but remain as you are now, I see in you what many have always believed – that you will be among the first and best in our ranks.” Bennett’s shoulders stiffened in unconcealed pride. Oswal continued, “If you would truly be what we all strive to be, then I ask that you make your example this knight here —” he pointed at a stunned Huma – “for he is the embodiment of our teachings, whether or not he believes it so himself.”

  “Am I then —”

  “You are, and I charge you with a special task. Find others like yourself, from all three Orders and numbering fifteen total, who are willing to believe in the strength and will of Paladine and who will ride the skies with the Dragonlance before them.”

  Bennett nearly stumbled toward the door, then turned to his uncle. Lord Oswal waved him off. The Knight of the Rose departed with haste.

  Bennett did exactly as he was told. He sought volunteers from all three Orders and chose them based on merit and belief, not whether they were loyal to him, as he would have done prior to his father’s death. Among the volunteers were veterans and near-novices. Included by Bennett, surprisingly enough, were three knights who lacked limbs or were permanently disabled, all from the war. Had this been peacetime, Lord Oswal would have given these men work in the Keep, something to keep them active but away from awkward situations. Now, though, every man who could fight was needed. Men who had lost a leg could still ride and swing a sword. One useless arm still meant that the knight could use his other. A Knight of Solamnia did not quit until he was either triumphant or slain. Had they eliminated such men from the ranks, the available forces in the Keep would have been cut by nearly a quarter.

  With the retreat of the Dragonqueen’s forces from the vicinity of the Keep, lines of supply reopened, albeit sporadically. Awaiting their first opportunity, knights in the southern reaches shipped food and raw materials. It was dangerous going, for the ogres and dragons still harried the routes, and some wagons never completed their journey.

  The mountains to the west were ominously quiet, and Huma found himself staring at them, on and off. Magius was still out there, and Huma still felt the desire to attempt some sort of rescue. Waiting in the Keep for whatever Galan Dracos and his mistress plotted next irked him.

  It might have been easier if Gwyneth had been with him, but she had not returned since that one night. Huma had taken to conversing with the silver dragon. They spoke only when alone together, for the presence of the other dragons guarding the Keep – and especially the silver dragon’s two siblings, who watched Huma intently each time he came around – embarrassed him.

  She listened to his every word and answered his questions with such intensity that it was often easy to forget he was speaking with a creature vastly larger and more ancient than he. At the same time, she seemed filled with a sadness that Huma was never able to identify. He pressed her only once on it. When Huma had probed too far, the great dragon had turned and moved away without another word.

  Huma could not explain the reasoning behind the feeling that had surged through him then, but he somehow knew that the sadness which had become so much a part of the leviathan was due to him.

  He was careful never to bring up the point again, for fear of what truth he might discover.

  Three days passed, and then it was as if the heavens themselves had erupted. Knights in the Keep pointed skyward, and the murmuring began. Though they would deny fear, many turned pale as they remembered the last time the sky had looked like this.

  Huma rushed to the battlements, Kaz and Buoron close behind him. Both Huma and the minotaur stared through narrow eyes at the horror before them. Buoron, having come from the southwest outpost, had not been present at that time, but he studied the scene and then turned to his companions, seeing for the first time the looks on their faces.

  Turning pale himself, he asked, “What does it mean? Why is it so black?”

  The rolling darkness, which had nearly lost the war for the knighthood in that earlier battle, spread slowly toward the outermost lines of defense. The winds around the Keep were building to a pitch.

  Chapter 26

  “The Dragonlances! We must fly now!”

  The others were gathering even as Huma and his companions entered the courtyard. Bennett looked to him as an aide might look to his commander. Here, Huma was in charge.

  The dragons were there, also. They had had trouble in choosing who would join with the knights. Unlike the humans, all the dragons volunteered. It was the silver dragon who finally chose, she being most closely associated with the lances. Her choices were not questioned, for each of the volunteers was picked on the basis of past performance and physical endurance. There were silver ones, bronze ones – Bolt being the most vocal of these – and even a gold dragon.

  More than enough saddles had been made and the well-trained knights were already finishing with that part of the preparations. Someone also had thought to secure the footman’s lance to the silver dragon Huma would be riding.

&nb
sp; When all was ready, Huma turned to see everyone waiting. Then he grimaced, realizing that they were awaiting his orders. Even Lord Avondale, who Huma felt was certainly a more qualified flight leader, was deferring to him. Turning forward and assuring himself that all was secure, Huma kicked the silver dragon lightly and gave the signal to depart.

  What an impressive sight, he thought, as he momentarily turned back to look. The twenty dragons made an arrowhead formation with Huma at the point; Kaz and Bolt were to his left, a little farther back, and Buoron was to his right. He could not see Lord Avondale, who was flying to the rear.

  His thought were broken by the visage of the silver dragon as she turned to speak to him. “Huma, I …” He looked ahead, expecting to see the Dragonqueen’s children breaking through the darkness. “Nothing. I – I merely wished to say you may count on me in all things.”

  “I will always be thankful,” he shouted, for the wind was now so great that it roared in his ears, and he could not be sure how well she heard him. She had already turned away.

  It became a battle merely to enter the curtain of blackness that had been raised by the followers of Galan Dracos. The winds were fierce. The riders were strapped down and the Dragonlances were hooked to their mounts for safety. Huma and the silver dragon were the first to enter and it was as if there were no Krynn. Sky and earth were gone. There was only the knight, his dragon, and his lance. No, Huma realized. There was more. Behind him, he could see the glow of the other Dragonlances. At first, Huma worried that they would shine like beacons to the forces of Takhisis. Then he saw how the lances ate away at the darkness, destroying the spell. It did not matter then whether they were seen or not. The darkness ceased to be a threat.

  “We’re through!” the silver dragon shouted.

  The world snapped back into existence. When Huma had wandered on foot, it seemed such an incredible distance, an endless darkness in which things not of this plane chittered and slunk toward their unseeing prey. Now, it seemed like nothing.

  The enemy dragons were upon them.

  The first came at Huma and the silver dragon as they emerged again into the light. One lone rider and dragon must have seemed easy prey for the red dragons, and the two of them turned from their brethren to deal with Huma. The other dragonriders began to emerge behind Huma, though, and the easy prey became the deadly hunter. The two overconfident reds fell swiftly, unable to break away in time. The others, blue, black, and red, came more hesitantly. It seemed to Huma that they attacked only for fear of their own mistress, a fear greater than that of the Dragonlances.

  One of the twenty, Hallerin, a newly appointed but skilled Knight of the Crown, went down, burning from the acidic blast of his foe. The other knights had accounted for four of the enemy and the rest of the dark dragons turned in retreat, deciding to risk the wrath of their mistress.

  Some knights wanted to chase after them, but Huma signaled against that idea by remaining on his present course. Huma’s target was the source of the shifting darkness.

  Several times, they faced onslaughts of creatures of the air. There were dragons of nearly every color. At one point, they clashed with large, birdlike creatures with leonine jaws and three pairs of claws. Another dragonrider was lost to horrors that only could have been the mad creations of Dracos himself. Huma was particularly saddened by this loss, a scarred veteran of the Rose, named Marik Ogrebane. He had been one of the disabled knights and was the first to volunteer. Now only eighteen remained. As they flew, Huma memorized the place and circumstances of each death, hoping to mark the bravery of these men in some way, later on, in song or verse.

  They were close, Huma knew, close to the source of the spell. He could feel it.

  “I spy something, Huma,” said the silver dragon.

  “Where?”

  “Down there to the right.”

  He followed her gaze. There was nothing but a hill, barren but for a few bent and decaying trees, arranged almost in a pattern. It was certainly not what he was anticipating, and he told the silver dragon so.

  She smiled knowingly. “Look not with your eyes, Huma. Look with the wisdom of Paladine. Have you ever seen trees growing in the form of a pentagram?”

  The knight looked again – and realized how precise the pattern was. As he observed, the trees began to waver, as if they were not real. They did not fade, but twisted into brown-robed forms, like the mage who had attacked Huma in the woods in what seemed such a long time ago.

  Now he saw them more precisely. Nearly a dozen figures squatted in the dirt, their heads down, their arms outstretched toward the center of the pentagram, where one of their number stood with arms raised high.

  “Shall we take them? They seem unaware,” Kaz shouted from the side. Bolt eagerly expressed similar sentiments.

  “I want to take them alive if possible.”

  Kaz snorted. “If possible?”

  Bolt plunged ahead – and barely missed being grievously wounded as something rose and shattered the air currents, as if lightning had emanated from the earth. Kaz and Bolt circled for another try and this time, when the attack came, Bolt easily dodged it. A crack of lightning split the heavens and struck the hill. When the smoke cleared, a small crater marked where the figures had been.

  Huma turned at the sound of laughter coming from the silver dragon. “Thus his nickname, Bolt. All bronze dragons are capable of that trick, but only a few have such precision as he has shown, and none are his equal.”

  Their defenses shattered, the renegade mages were suddenly active. They rose as one and turned toward the newcomers. Though Huma could not be sure from this distance, he thought their faces remarkably similar. They all might have been siblings. Then Huma realized what was so similar about each figure. They acted as if under a spell or with such concentration that it had become etched in their faces and movements. They were, in a sense, one being and they were pointing their hands toward Huma and the silver dragon.

  “Dive!” he cried, but she was already doing that. The renegades tried to follow their progress, but the silver dragon wove a complex tapestry of turns and dives. While the mages concentrated on her, the other dragonriders moved closer.

  How long could the renegades keep up this defense and still maintain the darkness? Huma wondered.

  “Huma, beyond!”

  Just over the hill, and marching steadily along, was the ogre army. The land was literally crawling with ogres, their human allies, goblins, and a few unidentifiables – experiments of the mages, no doubt. Things with too many arms, too many legs – even too many heads and trunks.

  The very air ripped apart as he watched, and Huma had a glimpse of a place known to him only in nightmares and prayer. It was only a glimpse, but of a blackness so overwhelming, so ready to devour him, that he knew it could only be the Abyss.

  They had that much strength. They had opened a rift in the mortal plane – and it would swallow him! Huma shook uncontrollably, and even the silver dragon wavered at that sight. The rip seemed to widen, giving them no place to run or hide. It came closer – then the power keeping the rift open crumbled as the renegades fell to the oncoming dragons of light. The mages had reached their limits in concentration; too many things were happening of too great importance. As the dragons attacked, first one, then another, then another, a few of the renegades stood to fight and died on the spot; the rest scattered, the link between them destroyed.

  Behind them, the darkness dissipated. Things screeched in horror at the light. They had been bred in the darkness, perhaps even in the Abyss. Light to them was death. Their forms could not exist without the darkness; they faded away like dew, leaving no trace of their coming or going.

  That would not, however, deter the massive force that marched even now toward the hill where the mages had scattered. The Dragonqueen’s commanders, lacking the imagination and daring of Crynus, were throwing all they had into the first battle.

  The silver dragon turned to Huma again. “They are frightened, Huma. N
ot of us, but of Galan Dracos and the Dragonqueen, I think.”

  “What can we do?”

  “YOU CAN DIE.”

  Behind him, Huma heard shouts and cries from the others. Before him, a figure hovered in mid-air with arms folded, smiling smugly from beneath a brown hood. He was tall, perhaps even taller than Huma, and slim, more like a well-trained knight than the mage he obviously was. Other than his reptilian smile, the floating spellcaster’s face was little more than a shadow.

  “Galan Dracos.” Huma whispered the name to himself, but it was apparent the mage understood, for he cocked his head in acknowledgment of his identity.

  “You are Huma. You look quite different when seen through human eyes. The one failing of the dreadwolves. One sees as they see.”

  Huma could barely restrain himself from ordering the silver dragon to charge the floating figure. Here was the living embodiment of all that was evil.

  Galan Dracos was smiling broadly. “You are wasting your time, good knight. True, those lances are an advantage over the dragons, but you have – pardon, had – only twenty, and there are far too many dragons. See for yourself.” The mage indicated the horizon behind him.

  Huma squinted. A dark mass was coming up over the horizon. At first he thought it to be another spell of darkness. Then he saw that the mass was not one thing, but many large, flying creatures.

  Dragons. The children of Takhisis. Hundreds of them.

  Galan Dracos was still smiling when Huma turned to him. “With my dark lady’s aid, I have summoned them from all over Krynn. Every last one. Black, red, white, green – all the different dragons. They have been flying for days to come here, and they have almost arrived.”

  Twenty lances – eighteen now. Eighteen against hundreds and hundreds of dragons. If only they had more lances …

  “If you surrender now, there might still be a place for you. My mistress has been quite impressed with your ability to survive. If you would be willing to turn your talents to her, she would prove most – grateful.” The renegade smiled. “You’ve really seen only her warrior persona. She has other – talents – of equal wonder.”