The History of Krynn: Vol IV

by Dragon Lance

  “Go!” Kith-Kanan urged Greenhands. “Save yourself!”

  “I will stay and help you, “he resolved. “I am strong.”

  The wyvern rushed the Speaker. Kith-Kanan backpedaled, slashing his sword back and forth to ward off the monster. From the side, Greenhands pried loose a paving stone in the floor and hurled it with all his might. The monster roared and hissed like a hundred boiling kettles as its left wing went limp. Its tail lashed out and swept Greenhands off his feet. The spearlike tail tip thrust at him, but the elf caught it in his hands and flung it back.

  Kith-Kanan’s sword scored a bloody line down the monster’s torso. The wyvern returned its attention to the Speaker of the Sun. An iron-hard claw caught him in the chest driving all the wind from him. Had he not been wearing armor, every bone in his chest would have been crushed. Kith-Kanan hurtled back. The wyvern’s claw came down, but the Speaker drove his sword straight through the monster’s paw, pushing and pushing until black blood flooded down the blade. The wyvern bellowed in pain and snatched its claw back, taking the Speaker’s sword with it.

  Kith-Kanan shouted at Greenhands that now was the time to flee. Then he himself backed into one of the tunnels. The monster was shaking its injured claw, finally dislodging the sword from it. As the Speaker disappeared into the tunnel, the wyvern snaked its neck down and thrust it into the opening. Kith-Kanan retreated out of reach.

  The wyvern turned on Greenhands, the only remaining target. The green-fingered elf was markedly unafraid, and he dodged nimbly about the chamber, throwing enormous pieces of stone at the monster. From the tunnel, Kith-Kanan shouted over and over for him to abandon the room, to make his escape.

  Greenhands fought on. The power that had made him and given him great strength had also bestowed upon him lightning-fast reflexes and an instinctive knowledge of how to hurt the beast. After one near miss by the wyvern’s snapping beak, Greenhands found himself flat against the curving wall. A torch bracket was by his ear, and he reached up and snapped the black iron holder off the wall. The holder was ringed with iron spikes. With sufficient force, the points could pierce the wyvern’s skull.

  Kith-Kanan saw his newfound son leap at the monster. The wyvern’s tail slashed around, destroying the last few burning torches in the room. Darkness seized the scene, though Kith-Kanan could still hear the sounds of the struggle. Now and then the iron bracket held by Greenhands would scrape on stone, and a fount of red sparks flared.

  The wyvern howled – in pain or victory? Kith-Kanan couldn’t tell. He had taken a step back toward the room when the smell and sound of the monster filled the end of the passage. It hissed at him and began to force its way in. Only its yellow eyes, each as big as the Speaker’s head, shone in the darkness.

  *

  “Try it again! Come on, put your backs into it!”

  Verhanna, Rufus, and the warriors braced themselves against the back of a giant boulder, which they had managed to lever out of the mountainside. The scavenged rope was webbed about the rock, and now they were trying to roll it into the cave opening through which Kemian had heard the Speaker’s voice. The boulder refused to budge more than an inch at a time.

  “Weaklings!” Verhanna stormed, fear for her father manifesting itself in fury. And fear for Greenhands, to whom she owed her life. “You aren’t true Guards of the Sun! The Speaker is in danger!”

  Kemian snapped, “We know that! Do you think —?”

  “Shh! Hear that?” Rufus said, interrupting Lord Ambrodel.

  Strange sounds filtered out from the tunnel opening into the early morning air. They sounded like footsteps. Someone was coming out. The sun was a sliver on the eastern horizon, brightening the scene. Verhanna pushed forward to peer inside.

  A slim figure staggered into view.

  “Ulvian!” she exclaimed.

  “Help!” he gasped. Two elves rushed forward to aid him. They supported him to the boulder and gently let him down. “Dru – he’s become a wyvern! He’s got both parts of the amulet!”

  “Where’s the Speaker?” demanded Kemian.

  Ulvian closed his eyes and let his head sag against the rock. “Isn’t he here?”

  “No.” Verhanna spat. “Neither is Greenhands!”

  Kemian prodded the prince. “You left the Speaker to face a full-grown wyvern?”

  “He told me to leave!”

  The warriors and kender stared down at him. His face was still bruised from his beatings at the hands of the grunt gang, but his limbs were whole. Somewhere in the rear of the band, the word “coward” found voice.

  Verhanna turned to Kemian. “The wind spell must be broken. We don’t need the boulder and rope anymore. Let’s go!”

  “Wait. We can’t just rush in. We must plan our attack!”

  Kemian paused, then added more calmly, “Half will go in, the other half will stay and watch for the Speaker or Greenhands to emerge.”

  All except Ulvian volunteered to be in the contingent that went inside. In the end, Kemian made the choices. The attacking party included himself and Verhanna, who made it plain she was going in whether or not he chose her. She ordered Rufus to remain outside.

  “But why? I haven’t ever seen a wyvern before,” he complained.

  “Because I said so, that’s why. And I pay you.” She glanced at Ulvian, who sat leaning against the boulder, eyes closed. “You can guard Prince Ulvian,” she said contemptuously. “He’s an escaped prisoner, after all.”

  Chagrined, the kender watched half the warriors file into the yawning cave. He shifted from one foot to the other, looking from the tunnel mouth to the remaining elves. They were as anxious as he to be part of the fight, but they stayed where they were, tense and expectant.

  When the last elf entered the tunnel, Rufus could stand it no longer. He sprinted to an adjacent opening and promptly collided with Kith-Kanan. “Your Mightiness!” burst out the kender. “We thought you were monster food!”

  “Not yet, my friend. The beast is about twenty paces behind me.”

  “Yow!”

  The kender darted around the Speaker to get a better look. The morning sun sent a roseate beam down the shaft, lighting the crawling monster’s head and serpentine neck. Its mouth opened and a shrieking hiss reverberated down the passage.

  “So that’s a wyvern,” Rufus said matter-of-factly.

  “You’ll get a much closer view if you don’t get out of the way,” Kith-Kanan stated. Kender and elf moved quickly away.

  Kith-Kanan saw Ulvian scrambling to his feet by the rope-bound boulder. He also spied the unhappy warriors Kemian had left behind.

  “Warriors! Get your weapons! The wyvern is coming!”

  The ten elves ran to their horses and mounted, taking their lances from the conical pile they’d been arranged in. The wyvern’s head snaked out of the cavern opening. It saw Kith-Kanan and hissed in outrage.

  “Go in and fetch Lord Ambrodel,” Kith-Kanan ordered the kender. Rufus saluted and dashed inside a tunnel.

  A warrior brought Kith-Kanan a horse and lance. The tired, battered Speaker climbed into the saddle and couched his lance. The monster’s forelegs were free of the passage and it was wriggling the rest of its body out. The disk of the sun cleared the eastern mountains. The sky was bright blue.

  The lancers charged the monster in ragged formation before it could get its wings, legs, and tail free. The first warriors scored hits on the wyvern’s exposed chest, but it snapped its beak over their lance shafts and tossed the elves aside like dolls. One was thrown over the edge of the plateau, to vanish in the deep gorge below. A second was hurled against Black Stone Peak and slid to the ground dead, his neck broken.

  “For Qualinesti!” Kith-Kanan shouted, charging forward.

  Pushing with its powerful hind legs, the, monster freed its wings. One of the leathery flying limbs hung limp, injured by Greenhands in the chamber; the other swept to and fro, upsetting horses and blinding riders. Kith-Kanan buried his lance in the wyvern’s neck but was
knocked from his horse. Two warriors shielded him from the enraged beast. The wyvern snatched the closest in both foreclaws and shook him as a terrier worries a rat, then hurled his lifeless body to the ground. The other warrior succeeded in driving his lance through the monster’s uninjured wing. The elf let go of the weapon, turned his horse in a fast circle, and offered a hand to the fallen Speaker. Sore but spry, Kith-Kanan mounted behind the warrior.

  The wyvern bled from half a dozen wounds and both its wings were damaged, but its strength hardly seemed diminished by the time it worked its legs free. The warriors drew off a short way on the lower plateau in order to form ranks and charge again. Kith-Kanan took the horse of a fallen fighter.

  “Try to get behind it,” he told the elves. “I’ll try to distract it.” The warriors settled into tight ranks. “Now!”

  They galloped at the beast, then split into two columns and surrounded the wyvern. It lashed out from side to side with its barbed tail, slaying elf and horse alike. The great beast suffered more wounds, but no one came close to piercing its heart. Kith-Kanan dueled furiously with its beaked head, slashing with his sword at the ugly, snapping mouth. At one point, the wyvern caught the crest of his helmet. Kith-Kanan frantically tore at the strap buckle, releasing it before the wyvern could tear his head off.

  “Fall back!” he shouted. “Fall back!”

  Four warriors were able to comply. The other six were either dead or seriously wounded.

  The monster let out a howl and stamped its feet. It flung the bodies of fallen warriors at Kith-Kanan and the survivors, a hideous gesture of contempt. Panting, sweating in the chill mountain air, the warriors clustered around their Speaker.

  “We must kill it!” Kith-Kanan said grimly. “Otherwise its wings will heal, and it will be able to fly away.”

  A sharp whistle caught the Speaker’s ear. He looked up at the peak, toward the source of the sound, and saw Rufus Wrinklecap, Verhanna, and some of the warriors who had entered the cave. They were standing in several higher tunnel mouths, forty feet above the Speaker.

  Verhanna raised a hand, and the warriors in the caves began to shower the beast with stones and debris from inside the peak. The wyvern hissed loudly and leapt at them. Even with numerous lance wounds, it was able to jump three-quarters of the distance to the caves. On the third such leap, the monster dug its four clawed feet into the rocks and clung there. With its injured wings tightly furled against its body, the wyvern started to climb.

  Kith-Kanan’s heart leapt when he spied Greenhands at one of the cave openings. His son lived, praise the gods! In his hands, he held a loop of rope. All the others in the high caves had weapons of some kind, but not Greenhands. What was he up to?

  The Speaker and the remaining elves on horseback sat ready, lances couched. Slowly the beast clawed its way up the peak, its talons leaving gray streaks on the black rock. Loose stones and pieces of Drulethen’s furniture thudded off its head and body from above. Thick, horny eyelids blinked shut every time an object hurtled at the wyvern’s eyes. Sword in hand, Kemian appeared in the tunnel mouth next to Greenhands.

  “The monster will cut them to pieces in those tunnels,” said one of the mounted warriors. “Shouldn’t we go in and help them?”

  “Stand your ground,” Kith-Kanan said sternly. “Lord Ambrodel knows what he’s doing.” In fact, the Speaker was extremely worried, but he had to trust his general’s judgment.

  Greenhands leaned far out of the cave opening, the loop of rope in his hand. The wyvern was only a few feet below, its attention on those hurling debris at it. The others suddenly ceased their attacks and withdrew deeper into their caves. Hissing and howling, the wyvern raised its head to see what they were doing and Greenhands dropped the loop of rope over its head, like a herder roping a wild bull. He and Kemian leaned hard on the rope, and it pulled taut around the monster’s neck. The wyvern flung its head from side to side, trying to break the line. When that failed, it snapped its jaws in a vain attempt to catch the rope in them.

  The beast decided to continue on in the direction it was being pulled. Greenhands and Kemian disappeared inside the tunnel just as the wyvern reached their level. The long, green-black neck snaked into the cave. All at once, the wyvern’s four legs were scrabbling furiously on the peak and at the tunnel mouth, trying to find purchase. Its hideous shrieking cry echoed through the mountains. The massive muscles in its back arched as it tried to pull its head out of the tunnel. Kith-Kanan’s breath caught when he saw blood washing out of the cave.

  The violent scratching of the monster’s limbs continued for a moment, and then it fell. The enormous beast hit the ground, and the impact shook the earth all around. Its legs continued to thrash and claw at nothing, and Kith-Kanan saw why. The wyvern had left its head inside Black Stone Peak.

  They kept away from the raging, headless corpse until its dark blood had all leaked out. Its legs continued to twitch slightly. Kith-Kanan rode forward and drove his lance through the monster’s heart. That put an end once and for all to the wyvern, and it lay unmoving.

  Verhanna emerged with Rufus and the other warriors. Kith-Kanan asked, “Where’s Greenhands? And Lord Ambrodel?”

  “Here!” came the shout from above. Kith-Kanan looked up. Greenhands stood at the high cave entrance. He was covered with blood and held the head of the wyvern in both hands. As everyone watched, he hurled the head to the ground.

  When Greenhands came out of Black Stone Peak, he moved slowly, carrying Lord Ambrodel in his arms. Two warriors came and relieved him of his burden.

  “What happened?” asked Kith-Kanan, rushing to his son’s side.

  “The creature smashed him against the wall,” Greenhands replied softly. “He has something broken....” The green-fingered elf’s legs folded beneath him, and he would have dropped to the ground but for his father’s quick arms.

  Verhanna ran to them. “He breathes,” she reported anxiously. “I think he just passed out.”

  “No wonder,” observed Rufus. “After seeing Lord Kemian cut that monster’s head off!”

  The young general coughed and lifted a feeble hand, “No,” he said in a scratchy voice. “I didn’t kill the monster. He did.”

  *

  The wounded were cared for, and the dead were placed on a funeral pyre. Six young elf warriors had died in the fight, and Lord Ambrodel’s life was hanging in the balance. Rufus bathed Greenhands with a bucket of water and found that, for all the black blood on him, he hadn’t any wounds at all.

  The wyvern’s body was too heavy to move, so they piled what tinder they could find against it where it lay. The broken furniture from inside the peak proved useful, as did the lamp oil. Soon the beast was in the center of a roaring bonfire. As the sun passed its zenith, coils of oily black smoke darkened the sky, spreading an evil smell over the high mountains.

  That deed done, the warriors dropped into an exhausted slumber. Kith-Kanan drew Ulvian and Verhanna a little away from the group.

  “I have some news for you,” he began, feeling a little uncertain how to go on.

  Ulvian tensed. Verhanna glanced at him and then back at the Speaker. “What is it, Father?” she asked, her face serious.

  Kith-Kanan looked toward Greenhands, who’d been sleeping since his battle with the wyvern. A feeling of tenderness warmed the Speaker’s heart. Anaya’s son. This elf was his and Anaya’s son.

  “I suppose there’s no other way to say it than simply to say it,” he said briskly. “Ullie, Hanna... Greenhands is my son.”

  Verhanna’s jaw dropped in shock, but Ulvian’s face remained as still as stone. Only the brightness of his hazel eyes betrayed his surprise.

  “He’s your what?” Verhanna exploded. Kith-Kanan passed a weary hand across his brow. “You deserve the whole story. I know you do. Just now, though, I am weary to the bone,” their father sighed. “Greenhands is the son of my first wife, a Kagonesti. I think the marvels of these last days were signs of his coming.” He put a gentle hand on Ver
hanna’s arm and was surprised to feel her trembling. “I know it’s a shock, Hanna. It was to me, too. I’ll explain everything later, I promise. It’s been an eventful day.”

  With a fond pat on her cheek, the Speaker moved back among the sleeping warriors. He lay down near Greenhands, and in no time he was gently snoring.

  Verhanna was astonished. Her brother! Greenhands was her brotherl All at once, the absurdity of the situation struck her. After not thinking of marriage for centuries, now she chose a mate who turned out to be her own brother! The warrior maiden vented her spleen on a handy boulder, kicking the rock with all her might. All she succeeded in doing was making her foot sore. She simply couldn’t think about this right now. She was worn out from battle and from all the worrying she’d done on behalf of her father and Green – her half-brother. Gods, it was too unbelievable!

  The warrior woman stalked back to camp. At the edge of the sleeping mob, near the unconscious Kemian Ambrodel, she dropped down and slept.

  Ulvian had also been surprised by his father’s announcement. This unknown bumpkin, a son of Kith-Kanan? It was a startling bit of news. But the prince had too many worries of his own to waste much effort wondering how he had come to acquire a half-brother. He, too, lay down to sleep, but sleep was longer in coming. His mind was filled with thoughts of what his immediate future might hold. Some hours later, Prince Ulvian awoke with a start.

  “Who is it?” he said. “Who’s calling?”

  He glanced around. The sun was low in the western sky, and its orange rays showed him the kender nearby. Rufus was curled into a ball, fast asleep, giving vent to his unique, high-pitched snores. The rest of the group also slumbered on. Just above them floated smoke from the funeral pyres, like a cloud of remembered evil. Ulvian grimaced at the smell and wondered how they had all managed to sleep in such a vile place.

  Once more the prince heard the voice. It was soft and low, a feminine voice, he thought. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the largest fire, at the base of the peak. Ulvian rose and walked in that direction. Heat shimmered off the bed of coals. The voice, a faint whisper barely louder than the hiss of the dying flames spoke to him.