Dragons of the Highlord Skies dc-2

by Margaret Weis

  Harald shook his head. “Impossible. I won’t allow it.”

  “We must move closer to the castle,” Elistan explained.

  “That will take you into arrow range. They would use you for target practice.” The chief shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “The gods will keep us safe,” declared Raggart. He gave Harald a shrewd look and added cannily, “You either believe or you don’t believe, Chieftain. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “It is easy to have faith when you are safe and snug in the chieftent,” Elistan added.

  Harald frowned, rubbed his beard and looked from one to the other. The warriors clustered around them, watching their chief, waiting to see what he would do. Laurana was assailed by sudden doubt. This had been her idea, but she never meant for Elistan to place his life at risk. As he said, it was easy to have faith when you were snug and safe. She longed to try to dissuade him. As if reading her thoughts, he glanced over at her and smiled reassuringly. Laurana smiled back, hoping her smile radiated confidence, hoping it didn’t look as shaky as it felt.

  “Lower the ladder,” Harald said at last, reluctantly, grudgingly.

  “I will go with them,” Sturm offered.

  “No you will not,” said Derek. “You will remain with us, Brightblade,” he added in Solamnic. “If this crazy scheme of theirs works, which I doubt, I plan to enter the castle and you will be close by to attend us.”

  Sturm didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do. He was a squire, pledged to serve the knights.

  “You could do nothing to protect us anyway, Sir Knight,” Raggart the Elder told him, “but I thank you for the thought.”

  The cleric of Habakkuk clasped hold of his medallion in one hand and raised his other hand, calling for silence. The warriors hushed. Many bowed their heads.

  “Gods of Light, we come to you as children who ran away from home in anger and now, after years of wandering, lost and alone, we have at last found our way back to your loving care. Be with us now as we go forth in your name, Fisher God, and in your name, Father God, to fight the evil trying to claim the world. Be with our warriors, strengthen their hands, and banish fear from their hearts. Be with us. Grant us your divine blessing.”

  His prayer finished, Raggart walked off. He walked strongly, no longer tottering, and he shoved away the hand of his grandson. The old man walked over to a rope ladder hanging from the rail, and, grasping it with firm hands, climbed down it as nimbly as he had when he was a lad more than seventy years ago. Elistan followed more slowly, being unaccustomed to boats and ladders, but at last both stood safely on the ice.

  The enemy crowded the walls, curious to see what was happening. At the sight of two elders, one clad in long white robes and the other in blue-gray, walking fearlessly toward them, the thanoi began to hoot and snort in derision.

  “Do you send your old women to fight?” one shouted, and raucous laughter went up along the walls, followed immediately by a flurry of arrows.

  Laurana watched in terror, her heart in her throat. The arrows landed all around the clerics. One arrow pierced Elistan’s sleeve. Another stuck in the ice in between Raggart’s feet. The two kept walking, unafraid, their hands clasping their medallions.

  “The archers will find their aim the next time,” said Derek grimly. “I knew this was folly. Come, Brightblade, we must go fetch the two old fools back.”

  “No!” Harald stood barring the way. “They went with my sanction.”

  “Then you must answer for the consequences,” said Derek.

  Another flight off arrows sped from the walls. These missed their targets as well. More arrows fell around Elistan and Raggart, none hit them.

  A warrior started to cheer, but his comrades shushed him. They watched in silence, reverent, awe-struck. The jeering on the walls had ceased, replaced by a rumble of anger and cries of “shoot again!”

  Elistan and Raggart paid no attention to the jeers or the arrows. They came to a halt within the shadow of the castle walls. Lifting their medallions in their hands, they held them high to meet the rays of the morning sun.

  The wind strengthened and shifted, blowing with unusual warmth, bringing with it a hint of spring. Everyone waited tensely, not one sure what was going to happen.

  “They didn’t say the magic words,” Tas whispered, worried.

  Sturm hushed him.

  The bright sun struck first one medallion and then the other. Both blazed with light. The clerics held the medallions steady and the light grew in intensity until those watching had to avert their eyes. Then a single beam of radiant, blazing white light shot from Elistan’s medallion. The beam, strong and powerful, struck the wall of Ice Wall Castle. A moment later, another beam of light, this one blue in color, lanced out from Raggart’s medallion, hitting a different section of wall.

  No one moved or spoke. Many gasped in awe. Everyone stared transfixed, except Derek, who was engrossed in fixing a loose buckle on his sword belt. Sturm started to say something to call his attention to what was happening.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” said Brian quietly. “He won’t look, and even if he did, he wouldn’t see.”

  Elistan’s beam of light burned into the ice on the castle wall, and the ice shuddered. A sound like thunder splintered the air. The ice cracked and sheered off the wall, sliding down to the ground with a dull roaring sound. Where Raggart aimed his beam of holy light, huge chunks of ice broke apart and slid down the wall.

  The two beams shone more brilliantly by the moment as the gods grabbed hold of the sun and hurled it against the walls of ice. The thanoi crowding the battlements had ceased their jeering and were staring down in astonishment. At first they did not recognize their danger. But then one, less thick-headed than the others, saw what was bound to happen if the assault on the icy castle walls continued.

  The archers redoubled their efforts. But the arrows continued to miss their marks, while those that passed inside the beam of holy light vanished in puffs of smoke. The ice cracked and sloughed off, and those watching began to see the stone beneath.

  Elistan shifted his beam of light to strike the ice-covered battlements. Some of the thanoi standing near that blazing light panicked and tried to flee, only to run into those packed in around them. The trapped thanoi shoved the others out the way. Their fellows shoved back. Roars of fear and rage rose into the air and were drowned by another thunderous crack. The ice on the battlements shifted and shook, and with no more ice to support it, the icy battlements cracked and fell with a sound like an avalanche.

  The thanoi, hundreds of them, came down with the ice, their shrieks and bellows terrible to hear. The thanoi standing on the wall Raggart had under assault tried frantically to escape, but their battlement gave a shake and a shiver and collapsed. Ice and thanoi cascaded to the ground.

  The cracks in the ice continued to spread outward, like the web of a demented spider, running around the side of one wall, racing up over the next. Then it seemed as if the entire castle was collapsing, its ice walls sliding and slipping, rumbling and falling. Only the stone tower stood immovable, seeming invulnerable.

  Harald gave an exultant roar, and, waving a gigantic frostreaver over his head, ran toward the side of the boat, bellowing for his men to follow. He did not bother with the ladder, but vaulted over the rail. His warriors poured after him. The warriors on the other ice boats did the same, and soon the entire force was running across the ice, eager to attack any of the enemy who had managed to survive the collapse.

  Derek ordered the knights to wait until the boat was cleared. He leaned over the rail, staring at the castle wall intently, then seemed to find what he was searching for. He ran for the ladder, ordering Sturm, Brian and Aran to follow. Tas did not hear his name included in the order, but he assumed this was simply an oversight. The kender gleefully vaulted over the railing and was soon running happily alongside Derek.

  The knight, without missing a stride, gave the kender a shove that sent hi
m flying. Tasslehoff landed on his belly on the ice, arms and legs akimbo. He did a couple of spins before he slid to a halt and lay there, gasping for breath.

  Sturm turned to go back to see if Tas was all right. Derek snapped an order at him. Sturm seemed about to disobey.

  “I’ll take care of him!” Laurana shouted, hurrying to Tas’s side.

  Sturm looked grim, but he turned to run after the knights.

  Gilthanas had been right. Derek was not going to join the fight. He was angling away from the battle.

  Laurana helped Tas to his feet. The kender was unharmed but extremely indignant.

  “Derek said he didn’t need me! After all the help I’ve been to him! He wouldn’t have known anything about that stupid old orb if it wasn’t for me. Well, we’ll see about that!”

  Before Laurana could catch him, Tas had dashed off.

  “I told you so,” said Gilthanas. He took hold of her, detaining her as she would have gone after Tas.

  “I’m not staying behind,” she said defiantly.

  “I know you’re not,” he said curtly. “I just want to let them get a head start, so they don’t know we’re following.”

  She sighed. Part of her was glad he hadn’t tried to force her to remain behind and another part desperately wished he had. She felt the same dread she had felt when the dragon flew overhead, though she did not know why, for there was no dragon around. She and Gilthanas caught up with Tasslehoff, whose short strides were no match for the long legs of the knights.

  “I’m coming with you,” Tas announced, his breath puffing in the cold air.

  “Good,” said Gilthanas. “You might be useful.”

  “I might?” Tas was pleased, but dubious. “I don’t think I’ve ever been useful before.”

  “Where is Derek going?” Laurana wondered, mystified.

  Derek had been heading for the castle wall, but now he slanted off, leading his small force around a corner to the back of the castle, on the very edge of the glacier.

  Gilthanas squinted his eyes against the bright light to see, then pointed to an area close to the ground. “There! He’s found a way in.”

  The ice had broken away from beneath the wall and, like slicing through the side of honey-comb, the removal of the ice wall laid bare scores of tunnels beneath the castle.

  Derek chose the nearest tunnel and ordered his small force inside.

  Gilthanas and Laurana and Tas held back, waiting for the knights to get far enough ahead so they could safely pursue them. The three were about to enter when they heard heavy footfalls and a gruff voice calling out loudly, “Wait up!”

  Laurana turned to see Flint, slipping and sliding, come running clumsily over the snow.

  “Make haste! We’re going to lose them!” Gilthanas said irritably. Walking soft-footed, he crept inside the tunnel. “Keep behind me,” he ordered his sister, “and take care you don’t hurt yourself with that thing.” He glared at the frostreaver.

  “What are you doing here, doorknob?” Flint demanded, glaring at Tas.

  “Gilthanas says I might be useful,” Tas said importantly.

  “In a pig’s eye!” Flint snorted.

  Doubting herself, feeling she was in the way, Laurana followed. She had to go. Gilthanas was acting strangely. Derek was acting strangely. Neither was himself, and it was all because of this dragon orb.

  She began to hope fervently they never found it.

  14

  The wolf pack. The trap. Laurana’s destiny. nside Sleet’s lair, now empty, the white wolf stood near his master. Though the dragon was gone, her magical snow continued to fall, drifting down around them in large flakes that landed on the wolf’s fur, forming a woolly white blanket. The wolf blinked his eyes free of the snow. The other members of the wolf pack stood or paced around him, ears twitching, pricking, listening. The lead female, mate to the wolf, lifted her nose and sniffed the air. She stiffened.

  The other wolves stopped their pacing, lifted their heads, alert, their attention caught and held. The she-wolf looked over her shoulder at her mate. The male wolf looked at Feal-Thas.

  The winternorn stood unmoving. The snow matted his fur robes, forming a second cloak. He stared down the tunnels, lit with the enchanted light, for he did not want his foes bumbling about in the dark, and he, too, sniffed the air. His ears pricked.

  The ground shook as though with an earthquake. The tunnels creaked and groaned. He could hear above him the screams of the injured and dying-the sounds of battle. The castle was under assault. Feal-Thas didn’t give a damn. Let the gods of Light throw their temper tantrums. Let them melt this place to the ground. It only needed to hold together long enough for him to destroy the thieves who were after his dragon orb.

  The snow stopped falling as Feal-Thas spoke words of magic, chanting a powerful spell. He sang words at the beginning of the chant, but it ended in a howl. The white fur of his robes adhered to his flesh. His nails grew long and curled under, transforming into claws. His jaw jutted forward, his nose lengthened to become a snout. His ears shifted, elongated. His teeth were fangs, sharp and yellow and hungry for blood. He stood on all fours, feeling muscles ripple across his back, feeling the strength in his legs. He reveled in his strength.

  He was a massive wolf, lord of the wolves. He stood head and shoulders over the other wolves of the pack, who slunk around him, staring at him with their red eyes, uncertain, wary, yet prepared to follow where he would lead.

  His senses heightened, Feal-Thas could smell what the other wolves smelled-the scent of humans borne on the frost-crusted air. He could hear the rasping of their breath and their firm footfalls, the clank of a sword, the occasional scrap of conversation, though not much, for they were saving their breath for breathing.

  His trap had worked. They were coming.

  Feal-Thas leaped forward on all fours, muscles bunching, expanding, bunching, expanding. His legs gathered up the ground, pushing off from it, reached out for more. The wind whistled past his ears. The snow stung his eyes. He opened his mouth and sucked in the biting air, and saliva spewed from his lolling tongue. He grinned in ecstasy, reveling in the run, the hunt, and the prospect of the kill.

  Inside the icy tunnel, Derek stopped to consult the map given to him by Raggart the Younger. The tunnels in which they stood had not been here three hundred years ago. The dragon’s lair was on the map, though it had not been named by the ancestor, since dragons had not been seen on Krynn for many centuries. The lair was denoted as a “cave of death” on the map, for the ancestor had seen a great many bones lying about, including several human skulls.

  An abandoned dragon’s lair would be the logical place for Sleet to use as her lair, or so Derek concluded. He knew the general location of the lair from the map and he chose a tunnel that led in that direction. Sunlight lit their way, shining through the ice, turning the tunnel a shimmering blue-green. They had walked only a short distance when they came to a place where their tunnel intersected with two others. Derek gazed, frowning, at his map, not making much sense of it. Aran suddenly jabbed a finger at the icy wall.

  “Look at this!” he exclaimed.

  Arrows had been carved into the ice. One pointed straight up. Another pointed at what appeared to be a crude drawing of a dragon-a stick figure with wings and a tail. The knights investigated the other tunnels and found that each had similar arrows.

  “The arrow pointing straight up must indicate that this tunnel leads up to the castle proper,” guessed Brian.

  “And this tunnel leads to the dragon’s lair,” said Derek in satisfaction.

  “I wonder what that X means,” Aran asked, taking a pull from his flask.

  “And who put these here,” said Sturm.

  Derek shrugged. “None of that matters,” he said, and led the way down the tunnel adorned with the figure of the dragon.

  Gilthanas and Laurana, accompanied by Flint and Tas, shadowed the knights, creeping silently down the icy corridors. They halted when they heard the kn
ights halt and listened to the discussion about the marked tunnels. When the knights continued on, they continued after them.

  The small group moved silently, keeping their distance, and the knights did not hear them. Due to the cold, Flint had been forced to leave his chain mail and plate behind. Though he wore a sturdy leather vest and was wrapped to his eyeballs in layers of leather and fur, he maintained he was naked without his armor. The crunching of his thick boots was the only sound he made, aside from his grumbling.

  Tasslehoff was so charmed by the idea of being useful that he was determined to obey Gilthanas’s orders to be quiet, even though that meant keeping all his interesting observations and questions bottled up inside him until he began to feel like a keg of ginger beer that had been sitting in the sun for too long-he was fizzing and about to explode.

  The knights would sometimes pause to listen, to try to determine if any enemy was either in front of them or behind. When the knights stopped, Laurana and her group stopped.

  Flint found this puzzling. “Why don’t we just catch up with them now?”

  “Not until Derek leads me to the dragon orb.” The elf’s voice was grim. “Then he’ll find out I’m here-with a vengeance.”

  Flint regarded Gilthanas in astonishment and shifted his worried gaze to Laurana. She gave Flint a pleading look, asking for understanding. Flint walked on, but he no longer grumbled, a certain sign he was upset.

  The four continued to pursue the knights through the maze of tunnels. They passed the chamber where Feal-Thas had kept the dragon orb and its magical monstrous guardian. The knights noticed the chamber, but went on by, although they could hear Aran stating he’d found an X on the wall. At this, Gilthanas, who had also noticed the Xs on the walls, took a moment to investigate. Laurana went with him, leaving Flint and Tasslehoff to stand guard outside.

  Laurana stared in shuddering horror at the bones, severed limbs and blood frozen in the snow.

  “Look at that pedestal,” said Gilthanas triumphantly, pointing. “It was made to hold the dragon orb. Look at these runes. They speak of the orb and how it was created. That explains the carnage,” he added, looking about at the blood and gore. “We’re not the first to come in search of it.”