Thelvyn immediately sensed that this meeting was probably more important than a simple challenge by the sentries guarding the borders of the Highlands. Kharendaen followed him as he slowed and began circling in a wide arc as he waited just beyond the dark wall of the sheer mountainside. As the dragons came nearer, he was surprised to recognize them as Marthaen and Jherdar.
"Dragonking!" Marthaen called out to him as they pulled alongside him in a slow glide. Jherdar looked vaguely dissatisfied, as if he were uncomfortable with the use of Thelvyn's title.
"Find a place where we can spend the night in peace. We have something to explain to you," Thelvyn responded.
They made camp for the night in a narrow, forested valley deep behind the fold of one of the lower ridges of the Colossus Mountains, where the light of their fires would be hidden from the farmlands to the west. Marthaen instructed his bodyguards, a collection of gold and red dragons, to go hunt for their dinner. Once they were alone, Kharendaen quickly explained about their conversation with the Great One and what they had learned so far in their search for the collar. She remained silent about the matter of Thelvyn's hidden parentage, knowing that Jherdar would be upset to hear such a thing.
"A black renegade king with a gold ring in his ear. ." Jherdar repeated slowly to himself, searching his memory. "That does indeed sound familiar."
Marthaen glanced at his old friend, quietly amused. "When the guards we had left in these mountains reported that you were on your way to Silvermist, and that you went into the Highlands the next night, we thought that we should look into the matter to see if we could be of any assistance."
"You have saved us a long journey to Windreach," Kharendaen told him. "We were on our way there to consult with you about this mystery."
"A gold earring," Jherdar repeated to himself, his neck bent in a stiff arch so that he was staring at the ground as he struggled to remember. Suddenly he lifted his head, his ears laid back. "Yes, I know of such a dragon. The black dragon in question is Murodhir, an especially nasty sort, although calling him a renegade king is flattering him. The last I heard, he had only two or three dragon cohorts, although Thelvyn probably killed one of them last year. He also has a few goblin retainers. His true strength is in his command of magic, since he hardly has much else going for him. Murodhir lives somewhere along the north shore of Lake Amsorak, on the southeastern border of the Highlands."
"Murodhir?" Sir George asked incredulously. "Why, he's the bane of every drake in Darokin and Traladara."
"Then he must be good for something," Marthaen declared, impatient with the old knight. "If you knew about Murodhir, then why were you looking for the dragon who stole the collar everywhere else in the world last year?"
"Because Murodhir is also a monumental coward," Sir George answered defensively. "He fears only one thing-other dragons-but his terror of them is so absolute that I could hardly imagine him going into Windreach after the collar. I'm still not sure I believe it."
"Then perhaps we should discover that for ourselves," Marthaen commented coldly. "I suggest we pay Murodhir a little visit in the morning. Jherdar, would you like to come along?"
"Indeed I would," the red dragon replied eagerly, anticipating the event with delight.
"You would help me?" Thelvyn asked incredulously.
Jherdar stared at him. "I am not enthusiastic about the prospect of having you as the Dragonking, and I will oppose your policies if I do not agree with them. But I am certainly no traitor, and I have no patience for any dragon who would betray his own kind. I want to see the Collar of the Dragons recovered, even if I have to see you wear it."
Thelvyn was careful to hide his amusement over Jherdar's qualified statement of support. But it was more than he had expected from the red dragon he had once defeated in battle as the Dragonlord.
*****
The dragons left the Colossus Mountains well before dawn in order to pass directly over the Highlands with little concern for being seen. If they followed a straight path, the journey to Lake Amsorak was a fairly short one, perhaps three hours for dragons who were rested and eager. They came within sight of Lake Amsorak while the day was still young, and they turned to pass westward along the north shore in search of their quarry.
Amsorak was the largest lake in that part of the world, perhaps in all the world. Its vast proportions almost qualified it as an inland sea, although its waters were fresh, fed by the icy meltwater of the snows from the great range of the Amsorak Mountains to the north. Even though they knew that Murod-hir's lair was somewhere along the north shore, that included a couple of hundred miles of remote territory. And the lair itself was just as likely to be somewhere in the mountains, several miles inland from the lake itself. The lair of a renegade king could be difficult even for another dragon to find.
As it happened, Murodhir's own cohorts betrayed the location of their hidden lair. The dragons were still fairly early in their search when Marthaen's keen eyes suddenly spied a pair of black dragons winging northward as quickly as they could fly, hanging low over the trees along the shore of the Amsorak River as it stretched northward toward the mountains. The blacks had seen the approaching dragons first and were sprinting for the protection of their lair, knowing that they faced an overwhelming force. Immediately Marthaen led the pursuit.
"We'll never catch them before they reach home," Jherdar said, struggling to keep pace with the gold dragons.
"We don't want to catch them yet," Marthaen said. "Let them lead us to their lair. Otherwise we might spend days searching."
The dragons pushed their pace as hard as they could, determined not to lose sight of their prey. Indeed, they were actually gaining slowly on the pair of frightened black dragons, although they were still nearly a mile behind as they came to the foothills of the mountains. Murodhir's lair was less difficult to locate than they had expected. A wide, dark cave opened beneath a broad overhang of moss-covered stone along the western shore, where the river had cut deep as it cascaded down from the heights. A high wall of dark stone, massive but crudely set, had been laid across the lower part of the entrance to the cave, leaving the upper portion open to the approach of dragons.
The two black dragons flew directly into the dark opening, landing quickly and folding away their wings as they turned to crouch behind the wall, raising their heads to peer out. They seemed to offer a poor defense, but they were not alone. A company of goblins began to file out at a run along the top of the wall, most of them still putting on their armor and helmets. There were about a hundred goblins in all, and they were armed with powerful crossbows.
Since Marthaen was still in the lead, he elected to bring their company down into the open field before the cave, landing just out of range of the crossbows. The goblins held their position, waiting. Sir George leaped down from his saddle as soon as Kharendaen settled to the ground, hurrying to get out of the way. The battle seemed hopeless for the defenders. Besides Thelvyn and Kharendaen, both Jherdar and Marthaen had their bodyguard, a dozen more young dragons. Even so, they did not fancy taking on so many crossbows.
Marthaen rose and reached over his back to draw the massive sword he always carried. If the dragons made a sudden charge at the wall, they were unlikely to take any serious harm before they were over it. Then it would be a simple matter to scatter the goblins and capture the two black dragons.
"Wait a moment," Thelvyn said. "Let me try to crack open their fort.Then you can drag them out without any bother."
"I suppose that the Dragonlord has such powers," Jherdar commented.
"Perhaps he does," Thelvyn agreed. "But I think that the time has come for us to see what the Dragonking can do. I need for all of you to be ready to rush in the moment after I
strike."
"When we go in, you wait outside," Marthaen told him. "This is not work for the Dragonking. We will bring the
renegade out to you."
It was all right with Thelvyn not to go into that dark, damp hole, and not beca
use he was afraid. He was determined to scatter the goblins before they had a chance to use their crossbows. The last thing he wanted to see was the barbed bolts of those weapons penetrating Kharendaen's sleek armor. He rose to his hind legs and lifted his arms with his wings half open, reaching within himself for the powers that were his to claim as the child of an Immortal.
His own part in the battle was brief, if spectacular. His form began to glow with a soft light of pure silver as he gathered raw destructive power to himself. Then great, swift spears of lightning shot out from him, eight or ten rapid bolts of power in rapid succession, leaping across the clearing with the sound of thunder. Each bolt struck a separate part of the crude stone wall, progressing along its length in a line as they ripped apart the stone, sending great blocks and jagged splinters of stone flying along with the burned bodies of the defenders.
The last echoes of the lightning were still fading as the dragons leaped forward, crossing the clearing in long, swift bounds. Jherdar raced ahead of his companions in his eagerness for battle, but there was more of a fight waiting for him than he had expected. As he leapt over the ruined wall, he expected to face only a pair of dazed black dragons. Instead, he found himself pulled down by five renegades, who had been waiting for him. They were on top of him before he could begin to fight back. He could feel their claws pulling at his armor and their sharp fangs snapping for a death grip on his neck.
The attackers outnumbered the black dragons, and Jherdar should have had no great cause for alarm, but the tight quarters in the mouth of the cave kept his companions from assisting him. Marthaen climbed up on the highest part of the ruined wall, desperate to help his old friend before the renegades gained a hold on Jherdar's neck. The area just inside the wall was packed with blasted stone. He could barely see occasional glimpses of red armor beneath the tangle of black bodies writing below him. Hardly knowing what else to do, Marthaen arched his back and leapt down into the midst of the battle with the indiscriminate fury of a lightning bolt, crashing down with his greater weight onto the back of one of the black dragons. Not daring to pause, he pushed his way into the middle of the fight, thrusting aside the smaller black dragons to give Jherdar a chance to force his way free.
Two of Jherdar's red dragon bodyguards came over the wall and tore into the renegades furiously. Jherdar pulled free of his attackers a moment later, catching one of the black dragons by t he neck and dragging it down. The three surviving renegades tried to break free to retreat into the shadowed depths of the cavern, and the remaining gold and red dragons began leaping over the shattered wall to pursue them. Marthaen paused, feeling odd points of pressure against the armor of his legs and belly. Glancing down, he was almost amused to see a small army of goblins swarming over him, trying to slip their swords and spears inside the joints of his armor. He responded by spinning quickly, his long tail scattering the goblins like vermin.
The attack was essentially over a few moments later. Marthaen followed the others into the depths of the cavern, leaving a couple of his bodyguards to chase down the surviving goblins. The bodies of two of the renegades were tossed out of the cavern a short time later, their necks broken.
But the two elder dragons did not come out, having unfinished business of their own deeper within the cave. Thelvyn hoped that they would remember how treacherous a renegade king could be in his own lair. He folded away his wings and approached the smoking, dusty ruins. Kharendaen hurried to join him. The bodyguards were already clearing away some of the wreckage, pushing the broken stones aside so that they could haul the bodies of the black dragons out into the open. Marthaen returned from the depths of the cave a few minutes later. Jherdar followed more slowly, pulling the renegade king out of his own lair by the tail. Murodhir was bleeding slowly from his ears.
"That was quite an impressive show," Jherdar said to Thelvyn as he dragged the renegade out into the clearing and released his tail. The black dragon lay limp and panting in the trampled grass.
"We seem to have made an impression on Murodhir,"
Thelvyn said as he approached and sat back on his haunches so that he could take the renegade by one horn, lifting his head. "Good day, Murodhir. You don't mind us just dropping in like this, do you? We want to have a little chat about the Collar of the Dragons."
Murodhir began to take a deep breath, but Thelvyn was too quick for him, clamping shut his snout. Black dragons breathed deadly acid rather than flame like the larger breeds, although the acid was usually an ineffective weapon against other dragons. Nevertheless, Thelvyn would have suffered grave harm if he had caught it in the face at such close range.
"Come on, now. Breathe out," Thelvyn told the renegade firmly, knowing that black dragons lacked the ability to use their breath weapons through their nostrils. "Do you want me to make Jherdar sit on you?"
Murodhir relaxed. "What difference is that to me? I don't expect you will allow me to live."
"You already owe me for the grave injury you did to my friend Solveig White-Gold," Thelvyn said. "But what happens to you depends upon what you decide. You can answer my questions now, or you can go back to Windreach to answer to the dragons for the theft of the collar."
The black dragon fell silent and began to quiver in fear. The worst of all possible fates he faced at that moment was being taken to Windreach to stand trial. The dragons would be especially inventive in punishing the greatest traitor their race had known in a long time.
"The question is really quite simple," Thelvyn continued, having given Murodhir a moment to think about his options. "Were you the one who stole the Collar of the Dragons for the Fire Wizards? Yes or no?"
Murodhir sighed loudly. "I knew the Fire Wizards from the time when they first came into the Highlands over a hundred years ago. They had always paid me well for information, especially about the dragons. Kalestraan proposed a bargain by which I would help him to gain the power he desired to rule the human races, and in return he would give me the power to rule over the dragons. He said that he would make it possible for me to steal the Collar of the Dragons and defeat the Dragonlord.
1'hen, when he was done with the collar, he would give it back to me so that I could proclaim myself Dragonking."
"Then you were the one who told him where the Collar of the Dragons was kept?" Thelvyn insisted.
"No. He knew that already," the renegade insisted. "He gave me an artifact of magic that allowed me to safely pass through the barriers that guarded the collar."
"Then you don't know how Kalestraan knew of the collar and its location? He did not learn of it from you?" Thelvyn asked.
"No, I swear that," Murodhir responded earnestly. "I brought the collar to him in the woods near the city of Braas-tar. That was the last I saw or heard of it. Some months later, he sent word of the day and the time when I was to attack the Dragonlord, but the attack did not go well. He hadn't warned me that you commanded magic other than the enchantments of the armor."
"Do you have any idea what Kalestraan did with the collar?" Thelvyn insisted.
"No. I tried to learn, so that I could still claim the collar for my own if Kalestraan tried to trick me. All I know is that I placed the collar in the back of a wagon. The wizards covered it over with a canvas and drove off into the night. I tried to watch, but after they had gone a mile or so, there was a flash of light beneath the trees and I never saw them again."
"Well, at least that's something," Thelvyn said. "You can take us to that place, I trust?"
Without warning, Murodhir suddenly panicked, as if something the others did not understand had filled him with terror. He began to twist around violently, trying to get his legs beneath him so that he could pull away, except that Thelvyn was still holding him by the horns. Realizing he couldn't get away, the renegade seemed to lose all sanity and became a snarling, thrashing beast. Unable to pull back from his captor, he abruptly thrust himself forward.
Thelvyn was not caught entirely by surprise, but he was in an awkward position. Sitting up
on his haunches, he was unable to keep his balance as the weight of the black dragon was suddenly thrown against him. He crashed heavily on his back, and Murodhir was on him in the next instant, the sharp fangs of the renegade snapping inches from his throat. Moved by an instinct to defend himself at any cost, he pulled Murod-hir's head to the left, since he was still holding the renegade's horn by that hand. With an effort, he reached around with his right hand until he was able to get a firm grasp of Murodhir's other horn, then twisted sharply. The renegade king instantly collapsed and went limp, his neck broken.
"A pity you had to kill him," Marthaen said as he pulled away the body of the black dragon so that Thelvyn could climb free. "I don't know if we can find the place where the Fire Wizards took the collar without him."
"I'm not sure that's really important," Thelvyn said. "If there were anything in the woods outside Braastar for us to discover, Murodhir would have found it long ago. If he had any idea where the collar is, he would have stolen it for himself after Kalestraan died last summer."
"That's true," Jherdar agreed, looking discouraged. "So now what?"
"First, we're going to search every inch of Murodhir's lair," Thelvyn replied. "We know that the Fire Wizards were paying him something for all his little chores and errands. Something they gave him might provide some clue about where to look for their hidden stronghold. Frankly, I was hoping that Murodhir had been in contact with the surviving traitor wizards since Kalestraan's death and would know where they were. But I believe that he was frightened enough to tell us all he knew."
"And what if you find nothing here?" Marthaen asked.
"Then we go back to Braejr," Sir George said as he joined them. "Alessa Vyledaar is still working on the problem. She might have learned something by now."
CHAPTER THREE
On the southern coast of the small continent of Alphatia, by the temperate waters of the Bellisarian Sea, stood the city of Archport. As its name suggests, Archport was a busy commercial port serving the trade between the great island of Bellisaria to the east, the Isle of Dawn to the west, and the scattering of lesser islands to the south. Large merchant ships from many nations could always be seen tied to the piers or anchored at wait in the harbor, ships from as far away as the sea kingdom of Ierendi far to the west or the wild and little-known continent of Skothar in the distant east.
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