The Dragons lh-6

by Douglas Niles

  Once he reached the cave, Darlantan sniffed the air, probing for any sign of danger. The shelter was large, with a ceiling arching high overhead. Though it was not deep, it remained dry and sheltered from the weather and was large enough that the silver dragon could have assumed his normal form if he had desired to do so. Yet he was content to remain in his two-legged guise.

  The shadows were thick, but his golden eyes penetrated the darkness with ease, determining that the place was empty. Retaining his body in the shape of the bearded human elder, Darlantan advanced into the cave, shuffling through the dark recesses, insuring that nothing unsuspected lurked in concealment. Crouching beside a pile of dried wood that had apparently remained undisturbed since his last visit, the ancient dragon used his dexterous fingers to find the shard of flint and the steel knife blade that Kagonos had left here. With a few quick strikes, Dar started a fire-not because he was cold, but because he knew that Kagonos, when he came, would appreciate the warmth.

  Flames crackled from the tinder, rising with cheery warmth and brightness, spreading light throughout the stone-walled shelter. For some time, Darlantan amused himself by watching his own human-shaped shadow cavort and gesture on the smooth stone of the cave wall. Finally he heard the almost silent sound of a footfall along the trail that ran along the ravine floor, and Darlantan looked up to see the wild elf jog into view. Kagonos bore the long-hafted axe that was his favored weapon, the ram’s horn on its thong of leather, and was garbed in a supple breechcloth of doeskin. Otherwise he was naked, unadorned except for the elaborate designs of ink streaked across his chest, cheeks, and forehead.

  He entered the alcove with a nod, squatting before the fire and absorbing the warmth from the small bed of coals. Unlike humans or other short-lived creatures meeting again after a winter’s separation, these two long-lived beings felt no need for conversation to distill the silence of the wilderness. Instead, they sat in worldless fellowship around the heartening blaze.

  After a time, the two friends shared the fresh venison Darlantan had brought, drinking water from a pure spring at the back of the cave. A feeling of kinship grew between them, rising in the air like heat radiating from the coals. With the addition of a few dry sticks, the fire became their balladeer, crackling bold lyrics, then fading into a soft postlude.

  “Word comes by runner from the east.” Kagonos, with his eyes closed, leaned back and laid his head against the rock wall of the little cave. He spoke slowly, reluctant to dispel the serene aura. “The blue dragons attack toward the coast. They fight in support of a large army, so all indications are that they will remain there for some time.”

  “And Crematia?” Darlantan’s calm broke with the mention of his enemy’s name. His voice quivered and his jaw clenched at the thought of the red dragon, who had eluded his best efforts over so many winters.

  Kagonos only shook his head. “Perhaps she has been swallowed by Aurican’s magic gems-the same way those stones ate the souls of the white and green dragons.”

  “Do you know what happened to those gems?” Darlantan asked.

  “Silvanos tells me the griffons carried them deep into the mountains,” Kagonos replied. “There they were buried so they would never be found. And with them are buried two of the Dark Queen’s clans.”

  “It is only to be wished that Crematia could have been trapped as well,” Dar agreed. “But I was with my brother a dozen sunrises ago, and he has seen not so much as a single crimson scale.”

  Still, the wild elf’s words reminded him of something else as well, something more hopeful than he would have believed ten winters earlier. Darlantan reflected on the success that Aurican and he had with the dragongems. The stones possessed a powerful allure, the fundamental essence of magic bestowed by the gods themselves. Aurican had never explained much about the harrowing quest that had brought them to the dragongems, only hinting that the cost might prove to be high.

  Yet the stones of life-trapping had proven to be potent and effective, so long as the evil dragons could be lured close enough for the magic to take effect. To this end, Darlantan and Aurican had devised an effective tactic, one that had served them well in two distinct campaigns. Darlantan had located the wyrms and goaded them into a reckless pursuit. Aurican completed the other portion of the trap, waiting somewhere in ambush, concealed in his elven guise and waiting for his kin-dragon to lead the chromatic serpents to him.

  As the enraged wyrms swept past, Aurican brandished the magical gem and worked the spell of life-trapping. Powerful sorcery exploded in a cyclone of magic, pulling the dragons into the stone. Twice the plan had worked to perfection, and the dragons of white and green had been imprisoned.

  “Any word as to the black dragons?” asked the wild elf.

  “There is some good news,” Dar replied, heartened by the prospects for imminent battle. “They are gathered in the mountains above Blacktusk, and the ogres are already marching against Sylvanos. Aurican is ready with the black dragongem. It is my plan to fly there from here.”

  “Have a care, my friend,” Kagonos urged, his gray eyes serious within the spirals of his war paint.

  “I shall. I am grateful that these serpents of black seem to lack some of the mastery of magic of Crematia and the blues.”

  “I will join you later. Good luck,” said the elf.

  “And to you, as well, my friend.”

  In silence, the white-bearded sage tottered into the darkness. By the time Kagonos had curled up for a few hours’ sleep, silver wings parted the night air, and Darlantan soared toward the foothills and the gathered armies of the ogre Blacktusk and the elvenking Silvanos.

  Before dawn, he passed the low, cratered mountain where Aurican was hidden. Darlantan marked the spot well, but did not fly too closely nor make any attempt to spot the gold dragon, who would undoubtedly be concealed in the body of the elven patriarch.

  By then, the great mass of the ogre army had come into view. The monstrous horde swarmed over the plain like ants crossing a vast field, and even from his lofty vantage, Darlantan was impressed by the speed of their advance. Then he saw tiny forms soaring over the treetops far below and knew that the elven griffonriders were sweeping in to attack. More antlike figures emerged from the forest, and the army of Silvanos took up positions of defense.

  But Darlantan’s eyes were fixed upon higher targets. He couldn’t hear the clash of weaponry, elven steel against ogre bronze, ringing from the melee below. The screams of the wounded and dying, the hoarse bellows of Blacktusk’s subcommanders and the lyrical trumpets of Silvanos’s signalmen-all were carried away by the wind long before they rose to Darlantan’s lofty vantage.

  In any event, Darlantan knew those sounds and their attending violence were only peripherally important. The success or failure of this day would not be measured by elven and ogre dead, but by the results of his and Aurican’s efforts to entrap the dragons of black.

  Then he saw his targets: seven black shapes winging out of the mountains, flying high, but not quite at the lofty altitude of their silver foe. The dragons of the Dark Queen veered along the descending slopes of the foothills, intent upon the battle developing at the edge of the plains. They flew a straight course, in a gentle descent that steadily increased the speed of their approach.

  Darlantan stroked the air, flying his fastest as he curled around to approach the black dragons from the side. He flew in deadly silence, wondering if these arrogant wyrms would allow him the luxury of a surprise attack. Winging onward, he closed the distance, still apparently unobserved.

  Abruptly one of the black dragons looked up and spotted the swiftly diving silver, braying a warning to its six companions. Fully alerted, the formation swerved toward Darlantan, individual black dragons diverging slightly, confronting him with an array of talons and fangs, holding their searing, acidic breath ready for a deadly crossfire.

  It would be death to fly into that vortex of fury. Darlantan could well imagine the corrosive cloud of acid that would rot his
scales and dissolve his wings. Instead, the silver dragon dived straight down, so fast that wind whistled through his mane and battered his body. He veered away from the blacks, daring but one look back to see that they had all swept into the pursuit.

  The distance separating pursuers from pursued was great, and Darlantan allowed himself to relax a little, sweeping along from the force of his momentum alone. He watched the conical mountain where Aurican was waiting grow larger in his view, looming to dominate all the lesser peaks around it. Finally the level flight began to slow him, and his silver wings once again worked through the air, reaching, propelling the shimmering dragon through the skies.

  A stream of acid burned into his left wing with vicious, searing intensity, and Darlantan veered away with a bellow of pain. He strained for more speed, but each wing stroke brought another bolt of agony shooting into his side. In disbelief, he turned to see one of the black dragons curving away with startling agility and speed, whipping through a tight, curling turn to make another pass at him. While its fellows remained well back, the leading wyrm had somehow far outdistanced the others.

  Darlantan noticed the quick, almost fluttering motion of the dragon’s wings as it swerved away, cautious of the now-alerted silver. When the black made a quick loop, darting in to resume the attack, he understood: The black serpent was hastened by magic. The wyrm’s speed was so great, its maneuvers so quick and nimble, that it seemed more like a bat or a bee than a great dragon.

  Spewing a swath of freezing breath into the air, Darlantan forced the black to veer aside, but was unable to damage his enemy. With renewed determination, the silver dragon turned toward his mountaintop goal, wings straining, trying to build up speed against the sorcerously quickened pursuit of his foe. He ignored the pain in his scarred wing, using the injured flap to pull himself forward.

  Then the rim of the high crater was approaching. Climbing gently, Darlantan pulled himself over the top, briefly spotting a tall elf who faced the pursuing dragons with a large gem of black clutched in his hands. Aurican was ready, and Dar would bring him his victims.

  The silver dragon felt the pulse of magic as the first of the blacks, the magically hastened serpent, was swallowed by the powerful essence of the stone. The monster simply vanished from the air, the sound of a whirling vortex roaring through the crater of the lofty mountain. The rest of the midnight-dark dragons swept onward, bellowing in rage at the disappearance of their fellow.

  A blast of magic swirled through the caldera, much stronger this time as Aurican’s spell captured the spiritual force of six black dragons. Spray rose from the wet snowfields as the wind focused, whirling, rising into a raging funnel cloud. Aurican stood, his feet firmly planted, holding up the gem as the wind curled and blustered.

  Abruptly Darlantan saw a flash of crimson, like a slash of living flame in the sky, and he knew that Crematia had arrived. The red was poised above the circular crater, and the silver dragon saw her tuck her wings and arrow toward Aurican-who had his back to the scarlet horror, his full attention still riveted upon the black stone pulsing in his hands. She rushed downward, jaws gaping, foreclaws outstretched.

  “Beware!” cried Darlantan, veering through a sharp turn. Aurican still took no notice; his concentration was focused upon the swirling storm and the enchanted gem.

  Crematia swept lower, jaws gaping as she approached the figure of the elf, but suddenly she noticed the silver form racing toward her from the side. At the same moment, the whirlwind of sound rose to a thunder, echoing and roaring through the crater, casting a cloud of debris through the air. The red dragon banked away as the swelling crescendo of magic roared in Darlantan’s ears.

  And Crematia disappeared, vanished as abruptly as the seven black dragons. The power of the dragongem was a surging wave in the bowl of the valley, a resonant force echoing with sorcery, magic potent enough to swallow the black dragons… and apparently Crematia as well.

  The vortex of the cloud swept up the steep slope of the crater, finally rising to whirl around Aurican. The buffeting of the storm was tremendous, but still the elven figure didn’t budge.

  And then the wind was gone, snuffed out like a small candle by the pure magic of the dragongem. Aurican held the black stone in his hands, smiling at the silver serpent who wheeled overhead. The skies were clear of chromatic dragons.

  “Now,” Aurican shouted, his tone swelling with exultation, “bring me the blues!”

  Chapter 13

  Blues in Battle

  3357 PC

  Campaigns raged across the face of Ansalon, scoring bloody scars over each summer season. During the colder times, the vast armies rested, recouped, and prepared for the upcoming offensives. The tide of battle flowed over the plains of Vingaard, lapped at the foothills of the mountain ranges flanking that great flatland, and washed deep into lands that had once been hallowed forests.

  However, with three clans of evil dragonkind imprisoned in the stones of life-trapping and Crematia nowhere to be seen, the blue wyrms had become more cautious. They still sent their lightning against helpless mortals on the ground, but no longer did they join in the great campaigns of Blacktusk’s-and later his heir, Talonian’s-vast army. Thus the elves of Silvanos and the elven leader’s human allies were able to gradually drive back the evil force’s most aggressive spearheads.

  Crematia, by all reports, had disappeared at the time of the ambush of the black dragons, and Aurican had quietly voiced the hope that she had somehow been entrapped with her inky cousins. Still, the gems had been specifically forged for a particular kind of dragon, and in darker moments, the gold dragon speculated that the red female had simply teleported away to spare herself from Darlantan’s attack. Thus, she could be biding her time, waiting for her revenge.

  Yet finally, after a campaign of more than a hundred winters, victory lay within the grasp of Aurican, Darlantan, and their elven and human allies. Only the blue serpents remained, and the silver and gold had patiently awaited a chance to trap them within the remaining dragongem, the enchanted stone of blue.

  Until that stone was stolen.

  For once, the ogres used cunning instead of brute force. Bribed by great treasures, some humans had betrayed the rest of their kind, enabling the ogres to penetrate the heart of the army camp where the bluestone was being held for safekeeping. The monsters had made off with the orb, carrying the precious treasure somewhere into the Khalkists.

  Now the army of elves and humans was encamped across a vast plain, several days’ march from the forest that had been their only protection in the days before the dragongems. Silvanos and his human allies had taken this position with audacity, in a blatant attempt to lure Talonian into a final battle-a contest that would almost certainly decide the outcome of the war.

  Beside that position rose a single, steep-sided mountain, and it was atop this peak that two long, serpentine forms sprawled with regal ease. Starlight reflected from glittering scales of silver, rippled along sleek wings of gold, as the ancient nestmates overlooked the flatland and its burden of twin armies.

  The blot of Talonian’s horde lay to the north, a dark stain on the dark land. Moving hastily, camping without fires, the ogre chieftain had brought his troops on a brutal forced march, so desperate was he to meet the elves while the enchanted gem was unavailable to them. Now that massive swarm was encamped along the northern horizon, and even in the darkness, the two dragons could smell the stench of many thousand ogres, a bitter and acrid blight on the night wind.

  On the plain below, sprawling for as far as they could see, were the innumerable sparkling cookfires of the human and elven force. Pickets were placed and the formations were encamped in company order, ready to fall into line in the morning. From the mountaintop, the glittering specks marking Silvanos’s massive army stretched almost to the far horizon.

  “Or is it even Silvanos’s army anymore?” mused Aurican pensively. “He tells me there are ten humans for every elf in his ranks.”

  “That
is good for the elves, then,” Darlantan noted dryly, “for the humans will likely do ten times as much dying.”

  “Indeed,” Auri agreed sagely, missing the irony his nestmate had intended.

  Even to Darlantan humans, were short-lived and reckless beings, lacking the dignity and wisdom inherent in elves. Yet increasingly the silver dragon had discovered that he not only found humans to be fascinating, but that he also actually enjoyed their company. Perhaps because of the memories and legends of the benefactor Smelt, the humans had welcomed the assistance of the silver serpent with enthusiasm and gratitude, and Darlantan had been eager to help when he could. He had walked among humans many times during more recent years, finding a peculiar and enervating excitement in the chaotic tangles of their messy, disorganized cities. Many men seemed to be industrious and unpredictable folk, and though he couldn’t explain his reaction, the silver dragon had long ago realized that he was fascinated by them. He also wanted to protect them, insofar as it was possible, from the depredations of the Dark Queen’s wyrms.

  “Tell me,” Aurican asked, interrupting his kin-dragon’s musings, “has the wild elf heard any word about the bluestone?”

  “The news is hopeful. Kagonos has located it, and has a chance of returning it to Silvanos. Unless he can do so-until he does, in any event-it will be up to us to stand against the Dark Queen’s blues.”

  “It is fitting enough, if only to get the war over with,” Aurican said with a sigh. “There are ballads to compose, lyrics to record… too many things that have been put aside for this priority of violence.”

  “And nestlings,” said Darlantan, with a regretful sigh of his own. Increasingly he had been thinking about those silver eggs in the grotto. Long ago he had resolved that as soon as the war was won, he would return to that sacred cavern. He even entertained hopes of being present to see the wyrmlings crawl forth from their eggs, but of course that would depend on many things that were beyond the ability of even an ancient dragon to control.