Kagonesti lh-1

by Douglas Niles

  "She doesn't actually live there, of course-nor anywhere else on Krynn. But it's rumored that her serpents have their lairs in the volcanoes around the city, and that's where she's assembled the supply depots to run the war."

  Ashtaway was intrigued, remembering what the knight had said earlier. Lectral's speculations in the cave, which had centered around the importance of Sanction to the Dark Queen, came vividly back to him. "And while her dragons are in the west, menacing Palanthas, you seek to find a way to strike at Sanction? To cripple her village while her warriors are out on the hunt?"

  "In a manner of speaking." There might have been a trace of amusement in Sir Kamford's voice, but it seemed as though he was making a conscious effort, now, to mimic the serene expressions of the Kagonesti. "Of course, the central plains are too dangerous. Any party of knights caught by dragons, miles away from shelter, would be doomed. And if we tried to march directly, there's no doubt that we would be caught."

  "So you were planning to attack along an indirect route?" Ashtaway surprised himself again, this time by speaking so abruptly on the tail of his companion's words. He could sense Faltath staring at him in disbelief, but he was very curious-and a little awed-by the human's audacity.

  'The company you saw last week? No, we were just a scouting party. The Lord Knights won't even consider launching an attack unless we could return with word of a route through the mountains."

  The elven warrior nodded.

  "My party had been scouting since the snow melted in the lower valleys. Unfortunately, every time we found a promising path, we ended up in some box canyon or confronted by a ring of tall peaks. Places even a man couldn't go, to say nothing of our horses."

  "You would take your horses to this battle?"

  "A knight without his horse is like… is like one of you without his legs," Sir Kamford said seriously. "Yes, we would ride our horses into battle. The Knights of Solam- nla, in charge rank, are a force to make even ogres quail."

  The Kagonesti remembered the small company battling against the red dragons, and he had no doubt that Sir Kamford spoke the truth.

  "Yet the charge against Sanction, it seems, will never be made," the knight declared sadly. "Even if I live to return to Solanthus, I will not be able to offer the lords any hope. There was no route in the mountains, and across the plains lies only death."

  Ashtaway nodded solemnly, as if in sympathy with the human's despair. It was a warrior's tragedy: brave men on a desperate mission, slain by crimson death on wing. This lone survivor, a valiant knight to be sure, the only one left to carry the tale of failure.

  At the same time, the elf's mind churned with a knowledge that he suspected he would not be able to contain. Should he speak? There was really no choice involved.

  'There is, possibly, another way," Ashtaway said deliberately. "Perhaps… even a way that the tribe could remain beside the Bluelake, to live here in safety."

  Even the human remained silent, waiting for him to continue. Ash took a long time to think, collecting his thoughts before he spoke.

  "There is a route through the Khalkists, leading up from the south. It is a narrow pass that winds high among the peaks, but I believe it would be passable even for horses."

  "A route that leads to Sanction?" asked Sir Kamford tautly, after a barely respectable pause.

  "I have seen the Three Smoking Mountains from the crest of the pass, and looked down upon the city in the valley of fire beyond."

  "The Lords of Doom! So there is-there might be-a way! Tell me, where is this pass? How can I find it?"

  "I doubt that you could," Ashtaway said, without rancor. "I discovered the place myself only by accident, after many seasons of hunting in the high mountains."

  For a moment, the Kagonesti paused. He felt a sense of portent, and knew what he was about to say even before he articulated the words. At the same time, he realized that his tribemates would react with shock and dismay- yet Ashtaway could not, would not pull back from his decision.

  "I will show you the pass," he said quietly. "You must return to Solamnia and gather your force of knights. I will lead you through the mountains, so that you may strike at the Dark Queen's village."

  "What treachery is this?" demanded Faltath, his face taut behind the whorls of his tattoos. "You would lead a force of humans through the heart of our woodlands?" The elf's fist closed around the hilt of his sword, and for a moment Ash wondered if his old friend would draw his weapon and violate the protection extended to the human.

  "We aren't coming to invade!" declared Sir Kamford.

  Faltath raised his hand from the hilt of his sword and crossed his arms firmly over his chest. "Do you mean that we should welcome humans into these forests?" he demanded, his tone edging on mockery.

  "Perhaps you would prefer to welcome red dragons, or ogres, into the woodlands," suggested Ashtaway tightly. He felt his own temper rising. Why couldn't Faltath understand?

  "That's just the point!" Sir Kamford's voice was full of persuasive enthusiasm, though it sounded harsh and strident to the elven ears. Still, their attention was bound by the force of his conviction. "I can't promise that if we strike at Sanction, we'll win the war. Indeed, 1 suspect the issue will be decided in the west, dragon against dragon, in the skies over Solamnia. But our attack can weaken the Dark Queen's army just when it is most in need of strength!

  "And make no mistake, my elven friends." Now the knight's tone dropped to an ominous timbre so portentous that none of the Kagonesti reacted to his categorization of them. "The victor in this war will have strong bearing on the future of Krynn-for all races, all peoples. It is an effect that will outlast the lifetime of even the most venerable elf."

  "I have seen the dragons," Ashtaway noted. "If they return, the forests will not be safe for elf or man. Far better to cast our weight before the war is resolved, that the dragons of evil may be defeated."

  He looked at Sir Kamford, and his hazel eyes were flat and cold. "After this war," he added meaningfully, "we can decide what to do about the humans."

  "Fair enough," agreed the armored knight. "I offer my word-I shall describe your contribution to my lords, as well as your desire that we leave you alone. We pass through your realm only because it offers the best-the only-path against the Dark Queen's bastion."

  Ashtaway felt a surge of apprehension. Was he doing the right thing?

  If he made the wrong decision, and the village was attacked again, could they hope for a repeat of their recent good fortune? Or might they be attacked by dragons and ogres as well as by the dimwitted bakali? If so, Ash knew that it might mean the end of the tribe.

  Yet if they left this place, they had no guarantee that they would find another site half as good-perhaps there would not even be woodlands, a range of pastoral forest in which to hunt and live. He knew how quickly humans bred and multiplied, about their insatiable thirst for land. It did not seem inconceivable that during the last thousand years they had claimed great sections of what had once been forest.

  Finally Ashtaway sighed and opened his eyes, which he fixed upon the face of Sir Kamford Willis. "How long will it take you to reach Solamnia and return to the woodland with this army of knights?"

  "Two weeks to walk home, a week to gather the force, and another week to return with riders-and myself back in a saddle. In four weeks, you could show us the way into Sanction."

  "I do not know these 'weeks,'" replied the venerable Kagonesti. "What does this mean in the cycles of Krynn?"

  Sir Kamford frowned in thought, then looked at the dawnlit sky. The sliver of Lunitari, barely past new, had just risen in the east. "When Lunitari grows to fullness, then fades, and then returns as a crescent such as it is now, I shall arrive with my knights."

  "Very well. I will tell you of a place we can meet, in the foothills north of here," Iydaway agreed. "The tribe will remain beside the Bluelake for at least another season. By that time we should know if the menace of evil has been defeated or merely enraged such th
at we will need to flee."

  "Splendid!" declared the knight. "I depart at once!"

  "First, you must stay and eat with us," the young Pathfinder declared. "For it is bad fortune to start a journey on an empty stomach."

  Chapter 15

  A Cycle of lunitari

  The tribe remained at the Bluelake as the early summer advanced. The young Pathfinder suggested that they increase the number of warriors guarding the approaches to the village, and his tribemates welcomed the idea. The knowledge that he could help them pleased Ashtaway, but he missed his uncle greatly, seemingly more with each passing hour.

  Geese had flocked to the shoreline marshes two days after the battle, winging from the south in great, cackling formations. Most of the tribe's hunters went out in search of game, and it seemed that, for the present, lack of food would not be a problem.

  Ashtaway did not accompany the archers on the great stalking. Assured that the tribe would eat well, he left the village, climbing away from the lake and into the wooded foothills. He departed with a strange reluctance, as if he neglected a responsibility. Though he knew that Iydaway-and the earlier Pathfinders-had often vanished into the wilderness for months, even seasons, at a time, Ash felt the spiral horn as a surprisingly heavy weight at his side, an anchor that seemed to hold him close to the tribe. He missed the smiles, the jokes, and the boasts of his fellow warriors. Yet he loped easily through the forest for hour after hour, as cool morning passed into sun-soaked afternoon.

  His mind, freed from battles and choices, dwelled on Lectral-and Hammana. It would be very good to see the dragon again, he knew. As to the elfmaid, he desperately wanted to see her, but because of the horn at his side, he was terribly afraid.

  He reached the glade where, by Lectral's suggestion, he had earlier taken the deer, and was fortunate enough to bring down a young buck with barely an hour's stalking. Slinging the gutted carcass over his shoulders, he contin- ued on, climbing through the cut into the rocky crest, seeing the obsidian cliff rising beyond.

  Shortly before dusk, he approached the sheltered cave where he had left Hammana and Lectral. Slowing to a walk, he followed the same trail on which he had met the elfwoman on their first visit to the silver dragon. Even before she came into sight, a waft of breeze carried Ham- mana's scent to him, and Ash knew that she was in the woods-no doubt gathering more medicinal herbs for her huge patient.

  He found her kneeling in a meadow of columbine and honeysuckle, digging at a stubborn root. So as not to startle her, he coughed gently from the edge of the clearing.

  Hammana leapt to her feet, whirling to face him, looking at once frightened, embarrassed, a little angry, and far more beautiful than his imagination had remembered. Her face flushed as she wiped the dirt from her hands and smoothed the supple doeskin of her skirt.

  "I'm glad to see you again," Ash said, stepping toward her. For a moment, he was the young warrior again, carefree and confident-the Pathfinder's job was a task for someone else, someone wise, like his uncle.

  "I-um-Lectral will be happy that you're back," she stammered, still startled by his sudden appearance. He dared to hope that the blush rising across her cheeks was a sign that their meeting brought her as much joy as it did him.

  "I told your father that you would stay here for a while. I le was worried, but he trusts you."

  "Thank you. Lectral's much better. I think the pouldces have helped a lot."

  "There's not another in all the tribes who could tend him so well," Ash declared.

  "And how fares the village?" she asked, allowing him to fall into step beside her as they started toward Lectral's cave.

  "There was trouble," he admitted. He started to tell her about the bakali, but abruptly she froze, her eyes locked on the spiral hom at his side.

  "No!" she gasped, her face numb with shock. "Iydaway Pathfinder…?"

  "He was killed in the battle. Before he died, he passed on the Ram's Horn-"

  "To you." Hammana completed his statement bluntly, though all the color had washed out of her face. "You are the new Pathfinder of the Kagonesti."

  For the first time since his moments of doubt on the night of Iydaway's death, he wanted to deny the fact, to refuse the calling that had given him the Ram's Horn. Hammana's soft eyes, her serene, vibrant strength, suddenly seemed more precious to him than anything else could possibly be.

  But already she had stiffened, withdrawing a half step from his side, restoring the formal reserve that was the norm between unmarried wild elves of opposite sexes.

  "I am sorry about your uncle," she said quietly.

  He told her of the others who had perished, and of the great victory the tribe had won, thanks to the intervention of Sir Kamford Willis, the human knight. By this time, they had reached the cave, and the great silver head, supported by the serpentine neck, emerged to greet them.

  "Welcome, Pathfinder," Lectral said, his fangs glistening in a crocodilian smile. "I see that you bear the horn of the Grandfather Ram."

  "And dinner as well," Ash said, dropping the buck's carcass outside the cave.

  "You are ever welcome here, but most especially when you come with meat," the dragon noted.

  Hammana sat silently beside a flat rock and began pounding her herbs with a stout stick. Ashtaway wanted to talk to her, but she avoided his eyes with fierce determination. Instead, the young Pathfinder described for Lectral the developments in the village by the Bluelake. He declared his intention to meet the Knights of Solamnia when Lunitari next waxed crescent-and when he said this, Hammana stiffened almost imperceptibly. Ash was heartened by this proof that she did not ignore him entirely.

  "This is a proper and important thing you do," Lectral agreed, nodding sagely. "The knights are good men- among the best-and this Sir Kamford seems to have proved his worth twice over. If you can aid them to strike at Takhisis, you will do a service for all of Ansaion."

  "It seems a strange way to make war," the wild elf admitted. "But if the armies of the Dark Queen cannot subsist without their food and weapons, then it may be that by destroying those we can greatly weaken her troops."

  The silver dragon nodded, grunting contentedly as Hammana changed the dressing over several of his wounds. Ash noticed that the serpent's scales gleamed much brighter now, and his yellow eyes reflected the waning daylight with a pleasant luster.

  "She has helped me very much," Lectral said, slowly. His hooded eyes shifted from the warrior to the woman, as if probing at the tension between them.

  "I have done what I could. He is very strong," she replied, intent on her work.

  "Alas, I'm afraid this old flap is never going to lift me into the air again," Lectral noted with a grunt of disgust. He twitched his left wing, showing that the leathery surface was pitted, scarred, and twisted. "Still, there are things other than flight to keep a dragon happy. Wyrm- lings, for example. Did I ever tell you of Saytica, my daughter?"

  Ash shook his head.

  "She flies in the wing defending Palanthas. I have even heard that she bears a great captain of the knights on her back-one of the lords of the knightly orders."

  "It is a thing to make one proud," Ash agreed, trying to picture the might of an armored knight mounted on one of these great serpents. How could the Dark Queen's forces hope to destroy an army such as that?

  "Alas, there are but few of us," Lectral continued, answering the wild elf's unspoken question. "The reds and whites alone outnumber us, and then there are the blues, the blacks, and the greens. It is a desperate struggle we wage."

  Ashtaway could only agree and silently pray that the dragons of silver could hang on long enough to prevail. He hoped that the strike at Sanction would make a difference.

  But there was another thing on his mind.

  We each bear a Ram's Horn," he said after a respectful silence. "Can you tell me how you came to possess yours?" he asked. 'There have long been legends among us of the second horn, but not since the time of Father Kagonesti has anyone seen it."
>
  It was given to me by my sire, Callak, who got it from Darlantan himself."

  "Are you a Pathfinder of the silver dragons?"

  Lectral chuckled. "We have no such title, really, but you might say that I am the Hornkeeper."

  The dragon drew a deep, pensive breath before he continued. "The silver dragon, Darlantan, is the father of our people, and in his wisdom he saw that even we dragons had weaknesses. He knew that, through the coming centuries, it was important that we have friends, allies, among the peoples of Krynn.

  "Of course, the only of those peoples whose lifetime even begins to approach our own are the elves. Yet Darlantan could see that the House Elves-who have many fine qualities, though you raise your eyebrow in skepticism-would become a potent and aloof society, with little need of alliance. Too, the elves of Silvanesti are ever concerned with their own mastery and would have been difficult partners in any endeavor."

  "And so he came to Father Kagonesti, in the guise of the Grandfather Ram?" Ash wondered, knowing the answer as legend, but awed to hear it from Lectral as truth.

  "Darlantan saw, in your first Pathfinder, that pride, that self-reliance that drew him to the wild elf first as a friend, then as an ally. He bade Kagonos to remain apart from the Silvanesti and laid a heavy mantle on that Elderwild's shoulders. The twin horns of the Grandfather Ram would be the symbol of this bond, and of the Pathfinder's burden.

  "Kagonos bore that burden well, and when the First Dragon War raged across the land, he brought his Elder- wild into the struggle and gave all the people of Krynn a hope for the future.

  "Before Darlantan perished-at the end of that war-he gave the Ram's Horn to his wyrmling, Callak, who protected it for thirteen centuries. It was during this time that the dwarves, with their infernal greed, dug up the magical dragongems and unwittingly released the evil serpents into the world. As an ancient wyrm, Callak passed it to me when I was but a fledgling flyer, and for ten centuries it has been my task to keep it safe. For most of those vears, it was protected deep in our lair, among mountains inaccessible to any land-bound creature."