Storm Dragon: The Draconic Prophecies - Book One
Page 3
He was free! The thought struck him for the first time. The dawn sky, the dancing flames, the cooking fish—he had not seen and smelled and felt these things in years. He could walk where he pleased, and no one would herd him back to his cell when the sun set. He could—he looked up at the slowly brightening sky—he could bask in a storm, and no one would wrestle him to the ground and shove him back into confinement. A gust of wind brought a salt smell off the sea, and Gaven had a sudden longing to sail again.
“Gaven?”
He turned his gaze back to Haldren. The elf woman had washed and cut the old man’s hair and beard, and he’d put on a new set of clothes—tall boots, warm breeches, a shirt with just a hint of a frill at the collar, a short jacket, and a heavy traveling cloak. He looked twenty years younger. His pale blue eyes were striking, almost hypnotic. Compelling. Gaven found himself nodding.
“What … what do you need to know?”
Haldren sat up and flashed a triumphant smile at Vaskar.
The dragon lowered his head to speak to Gaven again. “The Time of the Dragon Above, Gaven,” he said. “It is beginning. The sun is approaching the center, spring is dawning, and I saw the moon of the Eternal Day waxing in the sky. Irian draws near, and the Storm Dragon is rising. Tell me what you know about the Time of the Dragon Above.”
Gaven recited the words he had spoken to Haldren earlier that night, back in Dreadhold. “When the Eternal Day draws near, when its moon shines full in the night, and the day is at its brightest, the Time of the Dragon Above begins. Showers of light fall upon the City of the Dead, and the Storm Dragon emerges after twice thirteen years.”
“Yes,” Vaskar hissed, “for two cycles of thirteen years I have been withdrawn from the world, and now I have emerged.”
The blond man, Darraun, approached with a wooden plate loaded with fish and some dry bread. He handed it to Gaven. Gaven took a piece of fish in his fingers and put it in his mouth. It tasted even better than it smelled, and he ate with relish.
“What else, Gaven?” Haldren asked. “What is to happen during the Time of the Dragon Above?”
Gaven closed his eyes again and lost himself in a sea of memories—words mingled with images that had haunted his dreams. What is to happen? he thought. So very much. Vaskar wanted to be the Storm Dragon.
One memory surfaced in his mind: his hand traced twisting Draconic letters carved into stone. Was it his hand? Had he been there, or was it the other? Or was this a dream, a figment, and not a memory at all? He opened his eyes and stared at the crackling fire. This is what’s real, he thought. This is what’s now.
Still staring into the flames, he read the words from the carving in his memory, if the memory was his: “In the Time of the Dragon Above, Siberys turns night into day. Showers of light fall from the sky. The Eye of Siberys falls near the City of the Dead.”
Vaskar glanced up at the Ring of Siberys, shining brightly in the night sky. “The City of the Dead,” he murmured. “In Aerenal.”
Haldren looked at Vaskar, then back at Gaven. “The Eye of Siberys, Gaven,” Haldren said, leaning toward him again. “What else can you tell us of the Eye of Siberys?”
New words sprang to his mind almost unbidden. These he had read by firelight—torchlight—and he thought he remembered Rienne at his side as he read them. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her beside him, and it made his heart ache even as rage surged in it. He spat the words out of his mouth—they tasted bitter. “The Eye of Siberys lifts the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor from the land of desolation under the dark of the great moon, and the Storm Dragon walks the paths of the first of sixteen.”
“The Sky Caves of Thieren Kor!” Haldren said, the excitement in his voice undisguised. “They are in the ‘land of desolation,’ Gaven? The Mournland, do you think?”
A nightmare. Gaven remembered waking up in Dreadhold, stumbling to the door, and whispering to Haldren how he had staggered across a land where nothing lived. And then he’d found words to anchor the vision, words with their cold solidity, only hinting at the terror of his dream. He repeated the words, savoring them as a shield from the nightmare. “Desolation spreads over that land like a wildfire, like a plague, and Eberron bears the scar of it for thirteen cycles of the Battleground.”
Haldren furrowed his brow and looked to Vaskar.
“Shavarath, the Battleground, draws near to us every thirty-six years—that is its cycle,” the dragon explained. “So thirteen cycles of the Battleground would be four hundred and sixty-eight years.” He did not pause to perform the calculation.
“Four hundred and sixty-eight years?” Haldren repeated, ignoring the food that Darraun had set before him. “That is how long the Mournland will persist?”
The dragon snorted softly. “If those words refer to the Mournland.”
“It seems the most likely candidate,” Haldren said.
“One can never be certain,” Vaskar responded. “Your century of war is not the only desolation this world has known. You humans are too quick to assume everything in the Prophecy applies to your works. Some dragons would argue that the Prophecy doesn’t even acknowledge your existence, though of course I think they are mistaken. Nevertheless, we will seek the Sky Caves in the Mournland.”
Gaven watched as Haldren and Vaskar dissected the Prophecy, ignoring him now. He was glad for the respite from questions. He stared at the dawn as it reddened the sky.
“But first we need the Eye of Siberys,” Vaskar rumbled. He looked at Gaven again. “The City of the Dead in Aerenal, when Siberys turns night into day.” He turned his beaked snout toward the sky.
Another image flashed in Gaven’s memory, another dream—yellow crystal pulsing with veins of golden light, carved to a point and bound to a blackened branch, plunging into a body that was shadow given twisting form. He shuddered.
“What is it, Gaven?” Haldren had seen the shudder. “What did you see?”
“The Eye of Siberys,” Gaven said. “A dragonshard, a huge one, the size of my hand. Formed into a weapon, a spearhead.” He shook his head, trying to dispel the image from his mind.
Haldren looked up at Vaskar, who lowered his head close to Gaven again.
“A weapon?” the dragon said. “To be used against what foe?”
The endless dark, Gaven thought, where he waits. “The Soul Reaver.”
A look of triumph flashed onto Haldren’s face, and Gaven suddenly understood what was happening. The dragon knew a great deal about the Prophecy already, and he wasn’t sure Gaven was worth the trouble. Haldren had probably used Gaven as a bargaining chip in negotiating his own rescue. And Gaven had just proven his worth, providing their first glimpse of a real hope of victory. Probably they knew the Storm Dragon would have to face the Soul Reaver, but this was the first they had heard of a way to win that fight.
The part of his mind that had kept him alive in Dreadhold reminded him to dole out such valuable insights slowly, to keep himself useful as long as possible.
“So the Eye of Siberys will raise the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor under the dark of the great moon,” Vaskar said. “And it will serve as a weapon against the Soul Reaver.” His eyes narrowed. “Is there anything else?”
Gaven didn’t want to remember any more. He wanted to taste the smoke in the air, savor the fish Darraun had cooked, smell the sea and its freedom, watch the sunrise. Those things were real and present, not vague memories that might not even belong to him. He shook his head.
“That’s enough for now, Gaven,” Haldren said. “You’ve already helped us a great deal.”
Gaven stared at the line of blood spreading across the horizon, trying to see nothing more than a beautiful sunrise.
* * * * *
“What is he?” Senya asked, staring at Gaven. She picked at her fish with her fingers, gingerly placing a small piece in her mouth and sucking the oils off her fingertips.
Darraun watched her with amusement, not sure how to answer her question. “Just a man,” he said.
I wish I knew, Darraun thought. But Senya didn’t need to know the extent of his curiosity. “Vaskar thinks he learned it from another dragon.”
“But why would a dragon teach him?” She tried to take a bite of the hard bread, but couldn’t find a way to do it delicately. She balanced the plate on her knees and used both hands to break the bread into smaller pieces.
Why, indeed? Darraun shrugged, wanting to drop the conversation. To his relief, the warforged lumbered over to stand beside them. “Hello, Cart.”
“Darraun, Senya,” Cart said. “How’s the fish?”
“Delicious,” Senya said, looking back at Darraun as she said it. “Best I’ve ever had on the road.”
“Thank you,” Darraun said with a small bow of his head. “I take pride in my cooking.”
“I hope your wands and scrolls will be as useful when we start fighting,” she said, her face clearly indicating that she doubted they would be.
Cart rubbed his chin, a mannerism he’d certainly learned from a human sergeant during the war. “Are we spending the night here, do you know?” he said. “The general didn’t tell me to set up the tents, but if we’re camping I want to do it before it gets any darker.”
Darraun looked back over at Gaven, Haldren, and the dragon. “I suspect we’ll be moving on tonight,” he said. “Forty miles is still too close to Dreadhold for anyone’s taste, I expect.”
Senya grimaced, looking over her shoulder at the wyverns. “I don’t think I can begin to say how much I dislike those things. I feel like the stinger could stick down into my back at any second.”
“It certainly could,” Darraun said. “I hate the way they bounce with every flap of their wings. But I have a feeling we won’t be flying anymore tonight.”
“What?” Senya said. “You just said—”
“I said we’d be moving on. Not flying.”
* * * * *
Gaven enjoyed a respite from questions as Haldren ate and conferred quietly with Vaskar. He took that opportunity to look around this strange group, his new companions. He’d had plenty of time to examine Cart as they rode their wyvern to this shore, and he knew Haldren’s appearance well from Dreadhold, though the cleaned-up, well-dressed version beside the dragon bore little resemblance to the disheveled character he remembered from their neighboring cells.
Darraun was the blond man who had helped Cart get him out of his cell. Gaven had seen the man work some magic with his cell door, which probably meant he was an artificer, skilled with the magic of items and constructs. Scrolls and wands protruded from the pouch at the man’s belt, confirming that impression. His fair hair was short and fine, and he had a day’s growth of beard. His skin was tan from travel, and his cloak carried the dust of many roads. He wore a hardened leather cuirass and carried a large metal mace with a flanged head. Still, something about the way Darraun carried himself made Gaven suspect that he would not be in the forefront of any battles.
The elf woman—he’d heard Haldren call her Senya—was about as different from Rienne as Gaven could imagine a woman being. Her black hair was curly and cut short, in contrast to the way Rienne’s flowed like silk. Senya’s skin was pale despite all her travels outdoors, where Rienne’s was a rich mahogany. The lids of Senya’s eyes were heavy and tinted with a bluish black powder, and her full lips were painted red. She wore a leather coat that hugged her chest before flaring out around her legs. It was cut to reveal more of her throat and breastbone than was probably safe. He noted an amulet at her throat, shaped like a shield and studded with adamantine, that probably more than made up in magic for what her coat lacked in protective value. She wore soft leather leggings and boots that rose to her knees. The heels of her boots made them better suited to a social function in Fairhaven than walking on the rocky shore of the Lhazaar Sea.
Finished with his meal, Haldren got to his feet and lifted a hand to the others. They rose at his summons and walked quickly over to where Gaven sat studying them.
“My dear friends,” Haldren said, taking Senya’s slender hand and including the warforged with a smile, “and more recent acquaintances,” he added with a gracious nod to Darraun and then Gaven, “this day you have done a great service to Aundair and, indeed, to the world. And, of course, you have done a great favor to me, in liberating me from Dreadhold, the prison they said was impregnable.”
Haldren laughed, and Senya laughed with him. Gaven glanced at the others, but kept his attention on Haldren.
Vaskar wants to be the Storm Dragon, Gaven thought. Vaskar thinks that’s a service to the world. He noticed that Darraun was staring at him. The artificer had barely smiled at Haldren’s humor. Gaven decided to ignore the stare and continue watching Haldren.
“Vaskar and I have discussed the Prophecy with Gaven,” Haldren continued. “We have learned much that is useful, and confirmed much that we already knew. We believe that Vaskar was correct, that the Time of the Dragon Above has begun, and the Eye of Siberys will soon fall from the sky.”
He paused for dramatic effect, clearly enjoying the attention of his companions. This was a man used to addressing crowds, Gaven realized, and used to having his pronouncements greeted with cheers.
“And so we are going to Aerenal,” Haldren announced.
“Aerenal?” the elf blurted. “That’ll take weeks!”
“We will not be riding, Senya,” Haldren said. “My magic will transport us now. We’ll rest this morning at an inn in Whitecliff, in Q’barra, do some business in the city, and tomorrow head on to Aerenal.”
“How soon do we depart, Lord General?” Cart asked.
“Immediately,” Haldren said. “Grab your pack and we will be on our way.”
“Should I clean up the campsite, remove our trail?” the warforged said.
“No. Let them find it. They’ll assume we’re still on the wing and look for us tomorrow within fifty miles of this site.” Haldren grinned. “And we will be over a thousand miles away.”
Senya left the cluster and retrieved her pack. Cart followed her example, while Darraun quickly rinsed an iron cooking pan in the surf. In a moment’s time, they returned and stood around Haldren, ready for him to work his magic.
Before he did, he addressed the group again. “I neglected to mention, my friends, that Vaskar will not be accompanying us to Aerenal. The elves hold an ancient grudge against dragonkind, and Vaskar would draw too much attention to our mission there. He will rejoin us later. Vaskar,” he said to the dragon, “thank you for your part in freeing me—and Gaven. Without you we would still be in Dreadhold.”
The dragon nodded almost imperceptibly, then glided over to the wyverns, which shifted nervously at his approach.
“Please join hands,” Haldren said, seizing Gaven’s left hand in his right and pulling him to his feet. Darraun took Gaven’s right hand and Cart’s left, and Senya connected Cart back to Haldren. With a smile around the little circle, Haldren began a brief incantation.
The last thing Gaven saw was Vaskar closing his jaws on the neck of a wyvern and tearing out its throat.
CHAPTER
4
An instant of blackness laced with silver, then green, then they stood in a lush forest alive with the droning of insects, the songs of birds, and the screeches of monkeys greeting the dawn. In sharp contrast to the windswept coast they’d just left, the air was warm and heavy with humidity. The ground rose sharply in one direction, and peering through the broad leaves of the forest, Gaven caught a glimpse of white-capped mountains in the distance.
Haldren looked quickly around the little circle, then dropped Gaven’s hand.
“Welcome to Q’barra,” he said with a broad smile. “Whitecliff should be a short walk.” He glanced around to get his bearings, then waved his hand at a thinner patch of forest. “Downhill.”
“What are the chances someone will be looking for us there?” Senya asked. “Looking for you, I mean.”
“It’s almost inconceivable,” Haldren said. “They’ll be expecting us much closer to Dreadhold.”
“They know you’re a sorcerer,” Darraun said.
“True, but they can’t search a thousand-mile radius.”
“How many major settlements are there within a thousand miles of Dreadhold?” Senya said. “It seems likely they could narrow that search quite a bit.”
“Most of eastern Karrnath would have been in my reach. They don’t know our destination, so they have little reason to look in Q’barra.”
“Except that it’s been a haven for refugees and fugitives for seventy years,” Darraun said, frowning.
“True enough,” Haldren said. Gaven could see that he didn’t like having his pronouncements questioned, but he remained gracious. “We will exercise caution as we approach the town. They know what Gaven and I look like, of course, but they don’t know any of you. They’ll be looking for a dragon and people on wyverns. We have no dragon and no wyverns, so I do not anticipate any difficulty.”
The memory of Vaskar killing one of the wyverns flashed in Gaven’s mind.
Haldren started walking, ending the discussion by turning his back on Darraun—rather pointedly, Gaven thought. Senya followed without a moment’s hesitation, and Darraun trailed after. Cart lingered by Gaven.
“So you’re my faithful hound,” Gaven said to the warforged.
“Hound?”
“It’s your job to keep an eye on me, make sure I stay with the group?”
“It’s my job to keep an eye on everyone,” Cart said with a shrug. Gaven was struck at how human the warforged managed to seem, despite a face that was essentially a featureless plate of metal with a hinged jaw. Gaven nodded, and they walked shoulder to shoulder behind Darraun.
* * * * *
For all the concerns Senya and Darraun had expressed, the group walked out of the jungle and into Whitecliff with little difficulty. Apparently this frontier town was accustomed to people appearing out of the forest and strolling into town. Had they been lizardfolk of the sort that infested the jungle, Gaven was sure they would have been given a very different reception. A wall of white stone surrounded the town, presumably quarried from the cliffs of the Endworld Mountains just to the north and west that gave the town its name. The guards at the gate wore coats of metal scales and bristled with weapons. Each one carried a halberd and wore a sword, a dagger, and a crossbow. The sentries asked a few questions about their business and the length of their stay, but Haldren handled them with ease.