The Dragons

by Doug Niles

  Her crimson wings spread wide, and the red dragon took to the air. Before her, the gate flamed into existence, a great circle of fire poised in space, burning with raging fury. Through that gap she saw a smoldering but sun-brightened sky and a landscape scarred by deep gorges and heaving, fiery mountains. Tucking her wings, narrowing into a streamlined dive, the red dragon swept through the gate, departing forever the Abyss that was her mistress’s realm.

  She emerged from a shower of flames and immediately pulled upward, straining for height. The gate had passed her into the bottom of a deep shaft of rock, but the space was so broad that she was able to swing through lazy spirals, gradually climbing up and out. Riding the upsurge of scalding gases past sheer walls of flame-scorched stone, the crimson serpent rose steadily higher.

  Finally Crematia emerged from the top of a great smoldering mountain, the greatest summit in a vast and tangled range of such peaks. She knew intuitively that this was Darklady Mountain, a massif that had risen from the tortured land in honor of her queen’s awful might. Slopes of dark debris, streaked with rusty red and trailing spumes of tar, marked the conical summit in slashes of color, like a crown encircling a lofty brow.

  Smoke and ash filled the sky, whipped by the wind, trailing like horsetails from many of the loftiest summits. Wings spread wide, Crematia soared, looking into a volcano that seethed and pulsed with the rage of internal fire, then flying above another with a caldera that lay still and snowbound below. Rivers of lava scored some of the valleys, while others were shrouded in great, apparently eternal blankets of ice, frost, and snow.

  The sun was a fire in the heavens, but the warmth of that great orb was muted by the clouds of smoke roiling through the skies. Everywhere mountains spumed and exploded, and great billowing expulsions of ash and toxic vapors layered the sky. The stench of the air was thick and acrid, and comfortingly familiar to the Abyss-bred serpent. She soared with a sense of serene exhilaration over soot-stained glaciers and peered with aloof condescension into deep, eternally shaded gorges.

  After flying for a long time, the red dragon swept between the steep shoulders of two massive mountains and found herself over a region of foothills. The ground was rough and rocky, but lacked the height and the flaming intensity of the volcanic reach she had just traversed.

  It was in a valley between a pair of rolling crests that she saw the first signs of life, walking figures that shuffled outward from a deep, well-protected cave mouth. Immediately she cloaked herself with a spell of invisibility, soaring low for a closer look, knowing she was safe from observation. Several upright figures tromped along the ground, each hulking body borne by a pair of gnarled legs. Some of the brutes clutched large limbs of wood—apparently weapons, the red dragon deduced as she watched the creatures suddenly close in on a mountain sheep, bashing the animal between them until it was slain.

  Intrigued, Crematia continued her explorations, discovering many of these creatures inhabiting the foothills around the High Khalkists. She observed that they dwelled in clans and took shelter in high, shallow caves. They had scored a series of crude tracks, linking many of the tribes over these torturous mountain pathways. Her observations suggested that the clans were led by the biggest of the brutes, who seemed to be rough, crude folk, readily prone to violence.

  In one place, she discovered a deep valley sheltered between the sheer walls below two lofty summits. Along the floor of the gorge were no fewer than a half dozen great caves, and a large number of the two-legged brutes seemed to dwell there.

  Still invisible, the red dragon flew back and forth, finally discovering one gathering that intrigued her. Several of the largest of the bull warriors gathered here, and from these bristled headdresses of bright feathers, while ornaments of gold dangled over their broad chests. Whispering a word of magic, she canceled her spell of invisibility, appearing suddenly when she was just overhead. The dragon settled to the ground before the adorned beings, the downward blasts of her wings driving dust and debris into their faces.

  Crematia saw the gnarled legs, hulking bodies, and strapping arms of these humanoids. She studied the sloping brows, the wide, tusked mouths, and the massive hands clutching knobbed clubs or boulders. The creatures cowered back from her but did not run away, except for one female who, clutching a squalling infant, darted from the pack.

  The red dragon lowered her head, jaws gaping, and spat a blast of searing flame around the lumbering, terrified creature. The victim’s scream rose to a piercing ring as the female, now a living torch, tumbled and thrashed across the ground. In a heartbeat, her life and that of her babe were snuffed away, leaving as a remnant two intermingled, blackened shapes. Satisfied that the smoldering corpses were ample demonstration of her might, Crematia regally swung back to regard the abject creatures cowering before her.

  “How are you called?” she asked the largest of the band, who scarcely dared to raise a fearful eye from the ground when he heard her question.

  “We are ogres, O mighty one! And we are your miserable servants.”

  “Do you expect my mercy?” demanded the red dragon.

  “No, O mighty one. Mercy is weakness!”

  “And weakness is death,” she concluded with a grim nod. “Your answers please me. You will make me welcome and show me honor. And you, my hulking one, you shall be my general and my slave. What is your name?”

  “I am the battle chieftain known as Ironfist, and my enemies quail at the sound of my approach!”

  “That is good. Now, Ironfist, send messengers. You must prepare your fellow tribes for the arrival of my kin. Your clans will gather to my call. Know that I shall lead you to a mastery of the world!”

  Chapter 5

  Lords of Peak and Blade

  circa 5000 PC

  The stag lunged through the thicket, crushing brittle branches with the force of its headlong flight. Nostrils flaring, hooves drumming the ground, the mighty deer lowered branching antlers and bulled ahead, breaking into the clear with a snorting toss of its proud head. Now the animal galloped across a marshy meadow, each leaping step kicking up great clods of moist dirt. Stretching, reaching in long strides, the stag accelerated with a frantic burst of speed. Darting and veering, the great creature lunged over the muddy terrain, its hoofprints a scar of darkness across the wet landscape.

  And following that advancing scar was a fast-moving shadow in the form of a serpentine body, with a long tail and broad, tapering wings.

  Darlantan saw immediately that the clearing would be the animal’s undoing. The silver dragon tucked his wings and dropped precipitously to land on the stag’s heaving back. Metal-hard talons flexed, argent tips gripping the flesh of shaggy haunches, while Darlantan’s forefeet drove their claws into the stag’s powerful shoulders. The mighty deer stumbled, collapsing from the dragon’s weight, but by then Dar’s jaws had closed around the muscular neck, biting down hard, breaking the hapless animal’s spine.

  Tumbling to the ground, the stag rolled through the mud and shuddered to a halt. Darlantan pitched forward, but the graceful dragon spread his wings and glided very low. Blades of marsh grass brushed his belly for a moment, but then he swept upward, finally rising high enough above the ground that he could once more flap his wings and safely gain elevation.

  Circling back to the bleeding body of the antlered deer, he bugled his success into the clear, crisp air of the High Kharolis. The blue sky, an azure so deep that it never failed to move Darlantan, fully enclosed the vast valley, vaulting overhead like a magical dome of turquoise resting upon the ring of mighty peaks. How he loved to soar through that sky, to experience the utter, liberating freedom of flight.

  Now Kenta and Aysa, silver and bronze shapes against the snowfields, glided into view, and Darlantan knew the others would be following soon. His chest puffed outward in unconscious pride, and again he bellowed word of his triumph with a cry that echoed back and forth between the lofty summits. He saw another speck of brown metal and recognized Burll. Darlantan c
huckled, knowing his bronze kin-dragon would never be late for an offering of food.

  Proudly the silver male settled beside the corpse of his kill. His chest thrust outward as he watched his nestmates gliding closer. Darlantan’s tail curled around the motionless body as he lifted his head as high as the elk’s antlers had been when the animal was alive. The mighty denizen of the forest weighed more than the winged hunter that had brought it down, and the silver dragon knew this was the largest single kill in the history of his nestmates’ lives.

  Kenta, the first to land, dipped her head in a nod of approval, flexing her wings and straightening her tail in a display that Darlantan found strangely intoxicating. She had done the same thing before, this silver female, and he had come to relish the fleeting, uncanny sensation. Uncertain of why he did so, Darlantan felt compelled to offer her the tenderest morsel, ripping the tongue from the elk’s mouth and extending it to her in a silver claw.

  “Do you remember when we used to eat bats?” asked Kenta, gulping the tongue in a smooth slurp, rippling the scales all the way down her sinuous neck.

  Darlantan chuckled as he tore away a hindquarter of the massive elk. “It would take as many bats as Patersmith has stories to equal the meat in this single haunch.”

  He tore into the meat, relishing the taste of the fresh blood, the warm fullness of each bite as he gulped it down. More of the band came into view now—Oro and Mydass, the golden females, with brass Smelt gliding swiftly behind them—so the silver took a generous portion of the kill and withdrew, allowing his nestmates a chance to share the proof of his hunting skill.

  “You killed this?” Smelt asked. Darlantan nodded serenely, and the brass dragon continued. “I like deer—especially the big ones. They have so much meat. Do you want the heart, or can I have it?”

  The silver dragon’s attention remained upon Kenta, so Smelt pulled the bloody muscle from the stag’s chest and swallowed it in a rippling gulp. “Too bad Aurican can’t see this,” he said, wiping a forked tongue across his crimson jaws.

  “Where is our golden kin-dragon?” Darlantan asked, amused by the serpentine metallic shapes clustered around the rapidly diminishing corpse. It pleased him to feed his nestmates, but he wanted Aurican to behold his trophy before it was merely a clean-picked skeleton.

  “Oh, I saw him flying toward the sunset, maybe a dozen sunrises ago,” Smelt explained while gulping a mouthful of venison. “He was in the foothills, and I flew along with him for a while. But it seemed as if he didn’t want to talk.” With another convulsive gulp, he swallowed, then swiveled his long neck toward the west. “He should have heard your summons, but maybe he’s too far away. Or perhaps he made a kill of his own.”

  “Yes … perhaps,” declared Darlantan, disappointed. Still, he brightened at the sight of the stag’s bristling antlers as Smelt lifted the skull and used his serpentine tongue to slurp out the tender brain. It was as though the ghost of the great deer danced before them. At least that rack would provide some proof of his accomplishment. He could take the trophy into the cavern to show Patersmith, who still took pride in the accomplishments of his growing charges.

  Restlessness soon took the place of reflection. Darlantan stood stiff-legged, flexing his wings. He would remember this place and return for the antlers, but for now he was ready to fly. Without a farewell, he departed, leaving his nestmates to break the joints and suck the marrow from the remnants of the kill.

  A short time later, as he flew beside a high mountain ridge, he heard a squawk of outrage from the other side of the rocks, followed by a dragonlike bellow of anger. Tipping his wing, Darlantan veered up and over the crest, coming to rest on the jagged but solid summit of the ridge.

  Below he saw Blayze crouched on a shoulder of rock, jaws gaping as he faced a fluttering, feather-winged creature that the copper dragon had trapped against the mountainside. The birdlike beast shrieked again, hooked beak widespread. Blayze’s jaws spread wider, and Dar saw his nestmate’s belly swell, ready to hurl forward the deadly acid of his breath weapon.

  Before that lethal spume emerged, Darlantan pounced, sweeping downward, reaching with his claws as he swept past the ledge. He snatched the griffon—he recognized the feathered flier by its tawny feline hindquarters—in his claws and pulled it away, allowing his momentum to carry both the fliers down the mountainside, away from Blayze. The copper’s blast of acid seared the rocky wall, trickling downward, hissing and burning against Darlantan’s tail as the silver dragon swept the struggling creature to safety. Landing on his haunches on a lower shoulder of the slope, Darlantan held the squirming griffon off the rocks to avoid crushing the creature with his own weight.

  “That wyrm took my prey!” hissed the griffon, twisting with surprising strength. A sharp beak jabbed Darlantan’s neck, and with a yelp, the silver dragon threw the hawk-faced flyer to the side, struggling to hold his balance on the steep mountainside.

  “That was my fight, Darlantan!” snarled Blayze, still crouched over the mountain sheep. “I don’t need your help!”

  “I’m not trying to help you,” Darlantan replied. “I just wanted to talk to the griffon.”

  That feather-winged flier, meanwhile, had spiraled away and come to rest on a knob of rock. Now it straightened powerful wings, smoothing ruffled feathers with long strokes of its hooked beak. Darlantan crouched above, studying the creature curiously. Blayze, after glaring at his silver nestmate, decided to eat instead of pursue the quarrel.

  “Don’t think you can kill me just because you saved me from that snake!” spat the griffon, rearing back on its feline hindquarters and flailing the air with powerful, taloned foreclaws.

  “Why would I save you to kill you?” Dar asked, puzzled by the statement.

  “Who knows? Why would your kin-dragon take my sheep when he could easily kill one of his own?” huffed the creature, casting a nervous glance up the mountainside. Darlantan saw that Blayze was crouched there, and when the copper raised his head, he saw jaws dripping with fresh blood.

  “I saw the ewe first,” huffed the half-hawk, half-lion creature, fixing bright yellow eyes upon the silver dragon. The griffon blinked appraisingly, and Darlantan sensed it was more curious than angry.

  “Blayze never was much for waiting his turn,” the silver serpent explained. “Was that courage or foolishness that was leading you to fight him?”

  The griffon blinked in surprise, then settled back on all fours. Apparently he had decided Darlantan wasn’t an immediate threat, for he began grooming his chest and shoulders with one foreleg’s talons as he spoke.

  “Actually, I didn’t think I could escape. And I wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t swept me away. Why did you do that?”

  “I’ve never met a griffon. My name is Darlantan. Do you have a name?”

  “Ravenclaw, at your service. And I will remember you, silver Darlantan. But now, since my kill was taken, I must fly to the hunt.”

  With that, the griffon took wing, eagle feathers streaming in the mountain air, the sleek form gliding toward the lower valleys, where presumably he could hunt without interference from bullying dragons.

  Darlantan also flew, but his course took him upward, not down, until he soared over the ramparts of the lofty range. He left behind the High Kharolis, the vast mountain range that domed over the grotto and its surrounding cavern. Dar’s flight took him away from that timeless home, into lower regions of forest that the dragon had flown above, but rarely inspected.

  As he flew he reflected on an old lesson—“Mercy is strength,” Patersmith had said, “for it breeds friendship.” Indeed, he felt a kinship with the griffon, a warm pleasure that the creature was still alive. He was glad he had been merciful; Blayze would have killed the creature.

  Through many sunrises, he soared above vast woodlands, awed by the extent of forest. In places, ponds, streams, or lakes sparkled blue amid swaths of greenery. Occasionally a knob of rocky bluff jutted upward, and when he grew tired, the silver dragon invariably came
to rest upon one of these. He relished the pastoral swath of green, vaster by far than the Valley of Paladine. The lush forests seemed to blanket an entire portion of the world with their deceptively soft-looking foliage.

  Game was plentiful here, and each night he was able to kill a deer or pig for his sustenance. For sunrises that stretched into seasons and even longer he remained in the forest. If it hadn’t been for the continuing absence of Aurican, Darlantan’s exploration would have been a marvelous adventure. Yet the fact that his golden brother had been gone so long he found increasingly disturbing—either because something bad had happened, or because the gold had perhaps discovered something extremely fascinating. Aurican was quite capable of becoming so distracted by a wondrous discovery that he would quite forget to inform his nestmates.

  Dar’s emotions wrestled constantly between concern and envy. He wasn’t at all certain if he hoped Aurican had been distracted by some discovery, for there were times when it would have satisfied him to find his brother in some kind of real distress—nothing so serious that Darlantan couldn’t have immediately come to his aid, however. The silver dragon flew on in growing agitation, his concerns slowly gaining prominence over suspicion and jealousy.

  Finally his persistence was rewarded by a glimpse of shimmering golden scales, a serpentine shape coiled in a small, tree-shaded clearing. Braying a greeting, Darlantan tucked his wings and angled between lofty pines to land precisely in front of his brother. The draft of his wings drove a great cloud of dust and pine needles into Auri’s face, an effect that Darlantan found not displeasing.

  “Greetings, Cousin,” declared Aurican, blinking his eyelids, then sneezing a cloud of dust back at Darlantan. The gold dragon’s head reached high above the ground, while his sinuous body curled between several trees.

  The silver chuckled, wrapping his tail around a tree trunk and squatting on the loam beside the sinuous golden form. “The ground here is soft, but surely there’s more than that to bring you so far.”