The Dragons

by Doug Niles

  “Of course I am, but I am afraid of the results. They fear to take the chance, while I clearly recognize that we must cast the spell. We have no other choice.”

  “And you?” Silvanos asked, turning to Fayal.

  “I fear my colleague is right, though he cares little for the effects that may result. Magic could wrack much of Silvanesti, even the whole world.”

  “And the dragons?” Silvanos inquired patiently.

  It was Fayal who replied. “All the portents indicate that, whatever else its effects, the casting will seize the chromatic dragons and draw them into the fundament of Krynn. They will be entombed.”

  “And that is the only effect that matters!” Kayn declared. “Anything else can be survived! For if we do not cast this spell, our barriers will inevitably collapse—perhaps within the next winter or two. Then Silvanost, and everything else, will be lost.”

  “And the spell will work?”

  “That is a good question,” Parys admitted. “We have aligned the poles of wild magic so that they have a powerful attraction for the wyrms of Takhisis. We think it will work. But in truth, all we can do is hope the summons will be enough to drag them down, to trap them.”

  “But the defensive barriers will otherwise fall … this is a certainty?” inquired the elven patriarch.

  “Aye,” said Fayal, with the other two mages nodding in agreement.

  “Then it seems that we have no choice,” declared Silvanos with a finality that the others could only respect.

  * * * * *

  Deathfyre had wasted no time in renewing his onslaught against the elven realm, for he knew that the Silvanesti would be able to recover and rearm far more quickly than the dragons of Paladine could possibly hope to restore their depleted numbers.

  So it was that the evil army returned its attentions against the south. Relentless hordes of ogres and bakali marched, led by ruthless minotaur raiders. Dragons of blue and black, of crimson, green, and white dotted the skies, answering to the mighty Deathfyre’s commands.

  Coss, a great, acid-spewing black serpent, and Spuryten, an ancient blue, were Deathfyre’s chief lieutenants. The trio of dragons led three great spearheads converging onto the elven capital of Silvanost. And all the wyrms of Takhisis took wing against elvenkind, drawing in an ever-tightening noose about the besieged city on its once-pastoral island. Still, the barriers of the brother mages held them off, foiling every attempt to complete the conquest, to carry the destruction into the crystal city itself.

  And the campaign progressed with relentless savagery and irresistible might. Bakali swarmed through the marshes of Silvanesti, driving the elves from the well-watered lands that provided so much of their food. Ogres bashed at the walls of every fortified strong point, often aided by the crushing power of dragonbreath. Gradually the doomed outposts were destroyed one by one, leaving increasingly large stretches of the forested elvenhome a bleak wasteland.

  Only the magic of the three brother mages prevented the ultimate triumph of the evil armies. The wizards used their mighty sorcery to maintain the enchanted barriers that held the serpents and their land-bound allies away from the city of the elves. These potent blockades of stone and flame and magic and ice resisted all efforts of the advancing tide, though the rest of the realm was, little by little, overrun.

  At last all the outposts had been overrun or destroyed, and only the stubborn island city remained. Three great armies, commanded by Coss, Spuryten, and Deathfyre himself, surrounded Silvanost, ready for the final onslaught. It remained only to plan the culminating attack.

  “What news of the siege?” demanded Deathfyre when Coss reported to him on the progress of the campaign. “Has the city’s defense been breached yet?”

  “It proves stubbornly defiant,” the black wyrm replied grimly. “The elves have gathered those three powerful wizards in a high tower. They have used sorcery to hold us at bay, but they must fall when all our power is concentrated against them.”

  “All the dragons are ready to attack?”

  “Aye, lord, though you should know that the numbers of our ogres and bakali have been depleted by the long campaigns.”

  “I will find us more troops, and soon … soon we shall prevail,” the great red pledged. His thoughts turned to the past, remembering the golden killer who had brought about his mother’s death. Yet he remained aware that the metal dragons who had escaped remained too few, too young, to cause him any worries. Only when the war was won would he turn his attention to vengeance.

  “Be ready for the final onslaught. I shall return soon with fresh armies.”

  Deathfyre flew rapidly to the north, where, in the smoking Khalkists, evil men had built a teeming city in the place where Darklady Mountain had stood. This was a place called Sanction, a city of fire and smoke, a nest of thieves and murderers, where the worship of the Dark Queen was a thing highly regarded. Deathfyre was lord here, and the men had built great monuments to his name. Many of these wicked humans willingly joined the legions of his army, ready to butcher as cruelly as any bakali or ogre when they marched to war.

  But before Deathfyre could return to the south, the three brother mages cast their great spell, an enchantment calling upon the fundamental power of wild sorcery, the fundamental power that abided in the very center of the world. The strength of this magic was a thing unknown on Krynn before or since.

  With the exception of Deathfyre, all the dragons of the Dark Queen had gathered for the onslaught against the elven city. Before the attack commenced, the brother mages worked their enchantment in the Tower of Stars.

  Coss, Spuryten, and all the others watched in awe as light flared from the lofty windows, and electricity—like bolts of deadly lightning—exploded into the sky. The ground shook, and the trees swayed to a fundamental disturbance, a disruption of the natural laws of the world.

  Then, with a sharp crack like thunder, waves of sorcerous destruction spread outward from Silvanesti, wracking the land as they passed. The power of the spell sucked the chromatic dragons downward, trapping each serpent of Takhisis in a lingering well of darkness.

  The ripple of magic reached Deathfyre as a trailing effect, for the center of the convulsion lay hundreds of miles to the south. Even so, Deathfyre hurled himself into the air, sensed the power sucking at him, trying to drag him down.

  He made it as far as the smoking Khalkists before the power caught up with him. Then the ground rose up, and a great hole yawned below him. He could not prevent himself from falling in, and then the walls of stone and fire surrounded him, and everything he knew became darkness.

  PART III

  Chapter 28

  Silver Lords

  circa 1400 PC

  The wild elf maiden was a blur of laughter and speed. Arms and legs pumping, silver-white hair trailing in the breeze, she sprinted like a deer along the forest trail, ducking a mossy limb, casting a merry smile over her shoulder as she put on another dazzling burst of speed. She leapt a mossy fallen trunk, ducked around a tight corner, and without hesitation splashed through a gravel-bedded stream. Silver drops of water sparkled in the sunlight, and her bright cry of delight rang in harmony with the trilling of the water as she sprang onto the far bank to fly onward with a pounding of bare feet against the path.

  She was a creature of exquisite beauty, this fleet elf of the forest. Muscles rippled in her limbs, yet her body possessed a lush fullness that made her doelike speed all that much more astounding. Her skin was a pale, almost translucent pearl, now a white blur in the semidark shadows of the forest floor. The small strip of foxskin girding her loins did little to preserve even a semblance of modesty.

  Not that modesty had any place in the mind of the one who chased the elusive maid through the forest. Harder footsteps thudded behind her, and a wild elf brave came into view. Head low, he dashed forward with single-minded determination, leaping in a single bound the stream that had slightly slowed his alluring quarry.

  The warrior’s body was covered w
ith whorls and leaf patterns of black tattoos. A trailing horsetail bound his shock of long black hair, a plume that, suspended by his speed, floated like smoke in the air. He, too, sprinted with an easy grace, a fluid rippling as the trail straightened and he slowly closed on the elfmaid. Like the female, the brave was unarmed, though he bore the horn of a great ram on a silver chain around his shoulder. He lacked even the limited clothing that encircled her waist.

  Head down now, drawing deep and measured breaths through his flaring nostrils, the runner seemed unaware of the woods passing in a blur on either side. He was blinded by the beauty, the scents and sounds and sights that combined to draw him after his exquisite quarry. Now he was desperate to catch her, to bring her to ground.

  With another teasing refrain of laughter, the female elf darted through a blossomed bower and sprinted into the clear. The brave followed, eyes fixed upon her lush form, mind blinded to all thoughts except this alluring maiden that led him so tantalizingly onward.

  “Hargh! Heads up! Looks like we’ve got some prizes, me lads!”

  The bark of alarm, harsh and deep, was the elves’ first clue that the clearing was already occupied. Huge shapes stirred to the right and left, rushing from the shady bowers along the meadow’s fringes. A pair of brawny, two-legged figures, each bearing a heavy, knotted club, advanced to block the path of the two Kagonesti, while more of their hulking comrades closed in from all sides.

  “Ogres!” gasped the maiden in quick recognition, skidding to a halt as a dozen or more brutish cohorts rushed to join the two blocking her path through the clearing. The brave whirled to see more of the monsters charge from the far sides of the sun-swept meadow, blocking any attempt they might have made to return the way they had come.

  The elfmaid spun in a swirl of silvery hair, casting looks to either side, placing her back to the brave’s. The two Kagonesti stood barehanded, facing at least two dozen of the burly humanoids. Clubs raised, drooling tusks exposed, the brutes closed in for an easy kill.

  “I dislike the odds,” murmured the lean warrior, with an attitude of mild concern.

  “I agree,” replied the maiden, nodding as she frowned at the encircling ring. “Do you think we should change them?”

  “Immediately.”

  Silver scales swirled into view, coiling around the place where the two wild elves had stood, as a pair of huge serpentine bodies took their places on the ground. In a flash of reflection, mighty wings flapped and grew, driving gusts of wind, dust, and debris into the faces of the startled ogres. Many of the brutes shrieked in terror, turning to flee from the pair of menacing silver dragons that suddenly loomed before them. Others fell to the ground, wailing and groveling, begging for mercy or trying to claw a place of concealment into the hard soil.

  Only one displayed the courage, or foolishness, to continue the attack. This was a brutish chieftain who hurled himself at the male dragon and was met by a savage, darting snap of those great jaws. Lectral bit hard and felt the crunch of sturdy bone. He killed the ogre instantly and, with a contemptuous spit, hurled the burly body into the faces of its companions.

  Heart’s blast of deadly frost exploded from her silver jaws, a white cloud of death roaring outward in a magical blizzard, expanding with hissing violence through the warm spring air of the clearing. The dragonbreath froze a dozen ogres in the garish postures of instant death even before the brutes realized they were being attacked. Still more of the monsters threw themselves onto the ground, and the wailing of their abject fear echoed through the woods.

  Lectral pounced, crushing an ogre with each forepaw, snatching up another in his great jaws. Breaking the muscle-bound body in a crushing bite, he tossed his neck and sent the creature’s remains tumbling into a pair of fleeing ogres. His silver tail lashed around, crushing several more of the monsters, sending the great, brutish warriors tumbling like children’s toys.

  Smashing with his great body, the silver dragon settled heavily downward until the desperate thrashing underneath him was crushed into stillness. Whipping his head toward a band of the brutes huddled beyond his left wing, he belched a cloud of killing frost. The lethal breath expanded through the clearing, freezing flowers and bees in the same swath that slew a dozen fleeing ogres.

  In an instant, the rest of the monstrous band had vanished into the forest. Terror wafted in their wake, an acrid stench in the air. Lectral saw that many of the brutes had even cast their weapons aside, shrilling cries of utter panic in their haste to reach the imagined shelter of the forest paths. Abruptly four or five more broke from a nearby clump of brush, lumbering toward the trees, casting terrified glances behind.

  Heart’s jaws gaped again, and she expelled a cloud of white gas, a forceful explosion of her breath that gusted strongly toward her targets without the roaring destructiveness of her deadly frost. Nevertheless, the monsters saw the mist churning toward them and screamed in panic, sprinting desperately to get away as the vapor swept forward and enveloped them.

  When the mist dissipated, the remaining ogres were scattered across the ground, limp and motionless—except for the slow rising and falling of chests stirred by deep, placid breathing. Eyes wide, those ogres lucky—or unlucky—enough to be lying on their backs stared in mute horror at the two serpents looming overhead, masters of this sun-swept patch of meadow. Others, facedown, grunted and groaned but were obviously unable to move a muscle.

  “Why didn’t you kill them?” Lectral asked, with a raised eyebrow. Like all the metal dragons, he and Heart possessed a nonlethal breath weapon as well as their deadly expulsions. Still, he was surprised she had used it on the ogres. He prodded one of the motionless brutes with his foreclaws, rolling it onto its back to inspect the tusked maw, which now gaped slackly, allowing a copious spill of drool to soak the ogre’s chest. “They’re just paralyzed.”

  Heart shook her great silver head, though her own expression was also a trifle puzzled. “I didn’t have to kill them, so I didn’t. It seemed a good time to show mercy.”

  “Well, as Regia says, we dragons could kill all the ogres, and the humans and bakali, too, if we wanted. But why waste the breath?” Lectral replied.

  “Our golden sister is too inclined to think in terms of the abstract. It’s more that the threat is gone now … and I don’t feel like killing any more.”

  “That sits well with me as well,” Lectral agreed. He leaned forward, trailing his head along Heart’s neck. “In any event, Regia is not the female who concerns me just now.”

  The silver male’s lids drooped lazily over his eyes as he reared back and regarded the supple curves, the shimmering scales, and gleaming wings of the silver female. He squatted before her, ready to pounce, waiting for the flick of her tail that would recommence the tantalizing game that had just been interrupted.

  But Heart shook her head. “No, Lec … let’s fly, together.”

  He was about to protest, but he knew she wouldn’t be swayed by any argument he could make. Too, with the passing of her teasing manner, his own excitement had rapidly faded. Heart seemed to him once more as she had always been: a silver nestmate who had grown to adulthood at his side, a friend and comrade during the hundreds of winters through which they and their kin-dragons had ruled the skies of Krynn.

  Callak had been their sire, and their matriarch, Daria, had raised them in her lair, deep in the mountainous wilderness of western Ergoth. For the first century or two of their lives, they and their silver nestmates had been alone in the world, insofar as they had known nothing of other dragons. They had, of course, engaged in social intercourse with elves and humans, and both had formed strong friendships—particularly among the Kagonesti, in Lectral’s case. Heart had enjoyed the company of the wild elves, but also displayed fascination with humankind, most notably the armored and heroic knights who ruled the realm of Solamnia.

  After Callak had grown old, he had given Lectral the clan treasure: the horn of the great ram that he now wore on the silver chain around his neck. The sil
ver dragons had grown to maturity with an understanding of the deep bonds between the Kagonesti wild elves and the dragons of argent.

  Only after reaching adulthood had Heart and Lectral encountered dragons of other colors—first in the person of the sociable brass dragon Kord, scion of Dazzall, who seemed to know everybody and everything. He had become a good friend to all the silver nestmates, and in turn had introduced them to the less extroverted wyrms of the copper and bronze clans. Lectral had developed a grudging sense of respect for a copper male, Cymbol, who had once demonstrated great speed and quickness in stealing an elk that Lectral regarded as his rightful prey. Eventually the two wyrms had reached an understanding, and Lectral had learned that Cymbol’s barely contained fury was a constant thing, a drive for vengeance against the chromatic dragons that had been inculcated in him by his sire, Tharn. Unfortunately—at least, so it seemed—neither of them had ever encountered one of the Dark Queen’s dragons. To all appearances, they had ceased to exist during the time of their sire’s early life.

  The bronze, Bolt, had been less hostile initially than the copper had been, but neither had he been overly friendly. Still, Heart, Lectral, and their nestmates had learned from Daria the tale of the grotto and its abandonment, and it had been good to discover for certain that the others of the metal dragons had also survived to breed.

  Lectral had been impressed by the differences even more than the similarities between the five clans. One of the most different was the dignified and studious Arumnus, a gold of approximately Lectral’s age. Scion of Auricus, he was wise and thoughtful, if a trifle dull as a companion. And his sister, Regia, had been only haughty and aloof.

  Lately Lectral had been dazzled by the changes he had sensed in Heart as the two of them approached full maturity, a feeling that matters between them were progressing toward something magical. The thought of her elven form fleeing through the woods caused his silver scales to shiver, and once again he regarded her with a sidelong inspection, wishing that she would flick her tail or arch her neck in that gesture of invitation.