The Dragons

by Doug Niles

  The two wild elf bodies stepped forward. “Welcome, kin-dragon,” Lectral said, feeling a surprising rush of affection toward the mature gold. After all, Arumnus was one of the few male dragons who was as old as Lectral himself. Despite his aloof and studious nature, he had been a friend and comrade since making Lectral’s acquaintance some three centuries before.

  “Have you heard the news?” Arumnus asked, urgency overcoming his traditional gold dragon reserve.

  “What is it?” Silvara asked before Lectral could speak.

  “War has come again to the world. It has already been waged for several winters in the east, and now it has come against the men of Solamnia. The wyrms of the Dark Queen are awakened, and they, too, have joined the onslaught against the knights.”

  “Dragons of red and blue—chromatic serpents?” demanded Lectral, tingling with a sudden sense of discovery—and fear. “But where did they come from?”

  “They came from the east,” Arumnus replied. “Sanction is their great city, but much of Solamnia has felt the torch of dragonfire.”

  “That is no concern of ours!” Lectral blurted, surprising himself with the outburst and the sentiment. He was aware of Silvara’s look of astonishment and the gold dragon’s expression of gentle reproach.

  “How can you say that?” argued the young and graceful wild elf who was the female silver dragon. “We all have friends among the humans! Think of Heart. What will she do when she learns about this?”

  “No!” Lectral barked in sudden panic, knowing the affinity the silver female felt toward the knights. Indeed, Heart would no doubt take wing against the chromatic dragons by herself if need be. “That is, we have to find her!”

  “It is already a dragon matter,” Arumnus continued. “Young Cymbol has gathered his copper siblings, and at least a dozen of them have flown against the evil dragons in the north. Word is that Bassal was killed, perhaps others as well.”

  Lectral felt a glimmer of real menace. These were the names of dragons he knew, at least in passing. And now they were falling, slain? “Cymbol has always been an angry sort. Many times I have heard him boast that he would lead the attack against the Dark Queen’s dragons if only he had the chance.”

  “And now he has that chance,” Silvara noted, her own eyes alight.

  “Regia is considering the golds’ response even as we speak.” Arumnus looked toward the sky with unseemly urgency. “Perhaps she will have arrived at a conclusion by the time I return,” he added hopefully.

  “Don’t just consider. Do something!” Silvara insisted.

  Lectral, too, sensed the rising compulsion of a martial summons. “Yes. We silvers shall fight as well. This is the fight that our ancestors waged … that drove our fathers and mothers from the grotto.”

  His mind flashed to a thought of the Kagonesti forest in the realm south of Sanction, and he tried to picture the horror if the scourge of dragonfire and waste should spread there. Guilt surged as he realized that it had been many winters since he had flown over the wild elf realms.

  “What now? Who’s this?” Arumnus pointed toward the sky, where a silver-winged shape glided across the faces of the rising moons, then settled toward the ledge.

  “Heart!” cried Silvara, frantically waving a slender hand.

  The elder female silver dragon settled to the ledge, and then she, too, became an elfmaid, as beautiful as Silvara, though with the fullness of a mature woman. Lectral remembered that shape, and again the memories of a forest chase came back. He felt a dizzying sense of emotion, all but staggering as he stepped toward his silver nestmate. He embraced her, felt her arms tight around him.

  “Hello, my Heart,” he said thickly, taking her elven hands in his own. “It is good to know that you are safe and well.”

  “And you, my nestmate,” she replied, the pressure of her fingers sending ripples of agony through his heart until she broke free of his touch.

  “Hello, Sister,” said Silvara, going to Heart and quickly hugging her.

  “Greetings, Little Sister. And to you, my friends.”

  Lectral’s heart pounded, and he felt a rush of blood in his ears. A raging storm of memories returned to him, and he recalled every detail of the time he had chased her through the woods, had almost captured her.

  And, looking at the distant focus of her eyes, he understood that she had, at last, eluded him forever.

  “Do you know of the war?” asked Silvara.

  “Indeed. The dragons of the Dark Queen have taken to the skies,” Heart declared grimly. “Already some of the brown metal dragons have joined the knights, but we silvers should go as well! The humans are brave and fight valiantly, but they need our help. Saytica has already flown to join them.”

  “Of course!” Silvara said. “And what of Huma?”

  Lectral looked at Heart sharply, jolted by the question. She returned his look with an expression of frankness and a plea for understanding. “There is one man in particular … the knight called Huma,” she explained. “He has moved me with his courage, his goodness. In part, it is for him that I come to you to beg your help for the knights.”

  “The knights … or this one knight?” asked Lectral, his tone a soft growl.

  Heart’s head whipped back as if she had been slapped. Then she raised her chin and met her nestmate’s gaze. “I cherish him very much. And I believe that he may lead the knights to victory.”

  Lectral suppressed a surge of jealousy. A very strong part of him wanted to find and squash this human who dared to enthrall his nestmate, and he worked very hard to restrain an impulse toward violence.

  “What about the wild elves, the Kagonesti in the east?” he asked anxiously. “Who knows whether or not they are suffering under the dragons as well?”

  “Who can know?” countered Heart. “But there is more. You all remember the Spear of Paladine, the prophecy as foretold by our honored mother, Daria, at the time the grotto was abandoned.”

  “Yes!” cried Silvara excitedly. “The weapon of the gods that would give us means to strike at the Dark Queen.”

  “It is a lance!” the elfmaid dragon explained. “A Dragonlance, formed by the hammer of Kharas and wielded by knights from the backs of dragons.”

  “And you have these lances?” asked Arumnus.

  “We have twenty lances,” she said. “Many are the knights who have volunteered to wield them. We need nineteen dragons to fly with me. I have already heard from Saytica and Cymbol and Bolt, and Arkas as well.”

  “And I shall fly at your side!” pledged Arumnus.

  “And I!” Silvara cried.

  Heart turned her firm expression to the younger female. “You are too small, Little Sister. The lance-wielder must be an armored knight, and I fear the burden would be more than you could carry.”

  Silvara slumped, but then turned her expression to Lectral. “You can go, too, can’t you?”

  The silver dragon took a deep breath, for the first time his elven chest feeling like a constricting vessel. He shook his head, still fighting against an explosion of temper.

  “By the time you fly to Palanthas you will have your twenty, and many more,” he said, with a penetrating look at Heart. “As for me, I must fly to my Kagonesti.”

  She came to him and placed an elven hand upon his taut arm. “I understand. But know, Lectral, that this man Huma is a good man. And I love him.”

  “Love?” The Kagonesti eyes flashed scorn. “Have you forgotten you are a dragon?”

  “No, I haven’t. But perhaps I’ve learned that even dragons can know love. Perhaps that’s a gift we silvers can teach to our kin-dragons. We can love.”

  “You can love, perhaps.” Lectral’s voice was as tight as a Kagonesti bowstring. “As for me, I choose to fight.”

  Chapter 33

  War in the Sky

  1028 PC

  Lectral took to the air, propelled by a sense of profound rage, driving relentlessly through the skies, leaving the High Kharolis behind. Borne by his
fury, silver wings carried him over the broad Vingaard plains. He tried not to think about Heart and her knight, but his mind was aflame with the memory of her last words to him.

  Love—and for a human? How could she even imagine such a thing? It was an abomination, a blasphemy of the darkest kind! If there was indeed such as concept as love, it belonged to the two-legs—lesser creatures who lacked the majesty of flight, of thousand-year life spans, of inherent magic and devastating breath-weapons!

  Powerful wing strokes devoured the miles as Lectral passed the forested foothills and moved to the fringe of the dusty plain, flying over realms he hadn’t seen in many years. Eventually he perceived the great darkness in the north and knew that this was the present area of contention of the Dark Queen’s war.

  Drawing closer now, he soared above vast legions, a dark tide overrunning the plain all the way to the Khalkists. Dragons of evil wheeled and spiraled amid the clouds, and Lectral masked himself in invisibility. Even in his nearly blinding rage he retained enough patience to know he should study his enemies, should acquaint himself with their habits instead of making an impetuous attack.

  From a distance, he observed dragons of red burning villages, landing to tear at human-built constructs of stone and earth. He wanted to strike at them, but he wouldn’t, having convinced himself that his duty was to the wild elves. Watching one mighty red in particular, he determined that this was the leader of the Dark Queen’s wyrms, and he spotted another crimson wyrm, almost as big, that led many other serpents in the onslaught toward Palanthas. Once, as Lectral circled on the fringes of the battle, that sinister monster raised its head, and the invisible silver shivered to a sensation that he had been discovered.

  But Lectral turned toward the east, seeking the foothills of the Kagonesti forests, and the red wyrm turned back to lead his offensive. Closer now, black clouds roiled in the skies, blanketing the plains with a cloak as heavy as the gloom that shrouded the silver dragon’s heart. And still Heart’s words echoed through his mind, mocking and taunting. Love! Could she really believe it?

  He growled, knowing that she did. Again he remembered that wild elfmaid who had led him on the chase through the woods, and a plume of frost exploded from his jaws in an unconscious expression of his rage and grief. If the knight, Huma, had appeared before him, Lectral felt certain he would have ripped the man into small pieces.

  But he had his task before him, and the evidence of war was all around. Curving toward the Khalkists, he swept over the great arsenals of Sanction, invisibly watching legions of blue and white dragons wing forth, flying to the east, while countless troops—reinforcements to the main armies, no doubt—marched in their wake.

  Only then did he turn his flight directly to the south, ultimately soaring above the forest homes of the Kagonesti. With relief, he saw that the woodlands remained green and untrammeled. At least from the heights, it appeared that this time the war had spared the ancient elven realms. The trees were vibrant and healthy, the lakes clean, streams spilling crystalline and pure from the mountain heights.

  The ram’s horn was a feathery weight around his neck as Lectral swept low, skimming just above the level of the trees. Unlike the last wars, it seemed that this time the Dark Queen’s fury was in fact directed against the humans, not the elves, and for this Lectral was profoundly grateful.

  But did even the humans deserve the help of the mighty serpents of Paladine? Although he knew that twenty of his kin-dragons were flying into battle, bearing human riders with their gleaming Dragonlances, he couldn’t bring himself to believe they did. And he refused to acknowledge that this feeling was petty, caused by his own jealousy. Instead, he convinced himself that his motives were noble and he was the only hope the Kagonesti had.

  And he flew on, winging over a verdant swath of undisturbed forest, trying to ignore the war raging within his own soul.

  * * * * *

  With Heart as their leader, the dragons of metal landed on the courtyards and plazas of Palanthas. Saytica was there, and other silvers as well, and also golden Arumnus and several of his male and female nestmates. Cymbol and many of the coppers, who had been battling the chromatic dragons for several seasons, had willingly volunteered to bear lancers into the fray. Too, Bolt and the bronzes, and Kord, with six or eight of his brass brothers, had also hastened to the proud city, landing on the increasingly crowded fields.

  Lectral had been right, Heart saw. There were more than enough dragons for the twenty lances and the equal number of knights who had offered to bear them. Still, she missed him. His absence left a hole in her being that she knew would never be filled.

  Saddles had been made by master smiths and leatherworkers, simple straps of leather and steel, and these were fastened to the great flying mounts. The Dragonlances themselves, gleaming shafts of enchanted steel tipped with razor-sharp barbs sparkling like diamonds in the sunshine, were affixed to simple but effective swivel mounts.

  Finally the mighty serpents dipped their heads and allowed the riders to climb aboard. Winds gusted across the parade ground as twenty pairs of wings pulsed and fluttered, driving into the air, slowly lifting the great dragons and their bold lancers toward the skies. The cheers of a hopeful populace rang behind them as the flight, with Heart and her beloved Huma in the lead, angled toward the east.

  Clouds roiled and churned, spuming like black smoke high into the sky, marking the scourge of Garic Drakan’s invasion. Cymbol had told the others of the terrible devastation taking place, but even so, the taint of soot and ash and death was an affront to the nostrils of man and dragon alike. Yet the flight of metal dragons sped boldly on, venturing into the murk, seeking the sinister colors that would mark the Dark Queen’s serpentine fliers.

  Crying challenges, braying toward the vanishing sun, the dragons of Paladine swept through the darkness. Silver Heart was still in the lead, with Saytica and Arumnus to one side, each ridden by an armored knight. On her other flank flew Bolt, with a unique rider, a hulking, dark-skinned minotaur. All the metal dragons spread into a wide V formation, a sight not unfamiliar in the skies over Krynn, yet this flight was faster and far more deadly than any wing of migrating geese.

  Disappearing into the heavy clouds, the powerful dragons fought against gusting winds, struggled to keep their neighboring fliers in sight as they surged through the roiling skies over the plains. And then there were flashes of brightness in the black, alabaster wings and gaping jaws of the same color as a dozen white dragons surged forward to attack. The gleaming tips of the deadly spears ripped into the pale wyrms, and with screams of pain and resonant blasts of lightning and frost, fire and acid, war in the skies was joined.

  * * * * *

  Lectral was alerted by the cry of a griffon, a keening shriek of alarm that came from a faraway mountainside. Sensing a menacing presence above, the silver dragon teleported a hundred feet to one side a split second before the attacking red dragon incinerated the air where he had been.

  The monstrous serpent was huge, and Lectral knew immediately that this was the one who had sensed his presence, the dragon who was second in size only to the crimson monster in command of all the Dark Queen’s horde. A quick glance to the north showed him four more reds, all winging swiftly closer, but this great red serpent was the immediate threat.

  All of Lectral’s rage came together as, with a shrill cry of fury, he flew toward the attacker. His breath exploded in a thunder of frost, but the red evaded it at the last minute, and the silver was forced to veer aside from another hissing fireball.

  “Fool!” brayed the crimson wyrm. “Like the pig Darlantan, your ancestor, you are doomed!”

  “Spawn of Crematia! It is you who will die!” Lectral roared in response, straining to close with the serpentine crimson tail.

  He snapped, barely missing the red dragon, then whirled through a tight spin to fly after his foe. Slashing claws tore at the scarlet membrane of a wing, rending a single gash, and then the two monstrous dragons crashed together. Cl
enching, they twisted and spiraled, clawing in frantic rage, breaking apart to leave a shower of scales, mixed crimson and argent, fluttering downward.

  The two mighty serpents dipped and dodged, diving and climbing, first one, then the other in pursuit. And all the time the other four reds drew closer, winging with desperate speed. The newcomers were all considerably smaller than Lectral’s awesome foe, but even so, the silver knew their arrival would sway the battle into an unwinnable contest.

  “Now, son of Darlantan, you will die!” cried the red, seeing the direction of Lectral’s gaze. “I, Tombfyre, will see your life ended!”

  Only one tactic gave him hope. Lectral turned southward, pulling his opponent into pursuit, now carrying the fight away from the foursome of reds with as much speed as possible.

  “Coward!” brayed Tombfyre. “Stay and fight! At least do your sire that much honor!”

  “I am Lectral, heir to Darlantan and Callak,” the silver roared, diving, curling his neck to shout backward, underneath his belly. “I would slay you, but I am no fool, to die against five!”

  “Bah!” sneered Tombfyre, abruptly veering out of his pursuit. “Then the wyrmlings can kill you. I have more important affairs!”

  With a blink of magic, the red dragon vanished, and Lectral guessed that he had teleported back to the battle that was raging in the north. Trembling with rage, the silver whirled about, more than willing to face the four younger reds in a duel.

  Flying toward him, the crimson serpents closed the distance fast, spreading apart only slightly as they and the mighty silver converged. Abruptly Lectral tilted into a stall, then pulled himself upward with a powerful push of his wings. The sky beneath him became a hellish inferno of crackling fire, but the silver dragon escaped with just a few scorches on his tail.

  Quickly he pivoted, slashing past the reds, sweeping downward in a plunging dive.