Dragons of Summer Flame

by Tracy Hickman

  Lord Ariakan assembled his army on the Wings of Habbakuk, an apronlike stretch of flatland located just below the High Clerist’s Tower. The strongest bastion of defense on Ansalon, the fortress held no mysteries for Ariakan. He knew every hallway, every secret entrance, every cellar, knew its weaknesses, knew its strengths. He had been awaiting this moment since the day he’d left, long years ago.

  Ariakan could recall sitting on his horse on this very hillock, looking up at the tower and planning how he would take it. The memory gave him an eerie sense of having done this all before, though that time the men standing around him had been Knights of Solamnia, some of whom might well be waiting to meet their old comrade in battle this day.

  His servants set up his command tent in the dark. His officers assembled as the first streaks of orangish pink stained the skies. Five officers were present, the three leading strike army commanders, the commander of the draconian force, and the commander of a force that had come to be known among the troops as the Minions of Dark—an army composed of goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and human mercenaries, many of whom had been skulking about the Khalkist Mountains since the end of the War of the Lance, awaiting their chance for revenge. Also among these was a large force of minotaur, under the leadership of their own kind, since the minotaur scorn to take orders from mere humans.

  Ariakan went over his battle plan again. The first, second, and third strike armies were to attack, breach, and penetrate the tower’s curtain wall by way of the main entrances. Each would be given siege engines to accomplish the task. The first army to breach the defenses was to clear the curtain wall to allow the other forces to enter.

  The Minions of Dark were to attack the main entrance to the Knights’ Spur. If successful, they were to work their way into the main tower and assist the strike armies in the destruction of the enemy.

  The fifth army, the draconian force, was joining with the Knights of Takhisis, who would attack from the air. The draconians, mounted on the backs of blue dragons, would drop from the skies onto the battlements and clear the way for the strike armies. The knights would remain on dragonback, fighting the silver dragons, who would certainly rush to the aid of the Solamnic Knights.

  After the meeting, Ariakan dismissed his officers and ordered his servants to bring him breakfast.

  The waiting was hard. Steel paced restlessly, unable to sit still. The excitement coursing through his veins needed an outlet. He walked over to watch the engineers assemble the siege engine that would assault the main gate. Steel would have joined in the work, just for something to do, but he guessed he would be more of a hindrance than a help.

  The huge battering ram was made of the trunk of a once-mighty oak. Its head, fortified with iron, was fashioned in the shape of a snapping turtle (to honor Ariakan’s sea-goddess mother), and was mounted on a wheeled platform that would be rolled over the road, right up to the main gate. The ram hung suspended from the top of the siege engine in a cradle of leather, connected to a complex series of pulleys. Men tugging on strong ropes would pull the ram back. When the ropes were released, the ram would fly forward, striking the gates with enormous impact. An iron roof over the ram offered protection from flaming arrows, boulders, and other weapons the defenders would use in an effort to destroy it before it could do significant damage.

  Knights of the Thorn endowed the infernal engine with various kinds of magic. Knights of the Skull, led by the High Priestess of Takhisis, advanced and gave their dark blessing to the siege engine, calling on the goddess to assist their cause. The tower’s huge ironwood gates, banded by steel, were further strengthened by magic, and, it was feared, would not fall without the Dark Queen’s personal intervention.

  But was Takhisis here? Had she come to witness her army’s greatest triumph? It seemed to Steel that the high priestess faltered in her prayer, as if uncertain whether or not anyone was listening. The Knights of the Skull, flanking the priestess to her right and left, appeared uneasy and stole sidelong glances at each other. The engineer, who had been forced to cease work during the prayers, was impatient with the whole business.

  “Lot of nonsense, if you ask me,” he grumbled to Steel when the prayers had ended. “Not but what I’m a man of faith,” he added hastily, glancing around to make certain the clerics hadn’t heard him. “But I’ve spent six months of my life, day and night, on the design for that engine and another six months building it. A bit of stinking wizard-dust and a few mumbled prayers aren’t going to win this battle. Our Dark Lady will have a lot more important work to do today than hang about, knocking on the Solamnics’ front door.” He gazed at his machine with moist-eyed pride. “My engine will do that little job for her.”

  Steel politely agreed, and the two moved on to discuss the coordination of their two forces. This done, Steel left to return to his barbarian troops.

  He found the brutes playing at some game popular among their kind. One of them, one of the few who spoke the Common tongue, tried to explain the game to Steel. He listened patiently, attempted to look interested. He soon found himself lost in the complexity of the rules of the game, which was played with sticks, rocks, pine cones and involved the seemingly careless tossing about of large and deadly-looking bone-handled knives.

  The brute explained that the occasional bloodletting excited the men, prepared them for battle. Steel, who had been wondering how the barbarians had acquired all those strange-looking scars on their legs and feet, soon left the brutes to their dangerous pleasures and returned to his pacing.

  His gaze went to the battlements of the High Clerist’s Tower, where he could see small figures milling about, peering over the crenellation. It was long past dawn, long past the hour when armies usually attacked. If the waiting was hard on Steel, he could guess that it must be far harder on those inside the tower. They would be wondering why the delay, wondering what Ariakan was plotting, second-guessing their own strategies. And all the while, fear would gnaw at their hearts, their courage diminish by the hour.

  The sun rose higher in the sky; the shadows cast by the tower grew shorter. Steel sweated beneath his heavy armor and looked with envy on the brutes, who went into battle stark naked, their bodies covered with some sort of foul-smelling blue paint, which, they claimed, had magical properties and was all they needed to protect them against any weapon.

  Steel braved the heat to walk over to where the knights, his own talon, were preparing their dragons for battle. Subcommander Trevalin spotted him, waved, but was too busy adjusting his lance—a copy of the famed dragonlances—to talk. Steel saw Flare, who had a new rider. Steel didn’t envy the knight. Flare had been furious when she had found out about Steel’s demotion, had even spoken of refusing to fly into battle. Steel had talked her out of deserting, but it was obvious she was still sulking. She was loyal to the Vision and would fight valiantly, but she would also manage to make life as difficult as possible for her new rider.

  Smothering the feelings of regret and envy, Steel returned to his own command, sorry that he had left. He was feeling the heat, his enthusiasm was starting to wane, when a swirl of movement in the army’s center caught his eye. Lord Ariakan had emerged from his tent. A hush fell on those around him.

  Accompanied by his bodyguards, standard bearer, wizards, and dark clerics, Ariakan mounted his horse—a coal-black charger known as Nightflight, and rode forward, taking up a position just behind the rear squadron of the second strike army. He ordered the battle standard raised.

  The standards of all the other armies were hoisted; the flags hung limp in the still air. Ariakan lifted a baton made of black obsidian, decorated with silver death lilies, topped by a grinning skull. Taking a final glance around, noting that all was in readiness, Ariakan lowered the baton.

  The single clear note of a trumpet sounded on the heat-shimmering air. Steel recognized the call, “Advance to Contact,” and the blood pulsed in his veins until he thought his heart would burst from the thrill.

  Trumpets of all the armies of
Takhisis sounded the response, joined by the higher-pitched horns of the various squadrons, blending together in a blaring, ear-splitting cacophony of war. With a roar of voices that must have shaken the foundation stones of the tower, the army of Takhisis launched the attack.

  4

  A discussion between old friends.

  Sturm brightblade asks a favor.

  n the early dawn, Tanis Half-Elven climbed the stairs leading to the battlements near the central tower, not far from where Sturm Brightblade’s blood stained the walls. Here he would soon take up his position, but he did not call his troops to follow him. Not yet. Tanis had chosen this particular place deliberately. He sensed the presence of his friend. And he needed his friend at that moment.

  Tanis was tired; he had been awake all night, meeting with Sir Thomas and the other commanders, trying to find a way to do the impossible, a way to win against overwhelming odds. They made their plans, good plans, too. Then they had stepped out on the battlements, watched the armies of darkness, bright with light, flow up the hill—a rising tide of death.

  So much for good plans.

  Tanis sank down on the wall’s stone floor, leaned back his head, closed his eyes. Sturm Brightblade stood before him.

  Tanis could see Sturm clearly, the knight in his old-fashioned armor, his father’s sword in his hands, standing on the very battlements on which Tanis now rested. Oddly, Tanis wasn’t surprised to see his old friend. It seemed right and proper that Sturm should be here, walking the battlements of the tower he’d given his life to defend.

  “I could use some of your courage right now, old friend,” Tanis said quietly. “We can’t win. It’s hopeless. I know it. Sir Thomas knows it. The soldiers know it. And how can we carry on without hope?”

  “Sometimes winning turns out to be losing,” said Sturm Brightblade. “And victory is best achieved in defeat.”

  “You talk in conundrums, my friend. Speak plainly.” Tanis settled himself more comfortably. “I’m too tired to try to figure out riddles.”

  Sturm did not immediately answer. The knight walked the battlements, peered over the wall, stared at the vast army amassing below.

  “Steel is down there, Tanis. My son.”

  “He’s there, is he? I’m not surprised. We failed, it seems. He’s given his soul to the Dark Queen.”

  Sturm turned away, turned to face his friend. “Watch over him, Tanis.”

  Tanis snorted. “I think your son is extremely capable of watching over himself, my friend.”

  Sturm shook his head. “He fights against a foe beyond his strength. His soul is not completely lost to us, but—should he lose this inner struggle—he will be. Watch over him, my friend. Promise me.”

  Tanis was perplexed, troubled. Sturm Brightblade rarely asked for favors. “I’ll do my best, Sturm, but I don’t understand. Steel is a servant of the Dark Queen. He’s turned away from all that you tried to do for him.”

  “My lord …”

  “If you’d only explain to me—”

  “My lord!” The voice was accompanied by a hand, shaking his shoulder.

  Tanis opened his eyes, sat bolt upright. “What? What’s going on?” He reached for his sword. “Is it time?”

  “No, my lord. I’m sorry to wake you, my lord, but I need to know your orders.…”

  “Yes, of course.” Tanis rose stiffly to his feet. He looked swiftly around the battlements. No one else was there, just himself and this young knight. “Sorry, I must have dozed off.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the knight agreed politely. “You were talking to someone, my lord.”

  “Was I?” Tanis shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sleep-fog that clouded his brain. “I had the strangest dream.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The young knight stood patiently waiting.

  Tanis rubbed his burning eyes. “Now, what was your question?”

  He listened and answered and carried on with his duties, but whenever silence fell, he could hear softly spoken words.

  Promise me …

  Dawn came, but the sun’s light brought only deeper despair. The tower’s defenders looked down on a sea of darkness that had risen in the night, was about to break over them in a tidal wave of blood. News spread of the enormous force arrayed against the knights. Commanders could be heard sharply ordering their men to remain silent, maintain their positions. Soon the only sounds that could be heard were the calls of the silver dragons, circling in the air, shouting defiance to their blue cousins.

  The knights braced for the attack, but it didn’t come.

  An hour passed and then another. They ate breakfast at their posts, bread in one hand, sword in another. The armies gathered below made no move, except to increase their numbers.

  The sun rose higher and higher; the heat grew unbearable. Water was rationed. The mountain stream that had once flowed through the tower’s aqueduct had dried to barely a trickle. Men standing on the stone walls, their armor heated by the blazing sun, keeled over, passed out.

  “I think we could boil the oil without benefit of the fire,” Sir Thomas observed to Tanis on one of the Lord Knight’s many tours of inspection.

  He pointed to a huge cauldron, filled with bubbling oil, ready to be poured on the enemy. The heat from the fire forced all to keep their distance, except for those given the onerous task of stoking the blaze. They had shed armor, clothes, were stripped to the waist and sweating profusely.

  Tanis mopped his face. “What’s Ariakan up to, do you think? What’s he waiting for?”

  “For us to lose our nerve,” Sir Thomas replied.

  “It’s working,” Tanis said bitterly. “Paladine have mercy, I never saw an army that large! Not even during the war, in the last days before the fall of Neraka. How many troops do you think he has?”

  “Gilean only knows,” Sir Thomas said. “It’s hopeless to try to figure. ‘Every man counted in fear is a man counted twice,’ as the old saying goes. Not that it matters much.”

  “You’re right, my lord,” Tanis agreed. “It doesn’t matter at all.” He considered asking how long the knight thought the tower could hold out, realized that this didn’t matter much either.

  A trumpet call split the air.

  “Here they come,” said Sir Thomas, and left hastily to take up his command position on one of the balconies off the gardens on level six.

  Tanis sighed in relief, saw that same relief reflected on the faces of the men under his command. Action was far better than the terrible strain of waiting. Men forgot the terrible heat, forgot their fear, forgot their thirst, and leapt to take their posts. They could at last relax and let go; their fate was in Paladine’s hands.

  A blare of trumpets and a roar of challenge split the air. The army of darkness charged. The sun glittered off the scales of blue dragons; the shadows of their wings slid over the tower walls, the shadow of their coming slid over the hearts of the tower’s defenders. Dragonfear began to claim its first victims.

  The silver dragons and their knight riders, armed with the famed dragonlances, flew to do battle. A phalanx of blues clashed with the silver. Lightning flared; the blue dragons attacked with their breath weapons. The silvers retaliated by spewing clouds of smoking frost, which coated their enemies’ wings, sent them tumbling from the skies.

  Tanis wondered at the small number of blue dragons, was already suspecting that this initial attack was a diversion, when a cry rang out. Men were pointing to the west.

  What appeared to be a swarm of blue dragons was flying in from that direction, far outnumbering the silver. Each of these blues did not bear a single rider, but numerous riders. The young knights stared in puzzlement, but the veterans, those who had fought in the War of the Lance, knew what was coming. The moment the first blue dragons appeared over the tower, dark, winged shadows began to descend through the skies.

  “Draconians!” Tanis shouted, drawing his sword and readying himself for the attack. “Remember: The instant you kill one, toss its body over
the wall.”

  Dead draconians were as dangerous as living draconians. Depending on their species, the bodies either turned to stone, trapping any weapons left inside; or the bodies blew up, destroying their destroyers; or dissolved into pools of acid deadly to the touch.

  A Bozak draconian, its stubby wings spread to cushion its fall, thudded on the top of the wall directly in front of Tanis. Not suited to flying, the Bozak landed heavily, was momentarily stunned by the impact. It would recover quickly, however, and Bozaks were magic-users as well as expert fighters. Tanis jumped to attack the dazed creature before it could gather its wits. He swung his sword; the draconian’s head parted from its neck and blood spurted. Sheathing his sword, Tanis grabbed the body before it could topple, dragged it up over the wall, and shoved it over the edge.

  The dead Bozak fell among a group of barbarians attempting to scale the wall. The body blew up almost immediately, doing considerable damage. The barbarians retreated in confusion.

  Tanis had little time for elation. Mammoths pulled an enormous siege engine toward the tower’s front gate. Ladders were being thrown up against the walls. Tanis ordered his archers to the fore, instructed the knights manning the cauldron of oil to make ready to upend it on the heads of those below. With luck, they might even set the siege engine on fire. The men in his command were quick to do his bidding. He was well respected, known to be a knight in spirit, if not in truth.

  A courier came dashing up, slipped in the draconian’s blood, and nearly fell. He recovered himself, reported to Tanis.

  “Message from Sir Thomas, my lord. If the front gate falls, you are to take your men and reinforce the troops guarding the entrance.”

  If the front gate falls, there won’t be much left to guard, Tanis thought gloomily, but he refrained from saying the obvious, merely nodded and changed the subject. “What was that yelling I heard a moment ago?”

  The messenger managed a tired grin. “A force of minotaur tried to sneak inside through the aqueduct. Sir Thomas guessed that the enemy might think of that, what with the drought and all. Our knights were waiting for them. They won’t try that again soon.”