The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt (forgotten realms)

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Ah, I see,” the man went on. “My claim of kingship means little to you, no doubt, for you perceive me as one who holds claim over humans alone. Or perhaps over humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and all the rest of the humanoid races in which you have little interest, other than to make a meal of them now and again.”

  The dragon increased the volume of his growl.

  “But you should take note this time, Urshula, for my rise holds great implications for all who call Vaasa, or anywhere in the Bloodstone Lands, their home. I have united all the creatures of Vaasa to do battle with the feeble and foolish lords of Damara. My armies swarm south through the Galenas, and soon all the land will be mine.”

  “All the creatures?” Urshula replied in a voice that was both hissing and gravelly at the same time.

  “For the most part.”

  The dragon growled.

  “I am no fool,” said Zhengyi. “Naturally I did not approach one as magnificent as you until I was certain that my plans would proceed. I would not enlist Urshula, the Beast of the Bog, to fight the initial battles, for I would not be worthy of such a creature as Urshula until the first victories were achieved.”

  “You are a fool if you think yourself worthy even then.”

  “Others do not agree.”

  “Others? Goblins and dwarves?” The dragon snorted, little puffs of black smoke popping out of his upward-facing nostrils.

  “You have heard of Byphast the Frozen Death?” Zhengyi asked. The dragon’s nostrils flared, and his eyes widened. “Or of Honoringast the Red?”

  Urshula’s head moved back at the mention of that one. The black dragon, suddenly not so sure of himself, glanced around.

  “Am I now worthy?” Zhengyi asked.

  Urshula lifted up to his haunches. The movement, frighteningly fast and graceful for so large a beast, had Zhengyi stepping backward despite the fact that he was just a projected image, his physical form far from the breath and bite of the black wyrm.

  “If you are worthy, then you are worthy of naught but the title of fool, and no more, to disturb the rest of Urshula!” the dragon roared. “You have found my home and think yourself clever, but beware, ‘Witch-King,’ for none who know the home of Urshula shall live for long.”

  The thunder of his roaring was still reverberating off the cavern’s walls when the dragon came forward. His jaws opened wide and dropped over the projected image of Zhengyi. The great dragon’s teeth clamped together hard and loud right where the lich’s knees appeared. Urshula bit only insubstantial air, of course, for Zhengyi wasn’t truly in the cavern, but the dragon thrashed and flailed anyway, its forelegs slapping down at that which its mouth had not bitten. And when those clawed dragon fingers passed through the insubstantial Zhengyi and slapped at the floor, Urshula flexed his great muscles and drove his iron-strong claws into the stone, raking them across, digging deep ridges.

  The dragon finished by spreading wide his wings and crouching upright on his rear legs, his lamplight gaze fixed on the continuing image of the Witch-King.

  “The other notable dragons of the region have joined with me,” Zhengyi went on, unperturbed and apparently unimpressed. “They recognize the value and the gain of this winning campaign. When all of the Bloodstone Lands are under my command, they will be well rewarded.”

  “Urshula does not need others to reward him,” the dragon countered. “Urshula takes what Urshula wants.”

  “They find security in my ranks, mighty dragon.”

  “Urshula kills whoever threatens Urshula.”

  “You are aware of the young lord gaining strength in the southland?” Zhengyi asked. “You have heard of Gareth?”

  The dragon snorted.

  “You know his surname, of course?”

  “You have confused me with someone who would care, it seems.”

  “ ‘Dragonsbane,’ ” Zhengyi replied. “The young leader of those who oppose me holds the surname of Dragonsbane, and it was one earned through deeds in his rich family lines. Would he be a friend to Urshula if he somehow managed to defeat me?”

  “You just claimed to lead a winning campaign,” the dragon reminded him.

  “Indeed, and that is in no small part because of the wisdom of Byphast, Honoringast, and others who see the choice clearly.”

  “Then why have you disturbed my slumber? Go and win, but leave Urshula be. And consider yourself fortunate in that, for few ever leave Urshula except scattered in piles of excrement.”

  “Magnanimity?” Zhengyi asked as much as stated. “I offer to the dragons rewards for their assistance. I would be remiss if I did not extend the courtesy to Kazmil-urshula-kelloakizilian.”

  The dragon chuckled, a sound like stones being crushed by boulders in a pool of acid, and said, “You see yourself as salvation, then, as a soon-to-be-king of all you survey. I have outlived many such fools. You see yourself as one of note, but I see a pathetic human, and a dead one at that, wearing but the guise of life. Lay down, lich. Seek your kingdom and peace in a world more befitting your rotting corporeal form. Bother me no more, or I will lay you down myself.

  “And if you do come against me, with or without your dragon companions,” Urshula went on, “then do inform Byphast the Frozen Death that she will be the first to feel the bite of my wrath.”

  “You have not yet heard my offer, grand beast,” Zhengyi said. He brought forth a small gem shaped like a dragon’s skull. “The greatest treasure of all. Do you recognize this, Urshula?”

  The dragon narrowed his eyes and issued a low growl but did not respond.

  “A phylactery,” Zhengyi explained. “Prepared for Urshula. I have beaten Death, mighty dragon. And I know how you might-”

  “Be gone from here, abomination!” the dragon roared. “You have embraced death, not defeated it, and you only did so because you are of the inferior race, the short-lived and infirm. You presume the death of Urshula, but Urshula is older than the oldest memories of your race. And Urshula will remain when the memory of you has faded from all the world!”

  The image closed its hand and slid the phylactery away. “You do not appreciate its value,” Zhengyi said, then he shrugged and bowed. “Sleep well, mighty dragon. You are as impressive as I was told you would be. Perhaps another day.…”

  “I will never see you again, else I will see you destroyed.”

  Urshula’s words echoed and rebounded, and it seemed as if their vibrations shook the image of Zhengyi to nothingness.

  The black dragon remained crouching for some time, still as a statue, listening for any indication that Zhengyi or his minions were within the chamber or the corridors beyond.

  Many hours later, the great black curled back up to sleep.

  The Witch-King stood on a high, flat stone, looking north to his kingdom of Vaasa, his skeletal fingers balled into fists of rage at his sides.

  The campaign had been going well He had pressed deep into Damara, conquering enemies and enlisting new allies-many of them the rotting corpses of the men his army had just slaughtered. His enemies remained divided, often too concerned with one another to pay sufficient heed to the true darkness that had come to their land.

  Gareth Dragonsbane and his friends worked furiously to remedy that, to unite Damara’s many lords under a single banner and stand strong against Zhengyi, but they had acted too late, so Zhengyi believed, and his victory seemed assured.

  But then a small but powerful force had swept into Vaasa in his own army’s wake. They had broken the siege at Palishchuk and gathered the remnants of refugees from across the wasteland into a single, formidable force. Several caravans of supplies from Castle Perilous had not reached Bloodstone Pass in the Galenas. Zhengyi’s main supply route had been interrupted.

  The Witch-King understood that he should not be looking north at so critical an hour. He had not the time to chase a splinter group of rebels with Gareth Dragonsbane rising to prominence before him.

  “Where are you, Byphast?” he asked the cold n
orthern breeze.

  He had sent the dragon back to her glacial home with instructions to put down the rebels and their Damaran supporters, but the news coming back to him had been less than promising.

  He stood there a while longer, then snapped his black robes and gray cape around him in a swift, angry turn. He strode back down the mountainside, his undead form easily gliding over the treacherous descent, and soon he walked among the rear guard of his army again, appearing once more as he had in life. The living humans who slavishly followed him would not have suffered the terrible sight of his true form.

  He waited out the night in his command tent, perusing the reports and maps that were coming in from the battle fronts in the south. Truly Zhengyi’s preparation for the campaign would have garnered the appreciation of the greatest generals throughout Faerun. Information was power, Zhengyi knew, and his command tent, with its tables full of maps and miniatures of various strategic stretches of the Bloodstone Lands’ terrain, and markers depicting the relative size and strength of the armies doing battle, was a testament to that knowledge. There, Zhengyi could plot his army’s movements, his defensive positions, and those areas most vulnerable to attack. In that tent, the grand strategy-including the decision not to throw his weight fully against Palishchuk-had been formulated and continually refined.

  The Witch-King didn’t like surprises.

  Despite his preparation and confidence, Zhengyi’s firelight eyes often glanced back over his shoulder, to the north, in the hope of word from the white dragon. Splinter groups of powerful heroes were harder to keep track of and often more trouble than regiments of common soldiers.

  The long night passed without incident. It wasn’t until the next morning that Byphast, in her elf form, came walking down the trail. Zhengyi spotted her some distance off, and first sight told him that the news from the north was not good. Byphast limped, and even from a distance, she appeared more disheveled than Zhengyi had ever seen her.

  The Witch-King’s robes fluttered out behind him as he strode through his camp, determined to meet the white dragon on the trail beyond the hearing of his guards and soldiers.

  “The rumors are true,” Zhengyi said as he approached. “A band of heroes reached Palishchuk.”

  “To the cheers of the half-orcs,” Byphast replied. “That city is more fortified than ever. Their preparations do not cease. They have thickened their walls and set out crates of stinging arrows.”

  Her use of that particular adjective told Zhengyi that the dragon had personally tested those defenses.

  “And they have constructed greater engines of defense, catapults and ballistae that can be quickly swiveled toward the sky to strike back against airborne creatures. When I flew over the city, barbed chains rose to impede me, and I only narrowly avoided giant spears hurled my way.”

  “Palishchuk will be dealt with in time,” Zhengyi promised.

  “Without the aid of Byphast, and without any other dragons, I would guess,” the white dragon replied. “The treasures of Palishchuk are not worth the risk to wing and limb.”

  Zhengyi nodded, still not overly concerned with the half-orc city. Once Damara had been conquered, Palishchuk would become a tiny oasis of resistance with no help forthcoming from anywhere in the Bloodstone Lands. They would not hold out for long, and Zhengyi had not yet given up hope that the half-orcs would ultimately throw in with him. They were half-orcs, after all, and would not likely be as deterred by moral issues as were the weak humans, halflings, and others of Damara.

  “These heroes hid within the city?” Zhengyi asked, getting back to the problem at hand.

  “Nay, they came forth quite willingly. When I escaped the chains and the spears and flew off to the north, they burst out of Palishchuk’s gate in pursuit.”

  “And you killed them?”

  Byphast’s twisted expression gave him the answer before the dragon began to speak. “They are accompanied by mighty wizards and priests. Their knights glow with wards to defeat my deadly breath; their armor sings with magic to deter the rake of my claws.”

  “A small band?”

  “Fifty strong and well designed to do battle with dragons.”

  “Byphast would not normally flee from such a group.” Zhengyi did nothing to keep the contempt out of his voice, nor from his expression, as he narrowed his eyes and sneered.

  “If forced to do battle with them-if ever they happened upon my lair-then I would surely destroy them,” the dragon replied without hesitation. “But scars would accompany that win, I am sure, and in that place, at this time, they were not worth the trouble.”

  “You serve Zhengyi.” Even as the Witch-King took the conversation in that direction, Byphast’s statement, if ever they happened upon my lair, resonated in his thoughts.

  “I agreed to fight beside Zhengyi’s forces,” the dragon replied. “I did not agree to wage such battles alone in the bogs of Vaasa.”

  Zhengyi produced a phylactery, the one to which Byphast had attuned herself. If the dragon was slain, her energy and life-force would transfer to the phylactery, and she would become undead, a dracolich.

  “You forget?” the lich said.

  “It is a final safeguard, but not one I am anxious to use. If in the course of events I am slain, then so be it. That is the risk my kind need take whenever we come forth into the world of lesser creatures. But I’ll not chase after the undeath you offer.”

  “Ah, Byphast, it is a piteous thing to see a creature of your reputation reduced to such fear.”

  Lizardlike eyes narrowed, and a low growl escaped the dragon’s elf lips.

  “Very well, then,” said Zhengyi. “I will deal with the intruders myself. I’ll not have them nipping at my heels all the way through Damara. Go and rejoin the commanders at the front. Lay waste to the foolish Damarans who stand in our way.”

  Byphast didn’t move, nor did her expression change from the hateful look she shot Zhengyi’s way.

  If that threat bothered the Witch-King at all, though, he didn’t show it. He turned his back on the wyrm in elf’s clothing and stalked back to his vast encampment.

  “Donegan!” cried Maryin Felspur, Knight of the Order.

  “Sir Donegan,” the senior knight corrected. He walked his armor-clad horse out from the ranks, the heavy hooves making plopping sounds as the fifteen-hundred-pound steed, with three hundred pounds of armor and two hundred pounds of rider, crossed the soft, wet ground. Donegan paced right up to Maryin, the only female knight of the ten who had come out from Lord Gareth’s ranks in Damara, accompanying more than fifty footsoldiers, half a dozen priests, and a trio of annoying wizards.

  “Sir Donegan,” Maryin corrected herself with outward humility.

  She didn’t have her helmet on, though, and her smile betrayed her tone. Serving as scout for the group, the lithe Maryin was the least armored of the knights, and her horse, a fine, strong young pinto, barely larger than a pony, wore only protective breast- and faceplates. Maryin preferred the bow and used her speed to skirt the edges of the encounters with Zhengyi’s minions, thinning their ranks at advantageous points so that Donegan and Sir Bevell could best exploit their enemies.

  Donegan did not dismount. His mail of interlocking plates made such movements tedious, particularly in trying to get back up onto the nearly eighteen-hand charger. Instead he leaned over as far as his encumbering suit would allow and lifted the visor of his helmet.

  Maryin crouched beside a depression, a tear in the ground that was half-filled with brown water.

  “Only a creature the size of a dragon could make such an imprint,” Maryin said.

  Donegan straightened and scanned the area. He noted a second and third imprint behind and several more ahead but beyond that, nothing.

  “Master Fisticus,” he called to the leader of the trio of wizards, “pray you and your companions ready your components and our shielding spells. These tracks are not old, and it would appear that the wyrm has taken to the air. It could swoop upon us f
rom on high at any time, and I’ll not have its deadly breath decimating our ranks before we’ve had a chance to engage the beast.”

  “Perhaps we should slide back toward Palishchuk, my lord,” Maryin offered quietly. “In reach of their ballistae-”

  “Nay,” Sir Donegan began before Maryin had even finished. “The wyrm is too smart to be goaded near the town again. The half-orcs nearly brought it down the first time.”

  “If it is the same dragon.”

  That thought gave Donegan pause, for he could not dismiss the reasoning. Until a few months ago, Donegan had seen only one dragon in all of his twenty years of adventuring, and that was a small white up near the Great Glacier. With the coming of Zhengyi, the Knight of the Order had learned far more than ever he had intended regarding dragonkind, for evil chromatic wyrms of many colors filled the sky above the Witch-King’s advance. Reds and whites had laid waste to many villages, including Donegan’s home town, and the knight had done battle with a pair of blues, an encounter that had cost him a horse and had left a blackened line of lightning scarring across the back of his otherwise silvery armor.

  Too many dragons, Donegan thought. Far too many dragons.…

  Zhengyi stood on the northeastern bank of a small pond a few miles to the north of Palishchuk. Gone were the human trappings of his former self; he saw no need for such vanities out there, alone. He had his hood back, revealing his skull, the splotchy patches of hair, and the flaps of rotting skin. His robes smelled of mildew, hanging in tatters and showing green spots of mold. He clutched a twisted oaken staff, leaning on it heavily, and stared out to the south.

  He saw their approach, the glint of the sun off their lance tips, off the armor of their mounts. He heard the thunder of hooves and marching soldiers.

  The remnants of the Witch-King’s lips curled in a wicked smile. He thought of Byphast’s declaration: that she would not go against such a contingent except in her lair.

  Any dragon would fight against any odds to protect its lair. To the death.