Thelvyn was cautious enough not to be caught by surprise by the next attack. Kardyer had held his bodyguards in reserve, six of his most powerful dragons, who now leaped to the attack from the side passage. Thelvyn lifted his sword again, aiming the blade toward the charging dragons, and willed the sword to discharge the most powerful bolt that he had ever dared to summon. The bolt was blinding in its intensity, and the concussion shook the very stone of the ancient city. The blast was enough to destroy all six renegades, scattering their burnt, broken bodies throughout the passage.
Almost frantic in his fury and desperation, Marthaen had drawn back just long enough to allow the Dragonlord to break through the barrier. Now he rushed forward into the breach, pulling out loose debris with his claws and then attacking the sides where the stone had been cracked and weakened by the explosion. In moments, he had an opening just large enough to force his way through, although it was a tight fit. As he pulled himself through the break, he looked up to see Kharendaen sitting up, still shaking in helpless anger and fear, her nose pressed to Thelvyn's chest as the Dragonlord rubbed her muzzle gently.
Still feeling helpless, Marthaen walked slowly along the dark passage to where Kardyer lay, more than a hundred yards away from where he had been struck. The renegade king still lived; although he would not survive his terrible injuries, dragons could be very slow to die. His chest had been completely crushed, so that each breath he drew was an agonizing effort. He lay sprawled across the floor, too weak even to move, staring blankly in his pain. Even so, he looked up as Marthaen approached.
"I am Kardyer . . . greatest of all. . . the renegade kings," he said, hardly commanding enough breath to speak. "I did not believe . . . that even the Dragonlord could defeat me."
"No dragon can defeat the Dragonlord," Marthaen said. "Only the Great One himself could hope to fight him."
"But I too . . . am an Immortal," Kardyer insisted, clinging to his delusions. "I cannot die."
"You have these last hours to consider it," Marthaen told him and turned away, leaving him to die in agony, suffocating slowly in his inability to draw a breath. Killing him would have been a kindness, and Marthaen felt that he was due these last hours of pain in payment for all the torment he had caused.
"If you don't mind . . ."
Sir George was watching him through the opening in the door of the chamber where he was imprisoned. Marthaen took hold of the handle and pulled until the ancient timbers of the door broke free of their hinges. The old knight stepped out, looking none the worse for his captivity.
"After so much effort to rescue you, I am pleased to see you had the decency to still be alive," Marthaen told him. "Do you know where the collar is?"
"Kardyer doesn't have it; he never did," Sir George said in disgust. "He was so full of his own delusions of grandeur that he would never have been in alliance with anyone else in the first place, even a group as impressively sneaky as the Fire Wizards. But he does have a fair amount of treasure stacked about. He took considerable pleasure in showing it to me."
"The treasure belongs to the Dragonlord," Marthaen said. "It is his right, as the slayer of Kardyer."
"Me?" Thelvyn asked, confused. "What would I want with so much treasure?"
"Lad!" Sir George admonished him as discreetly as possible.
"According to custom, you should give some thought to the dragons who have helped you," Marthaen explained. "But the treasure and the lair itself now belongs to you."
"We can worry about that later," Thelvyn insisted. "We still have renegades up above to deal with."
Still shaken by her ordeal, Kharendaen took a brief moment to settle close against her brother's breast, rubbing her cheek again his. Marthaen watched Thelvyn as he hurried away with the old knight to the defense of the gold dragons above. Marthaen knew only too well that the Dragonlord had saved both his own life and his sister's in the last hour, a debt he couldn't easily repay. And yet he couldn't help but think of the very real possibility that he would be going to war with the Dragonlord in the coming weeks. He also had a very serious duty to protect his own people, even if that meant defeating the Dragonlord any way he could.
Marthaen recalled with irony how, only last winter, he had warned Kharendaen about growing too close to Thelvyn. Now he found himself trapped by his own obligations.
CHAPTER NINE
Since both dragons wore saddles, Kharendaen and Seldaek brought Thelvyn and Sir George back to Braejr. The matter of Kardyer's hoard remained unresolved, although it was a very important issue to all the dragons, even Kharendaen. Thelvyn rewarded all the golds who had joined in the mission to rescue Sir George, even insisting that Marthaen take a part of the treasure in spite of his insistence that he was already in the Dragonlord's debt. The rest, a rather considerable amount, Thelvyn could only lock it away in the vaults where it already lay and trust that no one would discover the entrance to Darmouk, which was also considered his property. He was assured that the gold dragons who knew of the ancient city would never speak of it or return uninvited, respecting the sanctity of his hoard as they would that of any dragon. None of the renegades had survived.
On their return to Braejr, Solveig met them in the courtyard, but she feigned a complete lack of concern, at least now that she knew the old knight had returned unharmed.
Kharendaen had to leave again at once, having other duties of her own to attend to. Seldaek would stay with Sir George for a time to continue the hunt for the Collar of the Dragons. Thelvyn had his own responsibilities, which he had not forgotten. He had accepted command of the Highland Army, and he was to lead the first caravan of supplies and soldiers to the frontier the next day.
Thelvyn's problems the next morning turned quickly from being one of dragons to one of horses. Having had the services of a dragon at his disposal for the last five years had gotten him rather out of practice riding a horse. He had no reason to doubt his ability to control a horse, but the prospect of actually sitting the saddle for the next few days was daunting. He doubted that his experience riding a dragon was at all similar, since dragon flight was extremely smooth compared to the jarring gait of a horse.
King Jherridan had given him a fine young stallion, by far the best horse Thelvyn had ever owned. The horse was of the swift but tireless breed that the Flaem had brought with them from some other world. The breed was characterized by their small bodies and deep chests. They were typically brown in color, with darker manes and tails. In appearance, the young stallion was very much like the two mares he had ridden during the quest that had eventually made him the Dragonlord. Like all horses, this one refused to bear him peacefully until Sir George had worked some subtle magic with the beast. Thelvyn named him Cadence, the same as his two previous horses, since he wasn't told the name the stallion had previously.
He joined the army of the king at the main garrison at sunrise, just as the lines of soldiers and wagons were being prepared to move north. For the sake of convenience, all the massive freight wagons, the mobile catapults, and the companies of soldiers with their ordnance wagons were assembled in the fields outside the gate, along either side of the road. At first, Thelvyn overestimated the force that was being sent to the frontier, knowing only that it consisted of most of the king's army, the core of the entire Highlands forces. In times of war, Thelvyn knew, a nation such as Thyatis or Darokin could put an army larger than all the population of the Highlands into the field. Even so, Thelvyn would have thought the Highlands army had grown in strength during the years of eager preparation for war with Alphatia.
Once Thelvyn had taken command, he quickly discovered that he was expected to hold several hundred miles of the remote northern border with a mere twenty-five hundred men and five hundred elves. They would be joining some twelve hundred soldiers already at the frontier. If the conflict with the dragons did turn to open war, the dukes might be persuaded to part with another two thousand men; whether the elves would pledge additional support remained highly debatable. The el
ves were reluctant allies in this venture, correctly assuming that the entire business probably could have been avoided.
The army would need at least a week to reach the northern border, which worked to Thelvyn's advantage. Another week would give the dragons more time to consider the matter, and probably to discover that the Highlands forces were under his command. He hoped they would think twice about challenging him, and that might lead them to hesitate long enough to see for themselves that he would only be securing the northern border and not bringing the army into the mountains to attack them on their own ground.
Thelvyn still hoped to avoid war with the dragons, although he expected to have to prove himself again in combat. His new power of flight gave him the ability to fight dragons more effectively than ever, even to force a battle with dragons who did not necessarily wish to fight. They could no longer use their greater speed and mobility to avoid him. He could go to war with the dragons if he must, but he couldn't be everywhere at once, and the dragons would be able to inflict tremendous destruction before he could hope to force them to surrender.
The first three days of the journey north went reasonably well, and they made fairly good time. The roads in the central Highlands were well established and decently maintained, and there hadn't been any heavy rains lately to turn them to mud. That was especially important considering how many large and heavily laden freight wagons they had, wagons that would be easily trapped in any soft mud, which was why it was necessary to get them into the north before the midsummer rains.
Their pace slowed when they approached the frontier. They had left behind the wooded, rolling hills of the middle Highlands for the pine forests of the north, where the roads were narrow and often twisted steeply through the rugged land. Strangely, Thelvyn felt content; he had grown up in these forests and mountains, and to him this was home. He had never been especially fond of his life in the village of Graez, where he had always been an orphan and an outsider, but he had missed the trees and the mountains during his time in the warm, dusty plains surrounding Braejr.
"We'll need to divide up our soldiers and supplies when we come to the crossroads," Thelvyn told Captain Gairstaan as they rode together. "Half will head northeast, toward Nordeen and the Eastern Reach, while the other half goes to Linden and the northwestern border. We can fortify our positions more quickly that way."
"Which force will you be heading?" Gairstaan asked. "I would suppose that you plan to be where you'll be most likely to encounter dragons."
Thelvyn shook his head. "I've been thinking about that, and I haven't decided. We could be confronted by the dragons in the Wendarian Ranges, who will be coming straight down from the mountains. Or the Parliament of Dragons itself might chose to intervene, in which case they'll be coming along the mountains from the northeast as they did five years ago. They might be seeking me out, or they might try to avoid me. I hate being in the position of having to wait until they make the first move and then respond accordingly, but I don't see much choice."
The final plan that he and Gairstaan decided upon was to keep the army together until they were past the first crossroad at Traagen. Just south of Nordeen, sightly more than half of their forces would turn westward, following the new road that had been built to serve the remote settlements along the foothills of the Wendarian mountains.
Thelvyn couldn't help but think how much things had changed. When he had been growing up in the village of Graez, the village had been the edge of the frontier, and these recently settled lands had been wild and largely unexplored territory.
As it happened, matters took the one turn Thelvyn hadn't anticipated: The dragons attacked sooner than he had dreamed they would. The army had just moved into a large area of open ground when the sky suddenly seemed full of dragons. Thelvyn counted them quickly and realized that there were only a dozen, but they darted back and forth so rapidly that there seemed to be more. He saw at once that they were young red dragons. He was getting the idea that it was a favorite tactic of the dragons when fighting large forces on the ground to catch them out in the open, where the dragons could make easy attack runs while their enemy couldn't take cover. They had done the same thing when they had fought Jherridan's forces five years before.
Thelvyn did the only thing he could, since the dragons weren't about to allow his forces to retreat to the forest more than a hundred yards away. He moved all the soldiers forward through the files of freight wagons, which he then had form in a tight line along the rear. The wagons would comprise something of a barrier at their rear, allowing his forces to concentrate on the attacks from the front and sides. If the catapults could be made ready in time and the companies of archers moved into position, there was some reason to hope that they could hold their own against this band of dragons. The Dragonlord's presence helped to insure that.
The dragons held off their attack while the Highlands forces made ready to defend themselves. That left Thelvyn to wonder what they might be expecting. Did they hope to intimidate the Flaem? Did they already know the Dragonlord was there? That would make a difference in their plans, although he had no intention of allowing them to have their way. He would need to take control of this situation soon if he could. After a brief time, Captain Gairstaan rode over to join him.
"All units are deployed," Gairstaan reported. "What are they waiting for? It almost seems as if they're waiting to give us a fair chance."
"Dragons have a strong sense of honor," Thelvyn said, "although I suspect they have their own reasons for waiting. It depends on whether or not they know I'm here and whether they want to prove something to me. If they don't attack, they might be planning to challenge me."
"Can you fight them?"
"According to their custom, only their leader and possibly his own bodyguards will challenge me," Thelvyn explained. "But I suspect they'll be keeping in mind my battle with the red dragon Jherdar and his bodyguards five years ago, and they won't repeat his mistakes. I doubt they know I have the power of flight now and can face them on their own terms."
"So what will you do now?" Gairstaan asked.
"I'm going to give them a good scare," Thelvyn said. "For all their plans and expectations, coming face-to-face with the Dragonlord is going to unnerve them. Imagine the worst monster of legend, some creature that has frightened you since you were a small child, and then consider having to fight that monster. That's how the dragons look upon the Dragonlord."
He left his horse in the old captain's care, then donned the armor of the Dragonlord and walked out onto the field. As he had expected, the sudden appearance of the Dragonlord caused them to break off their bold display and retreat a short distance. Five of them landed on a distant hill to speak together in hushed tones, while the rest circled tightly above. Thelvyn was beginning to think they hadn't been expecting him after all.
The five dragons discussed the matter briefly, then they took to the air to join the others and moved closer to the Highlands army, still keeping a respectful distance away. Perhaps they regretted they hadn't attacked immediately while they assumed they had the advantage, rather than wasting time making an arrogant show of strength . Any initial advantage they might have had through the element of surprise had since been lost.
After a time, the largest of the red dragons landed on a low rise, perhaps a hundred yards away, and Thelvyn walked out to meet him. As Thelvyn came closer, he felt the reawakening of his instinctive fear of dragons, the old fear he had nearly forgotten because of his long friendship with Kharendaen. Dragons had been his unrelenting enemies since before he was born; his mother had died because of their desperate attempt to end his life even before it had begun.
Still, Thelvyn had to put down his growing terror, forcing himself to appear calm and confident as he approached the red dragon. His last hope of avoiding a fight was to appear as the Dragonlord he needed to be, stern yet benevolent. Dragons instinctively respected the authority of the wisest and strongest of will among them.
"This confl
ict is unnecessary," Thelvyn began. "I promise you that the dragons aren't threatened either by me or the Highlands army. They wish only to secure their borders, and I am here to insure that there are no misunderstandings."
"This is a peculiar way to avoid a misunderstanding," the dragon said, glancing at the army arrayed behind the Dragonlord. "How can I not take your presence here to be anything but a threat?"
"The Flaemish king has declared that he will not send his army into the mountains unless the dragons attack first," Thelvyn said. "And I will not help them to do unprovoked harm to dragons under any circumstance. If you attack the king's soldiers here in his own lands, you will make war inevitable."
"War has been long in coming," the dragon declared. "The only thing that is inevitable is a battle to the death between ourselves and the Dragonlord."
The dragon turned abruptly and spread his broad wings, then, after three long bounds, leaped into the air. Thelvyn returned to his former position at the head of the army's defensive line, putting on his helmet so that he wouldn't be caught unprepared if the dragons attacked suddenly. The crystal eyeplates limited his vision somewhat, but he observed the movements of the red dragons as closely as he could. All the dragons had returned to the sky at the same instant as their leader. Now they circled tightly, perhaps a mile to the west, as they apparently prepared to attack.
Thelvyn watched the dragons as they began to spread out, circling the besieged forces on the ground. In his first battle with the dragons, they had been aware of his limitations to his range of vision and had used that against him, several of them coming at him at a time in the expectation that one of them would be able to get in close enough to attack. But this time they directed their attack not at him but at the Highlands army, staying outside the range of his weapons as much as possible as they streaked in quickly to release a blast of flames and then withdraw. He began to wonder now if he should have ordered his forces to spread out more. Their tight formations left them vulnerable, but at least the Highlanders weren't defenseless. Although their longbows weren't of much concern to a dragon, the lance-sized, metal-tipped shafts from their catapults were another matter.
D& D - Mystara 02 Dragonking of Mystara Page 19