The draconian aide was holding Dralan's dropped sword, giving it to the commander.
On his knees, Laronnar drew Haylis's small crossbow from his belt and fired.
There was a sound from the tavern patrons, like the rising and falling of the wind, as the draconian fell backward through the rickety doors of the tavern, the cross-bow quarrel protruding from his forehead.
Rain and cold salt wind whooshed in through the demolished doors. Shuffling and pushing, the patrons crowded near the door, shifted back along the walls, loath to leave the fight, loath to get wet while watching it.
Dralan, chest heaving, stood dumbfounded for a moment. He stared at his dead aide and at the long sword, glinting dully on the boardwalk, still clutched in the draconian's fist. Dralan looked at Laronnar. "Two good men have died because of our quarrel. Let us end this now," he rasped, hand extended, palm up. "Honorably."
Laronnar forced himself, by will alone, to stand. The cold air snuffed the candles, whipped the torches, leaving the room in flickering semidarkness. The chill helped to clear his head. He nodded in agreement and extended his hand-the gloved hand.
Something in his face, or his eyes, gave him away.
Dralan wheeled away, falling toward his aide's body.
Laronnar hooked his fingers in the back of Dralan's armor and dragged him into the tavern just as the commander grabbed the lizard man's sword. Using the steel-augmented glove covering the back of his hand, Laronnar struck the back of Dralan's head.
He could tell by the way Dralan lurched and slid down in his grasp that the blow had stunned him. But Dralan maintained his grip on the two-handed sword, dragging it with him.
Laronnar swiped at Dralan's exposed neck with the spikes, raking the side of his head. Dralan roared like a wounded animal, threw himself forward. His weight tore his armor from Laronnar's fingers.
Dralan righted himself and wheeled drunkenly to face Laronnar. Blood was streaming down the side of his head, spreading across his white collar. He clutched the draconian sword in his hands.
Dralan struck, but his grip on the sword was clumsy, his vision impaired. The blade hit Laronnar's ribs, and he went down. The next blow was better aimed and the tip of the blade slashed into his thigh. Laronnar gulped in air. Pain shot up his leg.
The pain gave him fear. The fear fed him strength. Laronnar kicked out with his good leg. The sword flew out of Dralan's hands, and Laronnar crawled away, clutching his bleeding leg.
Stumbling, Dralan scrabbled for the sword, found it, and came after his enemy. He tried to turn the heavy sword, to correct his grip on the huge pommel. Pausing, he swiped his sleeve across his face, to clear the blood from his eyes.
Laronnar scooted back. He still held the crossbow. His fingers fumbled for the quarrels on his belt. They were all gone-lost in the struggle!
Laronnar upended a table, crawled behind it and tried to pull himself up. His leg burned like it was on fire. And he could hear the scraping of Dralan's approach.
Then he felt a soft hand on his arm, urging him to remain where he was. He wheeled to face the red-haired barmaid, Kaelay, smiling sweetly and smelling of spice. Not a hair was mussed, but her tunic was smeared with blood across the breast where she had helped his commander to stand.
"Let me help you," she said, and her voice carried the music of rushing wind.
"What game is this you play?!" Laronnar snarled. He dropped the useless crossbow and clutched a broken chair leg like a dagger. "Revenge for the taking of your paltry little town?"
"No game, my lord. I will help the one who can best help me in return." She went to her knees beside him.
"First you help him, then me." Laronnar tried again to stand. The sound of scuffing, booted feet on the plank floor was very near.
Laronnar fell, and she caught him.
The heavy sword suddenly clanged down on the table edge, right above his head. Wood chips and splinters flew.
Ignoring the twisting pain in his thigh, Laronnar pushed himself to his feet. He swung the chair leg. It whistled in the air just inches from Dralan's face, and he lost his footing. The heavy sword slid from the edge of the table, its tip thunking on the floor.
While Dralan struggled to lift the sword once more, Laronnar wheeled on Kaelay.
"Bitch! You try to distract me!" He slashed at her as he had slashed at Dralan. "If you kill us all, more will come to take our places."
More nimbly than his commander, she dodged. "I will help the one who would help me in return," she repeated. Her sweetness was gone, replaced with venom and fire. She slapped her hand down on his, clutching his fist, and uttered a single, incomprehensible word.
Laronnar gasped. A noxious, smoky glow flared from the joining of their hands. It stung his flesh like the barbs of nettles.
Kaelay uttered another word, then released his hand so abruptly he reeled. In place of the chair leg, where the warmth of her hand had covered his, was the little cross-bow, loaded with a quarrel and cocked.
Her quick intake of breath alerted him. He wheeled to meet Dralan, who held the draconian sword, gleaming, in his hands.
Laronnar stepped forward and pressed the loaded crossbow to Dralan's chest. Laronnar pulled the smooth trigger of the bow.
The little quarrel, only a hand long, exploded Dralan's heart, just as Dralan's sword hit Laronnar's shoulder. Pain spangled out and down, but it was amazingly mild.
Laronnar watched surprise, then anger, flit across Dralan's face. Watched Dralan's dead fingers slide off the sword. Watched as Dralan slipped to the floor. Heard the sword rattle as it fell off his shoulder and hit the table edge, then the floor.
And Laronnar was still standing!
Cautiously, he moved his chin just half an inch to the side, just half an inch down, shifted his gaze to his shoulder. No blood. No torn flesh or bloodied bone ends. The sword had not cut him! How-?
He turned to Kaelay. She had moved away and was standing alone among the jumble of tables near the door. She smiled and shrugged, the movement tugging the soft tunic across her breasts. Then she turned away.
Before he could go after her, a rousing cheer went up from the soldiers who had remained in the bar. They rushed Laronnar, grabbing up his numb hands to shake them, pounding him on the back in congratulation.
*****
Laronnar stepped out of the inn and breathed deeply of rain-freshened salt air. The call to battle had been sounded. The lull was over.
In the evening sky, the twinkling of the night's first stars glinted off puddles of water on the rough board-walk. The street before him was a mire, so empty and quiet that he could hear the sound of the sea, the creaking of the ships at water's edge.
He had won! He was commander now. His heart still thudded with the quick pulse of battle, of exhilaration and pride. His wounds burned. His shoulders ached. He was stumbling from exhaustion, but he didn't care. His ears rang from the shouts and toasts to his new title: Commander Laronnar.
He spread his arms wide to embrace the coming night, the coming battle. Now all he had to do was find the green-eyed wizardess who had helped him win the duel. He could make good use of such power.
In the darkness of the sky above him, a dragon circled, once, twice, then swooped low and landed with hardly a sound. Not his fierce blue dragon with its black button eyes. The commander's dragon, Char.
A savage, treacherous creature, all grace and power, malevolence and majesty, Char had been ordered to partner with Dralan by the Dark Queen herself. The huge creature lifted its feet gracefully, stepped across the muddy street.
Laronnar watched the dragon warily.
Had she come to congratulate him? Or kill him? Suddenly gone was the pulsing exhilaration of battle, the joy. His breath caught in his throat.
Across her shoulders and chest, Char wore an elegantly tooled leather riding harness and a saddle decorated with braid and gleaming jewels. A band crisscrossed the broad, scaly expanse of her chest. In the center of it, embossed in metallic t
hreads in five colors, was the symbol of the Dark Queen, a five-headed dragon.
"It was a fair fight," he croaked. He swallowed visibly, but no moisture came to ease the dryness in his mouth and throat. He went to one knee before the huge creature. "Ask any of them! Don't kill me!"
"Death." Char rumbled deep in her broad chest, her voice both bantering and sarcastic. "Is this what you expect in return, Laronnar? I said I would help the one who would help me."
Laronnar lifted his gaze. He stared into sly, shining eyes, as emerald as the spring grass of the plains. He smelled spice and smoke. He forgot his fear of being crisped where he stood.
"You-!" He gasped.
"My lord?" She took one huge step forward and lowered her left leg, extending it for him to climb up.
"It was you!" he exclaimed, then realized he was staring at her with his mouth foolishly agape. He took a steadying breath. "It was you who helped me! You who-"
She inclined her head. Yes.
"Why?"
"Perhaps I was tired of Dralan. Perhaps I thought him too ... honorable," she said softly.
The sweet malice in her tone sent a shiver, half fear, half pleasure, down Laronnar's spine.
"Perhaps I judged you more worthy." The huge dragon turned her head side to side, regarding him as one would examine some species of bug under a light.
Laronnar stretched to the limit of his height and bowed, never taking his eyes from the dragon. "Thank-"
Char's snort halted the formality. "The man who fights on my back must be merciless. Without scruple. Without honor. So fiendish even his own mother would hesitate to turn her back on him."
She leaned down, craning her thick neck until her glowing green eyes were level with his. "Be warned. I have ambition to be more than the leader of a small company in my mistress's army. You will go the way of Dralan if you fail me."
Laronnar settled his helmet down over his head, snapped the faceplate into place.
He stepped up onto Char's thick foreleg and vaulted into the saddle on her back. "We have a battle to win!"
With a thrust of her powerful legs, Char leapt into the sky and spread her enormous wings to catch the crisp salt air.
Proper Tribute
Janet Pack
"Weak-minded human." Bronze dragon Tariskatt's scathing baritone boomed in Lyndruss's ears the moment the muscled warrior slogged onto the muddy field where Sky Squadron mounts awaited their riders. The scaled beast scented the air, making clear he found a distasteful odor in the rain. "Drunk again."
The war against Takhisis and her minions for domination of Ansalon was approaching its zenith. All fighters of all stations had answered the desperate call to arms. All races fought, if not side by side, then army beside army. It was a time when even a hand scythe was welcomed as a weapon. A good dragon and rider team was invaluable, especially if the pair had as much battle experience as did Tariskatt and Lyndruss. Unfortunately, their hatred for each other reached as deep as the roots of the Kharolis Mountains did into the heart of Krynn.
The fighter flushed hot even in the cold rain, his muscles twitched with anger. His hand, holding the dragon's harness and small saddle in an oiled bag, clenched to a fist, his blunt, scarred fingers stabbing through the leather. His partner always seemed to know the words that would irritate him most. Tariskatt was adept at getting in the first verbal thrust, especially on mornings when Lyndruss had a hangover. His dragon's grating voice worsened the fighter's throbbing headache and further soured his prickly nature.
"You drink, human, because you are afraid," said the dragon. "You drown your cowardice in ale."
"I try to drown your stink in ale," said Lyndruss.
The dragon's sulfurous stench, tainted by old blood, was overwhelming in damp weather. Lyndruss forced himself to walk closer. Tariskatt's tail twitched a little. Reading his partner's signs, the human readied himself for an attack. Anything could happen. Despite his hang-over, the fighter prepared to dodge slashing horns or savage teeth.
He did not drink to drown his fear. Lyndruss did not get staggering drunk, as did some other fighters. He drank to take the edge off blood-ridden memories, and to be social.
He had always, since childhood, detested dragons. He hated everything about them-their arrogance, their smell, their sarcasm. And now here he was, riding a dragon in the war against Takhisis. The fighter's mouth tightened in a half-smile as he considered the sudden and peculiar twists life could take.
The gray rain spilled down his cheeks and chin like cold tears. Lyndruss would much rather skewer this ice-hearted beast with a dragonlance than ride him into battle. Lyndruss took another step toward his duty.
A tiny motion brought the human to full alert. A muscle over the dragon's left eye arched, making one of the protrusions on his forehead stand almost erect. The movement usually happened before a swipe from the razor-sharp claws. Lyndruss already bore several scars.
Lyndruss braced himself, kept walking.
The dragon's chill eyes held the warrior's blue ones. Tariskatt's tail thumped the mud a little harder.
The fighting skills Lyndruss had picked up in his travels both helped and hindered him. At first General Sharrid had given him high rank and the command of a ground force. Two years ago the general had persuaded Lyndruss to abandon that in favor of training with a young copper dragon. It soon became clear that the human fighter needed an older mount, a match for his own experience. And when Sharrid named a man to lead the air squadron, Lyndruss had been the logical choice. The only dragon available with enough expertise, however, had been acid-tongued, human-loathing Tariskatt.
Lyndruss complained about his mount to everyone, especially to General Sharrid. The commander told him that at this point in the war he had no choice but to pair the enemies. They must do their best with a bad situation. No one understood how it happened, but gradually their battles with each other enhanced their work as a team. Once in the air, they learned to use their mutual enmity as a sharp lance against a mutual foe.
"Moth," snarled Tariskatt, tail lashing now. "Come to my flame."
"Yellow snake," Lyndruss returned, holding his ground.
He kept both eyes on the dragon, bending his knees more and digging his boots into the mud. The big bronze never accepted the dragonlance harness without a fight, and the warrior was almost within range to cast the leather strips attached to the saddle and dragonlance mount across the animal's shoulders. He changed his grip on the leather bag, ready to yank it open and throw at the first opportunity.
Tossing his head to one side, the dragon suddenly changed direction and lanced a long horn straight for Lyndruss. Incisors gleamed and parted as Tariskatt opened his mouth to bite.
The human dodged, slipped in the mud, reestablished a foothold, and dove beneath the bronze's chest under his right leg. The massive jaw tore into the slimy earth where the fighter had stood. Rolling, Lyndruss pulled the harness from its bag and threw the buckle end and the saddle over the thickest part of Tariskatt's neck. Ducking, he managed to evade scything claws. The warrior dashed from beneath the dragon, just as Tariskatt lowered his ungainly body into the muck, intending to flatten the human. Lyndruss grabbed a gleaming shoulder scale and swung himself upward. Pulling the harness straps together, the fighter fastened the buckle one-handed. He dropped back down into the mud.
The dragon's head turned toward him. Lyndruss sped away until he was out of range of the teeth, claws, and tail of his battle partner. He turned to the dragon, panting.
"Not bad," he crowed.
Insolently, Tariskatt lifted a claw. A muddy rag hung from it, the same color as the saturated dirt beneath his feet, but showing a bit of dark red the hue of Lyndruss's tunic. Tariskatt dropped the distasteful rag and cleaned his knifelike claws fastidiously on a nearby boulder.
Lyndruss looked at his torn tunic.
The dragon had snagged loose material above the fighter's left hip. A little deeper and Tariskatt might have rent a mortal gout of flesh from h
is body.
"You worm!" Lyndruss taunted, to show he wasn't unnerved by the close call. "You deserve flaying alive. Boiling oil should be poured into your nose and down your throat, and carving beetles set between your toes-" "Silence!" ordered a familiar voice.
Lyndruss turned. "General Sharrid!"
The tall older man crossed his arms over his chest. His prematurely white hair, pulled into a braid at the back of his head, gleamed against the gray rain. "Stop that talk!"
The warrior straightened, saluted. "But-"
"Humans," snorted the dragon, shifting restlessly. "There's neither a good meal nor a competent rider in this camp."
The commander's eyes shifted from dragon to man and his mouth tightened. "Some day your hatred will come between you in the skies. One or the other will make a mistake. Then I'll lose both of you. Our forces are shrinking too much for me to allow that. Understand me. You're leaders. I want no more fights, no more insults. It's lowering morale." He stared from one to the other and back, his eyes blinking against the rain. "Answer me."
"Yes, sir," the warrior replied reluctantly.
"I understand human language," rumbled the dragon. "And insect as well."
The general ignored Tariskatt, took one step toward Lyndruss, and lowered his voice. "By the way, I hear the draconians have called in reinforcements and their best airborne team. You'll face Zanark Kreiss and his red dragon."
"Curor Bonebreak?" The dragon pounced on the information like choice prey. "A worthy opponent."
Sharrid laid his hand on Lyndruss's armored shoulder. "I dare not delay this battle for weather. Be wary. Clouds and rain can make things tricky, as you well know."
"Thank you, sir, but I-" Tariskatt rumbled a warning.
"Uh, we-can handle them," Lyndruss amended, the general's eyes on him. "We have before."
Tariskatt looked into the clouds, impatience and boredom showing in the tilt of his head and the tension in his body.
Shaking his head, the general stepped back a pace. "The good gods ride with you."
2 - The Dragons at War Page 11