The Lake of Death

by Jean Rabe

  The newcomer was larger than the rest, wearing blued armor—fine black metal that had been heated to give it a blue sheen. There were skulls on his plate mail instead of lilies, so Feril decided he was a priest, no doubt their commander; the others were clearly deferring to him. All of them wore gauntlets and either hard leather boots or sabatons, boots covered by plate segments. They had flowing black capes and visored helmets, some of which were sitting on the ground near the shields. Their faces were glistening with sweat.

  Among Goldmoon’s champions had been the Solamnic Knight Fiona. Feril marveled at how the woman could wear fifty or more pounds of plate armor under the warmest of conditions. Why anyone would want to wear so much armor was still a puzzlement to her. While it afforded protection, it also most certainly made its wearer thoroughly miserable, especially in today’s considerable heat.

  Feril could have heard what the Knights were saying if she wanted to; she could have spread her senses and put enough energy into a spell. Perhaps she should, she thought for a moment, as their conversation might provide useful information. She was weary from tracking them for so long, and she wanted to act swiftly before any more joined the group here beneath the trees and presented a force too large for her to deal with. She directed all of her energy into a different enchantment, letting the magic begin to flow outward from her fingertips.

  Like an artist spreading paint with a palette knife, Feril smoothed the magic onto the ground and pointed it toward the knights, stretching it away from her, and then beyond them to the trees that towered above and behind them. She instantly felt cooled by the shadows those trees cast, and by the river that ran nearby. Rejuvenated, she felt even stronger and her spell grew more powerful.

  “Help me,” she entreated the trees. “Help me stop the defilers of these woods and the slayers of my elf cousins. Bend.”

  She cast her energy into the roots of the great maples. It pulsed into the trunks in time with the beating of her heart. Feril closed her eyes and guided the energy up and up, high into the treetops, outward to the very ends of branches. A silent prayer sent to Habbakuk, whom she revered most among Krynn’s gods, then she felt the branches begin to rustle.

  “Commander!” one of the Lily Knights shouted loud enough for her to hear. “The trees are alive!”

  First the branches became limp and hung like ribbons, then a heartbeat later they whipped up to curl around the arms and legs of the surprised knights. Under Feril’s command the branches stiffened and recoiled, lifting the knights off the ground and bringing them close to the trunks.

  “Help me,” Feril urged. “Help me slay the defilers!”

  The trees complied with her command, their limbs constricting, the smallest of the branches finding their way beneath the pauldrons on the knights’ breastplates, inside the cuisse plates on their legs, into the gaps on the gorgets about the men’s necks—and tightening like nooses.

  Feril continued to concentrate on the enchantment, speaking to the trees as she stood and bounded down the rise and to the river, no longer concealing her presence.

  “Kill them!” she called to the trees. “Twist the life from them as they have bled the life from this priceless forest!”

  In the back of her mind she saw the devastation clearly: the mass-grave mounds of the Qualinesti elves and the scorched remains of village after village she had passed through on the trail.

  She paused and watched the Knights of Neraka struggle. They were only fifty yards in front of her, their eyes bulging and filled with fury, the one in the blued armor red-faced with rage while frantically working his fingers to begin his own spell. Skull Knights were priests, Feril reminded herself, therefore capable of magic. With a gesture from her, fingerlike branches swept down and tangled the priest’s hands, another wrapped across his mouth in order to keep him from uttering any arcane words. His frustration grew and he struggled harder.

  Feril waded into the river, all the men watching her fearfully. It was relatively shallow, but after a few steps she could no longer touch bottom and she felt herself being tugged by a strong undertow. Feril swam quickly across to keep from being pulled to the bottom. The trees continued to strangle the men, and most of the knights were dead by the time Feril climbed out of the water near them.

  “Despoilers and ravagers, all of you!” she called to the few still clinging to life as she approached. “Murderers! You’ll kill no more!”

  The few remaining knights looked piteously at this slight female Kagonesti who had so easily caused their downfall.

  Why? one mouthed.

  “The last village you attacked,” she explained as she drew closer, surprising herself by answering the knight. “The last village you burned, the last elf families you slew. I tracked you from there. You’ll kill no more, I say. This I swear!”

  The branches tightened, sapping more energy from Feril. Her eyes locked onto the Skull Knight’s florid face. He was gasping and thrashing feebly now.

  Then without warning came a commotion, loud noises emanating from somewhere to the east—well beyond the knights and the old maples and sycamores. More Knights of Neraka? Feril wondered. How many more? Perhaps an entire talon of them was lurking deep in the woods. She could handle a few more, she knew, maybe a dozen, as she was surrounded by eager trees and branches and she still had some magical energy left. What if they were too many? She was tired from the journey, from casting this difficult enchantment. Her strength was ebbing, and she was going to be vulnerable all too soon.

  Feril took a few steps back toward the river and watched as the rest of the knights gradually stopped struggling, hanging limp from the trees as if they’d been tried and sentenced by a jury and hanged for their crimes on a scaffold.

  The approaching noise was growing louder, and after long moments Feril saw shapes thrashing amid the trees. More Knights of Neraka were arriving and they, too, were being scooped up by the deadly tree branches—charged, sentenced, and hanged according to Feril’s swift justice. She focused on the ground, on the arcane energy she was continuing to feed and that was animating the trees.

  “So tired.” The more she put into this powerful spell, the more it disoriented her. Feril’s arms felt wooden, her head so heavy she could hardly hold it up.

  “Everything,” she whispered, feeling as though she was giving the last measure of her arcane strength. The magical force pulsed into the roots fast and unfalteringly, and the branches grabbed at the new foes. There must be at least fifty knights arriving, Feril estimated, and some of the knights were breaking through the entangling branches despite the intensity of her spell. A small group was now racing toward her.

  Swords drawn, eyes wide, and spittle flying from their open mouths, they charged. A few were shouting, all were spreading out to surround her—her senses were so acute that she felt their heavy steps like painful thunder rumbling through the ground. The summer heat and their heavy armor did not seem to impede them. She slammed her eyes shut and waited for the end to come, knowing she was too weak to flee and that she had no weapons to defend herself. Then the pounding swept past her, and she opened her eyes to discover that the knights were not running toward her—they were running away from something still cloaked by the trees.

  A thrashing noise coming from the trees grew deafening, and then she spied a much larger shape. It was easily brushing aside the lashing, entangling limbs and bending the smallest trees completely over, snapping most of them.

  “In Habbakuk’s name, please give me more strength.” The magical pulse she had used to enchant the trees was dimming to nothing. She had no energy left.

  It was some great shadowy beast, she realized faintly. She heard it utter a harsh, ear-splitting snarl, heard the splashes of the Knights of Neraka who had plunged into the river in order to escape its clutches. She hadn’t been able to touch bottom in the river where she had crossed, nor could they. Without looking, she pictured their heavy plate metal dragging them down, the strong undertow sealing their doom. Onl
y a few wisely avoided the river, running southeast parallel to its banks, dropping their swords and shields as they went.

  The howl of the creature shook the ground. Feril’s spell was finally dissipated. The Knights of Neraka she’d hung in the maples and sycamores fell like discarded dolls amidst their shields and helmets.

  “By Habbakuk’s fist,” she said in a hushed voice, when she realized what the monstrous shape really was. “A black dragon.”

  A wave of fear struck her, as palpable a blow as if she had been struck over the head with a club. She lost all focus, shivered uncontrollably, and her legs gave out.

  The dragon emerging from the trees was singular in that most of its scales looked like black mirrors, a few shimmering silver, a scattering of blue ones glimmering here and there. Its shadowy-black horns resembled those of a red, the wings looking scalloped like a blue’s. The claws were webbed like a white’s.

  “Black, but not a black dragon,” Feril murmured, as she tried to struggle to her knees and crawl away. “What is it?”

  The dragon spat out a Lily Knight and brushed away the body of the Knight Commander that had fallen on the ground in front of it. Blood dripped from the dragon’s mouth, and Feril could see where a black tabard was caught on a tooth.

  “Tired,” she said. “So tired. I’m finished.” She wouldn’t surrender so easily to one of Krynn’s damnable dragons, she vowed, gritting her teeth. She spread her fingers wide against the ground. “Habbakuk, guide me. I beseech you to give me one last… there!” Somehow she managed to send a feeble stroke of energy toward the trees, virtually begging them to aid her a final time. She fed some of her essence into the spell and was rewarded by faint feeling, a small wave of energy moving up the thick trunk of a maple, edging toward the top branches.

  She watched the dragon step close to her; half of the huge creature was clear of the trees, but its haunches still rested under her enchanted maple. The dragonfear nauseated her. Closer, the dragon looked at once elegant and grotesque. Blood dripped from its jaws, a slimy rope of spittle edging over its lower lip. Its stink was overpowering. The dragon smelled like rotting wood, moldy leaves, and a dozen, disquieting worse things she couldn’t put a name to. When it opened its maw wide, she nearly swooned with disgust.

  “Habbakuk, guide me.” She watched as the animated branches dipped lower, snaking out to try to ensnare the dragon. Then she stared in horror as the dragon effortlessly ripped away those branches and headed straight toward her. She watched the beast’s eyes, its massive black eyes that reflected… something.

  Something familiar.

  The dragonfear wavered a little, and she pulled herself closer, forward, trying to fathom what she recognized in the eyes.

  There was a man’s face reflected there.

  “Not possible,” she said aloud, her voice barely audible.

  A face all angles and planes, once handsome, and with a rare, flashing smile.

  “By all the gods, it’s not possible.”

  Then the last of her stamina vanished and she slumped, the shadows that stretched from the trees to the dragon to the dark parts of her mind, claiming her.

  3

  Feril opened her eyes and saw her own reflection— smooth, unmarked face, short hair, bewildered expression. She gasped when she realized she wasn’t looking into any mirror but into the eye of the dragon. That eye was just inches away, the dragon’s head tucked into its neck at an odd angle to be able to scrutinize her closely. This near, the scent of the beast was overwhelming, and she felt weak. She rolled on her side, retching until there was nothing left in her stomach.

  She told herself to be brave and accept her fate as, fighting dizziness, she struggled to her knees. Her teeth chattered. The Kagonesti couldn’t run away from the creature, she knew, and she certainly couldn’t stand and fight. She must still be alive because the creature wanted information. She knew some dragons were curious, so this one might mean her no harm at all, or it might mean to swallow her quickly after it gleaned whatever tidbit of knowledge it sought.

  “Feril.” The word softly rumbled, shaking the ground. The dragon repeated her name, certain she hadn’t heard him the first time.

  She wiped at her face, squared her shoulders. She thrust her chin out and adopted a proud, defiant look. She managed to keep the look of surprise off her face that the dragon somehow knew her name.

  “Feril, I was wrong to come here. I should have let the past stay buried. I should have stayed in my swamp.”

  There was something reassuringly familiar about the sonorous voice, and also about the dragon’s eyes, where not a touch of menace appeared to lurk. Feril searched them for a hint of the man she thought she detected earlier, but all she could see was her own reflection. She continued to tremble from the dragonfear, though not as much as before—less and less, it seemed, with each passing moment.

  “How do you know my name? How can…”

  Feril rose with a start when she saw a sivak draconian step into view from behind the dragon. She glanced back and forth between the two creatures, inhaled sharply, then almost retched again from the combination of horrible smells.

  “It’s all right,” the dragon continued. “I won’t hurt you, Feril. I would never hurt you. I’ll be on my way. I shouldn’t have…”

  The sivak cocked his head, gesturing with a crooked finger. “Is this the woman you wanted to find? A Kagonesti?”

  The dragon gave a nod.

  “When you mentioned an elf, I pictured some fragile creature with flowers in her hair—or with painted lips and eyelids, like your friend Rikali. Nothing dainty or painted about this one. She certainly didn’t need our help with those Knights of Neraka. Slaughtered most of them on her own, she did. Are all of your friends this tough, Dhamon?”

  “Dhamon? Impossible!”

  Even as Feril said this, she knew it was indeed true. The image of the man she had seen in the dragon’s eyes, and saw again now. The image of that rugged, handsome face flickered, then disappeared when she blinked and shook her head. “Impossible,” she repeated, though she knew that somehow it was him. Her chest tightened, feeling as though someone had slammed a mailed fist into her stomach. She could hardly breathe. “By all the gods, Dhamon Grimwulf!”

  She reached out, shaky fingers tentatively touching the scales on his leg. She pressed her palm against one and closed her eyes, flooded by myriad emotions and questions. Her breath came ragged and fast.

  “It is you, isn’t it, Dhamon? I never thought I’d see you again and certainly not like this. What strange magic did this to you, Dhamon?”

  “Feril, dark magic. Terrible magic. I…” The dragon glanced behind him toward the trees where the Knights of Neraka had been hanged. He knew that Feril found him repulsive. He had long rehearsed the speech he might give to her some day, but right now his thoughts were jumbled. “Ragh, it’s time to leave. This wasn’t…”

  The sivak shook his head in disagreement. “We’re not leaving, not just yet. We came all this way, and you’re not even going to introduce me?”

  Dhamon looked at the sivak, then down at the Kagonesti, who was still stroking his scales. Saliva dripped from his jowls, and Feril stepped back to keep from getting splashed. After a moment, he tipped his head up, as if he were listening to something far beyond this clearing in the Qualinesti forest. A red-shouldered hawk cried shrilly and cut through the sky above them, then circled a fallen knight on the river bank, where a cloud of insects swarmed.

  “Ragh, this is Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter,” Dhamon said at length, “a Kagonesti from Southern Ergoth and once a champion of Goldmoon.”

  “I prefer Peril,” she said, shortening her name, as she stepped back from the dragon to study the draconian.

  “Feril,” Ragh said, as he met the eyes of the Kagonesti. “Well met, Feril of Southern Ergoth.”

  At first her eyes were daggers aimed at the sivak then finally they softened as she turned her face away and lifted it to the dragon again. “Dha
mon, what has happened to you? How in the world did you become…”

  “A dragon? It’s a long story,” Dhamon replied. The faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of his massive mouth.

  “Tell me, Dhamon.”

  “Short or long, let’s do it away from here,” the sivak urged, gesturing at the dead bodies. “They’re going to attract all sorts of beasties once they begin to stink— stink worse than Dhamon even, maybe attract more knights.” He waved a clawed hand in front of his face to ward off a gathering mistlike swarm of gnats.

  Again, Feril glared at the draconian. “I am in no hurry. I intend to bury all of these men.”

  “What, are you mad, elf?” The draconian furiously swiped at the gnats.

  “Listen, sivak,” she started. “I’ve…”

  “Ragh,” Dhamon said to the Kagonesti. “Feril, he’s a good friend of mine.”

  “Dhamon, his kind…”

  “I know, my kind eat elves,” Ragh finished her sentence, finally giving up on keeping the insects at bay. “Elves are a favorite food of most sivaks, you might say but it’s been a few years for me. I’ve long since acquired other tastes.”

  She sucked in a breath and pointed south, where tall pines grew far apart and sheltered smaller trees. The shadows were particularly thick there. The sun had nearly set. “Dhamon, if you must go, then I’ll meet you over there when I’m finished burying the dead. We obviously have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Dhamon pawed at the ground, a talon digging a deep line. “I’ll bury them, Feril.” Softer, he added, “They were once my kind.”

  “So you knew him years ago when he was human, huh? Probably before he got all high-and-mighty bent on saving the world.”

  Feril was settled on a carpet of lungwort that grew between the knobby roots of a golden rain tree. She stared up at the clusters of yellow flowers and didn’t answer the nearby sivak draconian.

  “Certainly before he had a change of heart and fell in with thieves in ogre lands, before he hooked up with Maldred.”