by Doug Niles
The green dragon calculated that he searched for many hours, even for more than a day, but always the sun remained immobile, fixed and glaring as it scorched him, scalded the poor forest even as it seared the wounded flesh on the green dragon’s back, neck, and shoulders. Sometimes Aerensianic wondered if the fires he saw in the distance were caused merely by the dryness of the woods, the helpless tinder yielding to conflagration upon the first spark. But he readily recalled the unnatural horror inspired by the blazing, spark-trailing dragons, and in his heart, he knew this was not the case, knew that the forces that had attacked Toxy and himself were striking everywhere upon the world.
Finally he circled back, winging southward again, flying toward the rendezvous at the oceanside lair. His course again took him within sight of the same conical peak he had seen earlier, and once more he noticed the broad swath of unnatural darkness. Biting back his fear, Aeren cast his spell of invisibility over himself and resolved to investigate the strange phenomenon.
Unseen by anyone on the ground, he soared close to the jagged bluff and noticed that the sides of the mountain were teeming with elves. Still cloaked by concealing magic, he winged through a wide circle, looking around. He noticed griffons flying through the air, circling over the summit … and among those fliers, he was startled to see a creature of silver-feathered wings, a griffon unlike any other in the world.
More frightening, and unnatural in the same bizarre manner as the dragons of fire, he saw that the shadows at the base of the hill were thick and alive, seething with a motion like angry waves. Aeren’s blood chilled at the sight of them, and he knew that these were beings of Chaos, every bit as deadly and unnatural as the burning serpents. The dark shapes swarmed around the hill, thick in the woods, projecting an unmistakable aura of chill and death.
And like the fire dragons, they seemed to indicate nothing so much as the very end of the world.
Finally Aerensianic glided southward, following the coastline back to the lair he had found in the sea cave. In places, he passed forests that had been decimated by fires, and then he would fly beside long swaths of still pristine woodlands. So far as he could tell, he was the only dragon in this part of Krynn.
Eventually he recognized the spit of land just north of his cave, and he dived, anxious to return to the lair, hoping that Toxyria would be here as well. He came to rest on the rocks of the shoreline and ducked his head into the cavern.
“Toxy?” he asked with a hopeful snort.
Only then did he catch a whiff of the sulfurous taint of soot and smoke, unnatural evidence of flame in this moist environment. With a reflexive leap, he sprang into the air, barely avoiding the gout of fire that exploded outward from his lair. Straining his huge wings, the green dragon rose, desperately gaining altitude, pulling away from the ambush that had been laid for him.
He banked and flew along the coastline for a few strokes, then caught an updraft and rose higher, away from the surf and beyond the crest of the coastal bluff. His mind was torn by fear, anguished by one question: Had Toxyria returned and been slain in the lair by the hateful wyrms of fire?
He looked below, seeing that no fewer than three fire dragons had emerged from the cavern. Trailing sparks and smoke, they were flapping after him in determined pursuit. If she had been in the cave, she was certainly dead.
Rage clouded his senses, driving him into a battle fury as he tried to imagine the fate of the female that, he had hoped, would someday become his mate. His own forlorn flight and fruitless search only aggravated his bitterness. If they had killed her, he vowed that he would not allow them to survive.
The fire dragons swept upward from the cave, and with a bellow of rage, Aerensianic turned about and dived toward his fiery pursuers. He roared, a wave of sound that echoed off the cliff and thrummed through the air. Jaws gaping, he spewed his breath of green gas at the first of his pursuers.
The first burning serpent shriveled and steamed, then tumbled from the sky. The next wyrms came after him, and once again Aeren flew into a conflagration of hellish heat. His claws ripped at fiery skin as he felt the membranes of his wings curl and tear from the onslaught.
And then there was more gas around him, and the last two fire dragons were plunging toward the ground. He felt a blast of cold against his wings and actually relished the chill as it soothed the pain of his burns. He saw white dragons diving past, breathing their icy breath to douse the last of the fire dragons. The lifeless bodies of the Chaos wyrms plunged, sizzling, into the sea, and the dragons of ice and poison soared side by side over the western cliffs of the Qualinesti shore. Aeren banked, ignoring the pain that shrieked through his torn and scalded wings. Proudly he nodded his thanks to these kin-dragons, ice-breathing cousins who dwelled on the vast glacial reaches to the south.
Finally he saw the green shape that he had missed, that he had feared for. Toxyria fell into pace beside him, and he saw that she had returned with several more greens as well as a trio of white dragons. The serpents came to rest on the bluff overlooking the sea, and for a moment they were silent, observing the three pillars of steam that marked the graves of the fire dragons.
“What news from the north?” Toxy asked after they had nuzzled snouts long enough to ensure that each was relatively unharmed.
“No dragons to be found there, but it seems as though all Krynn is aflame,” Aerensianic reported grimly. “I saw great forests burning across the land of the elves. Also there were living shadows, deadly and hungry. They were battling with elves, including one called Porthios, whom I once tried to kill.”
“As to finding our kin-dragons, I had better luck,” Toxyria reported, indicating the greens and whites that had come to rest around them. “I flew far, and our kin-dragons were glad to see me, for they had heard strange tales of events here and across the world. They were willing to fly to our lair to seek your advice and wisdom.”
These serpents, none of whom was as large as either of the mature greens, watched respectfully, and Aeren sensed that they were hoping for his approval.
“Thank you for your assistance,” he said gravely. “Not only did you help Toxyria, but your arrival no doubt saved my life.”
“There is other news, brought by our kin-dragons,” the female green dragon added. “As you surmise, this storm wracks the whole of our world.”
“Are the chromatics all battling in the cause of our queen?” Aeren asked.
“Not just the dragons of our own kin and clan,” Toxy said, surprising the big male. “But even silvers and golds have joined with blues and reds, all of them battling the Storms of Chaos that have struck so many places at once.”
“Together?” asked Aerensianic, truly stunned.
“Everywhere,” Toxy declared, fixing him with a look that he found curiously compelling, even as it made him feel just a little bit trapped.
“What should we do?” asked the male.
“You are the biggest, the mightiest of us all,” Toxyria replied in a tone that informed him that her mind was already made up.
Aeren slumped. In point of fact, he wanted nothing more than to fly away from here, to find some shore where the Storms of Chaos had not yet broken. Yet even more than that, he wanted to be with Toxyria, and he clearly understood what that entailed.
“I think we should go and fight these attackers wherever they can be encountered,” he found himself saying.
“I do, too,” the female said, obviously pleased. “And you told me that some of the creatures of Chaos have come as shadows and make their attack upon elves.”
“Then,” Aerensianic declared, making it sound as though it was his idea, “we should go there as well!”
“So that’s why you came to us,” Samar said.
“Yes … I fear that, if not for Toxy, I would have hidden away, and Fate would have found me in good time.”
“Then we all owe her a great deal,” said the elf warrior-mage, “for our situation by then was dire indeed.…”
Flames Across
the Forest
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gilthas helped his mother toward the doors of his own house. Laurana, burned from her encounter with the fire dragon and bruised from the crash into the tower, limped bravely beside him, but he sensed that without his support, she would have fallen. Still, though she was white-lipped with pain, she made no complaint nor any sound except an occasional gasp for breath.
It had taken them more than an hour to make it down from the Tower of the Sun and across two hundred paces of the besieged city. For some reason, probably nothing more than the luck, good or evil, that seemed to mark the chaotic progress of the attackers, the Speaker’s residence had been spared the damage that had scorched so much of Qualinost. Everywhere across the city, however, the vista was scarred by evidence of the onslaught. Ruined houses and yards, sometimes a whole block of utter destruction, smoldered next to other structures that had been untouched by violence. Across the street, a garden bloomed and a small fountain sprayed merrily in ironic contrast to the shattered house just beyond. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky, marking the destructive swaths of the fire dragons, while panic-stricken elves sought shelter in many of the remaining buildings.
Rashas, trembling with fear, trailed right behind Gilthas. The senator had refused to leave his side since the younger elf had slain the daemon warrior. Indeed, the elder had literally clung to Gilthas’s arm as they had made their way through the charnel house that had once been the chamber of the Thalas-Enthia. The rostrum and the circular floor were covered with charred bodies. The golden doors had been twisted off their hinges, and one had even melted into a puddle of now-hardened metal. Here and there, one of the blackened elven shapes twitched pitifully or stretched open a mouth to draw a rasping breath.
Escorting his wounded and weakened mother, Gilthas had roughly pushed Rashas away, ordering him to go to the aid of some of the elves who moaned so piteously in the ruins. Instead, the senator had slunk along behind him, ultimately darting through the door of the Speaker’s house as if he feared that Gilthas intended to lock him outside.
Kerian and the other terror-stricken members of the household were there to greet them, and swiftly Laurana was carried to a nearby couch, where she was given water and fruit while the young Kagonesti maiden went to fetch some of the poultices she had made up as an antidote to burns. The house was crowded with refugees, many of them burned, others bleeding, and all of them dirty and frightened.
All looked to him with hopeful eyes, and Gilthas felt a bitter sense of irony—now they turned to him for help, when there was nothing he could do for them.
“What’s happening?” Kerian asked quietly after Laurana had been made as comfortable as possible. “I saw dragons. They looked like they were on fire!”
Gilthas described the attack in as much detail as he could bear. “My mother called these the Storms of Chaos. They sweep across the world, and they have struck our city with unspeakable violence.”
“What can we do?”
Here the Speaker could only shake his head and groan in despair. “Nothing, so far as I can see, except fight them where we can and probably die.”
“The shadows are starting to come up faster,” Darrian said, moving back from the crest of the bluff to Porthios and Alhana. “What do you want us to do?”
“If nothing else, we’ll do what I said before—roll rocks down on them,” the prince said, even though he found it hard to imagine that such crude defenses could have any effect on the lethal, yet insubstantial, attackers.
Still, he and Dallatar rousted the weary elves who had sought respite and shelter amid the scraggly trees growing across the mountaintop. Besides the two leaders, he had identified a few—no more than a dozen—who possessed weapons of ancient power, swords that had proven to have some effect against the shadows, and these went to the tops of many of the ravines that scored the mountainside. There were other routes that were left undefended, but Porthios couldn’t bring himself to expose a defender whose weapon would be useless against these things.
Other elves pried at some of the great rocks that lay precariously balanced at the edge of the bluff, though they waited for a signal from Porthios before pushing them all the way free. He skirted the full perimeter and saw that the shadows were in fact seething and slipping up the slopes of the mountain more quickly than they had before. They curled over rocks, oozed up sheer faces, and slipped through the rough gaps between the many obstacles dotting the slopes of Splintered Rock.
Completing his circuit, he found himself again beside his wife, who held their baby against her breast and stood at the edge of the bluff, looking down with a hard, unflinching expression. He touched her arm and she looked at him, and still her expression was devoid of fear. Porthios was profoundly moved by her strength and deeply aggrieved at his own inability to protect her or to shield all the elves from this unspeakable onslaught.
“How long ago do you think Samar left?” asked the prince, knowing it would take at least two days for the Silvanesti to reach the griffon aeries in the Kharolis and return.
With a look at the still stationary sun, Alhana shook her head, yielding to a measure of discouragement. “Not more than twenty-four, maybe thirty hours at the most,” she said. She didn’t voice the obvious conclusion, but Porthios knew that she understood as well as he did: Even if they answered the elven plea for help, the griffons would never get here in time to save them from this onslaught.
“My prince, they approach quickly, right below here!”
Darrian spoke urgently from nearby, and Porthios ran to look over the edge. He saw that several of the shadows had surged above the rest, slithering across the rough surface to ascend the steepest portions of the bluff.
“Drop some rocks on them,” he ordered curtly, and immediately the elves pushed and prodded, breaking loose several of the granite spires that jutted from the edge of the precipice.
Slowly, grudgingly, the rocks worked free of their foundations. First one, then several, and finally a cascade of boulders tumbled down the slope, bouncing, cracking, breaking into smaller pieces, sending fragments shooting far away from the face of the bluff. Sounds of collision echoed and pounded through the air, rising into a rumble like a constant thunder, shaking the ground under their feet. Debris showered through the shadows, and then the first of the rocks smashed into the attackers with crushing force.
A cloud of dust obscured the slope. Porthios squinted, trying to see through the murk, to determine if the shadows had been affected at all by the crushing rockslide. Finally the cloud settled lower, and the elves raised a cheer when they saw that the heights of the slope had been swept free of shadows.
But the cheers quickly faded as the dust continued to blow away. Far below, among the jumbled boulders near the base of the slope, the shadows still seethed. They crawled over jagged stones, swept through the gaps between large rocks, and once again resumed their inexorable progress up the hill. It was impossible to tell if their numbers had been thinned by the rockslide. As far as Porthios could tell, the shadows still seemed to cover the whole slope.
Still, the rocks had delayed the onslaught. Porthios sprinted around the top of the bluff, telling all of his elves of their success, encouraging them to wait until the shadows were very close. On the far side of the mountain, the attackers had crept far up the slope, and here the rocks began to fall immediately. Soon they were tumbling from all around the rim of the summit, as everywhere elves worked to loosen stones, continued to send an avalanche of granite into the unnatural shades.
For long hours, the elves battled, sweating under the merciless sun, prying loose every rock that showed any signs of instability. And when those were gone, they set to work on the more firmly footed stones, chopping with weapons, digging and scraping with swords, and working makeshift levers quickly whittled from some of the mountaintop tree trunks. They threw smaller stones by hand, even dumped clods of dirt and loose tree trunks into the creeping darkness.
But final
ly it was clear that the deadly shadows were not going to be stopped by any such onslaught. Each time they were bombarded, they came back more quickly than before, sweeping across the increasingly barren slope with relentless, lethal purpose. Porthios imagined that the mountain was sinking into a morass of darkness. The black outline completely masked the bottom of the slopes and rose inexorably up the sides.
Some of the shadows slithered through the ravines that led straight to the top, and the few elves with magical weapons held out valiantly but were gradually forced to fall back to prevent themselves from being surrounded and overwhelmed. Porthios ran from one position to another, stabbing and slashing with his sword, exhorting his elves to greater effort. He rushed to a place where the shadows began to creep over the crest of the bluff, chopping and hacking, surrounding himself with the horrible gurgling sounds of the creatures’ death throes. His arm was leaden with fatigue, and sweat ran unimpeded into his eyes. He knew he couldn’t last much longer.
“Look to the west!” At first the cry was voiced by a lone elven child, standing and pointing through the hazy sky.
Others took up the cry, and Porthios squinted, making out huge winged shapes soaring toward them. These were dragons, he saw immediately, and he soon discerned that their colors were green and white. The relentless approach of these ancient enemies sent a shiver of terror through his body. Groans of fear rose from the elves, who now all but collapsed underneath a wave of hopelessness. How could the gods abandon them so thoroughly?
“Fall back! Form a ring in the middle of the summit!” cried the prince. Why had he allowed Samar to leave and take his dragonlance with him? He shook away the regret, knowing it was a petty reaction and understanding that a lone lance, however bravely wielded, would have no chance of stopping a force like this, numbering at least six or eight dragons.