by Ed Greenwood
A shadow fell over the meadow, and he looked up. From behind him came a sharp, rippling roar of wind he’d never heard before. He spun around, his shoulder against the rock, and sprang up for a better view. He needn’t have bothered. The sky above the meadow was filled with two huge, batlike wings—and between them, a dark red scaled bulk larger than a house! Long-taloned claws hung beneath a belly that rose into a long, long neck, which ended in a head that housed two cruel eyes and a wide-gaping jaw lined with jagged teeth as long as Elminster was tall! Trailing back far behind, over the hill, a tail switched and swung.…
A dragon! Elminster forgot to gulp. He just stared.
Vast and terrible, it swept toward him, slowing ponderously with wings spread to catch the air, looming against the blue northern sky. And there was a man on its back!
“Dragon at the gate,” Elminster whispered the oath unthinkingly, as that gigantic head tilted a little, and he found himself gazing full into the old, wise, and cruel eyes of the great wyrm.
Deep they were, and unblinking; pools of dark evil into which he plunged, sinking, sinking.…
The dragon’s claws bit deeply into the rock pile with a shriek of riven stone and a spray of sparks. It reared up twice as high as the tallest tower in the village, and those great wings flapped once. In their deafening thunderclap Elminster was flung helplessly back and away, head over heels down the slope as sheep tumbled and bleated their terror around him. He landed hard, rolling painfully on one shoulder. He should run, should—
“Swords!” He spat the strongest oath he knew as he felt his frantic run being dragged to a halt by something unseen. A trembling, quivering boiling arose in his veins—magic! He felt himself turning, being pulled slowly around to face the dragon. Elminster had always hoped to see magic at work up close, but instead of the wild excitement he’d expected, El found he didn’t like the feel of magic at all. Anger and fear awoke in him as his head was forced up. No, did not like it at all.
The dragon had folded its wings, and now sat atop the rock pile like a vulture—a vulture as tall as a keep, with a long tail that curled half around the western slope of the meadow. Elminster gulped; his mouth was suddenly dry. The man had dismounted and stood on a sloping rock beside the dragon, an imperious hand raised to point at Elminster.
Elminster felt his gaze dragged—that horrible, helpless feeling in his body again, the cruel control of another’s will moving his own limbs—to meet the man’s eyes. Looking into the eyes of the dragon had been terrible but somehow splendid. This was worse. These eyes were cold and promised pain and death … perhaps more. El tasted the cold tang of rising fear.
There was cruel amusement in the man’s almond eyes. El forced himself to look a little down and aside, and saw the dusky skin around those deadly eyes, and coppery curls, and a winking pendant on the man’s hairless breast. Under it were markings on the man’s skin, half-hidden by his robe of darkest green. He wore rings, too, of gold and some shining blue metal, and soft boots finer than any El had ever seen. The faint blue glow of magic—something Father had said only Elminster could see, and must never speak of—clung to the pendant, the rings, the robes, and the markings on the man’s breast, as well as to what looked like the ends of smoothed wooden sticks, protruding from high slits on the outside of the man’s boots. That rare glow rippled more brightly around the man’s outstretched arm … but Elminster didn’t need any other secret sign to know that this was a wizard.
“What is the name of the village below?” The question was cold, quick.
“Heldon.” The name left Elminster’s lips before he could think. He felt spittle flooding his mouth, and with it a hint of blood.
“Is its lord there now?”
Elminster struggled, but found himself saying, “A-Aye.”
The wizard’s eyes narrowed. “Name him.” He raised his hand, and the blue glow flared brighter.
Elminster felt a sudden eagerness to tell this rude stranger everything—everything. Cold fear coiled inside him. “Elthryn, Lord.” He felt his lips trembling.
“Describe him.”
“He’s tall, Lord, and slim. He smiles often, and always has a kind w—”
“What hue is his hair?” the wizard snapped.
“B-Brown, Lord, with gray at the sides and in his beard. He’s—”
The wizard made a sharp gesture, and Elminster felt his limbs moving by themselves. He tried to fight against them, whimpering, but already he was wheeling about and running. He pounded hard through the grass, helpless against the driving magic, stumbling in haste, charging down the grassy slope to where the meadow ended—in a sheer drop into the ravine.
As he churned along through the weeds and tall grass, El clung to a small victory; at least he’d not told the wizard that Elthryn was his father.
Small victory, indeed. The cliff edge seemed to leap at him; the wind of his breathless run roared past his ears. The rolling countryside of Athalantar, below, looked beautiful in the mists.
Headlong, Elminster rushed over the edge—and felt the terrible trembling compulsion leave him. As the rocks rushed up to meet him, he struggled against fear and fury, trying to save his life.
Sometimes, he could move things with his mind. Sometimes—please, gods, let it be now!
The ravine was narrow, the rocks very near. Only last month a lamb had fallen in, and the life had been smashed from it long before its broken, loll-limbed body had settled at the bottom. Elminster bit his lip. And then the white glow he was seeking rose and stole over his sight, veiling his view of rushing rocks. He clawed at the air with desperate fingers and twisted sideways as if he’d grown wings for an instant.
Then he was crashing through a thornbush, skin burning as it was slashed open a dozen times. He struck earth and stone, then something springy—a vine?—and was flung away, falling again.
“Uhhh!” Onto rocks this time, hard. The world spun. El gasped for breath he could not find, and the white haze rose around his eyes.
Gods and goddesses preserve …
The haze rose and then receded—and then, from above, came a horrible snapping sound.
Something dark and wet fell past him, to the rocks unseen in the gloom below. El shook his head to clear it and peered around. Fresh blood dappled the rocks close by. The sunlight overhead dimmed; Elminster froze, head to one side, and tried to look dead. His arms and ribs and one hip throbbed and ached … but he’d been able to move them all. Would the wizard or the dragon come down to make sure he was dead?
The dragon wheeled over the meadow, one limb of a sheep dangling from its jaws, and passed out of his view. When its next languid circle brought it back over the ravine, two sheep were struggling in its mouth. The crunching sounds began again as it passed out of sight.
Elminster shuddered, feeling sick and empty. He clung to the rock as if its hard, solid strength could tell him what to do now. Then the rippling roar of the dragon’s wings rose again. El lay as still as possible, head still twisted awkwardly. Letting his mouth fall open, he stared steadily off into the cloudless sky.
The wizard in his high saddle gave the huddled boy a keen look as the dragon rushed past, and then leaned forward and shouted something Elminster couldn’t catch, which echoed and hissed in the mouth of the ravine. The dragon’s powerful shoulders surged in response, and it rose slightly—only to drop down out of sight in a dive so swift that the raw sound of its rushing wings rose to a shrill scream. A dive toward Heldon.
El found his feet, wincing and staggering, and stumbled along the ravine to its end, hissing as every movement made him ache. There was a place he’d climbed before … his fingers bled as they scraped over sharp rocks. A terrible fear was rising inside him, almost choking him.
At last he reached the grassy edge of the meadow, rolled onto it, gasping, and looked down on Heldon. Then Elminster found he still had breath enough to scream.
A woman shrieked outside. A moment later, the incessant din of hammering from the sm
ithy came to a sudden, ragged stop. Frowning, Elthryn Aumar rose from the farm tallies in haste, scattering clay tiles. He sighed at his own clumsiness as he snatched his blade down from the wall and strode out into the street, tearing the steel free of the scabbard as he went. Tallies that wouldn’t balance all morning, and now this … what was it now?
The Lion Sword, oldest treasure of Athalantar, shone its proud flame as he came out into the sunlight. Strong magics slumbered in the old blade, and as always, it felt solid in Elthryn’s hand, hungry for blood. It flashed as he looked quickly about. Folk were shrieking and running wildly south down the street, faces white in sheer terror. Elthryn had to duck out of the way of a woman so fat that he was astonished she could run at all—one of Tesla’s seamstresses—and turned to look north at the dark bulk of the High Forest. The street was full of his neighbors, running south down the road, past him. Some were weeping as they came. A haze—smoke—was in the air whence they’d come.
Brigands? Orcs? Something out of the woods?
He ran up the road, the enchanted blade that was his proudest possession naked in his hand. The sharp reek of burning came to him. A sick fear was already rising in his throat when he rounded the butcher’s shop and behind it found the fire.
His own cottage was an inferno of leaping flame. Perhaps she’d been out—but no … no …
“Amrythale,” he whispered. Sudden tears blinded him, and he wiped at them with his sleeve. Somewhere in all that roaring were her bones.
He knew some folk had whispered that a common forester’s lass must have used witchery to find a bridal bed with one of the most respected princes of Athalantar—but Elthryn had loved her. And she him. He gazed in horror at her pyre, and in his memory saw her smiling face. As the tears rolled down his cheeks, the prince felt a black rage build inside him.
“Who has done this thing?” he roared. His shout echoed back from the now-empty shops and houses of Heldon, but was answered only by crackling flames … and then by a roar so loud and deep that the shops and houses around trembled, and the very cobbles of the street shifted under his boots. Amid the dust that curled up from them, the prince looked up and saw it, aloft, wheeling with contemptuous laziness over the trees: an elder red dragon of great size, its scales dark as dried blood. A man rode it, a man in robes who held a wand ready, a man Elthryn did not know but a wizard without a doubt, and that could mean only one thing: the cruel hand of his eldest brother Belaur was finally about to close on him.
Elthryn had been his father’s favorite, and Belaur had always hated him for it. The king had given Elthryn the Lion Sword—it was all he had left of his father, now. It had served him often and well … but it was a legacy, not a miracle-spell. As he heard the wizard laugh and lean out to hurl lightning down at some villager fleeing over the back fields, Prince Elthryn looked up into the sky and saw his own death there, wheeling on proud wings.
He raised the Lion Sword to his lips, kissed it, and summoned the lean, serious face of his son to mind: beak-nosed and surrounded by an unruly mane of jet-black hair. Elminster, with all his loneliness, seriousness, and homeliness, and with his secret, the mind powers the gods gave few folk in Faerûn. Perhaps the gods had something special in mind for him. Clinging to that last, slim hope, Elthryn clutched the sword and spoke through tears.
“Live, my son,” he whispered. “Live to avenge thy mother and restore honor to the Stag Throne. Hear me!”
Panting his slithering way down a tree-clad slope, still a long way above the village, Elminster stiffened and fetched up breathless against a tree, his eyes blazing. The ghostly whisper of his father’s voice was clear in his ears; he was calling on a power of his enchanted sword that El had seen him use only once, when his mother had been lost in a snow squall. He knew what those words meant. His father was about to die.
“I’m coming, Father!” he shouted at the unhearing trees around. “I’m coming!” And he stumbled on, recklessly leaping deadfalls and crashing through thickets, gasping for breath, knowing he’d be too late.…
Grimly, Elthryn Aumar set his feet firmly on the road, raised his sword, and prepared to die as a prince should. The dragon swept past, ignoring the lone man with the sword as its rider pointed two wands and calmly struck down the fleeing folk of Heldon with hurled lightning and bolts of magical death. As he swept over the prince, the wizard carelessly aimed one wand at the lone swordsman below.
There was a flash of white light, and then the whole world seemed to be dancing and crawling. Lightning crackled and coiled around Elthryn, but he felt no pain; the blade in his hands drew the magic into itself in angrily crawling arcs of white fire until it was all gone.
The prince saw the wizard turn in his saddle and frown back at him. Holding the Lion Sword high so that the mage could see it, hoping he could lure the wizard down to seize it—and knowing that hope vain—Elthryn lifted his head to curse the man, speaking the slow, heavy words he’d been taught so long ago.
The wizard made a gesture—and then his mouth fell open in surprise: the curse had shattered whatever spell he’d cast at Elthryn. As the dragon swept on, he aimed his other wand at the prince. Bolts of force leaped from it—and were swept into the enchanted blade, which sang and glowed with their fury, thrumming in Elthryn’s hands. Spells it could stop … but not dragon fire. The prince knew he had only a few breaths of life left.
“O Mystra, let my boy escape this,” he prayed as the dragon turned in the air with slow might and swept down on him, “and let him have the sense to flee far.” Then he had no time left for prayers.
Bright dragon fire roared around Elthryn Aumar, and as he snarled defiance and swung his blade at the raging flames, he was overwhelmed and swept away.
Elminster burst out onto the village street by the miller’s house, now only a smoking heap of shattered timbers and tumbled stones. A single hand, blackened by fire that had breathed death through the house and swept on, protruded from under the collapsed chimney, clutching vainly at nothing.
Elminster looked down at it, swallowed, and hurried on around the heap of ruin. After only a few paces, however, his running steps faltered, and he stood staring. There was no need for haste; every building in Heldon was smashed flat or in flames. Thick smoke hid the lower end of the village from him, and small fires blazed here and there, where trees or woodpiles had caught fire. His home was only a blackened area and drifting ashes; beyond, the butcher’s shop had fallen into the street, a mass of half-burnt timbers and smashed belongings. The dragon had gone; Elminster was alone with the dead.
Grimly, Elminster searched the village. He found corpses, tumbled or fried among the ruins of their homes, but not a soul that yet lived. Of his mother and father there was no sign … but he knew they’d not have fled. It was only when he turned, sick at heart, toward the meadow—where else could he go?—that he stepped on something amid the ashes that lay thick on the road: the half-melted hilt of the Lion Sword.
He took it up in hands that trembled. All but a few fingers of the blade were burnt away, and most of the proud gold; blue magic coursed no longer about this remnant. Yet he knew the feel of the worn hilt. El clutched it to his breast, and the world suddenly wavered.
Tears fell from his sightless eyes for a long time as he knelt among the ashes in the street and the patient sun moved across the sky. At some point he must have fallen senseless, for he roused at the creeping touch of cold to feel hard cobbles under his cheek.
Sitting up, he found dusk upon the ruin of Heldon, and full night coming down from the High Forest. His numb hands tingled as he fumbled with the sword hilt. Elminster got to his feet slowly, looking around at what was left of his home. Somewhere nearby, a wolf called and was answered. Elminster looked at the useless weapon he held, and he shivered. It was time to be gone from this place, before the wolves came down to feed.
Slowly he raised the riven Lion Sword to the sky. For an instant it caught the last feeble glow of sunset, and Elminster stared hard at it a
nd muttered, “I shall slay that wizard, and avenge ye all—or die in the trying. Hear me … Mother, Father. This I swear.”
A wolf howled in reply. Elminster bared his teeth in its direction, shook the ruined hilt at it, and started the long run back up to the meadow.
As he went, Selûne rose serenely over the dying fires of Heldon, bathing the ruins in bright, bone-white moonlight. Elminster did not look back.
He awoke suddenly, in the close darkness of a cavern he’d hidden in once when playing seek-the-ogre with other lads. The hilt of the Lion Sword lay, hard and unyielding, beneath him. Elminster remained still, listening. Someone had said something, very nearby.
“No sign of a raid … no one sworded,” came the sudden grave words, loud and close. Elminster tensed, lying still and peering into the darkness.
“I suppose all the huts caught fire by themselves, then,” another, deeper man’s voice said sarcastically. “And the rest fell over just because they were tired of standing up, eh?”
“Enough, Bellard. Everyone’s dead, aye—but there’s no sword work, not an arrow to be seen. Wolves have been at some of the bodies, but not a one’s been rummaged. I found a gold ring on one lady’s hand that shone at me clear down the street.”
“What kills with fire, then—an’ knocks down cottages?”
“Dragons,” said another voice, lower still, and grim.
“Dragons? And we saw it not?” The sarcastic voice rose almost jestingly.
“More’n one thing befalls up an’ down the Delimbiyr that ye see not, Bellard. What else could it be? A mage, aye—but what mage has spells enough to scorch houses an’ haystacks an’ odd patches of meadow, as well as every stone-built building in the place?” There was a brief silence, and the voice went on. “Well, if ye think of any other good answer, speak. Until then, if ye’ve sense, we’ll raid only at dawn, before we can be well seen from the air—an’ not stray far from the forest, for cover.”