by Doug Niles
Crematia, by all reports, had disappeared at the time of the ambush of the black dragons, and Aurican had quietly voiced the hope that she had somehow been entrapped with her inky cousins. Still, the gems had been specifically forged for a particular kind of dragon, and in darker moments, the gold dragon speculated that the red female had simply teleported away to spare herself from Darlantan’s attack. Thus, she could be biding her time, waiting for her revenge.
Yet finally, after a campaign of more than a hundred winters, victory lay within the grasp of Aurican, Darlantan, and their elven and human allies. Only the blue serpents remained, and the silver and gold had patiently awaited a chance to trap them within the remaining dragongem, the enchanted stone of blue.
Until that stone was stolen.
For once, the ogres used cunning instead of brute force. Bribed by great treasures, some humans had betrayed the rest of their kind, enabling the ogres to penetrate the heart of the army camp where the bluestone was being held for safekeeping. The monsters had made off with the orb, carrying the precious treasure somewhere into the Khalkists.
Now the army of elves and humans was encamped across a vast plain, several days’ march from the forest that had been their only protection in the days before the dragongems. Silvanos and his human allies had taken this position with audacity, in a blatant attempt to lure Talonian into a final battle—a contest that would almost certainly decide the outcome of the war.
Beside that position rose a single, steep-sided mountain, and it was atop this peak that two long, serpentine forms sprawled with regal ease. Starlight reflected from glittering scales of silver, rippled along sleek wings of gold, as the ancient nestmates overlooked the flatland and its burden of twin armies.
The blot of Talonian’s horde lay to the north, a dark stain on the dark land. Moving hastily, camping without fires, the ogre chieftain had brought his troops on a brutal forced march, so desperate was he to meet the elves while the enchanted gem was unavailable to them. Now that massive swarm was encamped along the northern horizon, and even in the darkness, the two dragons could smell the stench of many thousand ogres, a bitter and acrid blight on the night wind.
On the plain below, sprawling for as far as they could see, were the innumerable sparkling cookfires of the human and elven force. Pickets were placed and the formations were encamped in company order, ready to fall into line in the morning. From the mountaintop, the glittering specks marking Silvanos’s massive army stretched almost to the far horizon.
“Or is it even Silvanos’s army anymore?” mused Aurican pensively. “He tells me there are ten humans for every elf in his ranks.”
“That is good for the elves, then,” Darlantan noted dryly, “for the humans will likely do ten times as much dying.”
“Indeed,” Auri agreed sagely, missing the irony his nestmate had intended.
Even to Darlantan humans, were short-lived and reckless beings, lacking the dignity and wisdom inherent in elves. Yet increasingly the silver dragon had discovered that he not only found humans to be fascinating, but that he also actually enjoyed their company. Perhaps because of the memories and legends of the benefactor Smelt, the humans had welcomed the assistance of the silver serpent with enthusiasm and gratitude, and Darlantan had been eager to help when he could. He had walked among humans many times during more recent years, finding a peculiar and enervating excitement in the chaotic tangles of their messy, disorganized cities. Many men seemed to be industrious and unpredictable folk, and though he couldn’t explain his reaction, the silver dragon had long ago realized that he was fascinated by them. He also wanted to protect them, insofar as it was possible, from the depredations of the Dark Queen’s wyrms.
“Tell me,” Aurican asked, interrupting his kin-dragon’s musings, “has the wild elf heard any word about the bluestone?”
“The news is hopeful. Kagonos has located it, and has a chance of returning it to Silvanos. Unless he can do so—until he does, in any event—it will be up to us to stand against the Dark Queen’s blues.”
“It is fitting enough, if only to get the war over with,” Aurican said with a sigh. “There are ballads to compose, lyrics to record … too many things that have been put aside for this priority of violence.”
“And nestlings,” said Darlantan, with a regretful sigh of his own. Increasingly he had been thinking about those silver eggs in the grotto. Long ago he had resolved that as soon as the war was won, he would return to that sacred cavern. He even entertained hopes of being present to see the wyrmlings crawl forth from their eggs, but of course that would depend on many things that were beyond the ability of even an ancient dragon to control.
“Do you remember how Kenta and Oro chased us away?” mused Aurican.
“The grotto has become a place for females and eggs,” Dar agreed with a nod. “As though they forgot that we, too, had dwelt there for thousands of winters!”
“Not forgotten, no.” The gold dragon was pensive. “Rather, it was as though they understand that it was time for us to leave, to move into this world as its permanent inhabitants. In fact, there is a rightness to what our females did.”
“Have you heard word from them … our mates?” asked the silver.
“Oro finds ways to send me news, often by griffon. I heard over the last winter that the eggs are safe.”
Content for the moment, Darlantan sighed and closed his eyes. Throughout the cool night, the nestmates rested side by side, Dar’s neck lying on Auri’s wing, silver tail curled around to make a pillow for golden head. The ancient dragons didn’t sleep, but nevertheless were alert and ready with the dawn. At first light, Darlantan’s eyes played across the field as the combined elven and human camp stirred, great regiments and legions taking shape, commencing a crawling advance to the north. Now Talonian’s horde hove into view, angling down the bank of a great river, turning to meet the advancing foe.
Daylight spread across the plains as the sun rose, bright rays breaking through the patchwork of clouds in many places, leaving a blotchy pattern of shadow and light across the sweeping plain. Abruptly a flash of crimson splashed across the scene like a huge stain of blood, but Darlantan recognized her instantly.
“Crematia!” he hissed, pointing with the angle of his flaring snout.
Aurican, who had been scanning the north in search of the blue dragons, whipped his head around and stared. “It is as I surmised,” the gold declared. “She was not trapped in the black gem. She merely wished us to believe so.”
“I will kill her now,” declared the silver dragon, crouching, wings spread, ready to fly.
“Wait, my brother.” Aurican’s voice held Dar back. “My scales cannot be burned by her fire. Let me go after her. You watch here for the blues, or wait for word from Kagonos.”
Darlantan growled, but he knew Auri was right. The gold dragon’s gilded scales were proof against Crematia’s fiery breath, a protection that Darlantan could not claim.
“Fly with the speed of sorcery and the Platinum Father,” Dar urged.
“I shall.”
In the echo of that word, Aurican was gone, a rush of air swirling in his wake. Darlantan squinted and saw the golden form diving toward the red dragon. Crematia darted away at impossible speed, and Auri, though unenchanted, pursued like a shooting star. Rapidly the two dragons dwindled to tiny specks of color far out over the dusty plain.
Returning his taut, uneasy inspections to the north, Dar squinted along the horizon. The scourge of the blue dragons had been well reported by elven scouts as the vicious serpents spread a swath of devastation along the eastern coast of the world. Moving northward, they had continued their way along the shoreline of the great ocean. Recent reports told of their intentions to rejoin Talonian.
So they would have to come from the north, Darlantan knew.
Soon his certainty was rewarded as tiny flecks of azure appeared in the distance against the rusty brown of the plains. The blue dragons swept toward the field with relentless
determination, flying in a broad wing. There were five of the serpents in all, soaring below the level of the puffy clouds that scudded through the sky.
Darlantan took wing immediately, climbing through the clouds into the thin, frosty regions where he had rarely ventured. He took an evasive, wayward course, using the largest of the cumulus clouds as concealment from the onrushing serpents. Finally, far above them, he circled and waited.
Every once in a while he glimpsed a blue wing or the trailing flick of a tail through the obscuring vapor. Mostly the view below was blocked by the thickening overcast, and this concealment suited Darlantan. The wyrms were flying well below the clouds, doubtless to insure that they would have plenty of time to react to an attack from above.
That is, an ordinary attack. But Darlantan had a new plan in mind, a tactic that would require careful timing and a measure of luck. The leading blue dragon blinked into view again in the gap between two nearby clouds, and the silver dragon put his plan into action.
The body of metallic sheen shifted and grew smaller in the instant of his thought, and in an eyeblink, it was the body of a frail, white-bearded sage poised high in the air. Lacking wings, the body naturally began to fall straight down, and here Darlantan hoped for the intervention of luck.
He plunged through the clouds, blinking away the tears that formed in his eyes from the buffeting force of the wind. Tucking his arms around his skinny legs, he made himself as small an object as possible, a tiny ball of humanity plunging from the lofty clouds, directly toward the back of the leading blue dragon. Doubtless the following serpents would have noticed something as huge and visible as a dragon of gleaming silver, but none of them took notice of this insignificant fleck of nothing tumbling downward.
But in another eyeblink Darlantan became a dragon again, poised directly above the back of the massive blue. He struck his target with crushing force as the silver head whipped around. Jaws gaping, he blasted an explosion of killing frost into the startled face of the next blue in line.
Beneath him, the wyrm snapped and writhed, trying to bring those lethal jaws—and that deadly lightning—to bear. Darlantan’s claws closed around the blue’s throat, crushing and tearing, until his own fangs ripped through its scales. Slowing the descent with his outspread wings, the silver dragon twisted once more to make sure his foe was dead.
Then he released the lifeless carcass and dived toward the ground, sweeping away from the two armies clenched in their distant, sprawling struggle. Bellows of rage still echoed, and the acrid scent of spent lightning stung his nostrils as he drew deep breaths and strove for altitude.
Three blue arrows plunged from the sky in vengeful pursuit as Darlantan headed for the scant concealment of a range of rugged foothills. He dodged into a chasm, flying around a massive bluff and swinging over the plains again, leaving the blues straining to keep him in sight. Upward and still upward he rose, the powerful strokes of his wings carrying him high above the land, higher than he had ever flown before. Passing through the tenuous layer of clouds, Darlantan found himself in a realm of twilight chill, though the sun burned from just past zenith overhead. The wetness on his scales turned to frost, and he sensed that the blues struggled with the uncomfortable chill as they labored in pursuit.
But they still had their magic, and in a heart-stopping moment, the three blue serpents materialized in the air before him—and Darlantan knew he was defeated. A trio of cruel maws gaped as the mighty silver tried to veer aside, knowing he was too late. The blue dragons were arrayed in lethal formation, poised to kill no matter which way he turned.
Then a great rock was there, a massive orb that was somehow suspended in the sky. The surface was silvery and bright, coated with frost, and the great sphere was moving very fast, tumbling crazily into the midst of the aerial melee. Darlantan veered, dodging as the massive globe swirled past the chromatic dragons.
Lightning blasted, and shards of white-silver stones flew past Darlantan. But the blue dragon’s aim had been thrown off by the great sphere of stone. His shot missed the silver serpent, instead splintering into the great, floating mass of rock. Dar had no time to ponder the mystery of the flying stone. He curled around the gradually rounded surface, realizing that the body of rock was monstrously huge. Certainly it would be visible to those on the ground, though he had never seen nor heard of such a body in the skies above Krynn.
Sudden darkness loomed, as if something had abruptly doused the sun. But then he saw that it was another sphere of rock streaking after the first, this one midnight black in color. Indeed, the stone was so dark as to resemble a hole in the sky more than any solid surface of rock. Again lightning blasted, and this time shards of the black orb exploded upward as the blue’s bolt missed its target and gouged into the mysterious globe.
Flying faster, Darlantan curled away from the black object, now seeing another great rock heave into view. This one was as red as blood, and it seemed to trail the other two through the sky. With three blue dragons in pursuit, the silver veered toward this third massive sphere, hoping beyond belief the good fortune that had blessed him until now would hold firm.
Sensing the blues close on his tail, the silver serpent curved sharply, driving his wings through long strokes, almost skimming the surface of bright, blood-red rock. The monstrous orb hurled past, obviously trailing the other two on a trajectory that would carry it even higher into the sky—above the clouds, above the loftiest dragon-flight, seemingly beyond the very air itself.
Darlantan twisted instinctively, warned by familiarity with his foes. Once more lightning spurted past, driving into the surface of the cosmic rock, missing the silver dragon by a mere hairsbreadth. Then the crimson orb was streaking away, leaving a trail of shards from the lightning strike that, like the black and silver debris from earlier blasts, tumbled lazily through the air, falling with deceptive grace toward the ground below. The three great spheres, white and black and red, coursed quickly upward and away.
Without the moons for cover, Darlantan relied on his speed once more. He pushed himself through the air, blinking against the onrush of wind, tilting into a plummeting headlong dive. The snaky line of the Vingaard River expanded into clarity, and once again the dragon of metal outdistanced his azure foes.
But there was still that magic, and abruptly two of the blue serpents popped into view below him. Jaws agape, they waited in perfect attack position as Darlantan curved his neck and stretched his wings, striving desperately to pull away.
The lightning exploded with a violent flash, though curiously the silver dragon heard no sound. For a moment, everything was impossibly bright.
And then there was no light at all.
Chapter 14
Darlantan’s Triumph
3357 PC
Aurican dived, the scarlet-winged form of Crematia growing broad in his vision. With a bellow, he lunged, arrowing his body into a deadly spear, driving toward that hateful crimson matriarch. The long pursuit was over, he sensed … now they would finish their feud.
But the red dragon suddenly whipped about, halting in space, suspended by magic. Aurican veered, slashing at a crimson wing, and the two dragons met in the midst of a raging fireball, the combined blast of their lethal breath weapons. Still, neither of these mighty serpents could be badly hurt by fire, and so they broke apart, diving to regain speed, then swerving upward to recommence the fight.
Once again they clashed, Crematia now abandoning magic for the fury of fang and talon. Rending and tearing, they dived and coiled and twisted through the air. Aurican’s fangs tore into the crimson scales of his enemy’s belly. She screamed, folding her wings and dropping like a falling rock to escape the golden claws. As she plummeted, Aurican heard her muttering strange words, knew that she was casting a spell.
Abruptly a whirling shape materialized in the air, an elemental summoned by Crematia from a distant plane. Like a whirlwind, it roared after the gold dragon, tearing at Aurican’s wing, ripping the leathery membrane. Twisting, h
e snapped at the bizarre creature, but it dodged nimbly away—until he incinerated the elemental by belching a cloud of furiously churning flame.
Crematia again took flight, diving and then flying with desperate speed, but Aurican closed the distance with his quarry. For long hours, they raced and fought through deep canyons, over lofty ridges, and among the jagged peaks of the southern Khalkists. Slowly the gold dragon drew close, sensing that victory was imminent.
Then, in the blink of an instant, she was gone, leaving a hole in the sky. Aurican knew that she had teleported away, but he had no way of tracking her. Grimly furious, he banked to the side, squinting into the distance as he sought any sign of crimson scales … but there was nothing.
A squawk from below drew his attention to a griffon. As the creature flew closer, Aurican banked toward the hawk-faced flyer.
“What is the word from the east?” asked Auri as the griffon curled around to match his course and altitude.
“The battle was raging. Darlantan was in battle with the blues, flying high above the field, until at last we lost sight of him.”
“And the elves?”
“They did not fare badly. It looked as though Talonian might at last meet his defeat.”
“If the blues can be trapped … all our hopes depend on that,” Aurican said. “Forgive me, my friend, but I must hasten back there. But I would ask a question of you first.”
“As you wish,” declared the griffon, with a polite dip of its hawklike head.
“Your kind and ours have had many conflicts, many rivalries. Why, in the midst of all this, have you been such a loyal friend to my brother?”