by Doug Niles
In distant Xak Tsaroth, the cry fell from the sky, pushing through a ring of armed guards that garrisoned a cordon about the once-grand home of a wealthy merchant. It had been a long time since that merchant had been seen, and though numerous brave men had ventured into the house to see what was wrong, none of them had ever emerged. Thus this permanent detachment of warriors had been left as a precaution.
Now the guards recoiled in terror as a crimson monster roared forth, scarlet wings flapping wildly, cruel jaws gaping. The red dragon filled the street with lethal gouts of fire, burning numerous men-at-arms and bystanders before it took wing. Once airborne, the wyrmling marked a course for Sanction, like his kin-dragons answering the piercing, intuitive cry.
And from countless other hatching dens they came as well, these dragons born in treasure rooms and dungeons and manor houses throughout Ansalon. They took wing as soon as they were touched by their immortal queen’s message, in the first days out of the egg for some, after many years of surreptitious feeding and growing for others. The chromatic dragons were guided by an instinct older than the trio of mountains that surrounded Sanction, the Lords of Doom that had emerged from the chaos of Darklady Mountain’s destructive eruption.
They joined Deathfyre over the course of several days, hundreds of wyrms of all the Dark Queen’s colors. Greens flew in wide formations, while blues and reds dived and darted, striving for supremacy. Dragons of black came out of the night, and wyrms of icy white flew from the glacial south, all of them awakened and compelled, drawn by the irresistible summons of the Queen of Darkness.
“I blazed my way from Xak Tsaroth in a fury of fire and claw and fang!” boasted crimson Tombfyre, crowing in exultation, describing the men-at-arms who had fallen dead, lethally charred by his fiery breath.
“And I was master of all the sewers of Sanction. There I dwelt in comfort, eating well, until I hastened to obey your summons!” announced black Corro.
“As for me, I was comfortable in the midst of the northern desert,” explained Azurus, he of the turquoise-blue scales. “But finally the last of the camels was gone, and I began to grow hungry. And now that you have brought me here, I begin to see my purpose.”
“Fly forth, my kin-dragons!” ordered Deathfyre, selecting the greatest among his flock as his agents. “Go to the realms of mankind and ogre, dwarf and bakali—all you can reach within a day’s flight of here. Gather warriors to my banners and bid them march to my city with all haste—and tell them that to disobey is to die.”
Corro, Azurus, Tombfyre, and many others flew toward the points of the compass, and within a few days they returned, bringing the promise of many troops following in their wake. A wave of warlike frenzy had swept the surrounding realms, and warriors of all races flocked to Sanction with bloodlust and avarice in their hearts.
At the feet of the Khalkists, the ogres once again answered the martial call, thousands of brutish warriors emerging from their dens and lairs. The descendants of a once-mighty and highly cultured race, they now snarled and growled like animals, smacking their lips at the prospects of fresh blood. The ogres were large and strong, and each carried a heavy, sharp-edged blade. As a force on the ground, they were a mass against whom very few troops would dare to stand.
From the lower valleys and fens of the Khalkists came the bakali, recruited by the black dragons, who relished the muck and mire favored by the reptilian savages. The lizard men remembered Deathfyre in their greatest legends, and they willingly gathered in a throng to once more serve their crimson master. The scaly-skinned warriors came by the hundreds and then the thousands, forming great encampments before the walls of Sanction, watched suspiciously by the humans who manned the city ramparts.
Corrupt humans came, too, drawn from Sanction and other realms by lure of treasure, or propelled by fear of consequences should they decline to serve. Barbarian horsemen rode in great swarms from the plains, and nomads marched southward from the deserts. Crude and brutal pirates trekked overland all the way from Balifor, and mercenaries from Tarsis and Xak Tsaroth arrived in increasing numbers, answering the universal lures of treasure and adventure.
And even some of the dwarves of the Khalkists, the children of those who had labored for Deathfyre in the gathering of the dragon eggs, added their banners to the crimson wyrm’s horde. Wicked and evil creatures, these cruel dwarves betrayed the proud and honorable legacy of their people, bribed by the dragons’ offers of all the gems they could capture.
The dragons that had answered Deathfyre’s summons circled the mountains and finally settled to the ground, landing on the flanks of the soaring volcanoes, so that from a distance the summits seemed to be mottled in patterns of the queen’s five colors. All of these deadly serpents had been born in secrecy, and many were already quite huge—a surfeit of food supplies had seen to that.
Now the dragons fluttered and roared, watching the troops stream toward the city below. Breath of fire and acid, ice and gas and lightning, blasted the skies in ritual challenge as the wyrms of the Dark Queen grew more aggressive, more anxious to unleash their power against the world. Inevitably fights erupted among them, leaving wings rent, scales torn from flesh, and lives lost as that pent-up fury built to a fever pitch.
And then their leader let them know that the attack would soon begin.
Deathfyre gathered his two-legged captains on the ground before the city walls. He appointed a mighty ogre, Garic Drakan, as commander of the army, and bade the dwarves, bakali, humans, and other ogres to show the chieftain such fealty as they would to the red dragon himself. When the roars had risen to a deafening crescendo, Garic put his army to the march, leaving Sanction behind as the horde advanced like a tide of ink onto the plains of Solamnia.
“Do we strike against the elves?” demanded mighty Azurus as the dragons fluttered their stiff wings and craned their necks, ready to attack. All knew the grim history of the Silvanesti wars, and vengeance was a powerful compulsion among the wyrms of Takhisis.
“No. This time it will be the humans who feel the brunt of our onslaught!” declared Deathfyre. He clearly remembered his matriarch’s firmest lesson: Find your strongest enemy and kill him! “Solamnia has become the greatest realm, the strongest empire on Krynn, and thus it shall be Solamnia that feels the fury of our queen’s wrath!”
“I myself will burn a hundred of the enemy warriors!” boasted Tombfyre, who was already a large serpent, capable of expelling a huge gout of flame. He rose to his haunches and bellowed a great fountain of fire into the sky.
“Ah, my son,” declared Deathfyre. “I know that you will earn the praises of our queen!”
And when the dragons of evil took wing, they darkened the sky. Aided by their skyborne allies, Garic Drakan’s army swept forward on the ground, quickly subduing the realms around the mountains, squashing the peoples who dwelt in the foothills as if these minor kingdoms and duchies were so many villages and camps. Ultimately the great serpents led the invasions from Sanction onto the plains of Vingaard, a tide swarming westward toward the realm of the proud knights.
On the ground, the armies of the ogre Garic Drakan marched forth. Columns diverged across the prairie, destroying settlements, pillaging strongholds, battling any band of armed men that dared to raise a blade. Legions of mercenary horsemen preceded the brutal foot soldiers, making savage onslaughts against every city and town in their path. Bakali lizard men swarmed behind the riders, killing mercilessly, while the heavy ogres and tens of thousands of human footmen plodded relentlessly forward, a crushing wave of irresistible force that swarmed in a lethal tide.
In the face of this onslaught, the Knights of Solamnia rode forth from their castles to do battle. Companies of the Sword, the Crown, and the Rose all formed courageously. True to honor, duty, and the Measure, they faced attacks by overwhelming armies, until the dragons of the Dark Queen flew from the skies, driving the human warriors back with horrendous casualties.
But during these initial campaigns, mindful of the
impetuous advance that had led to destruction in Silvanesti more than a thousand years before, Deathfyre held his legions to a more measured pace. Led by Tombfyre and Azurus, the mighty red dragon’s wings of flying serpents rarely flew far ahead of the troops on the ground, and those spearheads were held in check as well. Deathfyre insisted that his horsemen remain within supporting distance of the rest of the army, until ultimately the army of the Dark Queen plodded forward in a well-disciplined wave, relentlessly burying everything across a thousand-mile swath of ruin.
And always Deathfyre remained alert for reports of the dragons of metal. Surely they dwelt in the west and would learn of the attack. But where were they? When would they enter the fight? He couldn’t know the answer, and so he made certain that he was ready. In fact, this was one of the major reasons for the measured advance of his force. He didn’t want to expose a far-flung spearhead to annihilation at the hands of a sudden dragon counterattack.
Still, much of the pride of Solamnia bled and died on the plains of Ansalon. Dargaard Keep fell, and the mighty Vingaard River was crossed, with the castle of the same name besieged. Everywhere the army of Deathfyre met victory and left grieving, ruin, and destruction once the vanguard had passed.
But where were the dragons of metal? Until they flew, Deathfyre knew that his vengeance would remain incomplete.
Chapter 32
Lectral’s Choice
1029 PC
Flanking cliffs of white chalk rose from the mist-shrouded depths of a wilderness gorge, concealing an icy torrent of glacial melt that churned and eroded its way through the slash of deep channel. Most of the vast chasm was shrouded in nearly eternal shadows, a blanket of darkness broken only when the sun stood at high zenith. Moss draped the slick white rocks, and tributary streams flowed from constant springs and seasonal snowmelt, trickling down the steep cliffs in a myriad of splashing waterfalls, adding their contents to the raging flowage far below.
High on the north-facing wall of the deep gorge was a wide ledge, a shelf of white rock that remained exposed to sunlight throughout the day, during all seasons of the year. The chalk surface was smooth, though a number of curved indentations pocked the surface near the cliff wall. Furthermore, a steady stream of clear water trilled down the nearby cliffs, gathering in a wide, deep pool before spilling over the lip of the ledge to shower into the unseen depths of the gorge.
This perch was Lectral’s favorite place in all the High Kharolis. The flat surface was long enough for him to stretch to his full length and sufficiently wide that he could carelessly gather himself into a loose coil. The pool made for splendid drinking, and on exceptionally hot days, he could immerse himself all the way to his eyeballs in refreshing coolness.
As to the view, he was content to remain within the cool confinement of the white chalk walls. He enjoyed the sight of blue or gray skies overhead, and from within the gap of his secluded gorge, he observed the phases of the moons or watched the constellations as the stars wheeled by. He had learned to anticipate every nuance of lunar cycles, predicting when and where each of the three moons would appear along the overhead rim.
The familiar Kharolis skyline loomed to the east, and though Lectral couldn’t see the mountains from his ledge, he could call up their mental image anytime he chose. For now, he was content to let the memory suffice, to enjoy the smooth comfort and sheltered confines of his lofty ledge. Of course, he often left this place to hunt, and frequently those hunts took him over the crests of the High Kharolis. He always made a point to circle the deep mountain-guarded lake where his proud sire, the legendary Callak, was buried.
Yet it had been long since he had visited any of the two-legged folk who lived beyond those heights. He wasn’t really interested in that sort of society anymore—with the exception of the Kagonesti. And even then, his protector-ship of the wild elves had become an aloof and distant thing. Often he had observed the tribes throughout the forests of Ansalon, but he did so invisibly, or in the guise of a bird or perhaps a stag or mountain sheep. He held the ram’s horn in its sacred trust, but never had he had to use it or to answer its summons from the Kagonesti.
For long periods of time, Lectral remained on his chalk ledge, concealed within his white gorge by himself. Heart, ever his favorite companion and nestmate, had been absent from his life for many winters. He wondered if she were spending all of her time in the guise of human or elf, for even the griffons that regularly brought word of events in the world had heard nothing of the large silver female. With a flash of jealous memory, his thoughts returned to a sparkling moment: the chase of two wild elves through the forest and its untimely interruption by a band of ogres.
It was odd how, in that elven guise, he had felt a warmth of feeling, a deep affection for his nestmates that was decidedly undragonlike. He had heard about love, of course, but as it would be to any centuries-old serpent, the concept was not a thing he could understand. It seemed a silly and vulnerable weakness, useful only to enliven the existence of short-lived creatures who had no real hope of majesty in their pathetic lives.
Sometimes in the years immediately following the time when he and Heart had wandered apart, Lectral, too, had walked among men. After all, as a silver dragon it was somewhat expected. Yet he had never found the appeal in these short-lived, vibrant folk that had compelled Heart and, more recently, her younger sisters, Saytica and Silvara, to live for long stretches in the guise of a two-legs. The Kagonesti, at least, were serene and dignified and lived lives of a properly long span of years.
Lectral was thinking, with fond reminiscence, of the silver female when a cloak of darkness suddenly blotted out the stars. He jerked his head upward, popping out the top of a sphere of a magical blackness, and when he heard a musical trill of laughter, he knew he had been made the victim of a prank.
“Silvara! Come out where I can see you!”
The laughter rose, chiming in harmony with the waterfall, and a small, slender dragon of shimmering silver crept into view around the shoulder of the cliff wall.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Lectral,” she said with utter insincerity. With a blink of her great luminous eyes—eyes that seemed too large for the narrow silver wedge of her head—she stretched her wings and dipped a leisurely foreclaw into the waters of the pool.
Lectral, as always, found it impossible to be angry with the impetuous wyrmling. Still, he made a show of scowling and harrumphing, as if she should think twice about working a new spell on him the next time she paid a visit. “And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Saytica and I were in Palanthas for the winter, but I think I was starting to get on Astinus’s nerves,” Silvara admitted, with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “At least, that’s what Regia said when she asked me to leave.”
“Maybe you were getting on Regia’s nerves as well,” Lectral proposed with a chuckle.
Their golden kin-dragon was widely known for her fanatical attachment to human ways of society and manners. Regia was easily flustered by a dragon who, whether in human or elven guise, lacked a proper knowledge of decorum. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the playful young silver had soon grown irritating in the eyes of the haughty gold.
“That could be. Quallathan and I were playing around the Tower of High Sorcery, and she punished him with an extra lesson and told me I should see what was happening in the High Kharolis.”
“That sounds like Regia,” Lectral admitted. Quallathan was even younger than Silvara, but he was strong and quick, with a keen intellect and sharp wit that had already drawn a great deal of attention from the elders. It was quite possible that Regia considered Silvara a bad influence on Qual, though Lectral refrained from mentioning his suspicion to the lively youngster. “I don’t suppose an extra lesson is too much of a punishment for Quallathan,” he suggested.
“No. He went right into his human form and started to read a big stack of scrolls Regia gave him.”
“Did you know that’s why the gold dragons like to use their two-le
gged bodies so much?” the silver male explained. “Because it’s easier to read with a human’s eyes than with a dragon’s. Also, human fingers are better than claws for turning the pages.”
“I didn’t know that. But it was all right, though,” Silvara continued breezily, trotting to the edge of the ledge and looking into the misty depths of the gorge, then turning those over-large eyes back to Lectral. “I was ready for a change of scenery.”
“Saytica stayed behind?”
“Yes,” Silvara replied. “She has an easier time putting up with all the rules.”
“Well, she’s quite a bit older and larger than you. I suppose that makes a difference,” noted Lectral.
“Everyone is,” the young female replied sourly, but then she brightened. “Anyway, it’s as Daria taught us: Dragons should be flying, not reading.”
Lectral chuckled, remembering his matriarch with fondness. Then his brow furrowed. “Have you seen Heart?” he asked, finally getting to the question that was never far from the surface of his awareness.
“No, and Regia hasn’t either. She asked me the same thing just before she sent me away.”
An eagle keened, circling the ledge, silhouetted by the rosy glow of the sun sinking toward the western horizon. Then the birdlike form shimmered and grew, and it was a gold dragon gliding through the air, curling regally and settling toward a landing on Lectral’s ledge.
The two silvers quickly changed shape, using the bodies of wild elves to conserve space, and moved against the cliff wall to leave more room on the narrow perch.
The gold, whom Lectral had already recognized as mighty Arumnus, settled in a downrush of wind and nodded a greeting of stiff-necked formality. The dragon’s rather formal manner wasn’t because he was aloof, but because he’d been spending too much time with Regia, Lectral suspected.
Smoothly Arumnus changed shape, shrinking, curling upright to stand smoothly in the body of a burly Knight of Solamnia. Shiny golden armor protected his strapping form, and a great sword was strapped to his waist.