Red dragons—powerful and enormous, blue dragons—small and swift, black dragons—vicious and cruel, white dragons—cold and beautiful, green dragons—noxious and deadly. Dragons of all colors, male and female, old and young, they came at Mina’s call. Many of these dragons had been hiding deep in their lairs, terrified of Malys and of Beryl, of Khellendros, one of their own who had turned on them. They had hidden away, afraid they would find their skulls upon one of the totems of the dragon overlords.
Then had come the great storm. Above the fearsome winds, blasting lightning, and booming thunder, these dragons had heard a voice telling them to prepare, to make ready, to come when summoned.
Tired of living in fear, longing for revenge for the deaths of their mates, their children, their comrades, they answered the call, and now they flew to Silvanesti, their many-colored scales forming a terrible rainbow over the ancient homeland of the elves.
The dragons’ scales glittered in the sunshine so that each might have been encrusted with a wealth of jewels. The shadows of their passing rippled along the ground beneath them, flowing over hillock and farmhouse, lake and forest.
The swift-flying blues took the lead, wing tip to wing tip, keeping time with matching strokes, taking pride in their precision. The ponderous reds brought up the rear, their enormous wings moving a single sweeping flap to every four of the faster blues. Blacks and greens were scattered throughout.
The elves felt the terror of their coming. Many collapsed, senseless, and others fled in the madness of their fear. Dogah sent his men after them, bidding them to make certain no elf escaped into the wilderness.
Mina’s men ran to collect their gear and any supplies that could be carried on dragonback. They brought Mina’s maps to her, she said she needed nothing else. They were ready and waiting to mount by the time the first of the dragons began to circle down and land upon the battlefield. Galdar mounted a gigantic red. Captain Samuval chose a blue. Mina rode the strange dragon, the dragon she termed the “death dragon.”
“We travel by darkness,” said Mina. “The light of neither moon nor star will shine this night so our journey may remain secret.”
“What is our destination?” Galdar asked.
“A place where the dead gather,” she said. “A place called Nightlund.”
Her dragon spread its ghastly wings and soared into the air effortlessly, as if it weighed no more than the ashes that drifted up from the pyre, where they were burning Targonne’s body. The other dragons, bearing the soldiers of Mina’s army upon their backs, took to the skies. Clouds foamed up from the west, blotting out the sun, gathering thick around the multitude of dragons.
Dogah returned to the command tent. He had work to do: comandeering storehouses to hold the loot, establishing slave-labor camps, interrogation centers and prisons, brothels to keep the men entertained. He had noted, when in Silvanost, a temple dedicated to an old god, Mishakal. He would establish the worship of the One God there, he decided. An appropriate place.
As he made his plans, he could hear the screams of elves who were probably, even now, being dispatched into the One God’s service.
Out on the battlefield, Silvanoshei remained where Mina had left him. He had been unable to take his eyes from her. In despair, he had watched her depart, clinging to the rag of hope she had left him as a child clings to the tattered blanket he clutches to keep away the terrors of the night. He did not hear the cries of his people. He heard only Mina’s voice.
The One God. Embrace the One God, and we will be together again.
14
The Chosen of the One God
en members of the kirath and ten elves of Alhana’s army were hiding in the forests outside Silvanost to watch the funeral. They were hiding there when the dragons came. Wearing the magical cloaks of the kirath that made them invisible to any who might be watching for them, the elves were able to creep within close proximity of the funeral pyre. They saw everything that happened but were helpless to intervene. They could do nothing to save their people. Their numbers were too small. Help would come later. These elves were here with one mission, one purpose, and that was to rescue their young king.
The elves heard death all around them. The stumps of dying trees cried out in agony. The ghost of Cyan Bloodbane hissed and howled in the wind. These elves had fought the dream with courage. They had fought ogres without blanching. Forced to listen to the song of death, they felt their palms sweat and their stomachs clench.
The elves hiding in the forest were reminded of the dream, yet this was worse, for the dream had been a dream of death, and this was real. They watched their brethren mourn the death of the strange human girl child, Mina. As the Knights cast their torches onto the pyre, the elves did not cheer, even in their hearts. They watched in wary silence.
Crouched among the boughs severed from a living aspen that had been left to wither and die, Alhana Starbreeze saw flames crackle on the pyre and smoke begin to rise to the heavens. She kept her gaze on her son, Silvanoshei, who had been dragged in chains and now appeared on the verge of collapse. Beside her, Samar muttered something. He had not wanted her to come, he had argued against it, but this time she insisted on having her way.
“What did you say, Commander?” Kiryn whispered.
“Nothing,” Samar returned, with a glance at Alhana.
He would not speak ill of Alhana’s son to anyone but himself, especially not to Kiryn, who never ceased to defend Silvanoshei, to maintain that the king was in the grip of some strange power.
Samar liked Kiryn. He admired the young man for having had the wit, resourcefulness, and foresight to escape the calamitous banquet, to seek out the kirath, and alert them to what had happened. But Kiryn was a Silvanesti, and although he claimed he had remained loyal all these years to Alhana, Samar did not trust him.
A hand touched his arm, and in spite of himself, Samar started, unable to repress a shudder. He looked around, half-angry, though if he had heard the sounds of the elven scout approaching, he would have severely reprimanded such carelessness.
“Well,” he growled, “what did you find out?”
“It is true, what we heard,” the woman said, her voice softer than the ghostly whispers. “Silvanoshei was responsible for the human girl’s death. He gave her a ring, a ring he told people came from his mother. The ring was poisoned. The human died almost instantly.”
“I sent no such ring!” Alhana said, seeing the cold stares of the kirath. For years, they had been told Alhana Starbreeze was a dark elf. Perhaps some had even believed it. “I fight my enemies face to face. I do not poison them, especially when I know that it is my people who will suffer the consequences!”
“This smacks of treachery,” Samar said. “Human treachery. This Lord Targonne is known to have made his way to the top by climbing a ladder of the corpses of his enemies. This girl was just one more rung—”
“Commander! Look!” The scout pointed.
The elves hiding amid the shadows of the death-singing forest watched in amazement to see the human girl rise whole and alive from the blazing pyre. The humans were proclaiming it a miracle. The elves were skeptical.
“Ah, I thought there would be some trick in this,” Samar said.
Then came the strange death dragon, and the elves turned dark and shadowed eyes to each other.
“What is this?” Alhana wondered aloud. “What does it portend?”
Samar had no answer. In his hundreds of years, he had roamed almost every portion of Ansalon and had encountered nothing like this horrible creature.
The elves heard the girl accuse Targonne, and although many could not understand her language, they were able to guess the import of her words by the expression on the doomed human’s face. They watched his headless corpse topple to the ground without comment or surprise. Such barbarous behavior was only to be expected of humans.
As the flight of many colored dragons formed a hideous rainbow in the skies above Silvanesti, the song of death rose t
o a shrieking paean. The elves shrank among the shadows and shivered as the dragonfear swept over them. They flattened themselves among the dead trees. They were able to do nothing but think of death, to see nothing but the image of their own dying.
The dragons departed, bearing the strange girl away with them. The Dark Knights of Neraka swept down upon the Silvanesti people, carrying salvation in one hand, death in the other.
Alhana’s heart hurt almost to breaking at the sound of the screams of those first to fall victim to the wrath of the Dark Knights. Smoke was already starting to rise from the beautiful city. Yet she reached out a hand to detain Rolan of the kirath, who was on his feet, sword in hand.
“Where do you think you are going?” Alhana demanded.
“To save them,” Rolan said grimly. “To save them or die with them.”
“A witless act. Would you throw away your life for nothing?”
“We must do something!” Rolan cried, his face livid. “We must help them!”
“We are thirty,” Alhana answered. “The humans outnumber us dozens to one.” She looked back grimly, pointed to the fleeing Silvanesti. “If our people would stand and fight, we might be able to help them, but—look at that! Look at them! Some flee in confusion and panic. Others stand and sing praises to this false god!”
“The human is clever,” Samar said quietly. “With her trickery and her promises, she seduced your people as surely as she seduced that poor besotted boy out there. We can do nothing to help them. Not now—not until reason prevails. But we might be able to help him.”
Tears streamed down Rolan’s cheeks. Every elven death cry seemed to strike him, for his body shuddered at each. He stood irresolute, blinking his eyes and watching the gray tendrils of smoke rising from Silvanost. Alhana did not weep. She had no more tears left.
“Samar, look!” Kiryn pointed. “Silvanoshei. They are taking him away. If we’re going to do something, we’d better do it fast, before they reach the city and lock him up in some dungeon.”
The young man stood on the battlefield in the shadow of Mina’s pyre and appeared stunned to the point of insensibility. He did not look to see what was happening to his people. He did not make any move at all. He stared as if transfixed at where she had stood. Four humans—soldiers, not Knights—had been left to guard him. Seizing hold of him, two began to drag him off. The other two followed along, swords drawn, keeping careful watch.
Only four of them. The rest of the Knights and soldiers had raced off to effect the subjugation and looting of Silvanost, about a mile distant. Their camp was empty, abandoned except for these four and the prince.
“We do what we came to do,” Alhana said. “We rescue the prince. Now is our chance.”
Samar rose up from his hiding place. He gave a piercing cry, that of a hawk, and the woods were alive with elven warriors, emerging from the shadows.
Samar motioned his warriors forward. Alhana rose too, but she remained behind a moment, placed her hand upon Rolan’s shoulder.
“Forgive me, Rolan of the Kirath,” Alhana said. “I know your pain, and I share it. I spoke in haste. There is something we can do.”
Rolan looked at her, the tears still glimmering in his eyes.
“We can vow to return and avenge the dead,” she said.
Rolan gave a fierce nod.
Gripping her weapon, Alhana caught up with Samar, and they soon joined the main body of the elven warriors, who ran silently, unseen, from out the whispering shadows.
Silvanoshei’s captors hauled him back toward Silvanost. The four men were put out, grumbling that they were missing the fun of looting and burning the elven city.
Silvanoshei stumbled over the uneven ground, blind, deaf, oblivious to everything. He could not hear the cries, he could not smell the smoke of destruction nor see it rising from his city. He saw only Mina. He smelled only the smoke of her pyre. He heard only her voice chanting the litany of the One God. The god she worshiped. The god who had brought them together. You are the Chosen.
He remembered the night of the storm, the night the ogres had attacked their camp. He remembered how the storm had made his blood burn. He had likened it to a lover. He remembered the desperate run to try to save his people, and the lightning bolt that had sent him tumbling down the ravine and into the shield.
The Chosen.
How had he been able to pass through the shield, when no others could do so?
That same lightning bolt blazed through his mind.
Mina had passed through the shield.
The Chosen. The hand of the One God. An immortal hand that had touched him with a lover’s caress. The same hand had thrown the bolt to block his path and raised the shield to let him enter. The immortal hand had pointed his way to Mina on the battlefield, had guided the arrows that felled Cyan Bloodbane. The hand had rested against his own hand and given him the strength to uproot the lethal Shield Tree.
The immortal hand cupped around him, held him, healed him, and he was comforted as he had been in his mother’s arms the night the assassins had tried to slay him. He was the Chosen. Mina had told him so. He would give himself to the One God. He would allow that comforting hand to guide him along the chosen path. Mina would be there waiting for him at the end.
What did the One God want of him now? What was the plan for him? He was a prisoner, chained and manacled.
Silvanoshei had never prayed to any god. After the Chaos War, there had been no gods to answer prayers. His parents had told him that mortals were on their own. They had to make do in this world, rely on themselves. It seemed to him, looking back, that mortals had made a hash of things.
Perhaps Mina had been right when she told him that he did not love her, he loved the god in her. She was so confident, so certain, so self-possessed. She never doubted. She was never afraid. In a world of darkness where everyone else was stumbling blindly, she alone was granted the gift of sight.
Silvanoshei did not even know how to pray to a god. His parents had never spoken of the old religion. The subject was a painful one for them. They were hurt, but they were also angry. The gods, with their departure, had betrayed those who had put their faith in them.
But how did he know for certain that the One God cared for him? How did he know that he was truly the Chosen?
He determined to test the One God, a test to reassure himself, as a child assures himself by small tests that his parents really do love him.
Silvanoshei prayed, humbly, “If there is something you want me to do, I cannot do it if I am prisoner. Set me free, and I will obey your will.”
“Sir!” shouted one of the soldiers who had been guarding the rear. “Behind—” Whatever he had been about to say ended in a shriek. The tip of a sword protruded from his gut. He had been stabbed in the back, the blow so fierce that it had pierced the chain mail shirt he wore. He fell forward and was trampled under a rush of elven warriors.
The guards holding Silvanoshei let loose as they turned to fight. One managed actually to draw his sword, but he could make no use of it, for Rolan sliced off his arm. Rolan’s next cut was to the throat. The guard fell in a pool of his own gore. The other guard was dead before he could reach his weapon. Samar’s blade swept the head from the man’s neck. The fourth man was dispatched handily by Alhana Starbreeze, who thrust her sword in his throat.
So lost was he in religious fervor that Silvanoshei was barely aware of what was happening, of grunts of pain and stifled cries, the thud of bodies falling to the ground. First he was being hauled away by soldiers, then, looking up, he saw the face of his mother.
“My son!” Alhana cried softly. Dropping her bloody sword, she gathered Silvanoshei into her embrace and held him close.
“Mother?” Silvanoshei said dazedly. He could not understand, for at first, when the arms wrapped around him in maternal love, he had seen another face. “Mother …” he repeated, bewildered. “Where—How—”
“My Queen,” said Samar warningly.
“Yes,
I know,” said Alhana. She reluctantly released her son. Wiping away her tears, she said, “I will tell you everything, my son. We will have a long talk, but now is not the time. Samar, can you remove his chains?”
“Keep watch,” Samar ordered an elf. “Let me know if anyone has spotted us.”
“Not likely, Commander,” was the grim return. “They are too busy with their butchery.”
Samar examined the manacles and the chains and shook his head. “There is no time to remove these, Silvanoshei, not until we are far from Silvanost and pursuit. We will do what we can to help you along the way, but you must be strong, Your Highness, and bear this burden awhile longer.”
Samar looked and spoke doubtfully. He had seen Silvanoshei a sodden mess on the battlefield. He was prepared to find the young elf shattered, demoralized, uncaring whether he lived or died, unwilling to make an effort to do either.
Silvanoshei stood upright. He had been confused at first. His rescue had come too quickly. The sight of his mother had shaken him, but now that he had time to think, he saw with elation that the One God had been responsible. The One God had answered his prayer. He was the Chosen. The manacles cut his flesh so that it bled, but he bore the pain gladly as a testament to his love for Mina and his newfound faith in the One God.
“I do not need you or anyone to help me, Samar,” Silvanoshei said with quiet calm. “I can bear this burden for as long and as far as necessary. Now, as you say, we must make haste. My mother is in danger.”
Enjoying Samar’s look of astonishment, Silvanoshei shoved past the startled warrior and began to hobble clumsily toward the forest.
“Help him, Samar,” Alhana ordered, retrieving her sword. She watched her son with fondness and pride—and faint unease. He had changed, and although she told herself that his ordeal would have changed anyone, she found this change disturbing. It wasn’t so much that he had grown from a boy to a man. It was that he had grown from her boy into a man she did not know.
Dragons of a Lost Star Page 17