by Dragon Lance
“When you sweep upon the elves, you shall have the aid of my dragonfire – and, too, of the ice and acid, the lightning and toxins, of my cousins. Even the mightiest elven warrior will be unable to face us!”
Once again the cheers rang out, reflected along with the torchlight from the high walls of the gorge, until the entire deep chasm resounded with thunderous shouts and flaring, surging flames. The bonfire surged higher as ogres threw dried pine trunks onto the mound of coals, and these timbers were quickly engulfed by renewed flames.
“Soon we march!” bellowed Crematia. “But before then, we feast!”
Now the roars swelled into a cheer, raucous shouts whooping upward, echoing from the high walls. A file of naked humans, linked by heavy bronze chains, was led into the chasm. Wailing and crying, cringing from the brutes roaring and slavering on every side, the hapless prisoners were dragged into the very center of the throng.
“Let the feasting commence!” crowed the red dragon.
Immediately the ogres surged toward the captives, burying the humans in a throng of heaving, burly bodies. Screams rose to hysteria, then swiftly faded. There had been nearly a hundred of the human sacrifices, so Crematia knew the feasting would continue for some time.
She herself had little interest in the gory proceedings. Instead, she launched into the air, flying above the throng, winging her way upward until she circled out of the gorge and flew among the lofty peaks that cast the canyon into an eternal shadow.
On a high ledge of a mountain she came to rest, tucking her wings and passing into a shadowy alcove. She inspected the surface of the stone, seeing only her own footprints in the soot she had scattered there. That was as it should be, since no other creature would even know that the level surface was here. Crematia’s magic had concealed the entrance, causing it to blend in with the surrounding cliff so perfectly that even a passing eagle wouldn’t be aware the place offered the possibility of a perch.
Probing inward with her head, Crematia quickly found the wall of stone across the narrow passage. Like the soot, this barrier was undisturbed. A single word blinked the magical barrier out of existence, and now the red dragon crept into a cavernous space deeper within the mountain. The familiar odor of magma was a refreshing balm, and she recognized the reptilian hint in the scent that was suggestive of her own spoor.
Twin pools of lava flared and bubbled, one each at opposite edges of the vaguely oval chamber. A stream of liquid rock, glowing bright yellow at the top and cooling to muted crimson near the bottom, spilled from a chute on the far wall, gathering in a trough that divided the stream and carried it to each of the two pools. Lava and flame cast the entire chamber in a glare of muted orange, accented by brighter swaths of red near the flowing rock itself.
The light of the fires was reflected in a multitude of gold and silver surfaces, coins and platters and statues that were scattered across the cavern floor. Among these treasures winked many a gem, viridescent emerald vying with scarlet ruby, both fading in the shadow of sparkling diamonds. These were the precious baubles she had brought from all corners of the Khalkists – or, more accurately, that the ogres had brought her in response to her demands.
But the true beauty of the cave lay in the nest, the basket of bones Crematia had woven with such care. It lay upon a large knob of dark rock, fully encircled by the streams of flowing lava. The red dragon stepped over that obstacle and climbed to the nest, her head soon rising above the upper rim, which was formed entirely of the staring skulls of human captives taken by the ogres and offered to Crematia in sacrifice.
She counted them, all thirteen of the crimson orbs, sleek and perfect, unblemished by any sign of cracking or discoloration.
“Be patient, my wyrmlings,” she whispered, her long tongue slipping forth to stroke lovingly over each scarlet surface. “You will grow stronger for many years, but you are safe here. Know that your mother shall bring you into a world where your clan is master of all.”
Only then did she turn, restoring the wall of stone with a casting of her magic. Finally she wove a greater spell, insuring that the illusion continued to mask the outside of the lair. With her wings spread wide into the night sky, Crematia took to the air, ready to lead her armies southward, toward the lands of the elves.
CHAPTER 9
FIRST WAR
(3489 PC)
“Join me in a flight to the southern forests … and together we shall see the new wonders raised by House Silvanos,” urged Aurican.
“Ah, the elves,” said Smelt quickly. “I haven’t visited among them for a long time. I will come.”
“I have a lair to tend,” Burll growled, shaking his head while Blayze looked around suspiciously, as though he thought his treasures were in danger that very moment.
The five male dragons were coiled atop the crest of the High Kharolis, each claiming one of a series of closely gathered peaks. The windless weather, and the fact that an overcast of gray clouds lurked not very far overhead, allowed them to converse with ease. They had spent a period of reflection and contemplation following the departure of their mentor, until the females had begun to make it clear that it was time for their mates to depart the grotto.
Darlantan had heard his brother’s words, but his own heart was lingering toward the eastern wilds – a place of no cities, nothing but wilderness and plentiful prey.
“Even you, Darlantan …” It was as if Auri were reading his silver kin’s mind. “Though we have only been in the grotto for a short time, you’ll be amazed to see what these elves can accomplish in the space of a dozen winters!”
“I can fully imagine,” declared Darlantan sourly, picturing how much of the woodland might have been flattened by now. He had never found a proper answer to the question of why the elves cloistered themselves so readily in that silent, aloof city?
Still, after this long period among his nestmates, he was not quite ready to vanish by himself, so he consented to join the flight. Even Burll and Blayze seemed to have some lingering need for communion, and in the end, five metal dragons took to the air, riding the high currents, coursing through empty skies. They were lords of air and land, following a leisurely course that gave them much time for hunting and for resting in pleasant bowers and shaded valleys.
Yet as they drew southward, Darlantan sensed an increasing urgency in Aurican’s manner. The gold dragon resisted a suggestion that the flying nestmates spend a day lolling beside a perfect mountain hot spring, and when the others grudgingly took wing, he led them on with unseemly haste.
“What’s your hurry, my cousin?” asked the silver dragon, straining to keep up with the fast-flying gold.
“Don’t you smell it?” asked Auri, speaking through taut jaws as he maintained his streamlined flight.
And then Darlantan did notice the taint of soot and char, a bleak hint of smell rising from an expanse that appeared to be lush forest. The odor was out of place here, strange and menacing, with evil portent, though the woodland below still appeared pristine and undisturbed.
But as they flew on, this notion was proved to be a cruel deception. They saw one clearing that was utterly black, smelling of ash, and they knew that a great fire had raged there. Soon they passed over more such swaths of destruction, and when they reached the broad river that intersected these woodlands, Aurican uttered a groan of pure, heartbreaking dismay.
Darlantan swept low over waters he remembered as crystalline and pure, which had once flowed over a bed of pristine gravel. Now the surface was a scum of mud and grime, with blackened timbers floating everywhere. More than once he saw a body, bloated by decay but still draped with the long golden hair of an elf.
Farther they flew, and now the destruction was more common than the undisturbed forests. A great landscape had burned, and the blackened trunks jutted from the charred ground in a mocking remembrance of the verdant carpet that once had blanketed the ground. Once-green trees were scarred and scorched, leaves withered away. In places, even mighty trunks ha
d been smashed to the ground by unimaginable force.
Then Aurican uttered a strangled wail, and Darlantan saw what was left of the domes and towers that had distinguished Silvanos’s once-splendid city. The spires of crystal had been smashed, their circular bases jutting from the ruins like broken bottles. Finally the anguished gold dragon banked, swooping low, coming to rest in the midst of a broad, dust-blown square of bare dirt. The other four serpents silently accompanied their mighty brother, each of them looking around grimly, formulating images and speculation about the cause of the destruction.
Aurican padded away, shifting shape almost absently into the body of the lean, elderly elven sage he had so frequently favored. Darlantan came behind, stalking like a prowling cat in the silvery serpent that was his natural form. Only as Auri knelt beside a charred object, brushing away the soot to reveal a portion of a white marble bust and its cracked supporting pillar, did Dar realize that they were in the elegant garden his brother had shown him before.
And even with that memory, the place was unrecognizable. Only when the silver dragon stepped into a murky pit of mud did he realize that one of the elegant fountains had been filled with ashes and dirt. Shaking his foot, flicking the sticky goo from his talons, Dar followed the shambling form of Aurican through the ruins.
In one place, the frail figure who was the gold dragon scratched at the ground, clearing away muck to reveal a slab of white stone. Without visible effort, the elf’s body lifted the object back onto a pair of pedestals that stood nearby, restoring a once-elegant bench. Only when he saw the stubs of the rosebushes jutting upward from the soot, forming a perfect ring, did Darlantan realize that this had been the sheltered nook where he had been welcomed by Silvanos.
For the first time, he wondered about that elven leader, and it was a startling thought: Where were all the elves? There were some bodies here, true, but not nearly enough to account for the city’s population. Had they escaped into what remained of the forests? Or had they been hauled into captivity, perhaps slavery, by the invaders?
And that led to the natural consideration of who, or what, had done this, and here Darlantan had some specific ideas. He was tired of mourning, of probing through the wrack and ruin, and he decided that it was time to talk to Aurican. He found his brother, still in elven form, slumped over a splintered frame of wood entangled with slender wires. Aurican was weeping, tears streaking down the skin of his elven face. He looked up as the mighty silver dragon loomed over him, but his eyes remained distant and unfocused.
“This was a harp, Dar … it could make music sweet enough to break your heart. And now it’s smashed … like this whole place, this whole people, smashed!” Auri collapsed, burying his face in his hands as his shoulders shook with the convulsive force of his sobbing.
“Remember, my brother, you are a dragon!” Darlantan insisted forcefully, embarrassed by the wrenching display of emotion. “A mighty gold – patriarch of your clan!”
“And where was I when this was happening!” cried Auri, turning his face to the sky. “Where?”
“Stop it!”
Darlantan reached forward with a great forepaw and swept his brother’s elven form off the ground. He lifted Auri into the air and shook him forcefully. “Who knows, or cares, where you were? You’re here now, and you’ve seen what happened! What are you going to do about it?”
“Put me down.” Aurican’s voice was deadly calm, his face blank of emotion.
Darlantan gingerly set the elven body back on the ground and immediately reared back as he was confronted by a bristling serpent of gold, wings stiff and flapping with menace, lip curled into a fanged sneer. Raising his silver neck in response, Dar met his brother’s furious glare, saw the hatred in the gold dragon’s eyes flare and then, slowly, focus.
Aurican raised his taloned forepaws, revealing that he held several of his baubles, the gemstones he delighted in caressing, infusing them with the minor enchantments that were the limits of his sorcerous power. Now he took these stones, a bright diamond, crimson ruby, scintillating emerald, and smooth jade, and hurled them into the murk of the destruction. When he turned back to Darlantan, his reptilian face was blank of emotion.
“Who has done this?” Auri asked intently, his voice a rumbling growl.
“I have a guess that it was ogres,” Darlantan replied grimly. Burll and Smelt joined them, and he described the large war party that he had destroyed in the southern Khalkists.
“And you think the target of their strike was the Elderwild?” asked Smelt.
“They were on a march to approach the elven camp and fall upon them unawares.” Darlantan remembered the weapons bristling from the belts and fists of the mighty brutes and was more certain than ever that they had been plotting violence against the elves. With that memory came another fear: Had the wild elves suffered the same violence as the house elves of Silvanos? He pictured the serene wilderness with a shudder, wondering how much of it remained.
“I suggest we fly north, toward the Smoking Mountains,” Blayze said, using their old nickname for the volcanic Khalkists. “We will find ogres there, and I am thinking that they will give us answers first, and then perhaps a measure of vengeance.”
“Aye,” growled Smelt, with Burll and Darlantan nodding in grim agreement. All turned their eyes to Aurican, who looked once more across the swath of destruction, then lifted his eyes toward the northern horizon.
“Let us fly, then,” he declared. With regal grace and grim purpose, he took to the air, rising in a powerful downdraft of wind. Golden wings shimmered, shifting with the force of his long strokes, as the mighty serpent pulled himself into the sky.
The others followed, and it was a grim and silent quintet that winged over the wasted forestland. Darlantan flew at Aurican’s right wing, for it was the silver’s memory that guided them toward the realms of the ogres. Smelt, Blayze, and Burll trailed slightly to the rear, a little lower than the leading pair.
Before nightfall, Burll spotted a deer and took the hapless creature in a sudden dive. The group shared the feast and then once more, without speaking, took wing into the darkness. They flew through the following dawn, and still they soared on. Everywhere the wrack of war, the litter of chaos and destruction, had spread through the woods. In some places, the devastation was limited to isolated outposts, but elsewhere it had reduced huge swaths of forestland or meadow into burned char.
Darlantan lost track of the dawns and sunsets, the quickly killed deer or buffalo that sustained them in their steadfast flight. Gradually the ground rippled below them, the forests still claiming the surface of the land, yet yielding to the distinctive texture of hills. And then a range of mountains took shape before them, at first indistinguishable from dark cloud on the horizon, soon growing in definition and relief.
The distant Khalkists were a mass of conical peaks, shrouded by their eternal wreath of smoky cloud. Closer, rising as a lone summit away from the great center of the range, stood a single peak. The pyramidal block of stone lofted above a realm of lakes and woods, and Darlantan remembered the Gathering of the Elderwild he had seen among those pristine waters.
“It was on the other side of this mountain,” he told Aurican.
“Then let us be ready to do battle,” the gold replied with a low growl.
The red dragon appeared with shocking suddenness, a scarlet form that was, in an eyeblink of an instant, just there, hanging in the air, directly in Darlantan’s path. The silver started to twist as his flight took him past the crimson wyrm. He saw the jaws gape and tried to bellow a warning to Burll.
But the first sound was the roar of an infernal furnace. Dar’s head came around in time to see the bronze dragon fly fully into the hellish blossom of the dragonfire. Burll cried out, his wail a piercing, cloud-shaking keen of impossible pain – and then the cruelly burned dragon twisted and shriveled before Darlantan’s horrified eyes. The once-powerful neck tucked and curled, metallic scales burned away to reveal charred and blackened fles
h. The two wings of rippling membrane hissed away in an instant, leaving the horribly burned body looking even more unnatural as it tumbled from the dissipating ball of fire.
Now Darlantan’s roar of warning was propelled by pure rage, echoed by the cries of Smelt and Blayze. Aurican, grimly silent, had already curled upward to reverse his course at the vicious red.
And then there were blue dragons there, nearly a dozen of them appearing as shockingly as had the lone red. It’s magic – they’re using sorcery against us! A portion of Dar’s mind shouted the frightening realization even as his body reacted with pure violence.
Jaws gaping, Darlantan blasted the nearest blue dragon, freezing the monster’s wings with the icy onslaught. Shrieking in fury and pain, the azure serpent twisted frantically before tumbling out of the sky. The silver body arrowed forward, crashing into the blue, and Dar bit down hard, snapping the hateful neck.
By then a roaring wave of fire crackled through the air as Smelt blasted his incendiary breath at one of the blues, while his fellow attackers spit crackling spears of lightning. Fire and electricity roared together in convulsive explosions, pounding with sound, quickly dissipating into a lingering aura of smoke. The stench of killing and destruction spread even faster than the visible vapors of lingering dragonbreath.
One of the blues shrieked and fell away, one wing burned off while the other flapped desperately, fruitlessly as the creature plunged to its doom. Even as it dwindled below, the echoes of its dying scream rose from the dusty ground to linger in the air.
But at least three of the lethal lightning blasts had torn into the roaring brass dragon, stilling his valiant maneuvers. Metallic scales flaked into the air as Smelt jerked violently, fatally around. Killed immediately, burned to a blackened corpse, he fell out of the sky with shocking finality.