“What happened?” The dwarf moaned, his hand on his head.
“You fell off the bridge and hit your head on a log,” Tas said glibly.
“I did?” Flint looked suspicious. “I don’t remember that. I remember one of those draconian things coming at me and I remember falling into the water—”
“Well, you did, so don’t argue,” Tas said hurriedly, getting to his feet. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk,” the dwarf snapped. He stood up, a little wobbly, but erect. “Where is everybody?”
“The draconians captured them and carried them off.”
“All of them?” Flint’s mouth fell open. “Just like that?”
“These draconians were magic-users,” Tas said impatiently, anxious to get started. “They cast spells, I guess. They didn’t hurt them, except for Raistlin. I think they did something terrible to him. I saw him as they passed. He looked awful. But he’s the only one.” The kender tugged on the dwarf’s wet sleeve. “Let’s go—we’ve got to follow them.”
“Yeah, sure,” Flint mumbled, looking around. Then he put his hand on his head again. “Where’s my helm?”
“At the bottom of the swamp,” Tas said in exasperation. “Do you want to go in after it?”
The dwarf gave the murky water a horrified glance, shivered, and turned away hurriedly. He put his hand to his head again and felt a large bump. “I sure don’t remember hitting my head,” he muttered. Then a sudden thought struck him. He felt around his back wildly. “My axe!” he cried.
“Hush!” Tas scolded. “At least you’re alive. Now we’ve got to rescue the others.”
“And how do you propose to do that without any weapons except that overgrown slingshot?” Flint grumbled, stumping along after the fast-moving kender.
“We’ll think of something,” Tas said confidently, though he felt as if his heart were getting tangled up in his feet, it had sunk so low.
The kender picked up the draconians’ trail without any trouble. It was obviously an old and well-used trail; it looked as though hundreds of draconian feet had tramped along it. Tasslehoff, examining the tracks, suddenly realized that they might be walking into a large camp of the monsters. He shrugged. No use worrying about such minor details.
Unfortunately, Flint didn’t share the same philosophy. “There’s a whole damn army up there!” the dwarf gasped, grabbing the kender by the shoulder.
“Yes, well—” Tas paused to consider the situation. He brightened. “That’s all the better. The more of them there are, the less chance they’ll have of seeing us.” He started off again. Flint frowned. There was something wrong with that logic, but right now he couldn’t figure out what, and he was too wet and chilled to argue. Besides, he was thinking the same thing the kender was: the only other choice they had was to escape into the swamp themselves and leave their friends in the hands of the draconians. And that was no choice at all.
They walked another half hour. The sun sank into the mist, giving it a blood-red tinge, and night fell swiftly in the mirky swamp.
Soon they saw a blazing light ahead of them. They left the trail and sneaked into the brush. The kender moved silently as a mouse; the dwarf stepped on sticks that snapped beneath his feet, ran into trees, and blundered through the brush. Fortunately, the draconian camp was celebrating and probably wouldn’t have heard an army of dwarves approaching. Flint and Tas knelt just beyond the firelight and watched. The dwarf suddenly grabbed the kender with such violence that he nearly pulled him over.
“Great Reorx!” Flint swore, pointing. “A dragon!”
Tas was too stunned to say anything. He and the dwarf watched in amazed horror as the draconians danced and prostrated themselves before a giant black dragon. The creature lurked inside the remaining half shell of a crumbled domed ruin. Its head was higher than the treetops, its wing span was enormous. One of the draconians, wearing robes, bent before the dragon, gesturing to the staff as it lay on the ground with the captured weapons.
“There’s something strange about that dragon,” Tas whispered after watching for a few moments.
“Like they’re not supposed to exist?”
“That’s just the point,” Tas said. “Look at it. The creature isn’t moving or reacting to anything. It’s just sitting there. I always thought that dragons would be more lively, don’t you know?”
“Go up and tickle its foot!” Flint snorted. “Then you’ll see lively!”
“I think I’ll do that,” the kender said. Before the dwarf could say a word, Tasslehoff crept out of the brush, flitting from shadow to shadow as he drew near the camp. Flint could have torn his beard out in frustration, but it would have been disastrous to try and stop him now. The dwarf could do nothing but follow.
“Tanis!”
The half-elf heard someone calling him from across a huge chasm. He tried to answer, but his mouth was stuffed with something sticky. He shook his head. Then he felt an arm around his shoulders, helping him sit up. He opened his eyes. It was night. Judging by the flickering light, a huge fire blazed brightly somewhere. Sturm’s face, looking concerned, was near his. Tanis sighed and reached out his hand to clasp the knight’s shoulder. He tried to speak and was forced to pull off bits of the sticky substance that clung to his face and mouth like cobwebs.
“I’m all right,” Tanis said when he could talk. “Where are we?” He glanced around. “Is everyone here? Anyone hurt?”
“We’re in a draconian camp,” Sturm said, helping the halfelf stand. “Tasslehoff and Flint are missing and Raistlin’s hurt.”
“Badly?” Tanis asked, alarmed by the serious expression on Sturm’s face.
“Not good,” the knight replied.
“Poisoned dart,” Riverwind said. Tanis turned toward the Plainsman and got his first clear look at their prison. They were inside a cage made of bamboo. Draconian guards stood outside, their long, curved swords drawn and ready. Beyond the cage, hundreds of draconians milled around a campfire. And above the campfire …
“Yes,” Sturm said, seeing Tanis’s startled expression. “A dragon. More children’s stories. Raistlin would gloat.”
“Raistlin—” Tanis went over to the mage who was lying in a corner of the cage, covered in his cloak. The young mage was feverish and shaking with chills. Goldmoon knelt beside him, her hand on his forehead, stroking back the white hair. He was unconscious. His head tossed fitfully, and he murmured strange words, sometimes shouting out garbled commands. Caramon, his face nearly as pale as his brother’s, sat beside him. Goldmoon met Tanis’s questioning gaze and shook her head sadly, her eyes large and gleaming in the reflected firelight. Riverwind came over to stand beside Tanis.
“She found this in his neck,” he said, carefully holding up a feathered dart between thumb and forefinger. He glanced at the mage without love but with a certain amount of pity. “Who can say what poison burns in his blood?”
“If we had the staff—” Goldmoon said.
“Right,” Tanis said. “Where is it?”
“There,” Sturm said, his mouth twisting wryly. He pointed. Tanis peered past hundreds of draconians and saw the staff lying on Goldmoon’s fur blanket in front of the black dragon.
Reaching out, Tanis grasped a bar of the cage. “We could break out,” he told Sturm. “Caramon could snap this like a twig.”
“Tasslehoff could snap it like a twig if he were here,” Sturm said. “Of course, then we’ve only got a few hundred of these creatures to take care of—not to mention the dragon.”
“All right. Don’t rub it in.” Tanis sighed. “Any idea what happened to Flint and Tas?”
“Riverwind said he heard a splash just after Tas yelled out that we were being ambushed. If they were lucky, they dived off the log and escaped into the swamp. If not—” Sturm didn’t finish.
Tanis closed his eyes to shut out the firelight. He felt tired—tired of fighting, tired of killing, tired of slogging through the muck. He thought longingly of lying down and sin
king back into sleep. Instead, he opened his eyes, stalked over to the cage, and rattled the bars. A draconian guard turned around, sword raised.
“You speak Common?” Tanis asked in the very lowest, crudest form of the Common language used on Krynn.
“I speak Common. Apparently better than you do, elven scum,” the draconian sneered. “What do you want?”
“One of our party is injured. We ask that you treat him. Give him an antidote to this poison dart.”
“Poison?” The draconian peered into the cage. “Ah, yes, the magic-user.” The creature gurgled deep in its throat, a sound obviously meant to be laughter. “Sick, is he? Yes, the poison acts swiftly. Can’t have a magic-user around. Even behind bars they’re deadly. But don’t worry. He won’t be lonely—the rest of you will be joining him soon enough. In fact, you should envy him. Your deaths will not be nearly so quick.”
The draconian turned its back and said something to its partner, jerking its clawed thumb in the direction of the cage. Both of them croaked their gurgling laughter. Tanis, feeling disgust and rage welling up deep inside of him, looked back at Raistlin.
The mage was rapidly growing worse. Goldmoon put her hand on Raistlin’s neck, feeling for the life beat, and then shook her head. Caramon made a moaning sound. Then his glance shifted to the two draconians, laughing and talking together outside.
“Stop—Caramon!” Tanis yelled, but it was too late.
With a roar like a wounded animal, the huge warrior leaped toward the draconians. Bamboo gave way before him, the shards splintering and cutting into his skin. Mad with the desire to kill, Caramon never noticed. Tanis jumped on his back as the warrior crashed past him, but Caramon shook him off as easily as a bear shakes off an annoying fly.
“Caramon, you fool—” Sturm grunted as he and Riverwind both threw themselves on the warrior. But Caramon’s rage carried him on.
Whirling, one draconian raised its sword, but Caramon sent the weapon flying. The creature hit the ground, knocked senseless by a blow from the big man’s fist. Within seconds, there were six draconians, bows and arrows in their hands, surrounding the warrior. Sturm and Riverwind wrestled Caramon to the ground. Sturm, sitting on him, shoved his face into the mud until he felt Caramon relax beneath him and heard him give a strangled sob.
At that instant, a high-pitched, shrill voice screeched through the camp. “Bring the warrior to me!” said the dragon.
Tanis felt the hair rise on his neck. The draconians lowered their weapons and turned to face the dragon, staring in astonishment and muttering among themselves. Riverwind and Sturm got to their feet. Caramon lay on the ground, choking with sobs. The draconian guards glanced at each other uneasily, while those standing near the dragon backed off hurriedly and formed an immense semicircle around it.
One of the creatures, whom Tanis supposed by the insignia on its armor to be some sort of captain, stalked up to a robed draconian who was staring, open-mouthed, at the black dragon.
“What’s going on?” the captain demanded. The draconian spoke in the Common tongue. Tanis, listening closely, realized they were of different species—the robed draconians were apparently the magic-users and the priests. Presumably, the two could not communicate in their own languages. The military draconian was clearly upset.
“Where is that Bozak priest of yours? He must tell us what to do!”
“The higher of my order is not here.” The robed draconian quickly regained his composure. “One of them flew here and took him to confer with Lord Verminaard about the staff.”
“But the dragon never speaks when the priest is not here.” The captain lowered his voice. “My boys don’t like it. You’d better do something quickly!”
“What is this delay?” The dragon’s voice shrieked like a wailing wind. “Bring me the warrior!”
“Do as the dragon says.” The robed draconian motioned quickly with a clawed hand. Several draconians rushed over, shoved Tanis and Riverwind and Sturm back into the shattered cage, and lifted the bleeding Caramon up by the arms. They dragged him over to stand before the dragon, his back to the blazing fire. Near him lay the blue crystal staff, Raistlin’s staff, their weapons, and their packs.
Caramon raised his head to confront the monster, his eyes blurred with tears and blood from the many cuts the bamboo had inflicted on his face. The dragon loomed above him, seen dimly through the smoke rising from the bonfire.
“We mete out justice swiftly and surely, human scum,” the dragon hissed. As it spoke, it beat its huge wings, fanning them slowly. The draconians gasped and began to back up, some stumbling over themselves as they hurried to get out of the monster’s way. Obviously they knew what was coming.
Caramon stared at the creature without fear. “My brother is dying,” he shouted. “Do what you will to me. I ask only one thing. Give me my sword so that I can die fighting!”
The dragon laughed shrilly; the draconians joined it, gurgling and croaking horribly. As the dragon’s wings beat the air, it began to rock back and forth, seemingly preparing to leap on the warrior and devour him.
“This will be fun. Let him have his weapon,” the dragon commanded. Its flapping wings caused a wind to whip through the camp, scattering sparks from the fire.
Caramon shoved the draconian guards aside. Wiping his hand across his eyes, he walked over to the pile of weapons and pulled out his sword. Then he turned to face the dragon, resignation and grief etched into his face. He raised his sword.
“We can’t let him die out there by himself!” Sturm said harshly, and he took a step forward, prepared to break out.
Suddenly a voice came from the shadows behind them.
“Hssst … Tanis!”
The half-elf whirled around. “Flint!” he exclaimed, then glanced apprehensively at the draconian guards, but they were absorbed in watching the spectacle of Caramon and the dragon. Tanis hurried to the back of the bamboo cage where the dwarf stood.
“Get out of here!” the half-elf ordered. “There’s nothing you can do. Raistlin’s dying, and the dragon—”
“Is Tasslehoff,” Flint said succinctly.
“What?” Tanis glared at the dwarf. “Make sense.”
“The dragon is Tasslehoff,” Flint repeated patiently.
For once Tanis was speechless. He stared at the dwarf.
“The dragon’s made of wicker,” the dwarf whispered hurriedly. “Tasslehoff sneaked behind it and looked inside. It’s rigged! Anyone sitting inside the dragon can make the wings flap and speak through a hollow tube. I guess that’s how the priests keep order around here. Anyway, Tasslehoff’s the one flapping his wings and threatening to eat Caramon.”
Tanis gasped. “But what do we do? There’s still a hundred draconians around. Sooner or later they’re going to realize what’s going on.”
“Get over to Caramon, you and Riverwind and Sturm. Grab your weapons and packs and the staff. I’ll help Goldmoon carry Raistlin into the woods. Tasslehoff’s got something in mind. Just be ready.”
Tanis groaned.
“I don’t like it any better than you do,” the dwarf growled. “Trusting our lives to that rattle-brained kender. But, well, he is the dragon, after all.”
“He certainly is,” Tanis said, eyeing the dragon who was shrieking and wailing and flapping its wings and rocking back and forth. The draconians were staring at it in open-mouthed wonder. Tanis grabbed Sturm and Riverwind and huddled down near Goldmoon, who had not left Raistlin’s side. The half-elf explained what was happening. Sturm looked at him as if he were as crazed as Raistlin. Riverwind shook his head.
“Well, have you got a better plan?” Tanis asked.
Both of them looked at the dragon, then back at Tanis, and shrugged.
“Goldmoon goes with the dwarf,” Riverwind said.
She started to protest. He looked at her, his eyes expressionless, and she swallowed and fell silent.
“Yes,” Tanis said. “Stay with Raistlin, lady, please. We’ll bring the staff to you
.”
“Hurry then,” she said through white lips. “He is very nearly gone.”
“We’ll hurry,” Tanis said grimly. “I have a feeling that once things get started out there, we’re going to be moving very fast!” He patted her hand. “Come on.” He stood up and took a deep breath.
Riverwind’s eyes were still on Goldmoon. He started to speak, then shook his head irritably and turned without a word to stand beside Tanis. Sturm joined them. The three crept up behind the draconian guards.
Caramon lifted his sword. It flashed in the firelight. The dragon went into a wild frenzy, and all of the draconians fell back, braying and beating their swords against their shields. Wind from the dragon’s wings blew up ashes and sparks from the fire, setting some nearby bamboo huts on fire. The draconians did not notice, so eager were they for the kill. The dragon shrieked and howled, and Caramon felt his mouth go dry and his stomach muscles clench. It was the first time he had ever gone into battle without his brother; the thought made his heart throb painfully. He was about to leap forward and attack when Tanis, Sturm, and Riverwind appeared out of nowhere to stand by his side.
“We will not let our friend die alone!” the half-elf cried defiantly at the dragon. The draconians cheered wildly.
“Get out of here, Tanis!” Caramon scowled, his face flushed and streaked with tears. “This is my fight.”
“Shut up and listen!” Tanis ordered. “Get your sword and mine, Sturm. Riverwind, grab your weapons and the packs and any draconian weapons you can pick up to replace those we lost. Caramon, pick up the two staffs.”
Caramon stared at him. “What—”
“Tasslehoff’s the dragon,” Tanis said. “There isn’t time to explain. Just do as I say! Get the staff and take it into the woods. Goldmoon’s waiting.” He laid his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. Tanis shoved him. “Go! Raistlin’s almost finished! You’re his only chance.”
Dragons of Autumn Twilight Page 17