The Dragon's Doom (dragonlance)

by Ed Greenwood

  "The Great Serpent? You're sure he called himself that?"

  "Oh, yes. Twice he said it, like he was afraid I'd not get the title right. He's a right scary one, too, Lord-uh, meaning no disresp-"

  "Yes, yes! Where is he?"

  "Orsor, Lord? I know-"

  "Not grauling Orsor, you ox-brained lummox! The Great Serpent!"

  "Ah. Here!" Craer said brightly, popping up over Hawkril's shoulder by the simple expedient of bounding up and perching on the armaragor's shoulder-plate with both hands.

  The Serpent-priest gaped at him-and the procurer swung on Hawkril's shoulder, launching himself into a drop kick that put the toes of both his boots into the cleric's throat.

  That throat exploded in blood as the dagger points protruding from Craer's boot tips plunged into them. The priest staggered backwards, head bobbling loosely on the shoulders it was almost separated from.

  "Now I'm going to have to ask someone else where Orsor is," Hawkril complained in mock exasperation, as the two cortahars able to see what had happened through the billowing mist stared at them in amazement. Craer put a dagger through one of those open mouths, and then sprang off in pursuit of the other knight, who whirled and fled into the clouds of mist. Hawkril bounded after him, drawing his warsword.

  Craer's favorite tactic in mist or smoke, he knew, was to dive at any ankles he saw, toppling foes. Already, just ahead, Hawkril could hear the startled grunts and thuds of men falling. So as long as he slashed with his blade above Craer's head height, anyone he struck should be a foe. "Longfingers?" he called, just to be sure.

  "Fallen again," Craer sang back, and Hawkril grinned and waded forward, slashing at mist, great blade-sweeps that cut only air once-twice-and thrice. The fourth time, he struck flesh and armor hard enough to numb his arms. Someone toppled with a wet, squalling sound, and a sword clattered away across unseen flagstones.

  Hawkril moved toward that noise, guessing Craer couldn't be crouching anywhere that a sword could slide through unimpeded-and that a cortahar might approach the sound.

  Hawk's boot soon struck the sword, and he promptly hacked the mist around him like a madman, in case someone charged. When nothing happened, he carefully plucked up the sword, and hefted it to throw.

  Someone cursed and then screamed, ahead to his right. Craer hamstringing or neck-stabbing, no doubt. An unseen door grated open and someone else inquired coldly, "What's going on out there?"

  A Serpent-priest, for all the gold in Asmarand! Hawkril threw the sword he'd just acquired as hard as he could at where the voice had sounded from, whipping it end over end into the eddying mist.

  He was rewarded with a strangled cry-and an angry shout. "Get that door closed! The overdukes must be out there! Bowmen, up here! Brothers of the Serpent, to-Eeeee!"

  The scream that ended that cry was cut off abruptly by the slam of a heavy door, which in turn was followed swiftly by an urgent call of "Tall Post! Over here!"

  "Coming," Hawkril rumbled, hefting his warsword and advancing into the mist.

  "Tall Post!" the call came again. Something was moving to his right… a striding swordsman, taller than Craer… hidden again by mist…

  An armored shoulder, the scarlet hawk of Stornbridge-and Hawkril thrust his sword in under that arm with all his strength.

  His victim screamed and thrashed, trying to turn and hack but pinioned on Hawk's blade… Hawkril shoved and twisted his steel as he thrust forward, trying to keep the man off-balance.

  The cortahar screamed again, far more feebly, and dropped his sword, stumbling-and then something flashed in the mist, the knight's head jerked back, and Craer grinned at Hawkril over another slit throat. "Greetings, Overduke Anharu. Charmed, I'm sure."

  "Tolerated, I'd term it," Hawkril growled, "but let's use your word. 'Tis more flippant, and that's fitting, hey?"

  "Indeed. Come on!"

  The armaragor hastened to follow Craer, off around one side of a turret looming up in the mists. Its massive walls sported frequent tall, narrow slit windows, all firmly shuttered with covers made of vertical rows of overlapping shields. The door Hawkril could see was also sheaDied in old shields, hammered flat and nailed together.

  "As quiet as you know how," Craer murmured, "get up yon ladder onto the banner platform. We both need to get there without a sound to let them inside know where we've gone. They'll be letting fly with everything in a moment, and we don't want to be here!"

  In careful silence Hawkril did as he was told. They reached the small banner-platform atop the turret without incident, and lay down flat around the cluster of banner-poles a bare breath before the door below flew open with force enough to bang against the turret wall.

  The air was briefly full of the angry hum and thrum of dozens of bows. The bowmen inside the turret must be moving with smooth precision, firing in pairs and then diving aside to let the next pair stand by the door, pair after pair.

  Their reward was at least two groans from the mist, as they shot down their unseen fellow cortahars. Most of the shafts cracked off stones or whistled down over the moat to thump to earth as deadly offerings from the clear night sky.

  Behind the twang of strings, thudding of boots, and hissing of arrows, the two overdukes could hear an angry, rising chant: Serpent-priests casting a spell, probably to banish the mist.

  A bright and evil green radiance spun forth like spiraling tentacles from the door below when the chant ended. Those tentacles started to bleed smoke almost immediately, but mist fell away at their touch, and in a trice the moonlit battlements were clear once more.

  Clear-and strewn with pools and smears of blood, most of them adorned with sprawled, motionless cortahars.

  Out from behind a merlon ducked a lone figure-Embra, in a tattered and bloodstained but glowing gown, holding the Dwaer to her breast.

  "Parley!" she called. "Lord Stornbridge, let's talk! There's-"

  Bows twanged and two shafts sped through the Lady of Jewels, vanishing as if they'd never been fired. Another pair of arrows followed-as Hawkril, raging up to his feet atop the turret despite Craer's frantic clawings, saw she must be an illusion, and sank down again, breathing heavily.

  "Spare your arrows," Embra cried. "I come for peace, not more bloodshed! Already you've slain most of my fellows, and-"

  The ball of raging flame that burst out to consume her roared along the battlements as far as the next tower, where the changing course of the walls left nothing beneath the fire but air-so it plunged down to the moat below, a fall that ended in a hissing that briefly drowned out all other sound except Craer's snarl of "Keep still!" in Hawkril's ear.

  The armaragor did just that. Together, the two waited for those in the turret to emerge or send forth more magic.

  Instead, the turret shuddered under the sudden impact of a spell from the other direction, that flung fire past the overdukes. Startled shouts from below told Craer and Hawkril that the magic, whatever it was, was both unexpected by the Storn defenders and that it had destroyed or flung open the metal doors and shutters, handing sounds made inside the turret to the passing night breezes.

  The response was predictable: another furious volley of arrows along battlements that-as far as Craer and Hawkril could see-were occupied only by a few openmouDied Storn cortahars on wallguard duty. The few who survived that hail of warshafts vanished in the heart of another ball of flames.

  "We're wearing them down until they fall asleep, or we the of old age, is that it?" Hawk whispered.

  Craer grinned. "You might just be right about that. Time to spice up the cauldron." He drew a steel vial from inside one boot, another from his belt, and a strange little glass globe from behind his belt-buckle-a globe that bulged at the center of a short glass tube. Uncorking one vial, he slid it carefully onto one end of the pipe. Then he repeated the process with the other.

  Hawkril smiled. "My arm's long enough to reach down and throw yon assemblage to the floor inside the turret. The glass has to break, hey?"

&nb
sp; Craer's answering grin was fierce as he handed over his contraption. "I can't admit that. Professional procurer's secret, this."

  Hawkril's snort was eloquent, as he leaned over-and threw. "Close your eyes!" Craer snapped.

  Someone snarling orders inside the turret broke off and screamed, "Down! Get-"

  And the night exploded into bright white light. Hawkril waited for the turret top to heave upward or shatter under them… but instead, all of the turret's occupants began screaming.

  " 'Tis only blindflash," Craer hissed. "Time to get down there and thin Storn ranks. The best way's to guide them out the doors with lots of 'This way, my lord' stuff. If they're cortahars, just keep going and tip them over into the moat. Snake-priests we slay right away, and Lord Stornbridge we save in case Embra wants to use magic on him. Oh-and watch out for priests turning themselves into snakes and slithering away. One of them just told another to try that magic."

  Hawkril smiled and started down the ladder.

  "Ambelter," the Baron Phelinndar said bluntly, from the chair by the window, "you're at it again."

  The Spellmaster halted abruptly in his swift striding across the dimly lit main cavern of their shared lair, his mind full of something complicated and as yet incomplete called "the Sword of Spells." Putting such thoughts away with an inward sigh, he swung around. "At what, my good Baron?" he asked politely.

  "Scheming and meeting with folk and casting spells and manipulating events all over Aglirta and not involving me in the slightest, or telling me a single thing. We have agreement on this, remember? I am not a piece of furniture."

  Ingryl Ambelter forebore to make the obvious reply linking baronial usefulness and immobile items of furniture. Instead, he came forward into the light of the window he'd tunneled out of the earth, glanced out at the pleasant vista of the Vale it afforded, and took the other chair. "You're most correct, Phelinndar. My apologies; this is but long habit and no deliberate attempt to belittle you or leave you ignorant or uninvolved. I assure you that I've done a lot of drinking and scrying, but made very few… ah, aggressive actions beyond the Bowdragon visits. You observed every moment of those, I trust?"

  Phelinndar nodded. "I did. Your spells worked admirably. Yet here I sit, eating eggs and fryfish-I kept some warm for you under yon dome-whilst you scurry and mutter. Wizards aren't the only folk in the Vale with brains or imagination-or Dwaer-Stones, either."

  "Point taken," the Spellmaster agreed gravely. "Well, then, here's what I've been thinking about-thinking, mind, more than doing. Thus far, I've met with failure in all attempts to sway the Bowdragons into action. Much of my present scurrying, as you put it, involves trying to discover how to move them into aiding us-or if the powers of these remaining elders are feeble enough that we can abandon attempts to bother. Can we wrest their spellbooks and enchanted items from them, and have done-or is that the swift way into another feud, and more peril?"

  He waved a hand that bore many rings at the dark and yet somehow glowing crystal spheres that floated in a curious, unmoving cluster above a small circular table across the room. "You've made good use of the scrying-spheres since I linked them to you, I trust?"

  The baron nodded. "Unrest is rife, up and down Aglirta-neighbor turning on neighbor in mad violence, folk becoming beasts and savaging everyone… it can't be natural. Either the gods have cursed the Vale, or there's dark magic at work. And dark magic either means crazed wizards- an army of them, to cause this much bloodletting-or the Serpents. Unless you believe all those bards' tales about the Faceless rising to slaughter us all."

  Ambelter shook his head. "Oh, the Faceless exist, to be sure, but this is not their way. No, this is the work of the Servants of the Serpent."

  Phelinndar shook his head. "Why? Why destroy? Many a baron executes and tortures and spreads terror, but to loose something that harms many folk-crafters who could make you rich, farmers who feed you, loyal retainers as well as those who'd smile to see you dead-where's the sense in that? Why do the Snake-lovers always lash out to do harm in all directions, like reckless boys on their first sword-raid?"

  The Spellmaster shrugged. "Mad folk, obeying mad orders? Who knows?"

  The baron leaned forward in his chair suddenly, and burst out, "Ah, but we must find out! How can we proceed if the Vale is full of reckless idiots who could be unleashed upon us at any moment? Or commanded to work some idiocy like burn all the crops or poison the Silverflow itself?"

  Ambelter nodded. "There's truth in what you say. I must confess I've been trying to ignore the priests and work around them-judging that any sort of assault would be attracting a foe to myself who could prove endless and all-consuming of my time-but yes, we should try to learn just who's leading the Serpents, and judge for ourselves their aims and probable forth-coming orders."

  "Precisely!" Phelinndar agreed, letting the Dwaer roll down his sleeve into his hand and hefting it. "After all, what are half a dozen outlander mages compared to an army of ruthless fanatics already spread the length of the Vale? If we can steer them…"

  The Spellmaster winced. "Experience tells me they'd never be more than a treacherous weapon in our hands, at best. Yet knowing what they plan, that I do agree to. Now, given their reckless and active nature, numbers, and the magical knowledge senior priests among them undoubtedly possess, do we dare risk scrying to find out? They may well be waiting for us to use the Dwaer for such pryings, so they can trace it."

  "They may also be kings of far lands, every one of them, with their armies arriving in Sirlptar right now to bring them their favorite fresh morning eggs, or eels, or tree-worms," Phelinndar snarled, "but I doubt it, and we can't sit here growing old worrying about what they might-"

  A shimmering occurred then, in the air beside the Spellmaster's chair. Astonished, he snapped an incantation and raised his hands like claws to smite-never faltering when the rippling radiances resolved themselves into an unfamiliar, darkly beautiful young woman who stood facing them, her hands clasped together like a dutiful and abashed daughter being presented at court. Long, raven-dark hair fell in a smooth sweep down over a clinging black gown. Slender hips, great dark eyes-flashing now from one man to the other, above a mouth that opened uncertainly…

  The baron gaped at this apparition, who stood unharmed and seemingly unangered in the midst of a lashing fury of spells hurled by Ambelter. Phelinndar even felt the Spellmaster plucking at the Dwaer-which rose and flickered in the baron's grasp-to power greater scourings.

  The air around the wench caught fire, flames that raged and then fell to ice, leaving behind the sharp stink of burning. Tiny lightnings stabbed like tavern-brawl daggers… and then fell away, leaving the lass unmoved.

  A sending, she must be.

  Ambelter mastered his fear and astonishment, and addressed the stranger sharply. "I know not who you are, sending, but I am the Spellmaster of Aglirta, and I can destroy you-not merely this your seeming, but through it your true self. I intend to do this only after I've traced you and brought you here to us, to learn how it is that you found us, and all you know… and how you can be made to serve our pleasure. Prepare, rash one, to taste the first moments of your doom!"

  The Dwaer tore free of Phelinndar's grasp and rose up before him, spinning and brightening. The baron let his hand fall, not daring to try to reclaim it.

  "Lord Ambelter," their visitor said firmly, not moving, "these acts of rough-and all too traceable, by those who even now search for you and the Dwaerindim-magic won't be necessary." For a moment Phelinndar thought she was an immobile image, a portrait sent to hang before them, but then he noticed she was trembling-with excitement, by the sound of her voice, not fear.

  "I'm called Maelra Bowdragon, and I believe you know my lineage. I witnessed your meetings with my uncles-and know who and what you are."

  The Spellmaster's eyes narrowed. "And?"

  "And I want you to know that not all Bowdragons are afraid of the Vale. I… I want to work with you."

  Dark magic boile
d up around them again. Hawkril winced, staggered, and dropped the bowman he was carrying. "Craer?"

  "Keep at it," the procurer snapped. "Trust Embra to quell such, or we'll never be done here. I've not seen so many bowmen in one place since the Isles!" A splash announced the culmination of his latest guiding journey.

  As the dark cloud faded, thinning rapidly, Craer came back dusting his hands together. "That's two dozen cortahars I've sent swimming. Possibly the first baths they've had this season. You're cutting all bowstrings?"

  Hawkril nodded, and waved into the turret behind him. "A dozen or so are lying there yet-every time I bend to reach for a bow, one of these damned snakes tries to put its fangs in my face. Why couldn't Em stop them turning themselves into slitherers? I can't hack any of them without letting the rest fang me… which I suspect would be a very foolish tactic." With a grunt he heaved the limp cortahar onto a growing pile of senseless Storn warriors. To drop them into the moat now would be to slay helpless men-but the moment he saw one moving, he intended to pluck and toss.

  "Very foolish," Craer agreed, "and I don't know why. Our ladies could probably do more if they could touch the priests directly, but… I long ago left the details of matters magical to others. I may be crazed enough to earn my coins as a procurer-but I'm not wolf-howling mad, like every mage I know."

  Hawkril chuckled. "I'm sure Em and Tash will be happy to hear they're howling mad-just as I'm sure they're listening to us now."

  "Truth," Craer replied with dignity, "is its own reward."

  Hawkril swung around abruptly and dragged the third cortahar-who'd been stealthily but vainly trying to draw a dagger that was no longer in its sheath-out of the pile. Ignoring a stream of curses, he heaved.

  There was a despairing, fading cry, and then a splash. Hawkril looked along the moonlit battlements of Stornbridge Castle, but the surviving wall-guards had long since disappeared down various towers. "I hope no one's rallying the Storn-"

  "Hush!" Overduke Delnbone said severely. "Don't give these snakes any ideas!" He whirled around suddenly with a footstool in his hand, and flung it.