Dragons of a Fallen Sun

by Margaret Weis

  Break through! That was impossible. The line would hold. The line must hold. Silvan halted and looked back. The elves had raised their battle song, its music sweet and uplifting, soaring above the brutish chant of the ogres. He was cheered by the sight and started on, when a ball of fire, blue-white and blinding, exploded on the left side of the hill. The fireball hurtled down the hillside, heading for the burial mounds.

  “Shift fire to your left!” Samar called down the slope.

  The archers were momentarily confused, not understanding their targets, but their officers managed to turn them in the right direction. The ball of flame struck another portion of the barrier, ignited the thicket, and continued to blaze onward. At first Silvan thought the balls of flame were magical, and he wondered what good archers would do against sorcery, but then he saw that the fireballs were actually huge bundles of hay being pushed and shoved down the hillside by the ogres. He could see their hulking bodies silhouetted black against the leaping flames. The ogres carried long sticks that they used to shove the burning hay stacks.

  “Wait for my order!” Samar cried, but the elves were nervous and several arrows were loosed in the direction of the blazing hay.

  “No, damn it!” Samar yelled with rage down the slope. “They’re not in range yet! Wait for the order!”

  A crash of thunder drowned out his voice. Seeing their comrades fire, the remainder of the archer line loosed their first volley. The arrows arched through the smoke-filled night. Three of the ogres pushing the flaming haystacks fell under the withering fire, but the rest of the arrows landed far short of their marks.

  “Still,” Silvan told himself, “they will soon stop them.”

  A baying howl as of a thousand wolves converging on their prey cried from the woods close to the elven archers. Silvan stared, startled, thinking that the trees themselves had come alive.

  “Shift fire forward!” Samar cried desperately.

  The archers could not hear him over the roar of the approaching flames. Too late, their officers noticed the sudden rushing movement in the trees at the foot of the hill. A line of ogres surged into the open, charging the thicket wall that protected the archers. The flames had weakened the barrier. The huge ogres charged into the smoldering mass of burned sticks and logs, shouldering their way through. Cinders fell on their matted hair and sparked in their beards, but the ogres, in a battle rage, ignored the pain of their burns and lurched forward.

  Now being attacked from the front and on their flank, the elven archers grappled desperately for their arrows, tried to loose another volley before the ogres closed. The flaming haystacks thundered down on them. The elves did not know which enemy to fight first. Some lost their heads in the chaos. Samar roared orders. The officers struggled to bring their troops under control. The elves fired a second volley, some into the burning hay bales, others into the ogres charging them on the flank.

  More ogres fell, an immense number, and Silvan thought that they must retreat. He was amazed and appalled to see the ogres continue forward, undaunted.

  “Samar, where are the reserves?” Alhana called out.

  “I think they have been cut off,” Samar returned grimly. “You should not be out here, Your Majesty. Go back inside where you are safe.”

  Silvan could see his mother now. She had left the burial mound. She was clad in silver armor, carried a sword at her side.

  “I led my people here,” Alhana returned. “Will you have me skulk in a cave while my people are dying, Samar?”

  “Yes,” he growled.

  She smiled at him, a tight strained smile, but still a smile. She gripped the hilt of her sword. “Will they break through, do you think?”

  “I don’t see much stopping them, Your Majesty,” Samar said grimly.

  The elven archers loosed another volley. The officers had regained control of the troops. Every shot told. The ogres charging from the front fell by the score. Half the line disappeared. Still the ogres continued their advance, the living trampling the bodies of the fallen. In moments they would be within striking range of the archers’ position.

  “Launch the assault!” Samar roared.

  Elven swordsmen rose up from their positions behind the left barricades. Shouting their battle cries, they charged the ogre line. Steel rang against steel. The flaming haystacks burst into the center of the camp, crushing men, setting fire to trees and grass and clothing. Suddenly, without warning, the ogre line turned. One of their number had caught sight of Alhana’s silver armor, reflecting the firelight. With guttural cries, they pointed at her and were now charging toward the burial mound.

  “Mother!” Silvan gasped, his heart tangled up with his stomach. He had to bring help. They were counting on him, but he was paralyzed, mesmerized by the terrible sight. He couldn’t run to her. He couldn’t run away. He couldn’t move.

  “Where are those reserves?” Samar shouted furiously. “Aranosha! You bastard! Where are Her Majesty’s swordsmen!”

  “Here, Samar!” cried a warrior. “We had to fight our way to you, but we are here!”

  “Take them down there, Samar,” said Alhana calmly.

  “Your Majesty!” He started to protest. “I will not leave you without guards.”

  “If we don’t halt the advance, Samar,” Alhana returned. “It won’t much matter whether I have guards or not. Go now. Quickly!”

  Samar wanted to argue, but he knew by the remote and resolute expression on his queen’s face that he would be wasting his breath. Gathering the reserves around him, Samar charged down into the advancing ogres.

  Alhana stood alone, her silver armor burning with the reflected flames.

  “Make haste, Silvan, my son. Make haste. Our lives rest on you.”

  She spoke to herself, but she spoke, unknowingly, to her son.

  Her words impelled Silvan to action. He had been given an order and he would carry it out. Bitterly regretting the wasted time, his heart swelling with fear for his mother, he turned and plunged into the forest.

  Adrenaline pumped in Silvan’s veins. He shoved his way through the underbrush, thrusting aside tree limbs, trampling seedlings. Sticks snapped beneath his boots. The wind was cold and strong on his right cheek. He did not feel the pelting rain. He welcomed the lightning that lit his path.

  He was prudent enough to keep careful watch for any signs of the enemy and constantly sniffed the air, for the filthy, flesh-eating ogre is usually smelt long before he is seen. Silvan kept his hearing alert, too, for though he himself made what an elf would consider to be an unconscionable amount of noise, he was a deer gliding through the forest compared to the smashing and cracking, ripping and tearing of an ogre.

  Silvan traveled swiftly, encountering not so much as a nocturnal animal out hunting, and soon the sounds of battle dwindled behind him. Then it was that he realized he was alone in the forest in the night in the storm. The adrenaline started to ebb. A sliver of fear and doubt pierced his heart. What if he arrived too late? What if the humans—known for their vagaries and their changeable natures—refused to act? What if the attack overwhelmed his people? What if he had left them to die? None of this looked familiar to him. He had taken a wrong turning, he was lost.…

  Resolutely Silvan pushed forward, running through the forest with the ease of one who has been born and raised in the woodlands. He was cheered by the sight of a ravine on his left hand; he remembered that ravine from his earlier travels to the fortress. His fear of being lost vanished. He took care to keep clear of the rocky edge of the ravine, which cut a large gash across the forest floor.

  Silvan was young, strong. He banished his doubts that were a drag on his heart, and concentrated on his mission. A lightning flash revealed the road straight ahead. The sight renewed his strength and his determination. Once he reached the road, he could increase his pace. He was an excellent runner, often running long distances for the sheer pleasure of the feel of the muscles expanding and contracting, the sweat on his body, the wind in his face and
the warm suffusing glow that eased all pain.

  He imagined himself speaking to the Lord Knight, pleading their cause, urging him to haste. Silvan saw himself leading the rescue, saw his mother’s face alight with pride.…

  In reality, Silvan saw his way blocked. Annoyed, he slid to a halt on the muddy path to study this obstacle.

  A gigantic tree limb, fallen from an ancient oak, lay across the path. Leaves and branches blocked his way. Silvan would be forced to circle around it, a move that would bring him close to the edge of the ravine. He was sure on his feet, however. The lightning lit his way. He edged around the end of the severed limb with a good few feet to spare. He was climbing over a single branch, reaching out his hand to steady himself on a nearby pine tree, when a single bolt of lightning streaked out of the darkness and struck the pine.

  The tree exploded in a ball of white fire. The concussive force of the blast knocked Silvan over the edge of the ravine. Rolling and tumbling down its rock-strewn wall, he slammed against the stump of a broken tree at the bottom.

  Pain seared his body, worse pain seared his heart. He had failed. He would not reach the fortress. The knights would never receive the message. His people could not fight alone against the ogres. They would die. His mother would die with the belief that he had let her down.

  He tried to move, to rise, but the pain flashed through him, white hot, so horrible that when he felt consciousness slipping away, he was glad to think he was going to die. Glad to think that he would join his people in death, since he could do nothing else for them.

  Despair and grief rose in a great, dark wave, crashed down upon Silvan and dragged him under.

  3

  An Unexpected Visitor

  he storm disappeared. A strange storm, it had burst upon Ansalon like an invading army, striking all parts of that vast continent at the same time, attacking throughout the night, only to retreat with the coming of dawn. The sun crawled out from the dark lightning-shot cloudbank to blaze triumphantly in the blue sky. Light and warmth cheered the inhabitants of Solace, who crept out of their homes to see what destruction the tempest had wrought.

  Solace did not fare as badly as some other parts of Ansalon, although the storm appeared to have targeted that hamlet with particular hatred. The mighty vallenwoods proved stubbornly resistant to the devastating lightning that struck them time and again. The tops of the trees caught fire and burned, but the fire did not spread to the branches below. The trees’ strong arms tossed in the whirling winds but held fast the homes built there, homes that were in their care. Creeks rose and fields flooded, but homes and barns were spared.

  The Tomb of the Last Heroes, a beautiful structure of white and black stone that stood in a clearing on the outskirts of town, had sustained severe damage. Lightning had hit one of the spires, splitting it asunder, sending large chunks of marble crashing down to the lawn.

  But the worst damage was done to the crude and makeshift homes of the refugees fleeing the lands to the west and south, lands which had been free only a year ago but which were now falling under control of the green dragon Beryl.

  Three years ago, the great dragons who had fought for control of Ansalon had come to an uneasy truce. Realizing that their bloody battles were weakening them, the dragons agreed to be satisfied with the territory each had conquered, they would not wage war against each other to try to gain more. The dragons had kept this pact, until a year ago. It was then that Beryl had noticed her magical powers starting to decline. At first, she had thought she was imagining this, but as time passed, she became convinced that something was wrong.

  Beryl blamed the red dragon Malys for the loss of her magic—this was some foul scheme being perpetrated by her larger and stronger cousin. Beryl also blamed the human mages, who were hiding the Tower of High Sorcery of Wayreth from her. Consequently, Beryl had begun ever so gradually to expand her control over human lands. She moved slowly, not wanting to draw Malys’s attention. Malys would not care if here and there a town was burned or a village plundered. The city of Haven was one such, recently fallen to Beryl’s might. Solace remained untouched, for the time being. But Beryl’s eye was upon Solace. She had ordered closed the main roads leading into Solace, letting them feel the pressure as she bided her time.

  The refugees who had managed to escape Haven and surrounding lands before the roads were closed had swelled Solace’s population to three times its normal size. Arriving with their belongings tied up in bundles or piled on the back of carts, the refugees were being housed in what the town fathers designated “temporary housing.” The hovels were truly meant only to be temporary, but the flood of refugees arriving daily overwhelmed good intentions. The temporary shelters had become, unfortunately, permanent.

  The first person to reach the refugee camps the morning after the storm was Caramon Majere, driving a wagon loaded with sacks of food, lumber for rebuilding, dry firewood, and blankets.

  Caramon was over eighty—just how far over no one really knew, for he himself had lost track of the years. He was what they term in Solamnia a “grand old man.” Age had come to him as an honorable foe, facing him and saluting him, not creeping up to stab him in the back or rob him of his wits. Hale and hearty, his big frame corpulent but unbowed (“I can’t grow stooped, my gut won’t let me,” he was wont to say with a roaring laugh), Caramon was the first of his household to rise, was out every morning chopping wood for the kitchen fires or hauling the heavy ale barrels up the stairs.

  His two daughters saw to the day-to-day workings of the Inn of the Last Home—this was the only concession Caramon made to his age—but he still tended the bar, still told his stories. Laura ran the Inn, while Dezra, who had a taste for adventure, traveled to markets in Haven and elsewhere, searching out the very best in hops for the Inn’s ale, honey for the Inn’s legendary mead, and even hauling dwarf spirits back from Thorbardin. The moment Caramon went outdoors he was swarmed over by the children of Solace, who one and all called him “Grampy” and who vied for rides on his broad shoulders or begged to hear him tell tales of long-ago heroes. He was a friend to the refugees who would have likely had no housing at all had not Caramon donated the wood and supervised the construction. He was currently overseeing a project to build permanent dwellings on the outskirts of Solace, pushing, cajoling, and browbeating the recalcitrant authorities into taking action. Caramon Majere never walked the streets of Solace but that he heard his name spoken and blessed.

  Once the refugees were assisted, Caramon traveled about the rest of Solace, making certain that everyone was safe, raising hearts and spirits oppressed by the terrible night. This done, he went to his own breakfast, a breakfast he had come to share, of late, with a Knight of Solamnia, a man who reminded Caramon of his own two sons who had died in the Chaos War.

  In the days immediately following the Chaos War, the Solamnic Knights had established a garrison in Solace. The garrison had been a small one in the early days, intended only to provide Knights to stand honor guard for the Tomb of the Last Heroes. The garrison had been expanded to counter the threat of the great dragons, who were now the acknowledged, if hated, rulers of much of Ansalon.

  So long as the humans of Solace and other cities and lands under her control continued to pay Beryl tribute, she allowed the people to continue on with their lives, allowed them to continue to generate more wealth so that they could pay even more tribute. Unlike the evil dragons of earlier ages, who had delighted in burning and looting and killing, Beryl had discovered that burned-out cities did not generate profit. Dead people did not pay taxes.

  There were many who wondered why Beryl and her cousins with their wondrous and terrible magicks should covet wealth, should demand tribute. Beryl and Malys were cunning creatures. If they were rapaciously and wantonly cruel, indulging in wholesale slaughter of entire populations, the people of Ansalon would rise up out of desperation and march to destroy them. As it was, most humans found life under the dragon rule to be relatively comfortable. They were c
ontent to let well enough alone.

  Bad things happened to some people, people who no doubt deserved their fate. If hundreds of kender were killed or driven from their homes, if rebellious Qualinesti elves were being tortured and imprisoned, what did this matter to humans? Beryl and Malys had minions and spies in every human town and village, placed there to foment discord and hatred and suspicion, as well as to make certain that no one was trying to hide so much as a cracked copper from the dragons.

  Caramon Majere was one of the few outspoken in his hatred of paying tribute to the dragons and actually refused to do so.

  “Not one drop of ale will I give to those fiends,” he said heatedly whenever anyone asked, which they rarely did, knowing that one of Beryl’s spies was probably taking down names.

  He was staunch in his refusal, though much worried by it. Solace was a wealthy town, now larger than Haven. The tribute demanded from Solace was quite high. Caramon’s wife Tika had pointed out that their share was being made up by the other citizens of Solace and that this was putting a hardship on the rest. Caramon could see the wisdom of Tika’s argument. At length he came up with the novel idea of levying a special tax against himself, a tax that only the Inn paid, a tax whose monies were on no account to be sent to the dragon but that would be used to assist those who suffered unduly from having to pay what was come to be known as “the dragon tax.”

  The people of Solace paid extra tax, the city fathers refunded them a portion out of Caramon’s contribution, and the tribute went to the dragon as demanded.

  If they could have found a way to silence Caramon on the volatile subject, they would have done so, for he continued to be loud in his hatred of the dragons, continued to express his views that “if we just all got together we could poke out Beryl’s eye with a dragonlance.” Indeed, when the city of Haven was attacked by Beryl just a few weeks earlier—ostensibly for defaulting on its payments—the Solace town fathers actually came to Caramon and begged him on bended knee to cease his rabble-rousing remarks.