Cormyr

Prologue: The Dragon’s Land

A Time Before the Years Were Named (-400 DR)

Thauglor, King of the Forest Country, turned in a low, banking dive. As the wind’s whistle became a tearing, humming drone, the treetops of the vale rose swiftly to meet him. He let out a deepthroated roar, and the small herd of forest buffalo bolted from their hiding place, stumbling and snorting in panic. Most of the shaggy beasts swerved to plunge back into the forest as Thauglor’s shadow passed over them.

Not good, thought Thauglor. The dragon banked again and cut across the path of the beasts that were still visible, bellowing a second time. The twenty or so animals that remained wheeled in a confusion of dust and churning hooves and headed in the opposite direction, back toward the clearing where Thauglor intended to meet them.

The great black dragon unfurled his wings and beat down powerfully, cutting the heavy summer air in long, steady strokes, seeking to catch the stampeding beasts just as they broke from the forest cover. For a fleeting moment, he could hear the splintering and thrashing of their frantic passage beneath him. Skimming the treetops, Thauglor had to curl the tips of his wings and swerve to dodge the tallest oaks and duskwoods as he rushed to bring death to the beasts below.

Thauglor the Black and the buffalo herd reached the clearing at the same instant.

The expected updraft at the edge of the trees lifted the great dragon slightly as the first of the shaggy brown forms broke free of the forest cover. Thauglor’s great shadow fell across them, the high summer sun shining through his thin wing membranes. The bawling herd tried to turn again, back to the cool protection of the trees, but by then it was too late.

The dragon roared a third time, a roar of triumph, and fell among the tightly packed, frightened animals. They were screaming and bolting in all directions now, but Thauglor swooped among them with ruthless precision.

His great scaled bulk bore down on one luckless beast, snapping the buffalo’s spine and smashing the hapless creature flat. Thauglor’s claws reached out to tear the bellies of another fleeing pair. Even as they shrieked and struggled, the dragon’s jaws closed on a fourth meal and tightened with a splintering of bone.

The dying beast thrashed in the teeth that imprisoned it, not realizing yet that it was dying. It lowed softly, calling for aid and comfort that would not come. The great wyrm shook it as a cat shakes a mouse, then flung it to the ground. The buffalo struck the hard-packed earth with a wet, messy thud, spasmed once, and then sagged into immobility, its struggles done forever.

Thauglor the Black, master of all the forest, looked about in satisfaction. The surviving buffalo had bolted back into the safety of the trees, leaving behind only the four offerings to the dragon’s huntsmanship. Three lay like brown-shaded boulders tinged with fresh crimson streaks. The last of the offerings still twitched and spasmed in its final mortal moments.

Thauglor watched its passing with idle interest. The buffalo was lying on its side, staring up at its slayer with a single blood-filled eye. As the ancient black dragon loomed over it, the bleeding eye widened in even greater fear, and its owner attempted to squirm away, its broken back spasming as it tried to rise on shattered legs. Thauglor ripped open the creature’s belly with a casual claw, and the light in the forest buffalo’s eyes died.

It was time to dine. The great dragon wrapped his jaws around the still-warm body and tilted his head upward. Powerful muscles surged, distending the jaw to widen the passage to Thauglor’s throat. The blood-drenched buffalo, small in comparison with the beast devouring it, slid effortlessly down the dragon’s gullet. Had any creature dared to tarry in the clearing to watch an elder black dragon feed, it would have seen a small lump slide slowly along the throat, corded muscles halting it for a moment to crush it further before the buffalo disappeared forever into the belly of the wyrm.

The first morsel took the edge off Thauglor’s hunger, and he approached the second in a more leisurely manner, taking the time to savor the buffalo’s steaming entrails and stomach, rolling the juicy organs around in his mouth with an appreciative tongue before swallowing. He cracked the skull of his prey with the heavy grinding fangs along one side of his jaw, then plucked out the soft contents within with a deft stab of a delicate tongue tip.

The gentle, wet sound of Thauglor’s feeding was drowned out by a small nearby screech-more of a draconian cough-and Thauglor raised his head from his midday meal, eyes suddenly narrow and dangerous.

At the edge of the clearing, another black dragon was settling out of the sky-a youngling, a runt no more than ten winters old, his scales still soft and shining as if he were newly emerged from the egg. The lightness of his belly plates marked him as one of Casarial’s brood, and he showed all the impetuousness of Thauglor’s youngest granddaughter. The newcomer eased forward, seeking to snare one of the remaining corpses from his elder.

Thauglor’s eyes narrowed to slits, and he let out a low, throaty growl. There would be no sharing this day, at least not until the great black had had his fill. And definitely not with some youngling who showed so little respect as to try to sneak away a few scraps from Thauglor’s buffet.

Thauglor rose on his haunches and spread his wings to their full extent, touching the tips together above his head and eclipsing the youth in his shadow. The young dragon froze in place beneath Thauglor’s stare, and the older dragon wondered for a moment if the youngster would be foolish enough to press the issue.

The youngling’s eyes told the tale. Pools of fear glimmered at their heart as the youth suddenly realized his peril. Slowly the youngling edged back.

Probably when the runt landed he had been thinking about how easy it would be to steal a scrap from the doddering elder, a creature so old that his scale edges were turning a pale violet. Only now would the youth realize that this was no aged and toothless wyrm. Only now might the youth think of stories told of the great and venerable progenitor of the local black dragons.

“Do you have a name, youngling?” said Thauglor, posing the question in the most archaic and exact tones of Auld Wyrmish. The scent that wafted from Thauglor’s scales underscored that this was no polite request, but an imperious demand.

“K-Kreston,” said the youth, stammering slightly, handling the ancient tongue with all the discomfort of a schoolboy in grammar class. “Spawn of Casarial out of Miranatol, grandchild of Hesior, blood of the mighty Thauglorimorgorus, the Black Doom. Sir.”

“Your mother Casarial was often impetuous,” said Thauglor. “Ask her how she gained the scar over her left eye.” After a moment, he added levelly, “You should put that question to her carefully and politely.”

The young dragon nodded, and Thauglor rumbled, “Wait at the edge of the clearing. You may have the remains. Better next time that you watch the hunt and learn to catch such meals yourself.”

Another gulp and nod, and Kreston retreated to the forest’s edge. His eyes still held their fear and never left the elder dragon. Though Thauglor never gave his own name-the youth was wise enough not to demand it-the purple-scaled elder was sure the young dragon had recognized his forefather.

Thauglor cut the choicest meats from the forest buffalo’s corpse, wielding his dewclaw with the slicing skill of a master butcher, and took them into his mouth with a tongue that curled in indolent ease.

Not bothering to glance at the younger blackscales, Thauglor gnashed his old, yellowing fangs once, yawned, and turned to his other kills. His hunger was sated, but the King of the Forest Country deliberately cracked the skulls and feasted on the entrails of the two remaining bodies, gorging himself. As he did so, he cast an errant eye at the young male who waited like a quivering statue at the clearing’s edge, wide eyes recording Thauglor’s every move.

There were more like this Kreston every decade-black dragons of his bloodline whom he did not know personally. It had been at least a hundred summers since he’d last visited all of his descendants, children and grandchildren combined. Most of his own brood were properly deferential, as were their children. But these latest pups were almost insulting in their presumption and the cute boldness of youth would be little protection as they moved into gangly adolescence. Thauglor would see to that.

Others would, if he did not. Perhaps another tour of his forest domain was in order, to put a little fear of their elders into foolish and arrogant young draconic skulls.

And he’d best be spreading more than a few tales of the ancient past, and, lessons on hunting as well. Thauglor almost sighed aloud. He preferred to hunt, though he knew of blue wyrms and reds who would settle for the scavenger’s life. But corpse wings-little more than scaled vultures-descended from his blood? Hmmph. Perhaps Casarial, who as youngest had always been spoiled, was remiss in training her young. Thauglor bore no qualms about eating creatures he hadn’t slain, but he’d sired a family of hunters, not corpse buzzards.

Yet that was a matter for another day. The summer sun was glimmering brighter in the cloudless blue sky, and already black flies were swarming about the cooling carrion. The young dragon waited his turn at the spoils, shifting no more than one errant talon in his growing impatience. Thauglor thought of carrying off the remains as a lesson or burying them in dust, but relented. A hungry hunter hunts poorly.

Thauglor arched his back and gave a great catlike yawn. Then he spread his wings and, without addressing the youth again, leapt into the sky. The black’s old muscles and pinions strained as he scalloped the air beneath his wings in great, heavy beats, seeking the chill heights with a speed no smaller-winged youngling could hope to match. One more warning to the youth, Thauglor thought.

Thauglor circled back over the clearing to find the youngling still crouched in the same spot, a little more eager, perhaps, but unwilling to rush forward until he was sure that Thauglor was finished. And gone. Most definitely gone.

Thauglor suppressed a grin and rolled slightly in a half-mocking salute as he passed over the clearing again, gaining altitude with every stroke. Yes, a grand tour of his domain was in order, on the excuse that recent encounters had made it necessary to ensure that younglings of his line were being properly trained, but in truth just as much to remind Casarial and the others who the true master of the forest was. Obviously she had not taught that one-Kreston?-well enough.

Beneath the great dragon, his forest kingdom stretched out in a great green patchwork. The bulk of the land was closely spaced trees, broken every few miles by a tree-fall clearing, bare patch, or a bald tor. The lighter phandar and silverbarks dominated marshy spots, while the shadowtops and duskwoods rose like spires on the drier hills, and they in turn gave way as the land climbed to the cinnamon hues of gnarled felsul and coppery laspar that ringed the timberline, where the soaring rock began.

Thauglor’s land was bounded by mountains on three sides and a narrow inlet of the Inner Sea on the fourth. To the west rose the youngest of the mountain ranges, still sharp-toothed and newly crafted, its peaks sharp and forbidding. To the north was the largest range, a great buttress of stone against the failed and fallen wizard kingdoms beyond, an impassable wall made more hazardous by continual storms, whose flashing lightning lashed its flanks almost daily. Thunder ruled in the eastern mountains as well. Though tall, these peaks were more weathered, splintered by ages of rain and snow. This last range was broken by a number of low passes, where the forest spilled out into flat coastland beyond. Their peaks marked the eastern border of the lands of the Black Doom. All that lay between these mountains was his.

The southern border of his lands was guarded by a slim, silvery arm of star-carved sea, a drowned gulf born in violent skyfall so many eons ago that even Thauglor knew of it only through legends from his grave-gone elders. The shore was twisted and boggy, as if the land were slowly sinking into the island-dotted coast. A few great manyroots rose in their gnarled, defiant glory here, but the shore was more the domain of silverbarks, willows, and other water-loving things. For a dragon, it was a short hop to lands farther south, but these belonged to other wyrms, and the narrow sea made a suitable border.

Within these bounds Thauglor ruled supreme. There were reds and blues in the mountains, some older even than the great black wyrm, but they were sluggish, elderly creatures, driven to slow and vague wakefulness only a few times a millennium by hunger and thirst. Generally they gave the large black with the purpletinged scales a wide berth. The wyverns that nested around the lake at the heart of Thauglor’s domain paid fealty and treasure to him and his brood. All other draconian beasts who came winging over the mountains paid their respects, and their tribute, or were driven off.

Still, Thauglor was getting old. With each passing year, his scales lightened, so much so that now he was more violet than ebony along the sinuous ridge of his spine. His eyes, too, though as unerring as ever, were shifting from yellow to a dusky purple. His naps were now lasting upward of a month, and when he awoke, it was with ravenous hunger. Would he soon become as removed from waking life-from cold reality-as the old wyrms of the mountains, scarcely knowing if some other black claimed his forest kingdom?

The thought of anyone, even his own children or grandchildren, replacing him as the mightiest creature in the forest, its undisputed master, disturbed Thauglor. He pressed such dark concepts into the back of his reptilian mind.

The King of the Forest Country swooped low, disturbing a flock of craw vultures roosting in the skeleton of a lightning-struck oak. Squawking, the carrion birds scattered before him as the buffalo had done earlier, but Thauglor did not bother even to snap at them as they fluttered and squalled. Yes, a tour of his domain was in order before he settled down for a long nap. Best to determine now which of his children was strong enough to challenge him.

Thauglor’s nostrils flared at a new scent in the wind, a mere whiff of smoke on the breezes. It was too late in the season for a spring lightning strike… Perhaps one of the younger reds was immolating a corner of the forest to flush out prey, or a pack of hellhounds had come down from the northern range again.

The great dragon banked his huge body and glided toward the sharp western peaks. There was still an hour or so before the sun touched their higher mounts, casting premature nightfall across the land. The smoke scent had come from that direction…

As the ancient black wyrm drifted westward, the scent returned, growing sharper and more pungent. Thauglor saw a thin, lonely wisp of smoke above the trees. With idle grace, the massive dragon glided earthward in the softest of dives, the wind sliding past with nary a whistle.

The ground drew nearer, and nearer. The fire was at the base of an old massive oak, a many-branched giant that should be able to support even a large dragon’s weight.

Thauglor backbeat his wings once, curled the tips to steer and brake for one last, deft instant, and landed delicately on the great bole, his talons closing with almost fastidious care. Even so, the great tree groaned in protest as smaller branches were ripped away to crash to the forest floor below. The black spared their cascading fall nary a glance, focusing his eyes instead on the source of the smoke.

It was a cooking fire, smoldering and abandoned within a hearth of loosely packed rocks. It had been burning for some time, but was in little danger of spreading. That made Thauglor a trifle uneasy. A fire made by a lightning strike or a red dragon could be contained, and would often drive game into the open. This was the work of other sentients… men, goblins, or dwarves.

The site was abandoned, but Thauglor remained immobile on his perch, waiting. Tribes of northern goblins often hunted in these lands, and occasionally a band of Netherese refugees-gaunt, hungry, and powerless without their magic-would try to cross his territory. Dwarves distrusted the woods from some long-past racial trauma and would only risk crossing through a dragon’s domain if there were rich metals to be found. Thauglor gave them little desire to explore.

Thauglor waited. Any humanoid with half a mind would be fleeing for the mountains at full speed or cowering behind some toppled log, waiting for the black-winged death to move on. That was right and proper, and with luck the escapee would live to tell others of his narrow escape and warn them to avoid the forested basin, home of the great black wyrm.

There was movement to Thauglor’s right, and he turned his head in that direction. It was gone as soon as he saw it, fading back into the forest. Yet, for an instant, their eyes had locked, and the black dragon knew who was trespassing on his land.

The intruder was an elf, more slender than even the gauntest of humans, taller than the dwarves, more graceful than the goblins and their brutish kin. This one was dressed in green, the better to hide among the surrounding trees. Jade-colored leggings and jerkin, a green cape with a mottled green hood. The only flash of metal came from the guards of a scabbarded blade, undrawn at the elf’s belt.

The elf was gone, fading back into the trees, leaving the remains of its fire for Thauglor. The black dragon knew the intruder would not return to this site. The black dragon also knew the elf would be fleeing for safety beyond the mountains.

In the half-breath when their eyes had met, Thauglor had looked into the soul of the elf invader. He saw there wonder and amazement at Thauglor’s size, a kindling of new respect for the might of dragons.

What Thauglor had not seen was fear. The black dragon felt resolution and strength in the elf’s gaze, and in his poise. He fled from dragons not out of terror but from wisdom, choosing to withdraw from Thauglor’s might. Were he to return later, he would do so on his own terms.

Thauglor found the brief encounter disquieting. He sat in the great tree for a long time, stirring only when the first shadows from the distant mountains reached their cool claws towards him. Then he rose suddenly, scattering the last fitful embers of the dying fire with a lash of his tail, and paddled the air hard to gain height in the cool evening sky. This time he headed east, toward his lair.

The newcomer would have to be watched. So bold…

The elf neither attacked like a warrior nor fled like an animal. If he were alone, so much the better, but Thauglor had heard more than once that in a forest, elves were like vermin-if you saw one, another watchful hundred were waiting behind nearby leaves.

One last reason to visit his family, the King of the Forest Country decided. If they were encountering intruders as well, something would have to be done. For a brief time, refugees from the north might be allowed to find their way into his kingdom… before he visited them. The survivors would warn others of the perils of intruding into Thauglor’s domain. Then it would be time to smile, Thauglor thought, imagining the smell of mortal terror that kept his realm secure.

But there had been no fear in the eyes of the elf.

And that troubled Thauglor more than all the goblins of the northern peaks.