The Dragon's Doom

Prologue

A hard, sudden rain was lashing the rooftops of Sirlptar as the came down, driven ashore by a home-harbor wind. The storm rattle on the slates and tiles of hundreds of roofs quite drowned out the customary chimney-sighs for which the Sighing Gargoyle was named. Flaeros Delcamper could barely hear his own harp notes, but-newly esteemed bard to the court of Flowfoam or not-this was his first paying engagement in the City of River and Sea, and he sang on with determination.

Yet even he knew, as he lifted his voice in the refrain of his newest ballad about the Lady of Jewels and the Fall of the Serpent, that he might just as well have saved his breath. Not a man-jack was listening.

Every patron of the Gargoyle was bent forward over the table that held his tankard, listening-or talking-intently. The mutter of voices held no note of happiness.

"And so 'tis another year gone, and how's Aglirta the better for it?"

"Aye, harvests thinner than ever, half the good men in the land dead and rotting when they should be plowing or scything-and now we have a boy for a king!"

"Huh. No joy there, yet he can hardly be worse than what we've had, these twenty summers now-wizards and barons, wizards and barons: villains, all!"

"Aye, that's so. Wizards have always been bad and dangerous-'tis in the breed, by the Three!"

"So we thrust a pitchfork through every mage we spot, and what then?

Who of our Great Lord Barons can be trusted not to lash out on a whim? They've all been little tyrants to put the most decadent kings of the old tales to shame!"

"And here we sit, thinner and fewer, every year, while their madness rages around us and Aglirta bleeds."

An empty tankard thunked down on a table, and its owner sighed gustily, clenched his hand into a helpless fist, and added bitterly, "And the great hope of the common folk, Bloodblade, turned out to be no better than the rest."

An old scribe nodded. "All our dreams fallen and trampled," he said sadly, "and no one cares."

A drover shot Flaeros a look so venomous that the bard's fingers faltered on his harpstrings, and growled, "Now we have some boy for a King, and his four tame overdukes scour the countryside for barons and wizards who took arms against him-and who cares for us?"