The Dragons

Chapter 40

352 AC

In a dazzling campaign, Lauralanthalasa, the Golden General, led the army of Whitestone on a rapid counterattack across the Vingaard plains. Under the shelter of metallic wings, the Knights of Solamnia, dwarves of Kayolin and Thorbardin, and free men and elves from throughout the west surged in vengeful attacks against the dragon high-lords and their teeming armies. Buoyed by Laurana’s success in her initial attack, the forces of Whitestone marched and fought and marched some more, striking quickly, winning one battle after another. Willingly they followed her orders, trusting her natural instincts, constantly keeping the enemy forces off-balance and in desperate retreat.

Laurana led the liberation of Vingaard Keep, and then swiftly ferried her army-on the backs of dragons! — across the river of the same name while that torrent was at the full height of spring flood. Striking quickly, moving with forced marches, and always in the direction the enemy least expected, the Army of Whitestone embarked on a series of blistering, lightning-fast offensives.

The wyrms of Takhisis did not let this advance go unchallenged. After the disaster met by the green dragons, the whites and blacks flew forth but were defeated in quick, sharp battles. Following each of these three engagements, the survivors among the defeated chromatic dragons reeled back to the east, flying into the rugged Khalkists in search of sanctuary.

On the ground, the mounted knights thundered forward in sweeping charges, onslaughts that set the plains themselves to resounding underfoot. Great phalanxes of footmen kept pace, anchoring the line when the enemy forces showed signs of attacking, or hurrying forward in relentless pursuit each time the foe was once again put to flight. Elven bowmen harassed the enemy with deadly missile fire, and doughty dwarves wielded sword and axe, an implacable anvil against which the hammer of the good dragons could strike.

Still the Blue and Red Wings remained intact and under Highlord Ariakas’s personal command. That lord’s mount, Tombfyre, became as well known as his master, killing many a Whitestone warrior with his fiery breath, cruel jaws, and crushing, talons. For the most part, the Emperor of Ansalon patiently held his mighty serpents back from Laurana’s army. Yet finally any further patience on the Highlord’s part would have resulted in the loss of virtually all the land gained in the previous years’ campaigns.

The two wings met in a major battle, hundreds of dragons and their riders wheeling through the skies, breathing death, striving for mastery, and once again the Golden General prevailed. The Army of Whitestone moved on to the liberation of Kalaman, while Ariakas fell back again, withdrawing into the rugged sanctuary of the Khalkists.

But before the campaign could continue to its final triumph, Lauralanthalasa was captured by trickery, her own loyalty used to draw her into the Highlord’s snare. She was taken into the heart of the Dark Queen’s realms, and all the hopes for victory remained in abeyance. Warriors, dragons, and wizards on both sides felt the world plunging toward a cusp of history, a day-or night-when the Dark Queen’s dreams of mastery would either become reality or be shattered into irrevocable defeat.

Yet still the war in the skies continued as the dragons of Paladine fought against the wings under Ariakas’s command. Gilthanas of Qualinesti, mounted upon mighty Silvara, took command of the aerial forces, and the good dragons pressed their foes all the way to the fringe of the Khalkists.

For their part in this culminating campaign, Lectral and the silvers were patrolling with the coppers over the great Army of Whitestone, which was gathered at a gap leading into the foothills. The evil forces had fallen back all the way to Neraka, with mountainous barriers screening them against any land attack from the west. Now they watched… and waited.

“After the war, let’s go fishing,” Allsar Dane suggested, lounging in the saddle as Lectral glided lazily above the plains. They had learned to converse easily in the air, Lectral holding his neck arched so that he could hear the man’s voice. The posture was too slow and awkward for battle flight, but quite comfortable when, as now, they were gliding on patrol.

“I’d like that,” the silver flier agreed, realizing that the notion had a strong appeal. “To the Newsea, perhaps, to see if the salmon are running.”

“Ah, but only if we can then go to the mountains, stalking the rainbow trout,” replied Allsar.

“I like your plan,” Lectral said.

A squawk of alarm drew their attention, and they saw a griffon flying urgently toward them. The hawkish flier bore an elven scout on his back.

“The Blue and Red Wings gather in the high mountains,” the scout explained as his laboring steed strained to fly beside Lectral at this lofty altitude. “They’re concealed by fog, but they took flight with the dawn. They’ll be coming this way soon.”

“Thanks for the notice,” the silver replied, turning his head to the east. Allsar Dane cinched his belt tight and made sure that the Dragonlance was firmly seated in its swiveling mount.

The coppers, under the leadership of Cymbol, circled nearby. The gold, brass, and bronze dragons were elsewhere, embarked on a desperate search to rescue Laurana. Until the Golden General’s return, Gilthanas, astride Silvara, would remain in command.

“Ready?” asked Lectral.

“Let’s go,” the knight replied.

The skies over the mountains were thick with cloud and mist, a great blanket of white, deceptively soft and pure, billowing upward into the loftiest reaches. After hearing the alarm, the ancient silver stared into that impenetrable murk, waiting for the first appearance of the foe. His rider was alert and poised on his shoulders, and more silvers flew to either side.

The Red Wing emerged from the cloud like a mass of bloodstains seeping through a cotton blanket-dozens, then scores of red shapes growing larger and more distinct, emerging from the foggy nothingness to become bright, vivid spots of color. In the lead came the Highlord Ariakas, Emperor of Ansalon, still mounted upon mighty Tombfyre.

In fact, Lectral recognized the dragon before the rider, for his old enemy was the only wyrm among the opposing force that was the silver’s equal in size. Somehow it seemed fitting that the descendant of legendary Crematia should bear the enemy emperor.

The dragons of both wings converged quickly, with no thoughts for the antlike troops crawling on the ground below. A formation of blue dragons flew beside the reds, and the numbers of the enemy serpents seemed to fill the air. Lectral knew beyond any doubt that this battle would be settled in the skies-and, perhaps, finally resolved for all the future of Krynn. His jaws parted instinctively, and he bellowed a thunderous roar, loudly challenging the chromatic dragons, instinctively boasting of his courage and his might.

Answering bellows resounded in the air until the sky shook as though from the force of a thunderstorm. Blues and reds tipped forward and dived, while dragons of copper and silver labored upward, striving for the altitude to meet the foe in level flight. Lance tips sparkled like diamonds, and knightly armor gleamed as bright as the dragons’ silver scales.

The two forces converged in sudden silence as the dragons ceased their roaring, concentrating on the grim business now close at hand. Lightning flashed suddenly, a premature blast from an overeager blue dragon. The crackling bolt was met by a spume of acid, scornfully spat by a copper, and the lingering cloud of brackish gas spread a sharp, acrid stink through the air.

Flames roared in Lectral’s ears as the first rank of the charging wyrms swept past. Allsar Dane twisted and jabbed with the lethal lance, gutting a blue that tried to fly too close. Lectral’s own breath joined the frosty clouds of the others of his clan, mingling as well with the streaming acid of the coppers, until the stench of corrosive gas, exploding lightning, and sooty flame were all mingled into a thick stew of pollution.

Red wings careened past, and Lectral pulled upward, scraping with his talons, tearing away a section of crimson membrane. Lightning from a nearby dragon of blue jarred him, ripping scales from his belly in a painful wound, but the ancient silver was able to tuck and dive, allowing the lancer to pierce the lightning-spitting blue with a fatal stab to the neck.

Another red, this one nearly as big as Tombfyre, dived toward them from above. Lectral cast a spell, the useful incantation of mirror image that created multiple images of his actual self. He twisted away, the magical duplicates diving in opposite directions, and the red’s fire billowed harmlessly into the midst of the spell.

The ancient silver turned back then, casting a spell of slowness that seemed to mire his crippled opponent in thick, oily air. The chromatic dragon labored to turn, moaning desperately in the grip of agonizing delay, sensing the doom that swept closer on silver wings. With a barrage of rending talons and crushing jaws, Lectral ripped into his enemy, and seconds later a torn and lifeless red corpse dropped toward the plains far below.

For a long time, the great forces of dragons clashed in the sky, wheeling in a savage circle. Mighty serpents flying alone or in pairs and trios dived away from the fight and then climbed back, a relentless cycle of attack and flight, each side straining to gain the advantage. Ariakas seemed to sense that this was his last chance to win a great battle, for he threw every reserve, every immature wyrmling and naive young lancer that he could find, into the fight. Many perished on both sides, blasted from the air by lethal attacks of dragonbreath or lance or sword or claw.

Often a dragon was not slain outright, but was crippled by a blow against a wing, a wound that would prove as certainly lethal as a thrust through the heart. Lectral watched many serpents and their hapless riders spiral frantically downward, one good wing stroking the air, trying unsuccessfully to restore some grace to the doomed flight. In a moment of calm and clarity, the ancient silver reflected that, if he were stricken, he would prefer the utter lifelessness of an instantly fatal wound to the helpless struggles that gave so many of the falling dragons such pathetic final moments. And the doom awaiting at the end was the same, regardless of how quickly or prolonged the suffering of the dying.

Lectral found himself in a battle with a monstrous blue, a dragon of wily skill with a deadly swordsman mounted on his back. Through a long series of dives and strikes, they dodged back and forth. Finally, attacking with the aid of haste magic, the blue twisted Lectral about in the air, sending the silver tumbling into a frantic dive, forcing a desperate try to pull out of the headlong descent. Allsar Dane hung on without a murmur, his knees pressed tightly against Lectral’s flanks as he clung hard to the leather strap of reins.

Finally the silver dragon recovered his balance, pulling out of the dive with a sudden loop that took his pursuer completely by surprise. Allsar Dane stabbed the dragonlance through the back of the blue’s rider, then into the wyrm’s flesh, driving it deep between the azure dragon’s shoulders. With a shriek that rapidly faded into a moan, the serpent died, falling from the sky with its lifeless rider toppling from the saddle to tumble limply at the dragon’s side.

But before Lectral could start to gain altitude again a great crimson shadow spread overhead and Tombfyre was there. The silver twisted, trying to dive away, but Ariakas struck, and Lectral felt Allsar Dane’s blood warming the scales of his back. The dragonlance hung limply by the silver dragon’s side, and the man didn’t respond when the mighty serpent repeatedly called out to him.

Tombfyre veered away, bearing the shouting Ariakas toward the eastern skies. With a backward look, Lectral saw that the battling dragons had dwindled away, and now the mighty red seemed bent upon making a complete escape.

Roaring, Lectral plunged after him, driving his silver wings through the air, striving to overtake the hateful red. The aerial battlefield vanished to the rear as the pursued and pursuing dragons flew over the foothills of the Khalkists. The Emperor of Ansalon fled on a course that would take him well north of Sanction, as if he had a purpose, a destination in mind other than mere escape.

The ancient silver came steadily after the red. Now Lectral forgot about the stiffness and the other infirmities of age; his wings, his whole body, felt young again, as if he were a powerful serpent in the prime of his life. For a long time, the two dragons raced through the skies, leaving the battlefield far behind, until at last the eastern horizon before them had darkened and, to the rear, the sun had slipped past the jagged teeth of the foothills.

A great temple loomed in the distance, a place that the maps had marked as “Neraka.” It was a dark and dolorous place, and Lectral understood that this was his enemy’s destination. The spiraling of great dragons, dozens of them, cut colorful swaths through the air above the Dark Queen’s fortress. They roared, swarming forward, ready to protect their stronghold against this impudent silver.

Knowing it was certain death to pursue any farther, Lectral could only wheel downward in frustration, watching the red dragon and his arrogant rider disappear over the next mountain ridge, winging steadily toward the twisted, distorted edifice.