Dragons of the Highlord Skies

Sturm gave a knight’s salute to each of the fallen, then he walked after Derek.

Gilthanas retrieved what arrows he could find and went after Sturm. Flint harumphed and rubbed his nose and, grabbing hold of Tasslehoff, gave the kender a shove and told him to get a move on and quit standing there sniveling like a big baby.

Laurana lingered in the chamber with the dead. Friend. Foe. Picking up the frostreaver, stained with the wizard’s blood, she walked to her destiny.

The Fall of Ice-Reach Castle

AN ICE FOLK SONG By Lester Smith

Attend now, Ice Folk, to my tale,
Of the day that Ice Wall Castle fell,
And heed the lessons it reveals.
The tower had stood for ages long,
With walls of ice on walls of stone;
And wizard Feal-Thas called it home.
This dark elf magus held in thrall
A thousand thanoi to man its walls—
Fierce walrus-men. Nor was this alclass="underline"
Draconians, too, in their hundreds
Upon the Ice Tower’s walls abounded,
To do whate’er Feal-Thas commanded.
And more than this, a great white dragon
Served the wizard’s will! Its might again
Affirming Feal-Thas’ right to reign.
For the dark elf had resolved to rule
With iron fist, and intent cruel,
Where long our people had endured.
The Ice Folk seemed to face their doom.
Against this threat, we had no boon.
Our hope upon the wind was strewn.
Listen, Ice Folk, to my tale!
Then Habakkuk, our old god, came
To Aged Raggart, in a dream,
And promised victory in his name.
And strangers, too, were come to join
The Ice Folk’s cause, for which they gained—
Knights, elves, and dwarves—welcome as kin.
Chief Harald, frostreaver in hand,
Called all true souls to take a stand
And cleanse the ice of Feal-Thas’ stain!
The day that Ice Wall Castle Fell!
Our ice boats launched as day dawned fair.
And though our hearts had long held fear,
A breath of hope was in the air.
Then we a miracle beheld!
Even as Habakkuk had vowed:
When we set forth, the dragon fled!
Heed the lessons here revealed!
Cheered by this sign, our sailors sailed
With joyful hearts; while alongside
The ice boats, camp dogs raced and bayed!
But tower’s shadow dimmed our mood,
For high and mighty still it stood,
With thanoi taunting—the ugly brood.
Then Aged Raggart, with Elistan—
A priest of foreign Paladine—
Debarked their boats with this command:
“Watch now, and learn how gods of light,
Prepare a path for those who wait
And trust, so men may do what’s right!”
Hearken, Ice Folk, to my tale!
Then these two graybeards walked alone
Toward the evil wizard’s home
Through hail of arrows, and boulders thrown.
Untouched, they stopped below the tower,
And, catching sunbeams from the air,
Brought them upon the walls to bear.
Beneath those beams, the ice walls steamed,
Then cracked in giant rifts and seams,
And fell—while thanoi plunged and screamed.
And now from every ice boat’s deck
Our warriors rushed into the wreck,
To Feal-Thas’ fiends delivering death!
And as for Feal-Thas and his magics:
The dark elf fell to an elf maid’s axe
And bled his life out on the ice.
The day his mighty castle fell!
Where once a mighty fortress stood,
Now Ice Folk warriors freely strode,
The threat of Feal-Thas done for good.
Think on this tale, when hope seems far,
And let its lessons guide your heart,
For we, my brethren, Ice Folk are.
We, O brethren, Ice Folk are!

BOOK IV

1 The Oracle of Takhisis. Kit Gives an Ultimatum

The winter deepened on Ansalon. Yule came and went. The hunt for Kitiara continued, though it was half-hearted. Ariakas did not send his troops out after her. He did send assassins and bounty hunters, but they were ordered to conduct their search circumspectly. After a time, it seemed they forgot about her. No longer were bounty hunters handing steel coins about, asking if anyone had seen a warrior woman with black curly hair and a crooked smile.

Kitiara did not know it, but Ariakas had called off the hounds. He was starting to regret the entire incident. He realized he’d made a mistake with regard to Kit. He began to believe in her claimed innocence. He tried to place the blame for his belief that Kit had betrayed him on Iolanthe. She cleverly shifted it to the elf wizard, Feal-Thas. The elf had proven to be a vast disappointment to Ariakas, who had never expected much from Feal-Thas in the first place, for word came that the blasted elf had gotten himself killed and Ice Wall Castle had fallen.

At least the knight, Derek Crownguard, had fallen victim to Ariakas’s scheming. He had taken the dragon orb back to Solamnia, and Ariakas’s spies reported that contention over the orb had caused a rift between elves and humans and was further demoralizing the knighthood.

Ariakas wanted Kit back. He was finally ready to launch the war in Solamnia and he needed her expertise, her leadership skills, her courage. But she was nowhere to be found.

Queen Takhisis could have informed Ariakas of Kit’s whereabouts, for Her Dark Majesty was keeping a close watch on the Blue Lady. But Takhisis chose to keep Ariakas in ignorance. Ariakas might have welcomed Lord Soth’s entry into the war, but he would not be pleased to see a Soth/Kitiara alliance. Kit already had an army behind her, an army loyal to her. She commanded a wing of blue dragons, also extremely loyal to her. Add to this a powerful death knight and his forces, and Ariakas would start to feel the Crown of Power resting uneasily on his head. He might try to stop Kitiara from going to Dargaard Keep, and Takhisis could not allow this.

The bounty hunters were a nuisance to Kit, though never a danger. None recognized her in her guise as a high-ranking spiritor, and no one bothered her. She even had an enjoyable conversation with a bounty hunter, giving him a description of herself and sending him on a long and fruitless search. When she took the road leading to Nightlund, pursuit ended. None would follow her into that accursed land.

Her journey was long and wearisome, giving Kitiara plenty of time to think about her confrontation with Lord Soth. She required a plan of attack. Kit never went into any battle unprepared. She needed information about exactly what sort of enemy she faced—solid information, not legend, myth, granny stories, kender tales, or bard’s songs. Unfortunately, such information was difficult to come by. Of those who had encountered Lord Soth, none had come back to tell of it.

All she had was the information Iolanthe had provided following their brief and eventful encounter in the Temple in Neraka. Kit wished she’d taken more time to listen to the witch, asked her more questions. But then, she’d been fleeing for her life. Not the right moment for chit-chat. Kit went over everything Iolanthe had said, mulled over it all, hoping to devise a strategy. All the stories agreed on certain points: an army of undead warriors, three heart-stopping banshees, and a death knight who could kill her with a single word. So far as Kit could see, developing a strategy for this encounter was rather like developing a strategy for committing suicide. The only question was how to die as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Kit had the bracelet Iolanthe had given her. Iolanthe had instructed her in its use, but Kit wanted to know all there was to know about this bracelet. Not that she didn’t trust Iolanthe. The witch had saved her life.