And then the sun was there, shining into the mouth of the cave as it crested the eastern horizon. Flayze lowered his inner eyelids and hooded his vision with the thick outer membranes as he squinted into the brightness. He ignored the momentary discomfort, feeling the hunger surge anew, fired by the tangy spoor of a great flock of the waterfowl he had earlier scented.
A stream flowed, as he had remembered it would, just past the mouth of the deep cave. Lowering his massive muzzle into the deepest pool he could reach, Flayze drank, sucking the water out of the natural bowl in a long slurp. Downstream, the creek momentarily halted its flow, as if startled by the sudden absence of its source. The red dragon lifted his head, allowing rivulets to drain from his crocodilian jaws. In moments the pool was refilled and once more drained.
Now Flayze sniffed the breeze in earnest, anxious to eat. Again he was tantalized by the scent of the geese. He tried to recollect his surroundings, remembering a vast wetland, a flat expanse of marsh that lay at the downstream terminus of this very brook. The dragon extended his blood-red wings, stretching them up and down, working out the kinks of his long hibernation. The exercise felt good, but he was too impatient to limber himself fully; instead, he leapt into the air, pressed down with the vast sails of his wings, gliding just a short distance off the ground. He followed the grade of the descending streambed, hoping to surprise the flock by his sudden appearance over the marsh.
Flying felt good, as always. He didn't mind the cool air stinging, feeling strangely vital in his flaring nostrils. Then he was there, and the expanse of shallow water below him was choked with plump birds, thousands of them, cackling and murmuring in a great mass. With a roar of exultation, Flayze dipped his head, opened his mouth, and expelled a huge cloud of searing fire. The flame boiled into the waters of the marsh and killed a hundred geese in the first instant of its explosion. Banking steeply back, Flayze settled into the sticky mud, ignoring the thousands of other birds, the vast flock that took wing in a honking cacophony on all sides.
He used his dexterous foreclaws to lift the charred birds to his mouth, one or two at a time. He crunched and swallowed with sheer pleasure, relishing the hot juices running over his tongue. He didn't particularly like the sensation of mud against his beautiful scales, and by the time he had gulped down the last of the geese, he had sunk to his belly in the sticky stuff. Still, his stomach was full and his mood benign as he wriggled to the shore and flopped into the cool stream, allowing the brisk current to wash his body.
Finally he was ready to investigate his surroundings. The bulk of the High Kharolis rose to the south, purple against the horizon as the sun settled toward evening. To the north, he knew, lay Pax Tharkas, and beyond that the forested elven realm of Qualinesti.
The last Flayzeranyx remembered of that sylvan reach, he had been flying above the seemingly eternal canopy of trees on a routine patrol. He had still been getting used to the fact that he bore no rider; his knight, a man called Blaric Hoyle, had recently been executed by the Highlord Verminaard for some failure that had occurred during the sack of Haven.
As Flayze had flown, riderless, over the treetops, a pair of dragons had swept from the clouds, plunging toward him. Since every dragon he had ever seen had been allied in the Dark Queen's cause, he had at first been unconcerned, until he was startled by the brilliant reflection of the sun off silver wings.
Thus had the dragons of Paladine entered Flayze's war, and in the next moments, they summarily ended the red dragon's participation in that campaign. The scales on Flayze's back were cruelly shattered by a blast of frost, and a vicious silver lance had pierced his wing. It had only been his good fortune to dive away from the silvers and to be abandoned by his foe in favor of some more pressing concern.
After that fight, Flayzeranyx had returned to Sanction to meet with Emperor Ariakas himself. The mighty serpent had been ordered to return to the Red Wing, which was occupying much of Southern Solamnia at the time. There he was to be assigned a new rider, and he would return to the war to avenge the losses brought about by the sudden and unwelcome involvement of the metallic dragons.
Instead, Flayze had decided he'd had enough of fighting, at least, enough of the kind of violence required for the execution of the emperor's grandiose plans. The rogue red dragon had veered south, crossing the New-sea, finally coming to rest in this rugged region of Kharo-lis. The cave where he had recently secluded himself had been a fortuitous discovery on his earlier campaign. Subsequently it had provided a refuge wherein he could wait out the war in safety and comfort.
Now clean of the sticky mud, Flayzeranyx took to the air, flying high through the night and wondering about the fate of the world during the interval of his long nap. For a long time he glided through the skies, skirting the massif of Thorbardin-he knew that even the most deadly attack of Ariakas's legions was not likely to have reduced that dwarven stronghold-and seeking familiar spoors on the night breeze. He smelled proof of humans and elves in the forests and plains below and caught the acrid stink of a hill dwarf village well to the north.
Finally he detected the reptilian scent that he had been seeking. He soared low, silently gliding through the skies, drawing closer to the source of the odor that brought so many familiar and tangible memories. Acrid smoke tickled his nostrils, and he suspected the creatures he sought were gathered around a dying fire. A glance at the stars showed him that it was nearly dawn, and then he crested a low ridge and saw a dozen or more human-sized figures wrapped in cloaks and lying motionless around the embers of a large blaze.
Settling to the ground in a rush of wings, the dragon lowered his head and glowered balefully at a lone sentry, one who dozed, half standing against a nearby tree.
"Y-Your lordship!" stammered the draconian, dropping its sword as it scrambled to come to attention. "Get up, useless scuts!" it barked at the sleeping company. "Greet his crimson lordship!"
Alerted by the shout and the wind of the dragon's landing, more of the reptilian dragonmen rose from their sleep, muttering and cowering, regarding the monstrous serpent with slitted, fearful eyes.
Flayze was pleased to see that the draconians reacted to his august presence with instinctive obedience and fear. The red dragon huffed a deep breath, a thudding sound like a distant boom of thunder, and the creatures cast themselves facedown onto the ground.
"Tell me, little snakes," he hissed, slowly articulating each word. "What news of the war?"
The draconian guard, apparently used to the slower time sense of great wyrms, raised his head to ask a question. "You refer to the Draconian War, Mighty Lord? The campaigns of the Highlord Ariakas?"
"I do."
"Sad to say, Excellent Fire Breather, the dragons of Paladine and their cruel lances inflicted tragic defeat. The highlord is dead, his armies disbanded."
"I see." Flayze was not terribly displeased by the news. "And what of these lands? Who rules?"
"Much of this land is wild, O Mighty Wyrm. That is why we are able to survive here. The Plains of Dergoth, to the north, are a barren desert. But we have seen a brass dragon there, near the mountain of the great skull."
"Aye, Skullcap." Flayzeranyx remembered flying over the place. He had been curious during that earlier exploration, had even thought to land and investigate, but his rider had ordered him on, no doubt driven toward some other pointless matter of the war.
"He is a bold one, that brass," declared one of the other draconians in a sibilant accusation. "He killed Dwarfskinner, just last month."
"Aye, a killer," murmured several others. They looked at Flayze hopefully, and he understood why: They wanted him to kill the brass.