“You are brave, my ogres!” crowed the red dragon, and a roaring chorus of approbation rose from the gathered throng. “And soon you shall vent your courage against the legions of our Dark Lady’s enemies!”
The shouts rose to a thunderous crescendo, resounding from the high stone walls of the barren valley. Crematia allowed her leathery eyelids to droop lazily as she swept her gaze over the frenzied, noisy mob. Ogre skin was slicked with sweat, and tiny eyes gleamed furiously from many a flat-skulled face. She saw the spittle dripping from tusks, heard the pure hatred in so many of those lusty shouts.
In the center of the throng, a huge fire blazed upward, spilling a wash of bright light through the deep canyon. The black, smoky skies of the Khalkists glowered overhead as a pile of whole pine trunks crackled and flared with greedy flames. Fiery tendrils roared eagerly upward, as if they would challenge the sun with their heat and brightness.
As encouraging to Crematia as the frenzy of her own tribe was the fact that similar gatherings were occurring in other valleys throughout the Khalkist Range. The dragon clans of blue, black, white, and green had each claimed realms in the mountains and foothills. Her cousins were more numerous, of course, a dozen or more of each color to her solitary crimson presence. Yet still she was acknowledged as their lord, for she alone had received the blessing of the Dark Lady herself.
So it was only appropriate that none of those other ogre bands was quite so large, nor were any of their dragon masters her equal in size, sorcery, or savagery. It pleased her to know this legion was but the vanguard of a mighty force that in time would sweep across Ansalon and spread the yoke of the Dark Queen’s rule to all corners of the world.
And at last that time had come.
“Blacktusk,” she growled in a rumbling purr. Her word settled the roaring and pulled the attention of the massive bull ogre to the red serpent coiled on the high rock.
“I am your slave, mistress!” cried that brute, whose maw was distinguished by a single, upward-jutting fang, an ivory tusk dark and discolored enough to have given the mighty chieftain his name.
“Tell me what the scouts have reported,” demanded Crematia.
“The elves of the woodlands have spread throughout the forestlands of Ansalon,” growled the hulking brute. “While we have been busy slaughtering and enslaving the humans on the plains, their long-lived allies have been establishing strong footholds to the south.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“My crimson lady, barely two moons ago an entire war party, commanded by my own brother, Fire-eye, was destroyed by ice magic as it circled the southern mountain. From this we have learned that the elves possess the power of sorcery, the power the humans have told us has been lost for ages.”
“I know this tale,” Crematia said slowly. Her hooded eyes narrowed still further as she considered the disturbing implications. “Yet the skill of your Painmasters is sufficient to insure that your human slaves are not lying, is it not?”
“Aye, mistress. My torturers possess exquisite abilities. I believe these humans spoke the truth as they knew it, up until the time their tongues were ripped from their mouths. They believe that magic is gone from Krynn.”
“So if the elves possess magic, they have kept it secret from their allies?”
“Well… we know that the alliance between humans and elves is tenuous at best. Would it not be natural for such a mighty truth to remain concealed from the short-lived, irresponsible men?”
“That is one possibility,” the red dragon agreed.
Privately, she placed more credence in another theory. After all, she and her chromatic kin-dragons had been granted magic in the Abyss by the Queen of Darkness herself. Crematia was fairly certain that the elves had not, in fact, discovered a way to bring magic back to Krynn on their own. She knew it was far more likely that the icy attack had a different origin, and it was one the nature of which her ogres did not as yet need to know.
“Do you have prisoners?”
Blacktusk nodded. “Bring out the elves!” he roared.
Immediately strapping ogres rolled away a rock that had been placed to block the mouth of a small cave. A hulking warrior seized a chain and pulled forth a trio of golden-haired figures-elven warriors, unarmed but still clad in their supple chain mail. The tallest of these stepped before the others, who were obviously younger and very frightened. But the leader crossed his arms over his chest and glared defiantly up at the dragon.
“Shall I show mercy?” Crematia brayed the question so it could be heard by her entire gathered horde.
“Mercy is weakness!” The cry came back as a resounding chant, echoing from the mountain walls, thundering through the valley. “And weakness is death!”
Crematia’s blast of fire exploded outward, engulfing the elves as the roar of the conflagration drowned out the echoes of the chant. By the time the oily flames had dispersed, the place where the three elves had died was marked only by a few cinders. Even these tumbled and drifted away, carried away by a light wind.
“When you sweep upon the elves, you shall have the aid of my dragonfire-and, too, of the ice and acid, the lightning and toxins, of my cousins. Even the mightiest elven warrior will be unable to face us!”
Once again the cheers rang out, reflected along with the torchlight from the high walls of the gorge, until the entire deep chasm resounded with thunderous shouts and flaring, surging flames. The bonfire surged higher as ogres threw dried pine trunks onto the mound of coals, and these timbers were quickly engulfed by renewed flames.
“Soon we march!” bellowed Crematia. “But before then, we feast!”
Now the roars swelled into a cheer, raucous shouts whooping upward, echoing from the high walls. A file of naked humans, linked by heavy bronze chains, was led into the chasm. Wailing and crying, cringing from the brutes roaring and slavering on every side, the hapless prisoners were dragged into the very center of the throng.
“Let the feasting commence!” crowed the red dragon.
Immediately the ogres surged toward the captives, burying the humans in a throng of heaving, burly bodies. Screams rose to hysteria, then swiftly faded. There had been nearly a hundred of the human sacrifices, so Crematia knew the feasting would continue for some time.
She herself had little interest in the gory proceedings. Instead, she launched into the air, flying above the throng, winging her way upward until she circled out of the gorge and flew among the lofty peaks that cast the canyon into an eternal shadow.
On a high ledge of a mountain she came to rest, tucking her wings and passing into a shadowy alcove. She inspected the surface of the stone, seeing only her own footprints in the soot she had scattered there. That was as it should be, since no other creature would even know that the level surface was here. Crematia’s magic had concealed the entrance, causing it to blend in with the surrounding cliff so perfectly that even a passing eagle wouldn’t be aware the place offered the possibility of a perch.
Probing inward with her head, Crematia quickly found the wall of stone across the narrow passage. Like the soot, this barrier was undisturbed. A single word blinked the magical barrier out of existence, and now the red dragon crept into a cavernous space deeper within the mountain. The familiar odor of magma was a refreshing balm, and she recognized the reptilian hint in the scent that was suggestive of her own spoor.
Twin pools of lava flared and bubbled, one each at opposite edges of the vaguely oval chamber. A stream of liquid rock, glowing bright yellow at the top and cooling to muted crimson near the bottom, spilled from a chute on the far wall, gathering in a trough that divided the stream and carried it to each of the two pools. Lava and flame cast the entire chamber in a glare of muted orange, accented by brighter swaths of red near the flowing rock itself.