Then he saw his targets: seven black shapes winging out of the mountains, flying high, but not quite at the lofty altitude of their silver foe. The dragons of the Dark Queen veered along the descending slopes of the foothills, intent upon the battle developing at the edge of the plains. They flew a straight course, in a gentle descent that steadily increased the speed of their approach.
Darlantan stroked the air, flying his fastest as he curled around to approach the black dragons from the side. He flew in deadly silence, wondering if these arrogant wyrms would allow him the luxury of a surprise attack. Winging onward, he closed the distance, still apparently unobserved.
Abruptly one of the black dragons looked up and spotted the swiftly diving silver, braying a warning to its six companions. Fully alerted, the formation swerved toward Darlantan, individual black dragons diverging slightly, confronting him with an array of talons and fangs, holding their searing, acidic breath ready for a deadly crossfire.
It would be death to fly into that vortex of fury. Darlantan could well imagine the corrosive cloud of acid that would rot his scales and dissolve his wings. Instead, the silver dragon dived straight down, so fast that wind whistled through his mane and battered his body. He veered away from the blacks, daring but one look back to see that they had all swept into the pursuit.
The distance separating pursuers from pursued was great, and Darlantan allowed himself to relax a little, sweeping along from the force of his momentum alone. He watched the conical mountain where Aurican was waiting grow larger in his view, looming to dominate all the lesser peaks around it. Finally the level flight began to slow him, and his silver wings once again worked through the air, reaching, propelling the shimmering dragon through the skies.
A stream of acid burned into his left wing with vicious, searing intensity, and Darlantan veered away with a bellow of pain. He strained for more speed, but each wing stroke brought another bolt of agony shooting into his side. In disbelief, he turned to see one of the black dragons curving away with startling agility and speed, whipping through a tight, curling turn to make another pass at him. While its fellows remained well back, the leading wyrm had somehow far outdistanced the others.
Darlantan noticed the quick, almost fluttering motion of the dragon’s wings as it swerved away, cautious of the now-alerted silver. When the black made a quick loop, darting in to resume the attack, he understood: The black serpent was hastened by magic. The wyrm’s speed was so great, its maneuvers so quick and nimble, that it seemed more like a bat or a bee than a great dragon.
Spewing a swath of freezing breath into the air, Darlantan forced the black to veer aside, but was unable to damage his enemy. With renewed determination, the silver dragon turned toward his mountaintop goal, wings straining, trying to build up speed against the sorcerously quickened pursuit of his foe. He ignored the pain in his scarred wing, using the injured flap to pull himself forward.
Then the rim of the high crater was approaching. Climbing gently, Darlantan pulled himself over the top, briefly spotting a tall elf who faced the pursuing dragons with a large gem of black clutched in his hands. Aurican was ready, and Dar would bring him his victims.
The silver dragon felt the pulse of magic as the first of the blacks, the magically hastened serpent, was swallowed by the powerful essence of the stone. The monster simply vanished from the air, the sound of a whirling vortex roaring through the crater of the lofty mountain. The rest of the midnight-dark dragons swept onward, bellowing in rage at the disappearance of their fellow.
A blast of magic swirled through the caldera, much stronger this time as Aurican’s spell captured the spiritual force of six black dragons. Spray rose from the wet snowfields as the wind focused, whirling, rising into a raging funnel cloud. Aurican stood, his feet firmly planted, holding up the gem as the wind curled and blustered.
Abruptly Darlantan saw a flash of crimson, like a slash of living flame in the sky, and he knew that Crematia had arrived. The red was poised above the circular crater, and the silver dragon saw her tuck her wings and arrow toward Aurican-who had his back to the scarlet horror, his full attention still riveted upon the black stone pulsing in his hands. She rushed downward, jaws gaping, foreclaws outstretched.
“Beware!” cried Darlantan, veering through a sharp turn. Aurican still took no notice; his concentration was focused upon the swirling storm and the enchanted gem.
Crematia swept lower, jaws gaping as she approached the figure of the elf, but suddenly she noticed the silver form racing toward her from the side. At the same moment, the whirlwind of sound rose to a thunder, echoing and roaring through the crater, casting a cloud of debris through the air. The red dragon banked away as the swelling crescendo of magic roared in Darlantan’s ears.
And Crematia disappeared, vanished as abruptly as the seven black dragons. The power of the dragongem was a surging wave in the bowl of the valley, a resonant force echoing with sorcery, magic potent enough to swallow the black dragons… and apparently Crematia as well.
The vortex of the cloud swept up the steep slope of the crater, finally rising to whirl around Aurican. The buffeting of the storm was tremendous, but still the elven figure didn’t budge.
And then the wind was gone, snuffed out like a small candle by the pure magic of the dragongem. Aurican held the black stone in his hands, smiling at the silver serpent who wheeled overhead. The skies were clear of chromatic dragons.
“Now,” Aurican shouted, his tone swelling with exultation, “bring me the blues!”
Chapter 13
3357 PC
Campaigns raged across the face of Ansalon, scoring bloody scars over each summer season. During the colder times, the vast armies rested, recouped, and prepared for the upcoming offensives. The tide of battle flowed over the plains of Vingaard, lapped at the foothills of the mountain ranges flanking that great flatland, and washed deep into lands that had once been hallowed forests.
However, with three clans of evil dragonkind imprisoned in the stones of life-trapping and Crematia nowhere to be seen, the blue wyrms had become more cautious. They still sent their lightning against helpless mortals on the ground, but no longer did they join in the great campaigns of Blacktusk’s-and later his heir, Talonian’s-vast army. Thus the elves of Silvanos and the elven leader’s human allies were able to gradually drive back the evil force’s most aggressive spearheads.
Crematia, by all reports, had disappeared at the time of the ambush of the black dragons, and Aurican had quietly voiced the hope that she had somehow been entrapped with her inky cousins. Still, the gems had been specifically forged for a particular kind of dragon, and in darker moments, the gold dragon speculated that the red female had simply teleported away to spare herself from Darlantan’s attack. Thus, she could be biding her time, waiting for her revenge.
Yet finally, after a campaign of more than a hundred winters, victory lay within the grasp of Aurican, Darlantan, and their elven and human allies. Only the blue serpents remained, and the silver and gold had patiently awaited a chance to trap them within the remaining dragongem, the enchanted stone of blue.
Until that stone was stolen.
For once, the ogres used cunning instead of brute force. Bribed by great treasures, some humans had betrayed the rest of their kind, enabling the ogres to penetrate the heart of the army camp where the bluestone was being held for safekeeping. The monsters had made off with the orb, carrying the precious treasure somewhere into the Khalkists.
Now the army of elves and humans was encamped across a vast plain, several days’ march from the forest that had been their only protection in the days before the dragongems. Silvanos and his human allies had taken this position with audacity, in a blatant attempt to lure Talonian into a final battle-a contest that would almost certainly decide the outcome of the war.