“Now, shamans- jump! ” Crematia barked her command, head rearing back to insure that each of the bakali obeyed.
Her precaution was unnecessary. At the command, each of the shamans leapt exultantly from the rim of the crater, clutching its dragongem worshipfully as it vanished into the gulf of fire and smoke. Immediately the mountain roared, waves of heat and light bursting into the sky.
“Now fly, my children! Take wing with me!” The mighty red took to the air, the thirteen younger serpents following. They circled the lofty summit, fighting their way through churning clouds of roiling air, watching as more and more convulsions rocked the Darklady.
“Deathfyre, fly to the valley. Lead the army away to the south,” commanded Crematia as sections of rock slipped away from the summit, tumbling in landslides toward the lowlands masked by smoke and dust.
The red male swept away, and the matriarch turned her attention back to the mountain, secure in the knowledge that her scion would lead the army to safety. For a long time, the great summit rumbled and shook, firing clouds of debris into the air. Even as sunrise illuminated the sky, this remained a region of perpetual shadows. The red dragons circled through the murk, wyrmlings flying behind their mighty matriarch, glimpsing the shuddering, conical peak through gaps in the swirling smoke.
Abruptly the top of the mountain exploded, the force of the blast sending even mighty Crematia reeling through the skies. She plunged downward and away, pulling herself out of the dive and guiding her nestlings-except Deathfyre-back toward the shattered summit.
But now there was more than smoke and ash roiling through the air. Crematia’s heart pounded at a glimpse of blue wing slicing through the edge of the cloud, at a green tail that flickered into sight, then vanished. Then scaly shapes passed to all sides, giant serpentine bodies borne by leathery wings.
At last the slopes of Darklady Mountain tumbled away, shattered by convulsive explosions, wracked by mighty destruction. Lava surged into the air, gouts of liquid rock sizzling through the clouds, splattering against the heaving ground below. Rocks as big as Crematia’s wing floated past, tossed like marbles by the violent pressure of the dying mountain.
The pressure of noise shook the air with thunderous force, but the crimson matriarch exulted in the violence, knowing that the convulsions were nothing less than the power of the Dark Queen. More of the summit was blasted into dust, and she brayed loudly, a shrill cry of delight.
One whole shoulder of the massive peak sloughed away, thundering downward in an avalanche of dust, gravel, and flaming debris. More slopes fell, some collapsing inward, others falling out, sliding with glacial power into the smoldering, trembling valleys below. Colors flashed within that roiling murk, here a patch of white and blue, there a blur of green, a smudge of perfect black.
Then they were all around, filling the skies, crying deep challenges and exulting in freedom after long centuries of confinement. The chromatic dragons of the Dark Queen, released from their prisons in the dragongems, swept away from the mountain that had now collapsed into three lesser, but still mighty, summits. The wyrms of Takhisis bellowed their joy at their freedom and roared with rage at the thought of vengeance that had been too long denied.
“Fly, my kin-dragons!” cried Crematia. “Take wing with me to the south, where our armies march-and where we shall take our revenge against the elven lands!”
Chapter 20
2693 PC
Aurican drifted in a pleasant haze of memory and reflection. Sprawled across the great mountain ridge of the High Kharolis, he knew as he looked down that he was watching Callak and Auricus chase each other’s tails through a maze of valleys and gorges. Specks of bright metal darted, looped, and raced in the full enthusiasm of youthful flight, their gold and silver wings a blur of shimmering reflection.
Yet a part of the mighty gold’s mind could almost believe that it was himself and Darlantan down there, perfecting those maneuvers for the first time, chasing and wrestling, hunting together or tormenting their kin-dragons of the brown metals. When he drifted into these reflections, he felt like a young wyrmling again, ready to flex his wings and buzz like a hummingbird through the vast realm of the sky.
But when he shifted and stretched, he was vividly reminded that he was an ancient dragon now. His wings crackled, comfortable in repose but reluctant to respond to the commands of elderly muscles. His neck and back were sore, and he wanted nothing more than to absorb the warmth of the sun soaking through the shiny metallic scales. Was it his imagination, or did his spine actually creak as he raised his head to look off the other side of the mountain? He was slightly restless-worried, perhaps, about some unnamed threat to the nestlings, but not so agitated that he felt it necessary to move.
Though, in fact, these youngsters gave him many things to worry about. Callak and Aurican, of course, were strong and proud, and would someday be worthy heirs to the silver and gold clans. Auri learned magic with real talent, and his silver nestmate showed promise in the arcane arts as well. But they were impetuous and reckless in ways that disturbed the venerable gold, as if they didn’t acknowledge the possibility of danger, the threat implicit in the Queen of Darkness and her currently dormant dragons. Naturally Aurican tended to forget that he and Darlantan had lived for thousands of years before becoming aware of that menace.
And the males of the brown metals were even more worrisome. Flash was every bit as selfish and hot-tempered as his sire, Blayze, had been. The younger copper showed little patience for the concerns of his nestmates and had been quick to bite-or even to spit a nasty stream of acid-when his young kin-dragons displeased him. From an early age, he had shown a tendency to wander off, to hunt and dwell by himself. Flash had located his sire’s lair, Auri knew, but he feared that the vast treasures concealed therein had spoiled the young copper, making him even more suspicious and resentful of the others.
And Brunt, the offspring of strong, thick-skulled Burll, had sadly shown little of his sire’s placid nature. Like Flash, Brunt had found a separate lair, and he spent much of his time hoarding treasures and avoiding the company of the rest of Paladine’s brood. Whether it was the same place Burll had used Aurican didn’t know, but the young bronze always returned from his journeys with the scents of brine and fish that had distinguished the elder bronze.
At least Dazzall had carried on the sociable legacy of Smelt. He was already well known among humans and had proven to be a peacemaker among the nestmates. Although he was a passable student of magic, he lacked the concentration of Auricus or the native intelligence of Callak.
Aurican’s attention drifted as his head swept through a serene, regal inspection. He saw the two lakes, where Oro and Kenta had gone to their final rest, side by side, their waters now emerald green following the spring melt, and sighed with loneliness. He was acutely aware that he was the last of his nestmates, the only one of Patersmith’s pupils still alive.
It had been within the last fifty winters that the two elder females had finally weakened. Kenta had gone first, crawling from the lair into the mountains, laying herself on the ice so that she had been entombed by the thawing of spring. Then, the next year, golden Oro had followed her silver cousin into the realm beyond life.