“Come on, Lectral! Let’s go talk to him!”
“Not again,” groaned the male, knowing it was useless. Heart had already dipped her wing, sideslipping into a gliding dive that would carry them to ground out of sight of the riders, allowing them to land behind a screening line of tall pines.
By the time Lectral had settled to the grassy turf, Heart had changed to the form she preferred for these increasingly frequent encounters. Cloaked in the body of a tall, beautiful human woman, garbed in a typical noblewoman’s silks that were perhaps a trifle more revealing than modesty would require, she strode forward into the roadway. Experience had shown her that an appearance like this would invariably bring the armored rider to a halt, no matter how pressing his business.
Lectral barely had time to assume his own disguise. In the form of a severe warrior, avuncular of appearance yet still strapping and capable in physique, he followed Heart as she waited for the rider to approach. The male dragon reflected that, if Heart’s appearance was certain to get the knight to stop, his own stern and glowering visage was calculated to prevent the human from lingering for too long.
“Ho, my lady!” cried the warrior, lifting the visor of his helm with a gauntlet-covered hand. “And your honored grandfather as well!” he added hastily as Lectral advanced protectively at Heart’s side.
“Greetings, Sir Knight!” The shapely maiden dipped into a polite curtsy.
“Stand your horses there, men,” the rider directed, sending his followers into a nearby meadow as he dismounted.
“It is a pleasure to encounter you,” Heart declared breathily. “I see that you bear the mark of the rose.”
“Aye, lady. Methinks you know somewhat of the three orders that make up our ranks.”
“Indeed I do, brave sir. And I know that, though crown may be mighty and sword strong, it is the rose that is most pleasant upon the senses.”
“Indeed!” The knight positively beamed, the tips of his curling mustaches rising with his expression. “Er, is there a matter upon which I may be of assistance? Ogre trouble, perhaps? The brutes are reported to abound in this area.”
“We have seen ogres, but they’re dead now,” Lectral replied grimly.
For the first time, the knight regarded the strapping form of the maiden’s escort. Lectral’s gray eyes met the human’s frankly, and he allowed the sinew to ripple along his arms.
“No mean feat,” admitted the armored rider. He hesitated, but Lectral made it clear that he wasn’t about to wander away.
“Quite. Well, er, if your matters are in hand, there is business that calls me to Dargaard, else I would be certain to linger,” he pledged, with a deep bow to Heart.
“Wait!” she cried as he swung back into his saddle. “Would you carry this… for luck?”
She lifted a scarf of shimmering silver, so light that it seemed to float like a spiderweb on the gentle breeze.
“It would be my honor, fair lady!” cried the knight, clearly moved.
Heart kissed the plume of silk, then handed it to the rider, who wasted no time in lashing it to the tip of his lance. By that time, his retainers had mounted, and with a cheery farewell, the band took to the road. Only after they were out of sight did the two dragons change shape and once again wing into the sky.
“Why did you do that?” grumbled Lectral, strangely disturbed by the memory of Heart’s flirtations.
“Oh, Lec, it was such fun! And it’s harmless!”
“It’s not harmless. It’s mischief!” retorted the glowering silver male.
“What about you and the wild elves? You’re always talking to them, traveling among them. Don’t tell me they all know the truth of your identity.”
“That’s different,” Lectral declared. “You know of the special bond we have with the Elderwild, going all the way back to Darlantan and Kagonos.”
“Now you sound like an old fuddy gold!” teased Heart. To punctuate her words, she dipped a wing and dived away from Lectral, flicking her tail teasingly across his belly as she began an upside-down loop, then dropped into a straight plummet toward the ground.
He plunged after her and had to work hard in order to catch her. Wingtip to wingtip, they glided toward the dusk, relishing the rosy expanse of sky as the last rays of the setting sun glimmered off their scales.
They came to rest on a high ridge of the Kharolis, knowing that a teeming nation of dwarves dwelt below them. Yet it was still one of Lectral’s favorite places, as it had been for years and years, and had been for the generations of metal dragons preceding them. Aloof and removed from such concerns, the mighty serpents watched the growing swath of rosy purple, deeply content as the sunset expanded to encompass the western horizon.
Chapter 29
Circa 1300 PC
Deathfyre stirred, awakening in the depths of his fiery chasm. Over an immeasurable time, the spell of suspension that had entrapped him was gradually weakened, allowing the mighty crimson head to rise with glacial deliberation. The Dark Queen’s summons was a faint and distant knell, and only slowly did the red dragon become aware of the keening, pervasive call. He puffed a slow exhalation of dry air, unaware of the ashes that wafted from his nostrils or the soot that layered his crimson scales.
Suspended thus, he had slept for a dozen centuries while the metallic wyrms of Paladine had grown complacent in their superiority on the surface of Ansalon. Deathfyre had grown larger and more terrible during his torpor, yet in his awareness, it was as if little or no time had passed.
He knew nothing of his old rivals, Callak and Auricus, nor was he aware of the spreading presence of humankind. Beyond the mountains, more and more lands of ancient wilderness, as well as realms once held by ogres, elves, or dwarves, had been claimed by the relentlessly energetic race of men. Closer by, the Khalkists remained a region of raging fire and eternal smoke, but even here the presence of humankind was penetrating with relentless determination.
Through the murk of his long suspension, Deathfyre was vaguely aware that all of his kin had been slain. The magic of the brother mages had been an irresistible force, and the proud dragons of Crematia’s mighty horde had been swallowed by the bedrock of Krynn, where they had withered and perished over the passing centuries.
At the same time, he could not know of the convulsions caused by the violent magic of the three arcane sorcerers. It would have pleased him to learn that the trio of wizards had been relentlessly hunted by the elves, eventually forced into magical banishment or killed outright. So devastating had been the wild magic unleashed by their great casting that elven historians regarded them as villains of the same scope and wickedness as the dragons of Takhisis themselves.
And only Deathfyre had been spared, by fortune, magic, and the blessing of his five-headed mistress. As the epic forces of unnatural magic had wrenched the world, pulling the other chromatic dragons into captivity, he had been dragged to the same cavern in the bowels of the Lords of Doom where Crematia had sheltered more than a millennia before.
Deathfyre’s matriarch had emerged from that hibernation to loose a flood of destruction across the face of the world, commencing a nearly triumphant campaign for the mastery of Ansalon. Soon her descendants would be ready to do the same, but the Dark Queen had learned a lesson from Crematia’s arrogance and knew that her dragons would not be able to achieve a swift and easy victory.
Instead, Deathfyre’s campaign would employ a new tactic, characterized by patience far beyond any Takhisis had displayed in the past. The plan itself filtered into the red dragon’s mind over centuries, instilled by long and repetitive dreams. These visions gave to him memories of blood and killing, of plunder and wealth, and they warmed him within as the fundamental fire of the Khalkists radiated against him from without.