Suddenly a great presence loomed in the sky as clouds congealed into a shape, straining to achieve solidity. Again Tombfyre felt a shiver of awe, of lethal and immortal presence. Was it the queen? Would she come here, to Krynn, riding the victory of her legions? Tombfyre saw the writhing heads, the smoky clouds that formed the great immortal body now taking form, and his heart flared with hope.
But one after another of Deathfyre’s wyrms were slain, and though a few of the good dragons and their riders were knocked out of the air, the battle developed catastrophically for the red dragon’s wing. The serpents of the Dark Queen surged from high altitude or tried to sweep upward from below. But always they were met with those terrible lances, the weapons relentlessly cutting and piercing and killing.
Finally, with a shrill cry, Deathfyre dived away and led the surviving serpents of the Dark Queen in headlong flight, while the good dragons maintained their defensive spiral, apparently content to let the attackers go-until a mighty silver, mounted by an armored knight, appeared out of nowhere. The tip of his lance ripped through Deathfyre’s flank, and with a ground-shaking scream, the villainous red dragon, the ancient harbinger of evil who had lived for two thousand years, flipped onto his back and plunged, lifeless, toward the bloodstained plain.
Tombfyre shrieked in rage as he saw his sire fall. But still more of those deadly lances rushed closer, an encircling ring of death, and he knew that this battle was lost.
“We will marshal our forces and return with a hundred dragons!” he bellowed in fury, though the cry sounded hollow even in his own ears. In truth, they had been soundly defeated, his dragons all but driven from the skies.
“My son, scion of Deathfyre… hear the will of your queen.”
The words reached Tombfyre, and they were clear and precise, as if Takhisis spoke to him from close proximity. He whipped his head around, gaping at the sight of a massive, cloudy shape crowned by five writhing heads of smoke. The heads wailed and twitched, as if the immortal goddess were suffering grievous pain.
“Speak, my queen, giver and taker of all life!” the red dragon begged.
He saw the Queen of Darkness herself as she shimmered in the air. Again he felt a moment of soaring hope…
… but then he sensed the whole truth. A terrible lance had pierced the gut of the five-headed monstrosity, and he understood that more than a battle had been lost. He thought of the silvers who had killed his sire, who had evaded him in the skies to the south, and he cried out in anguished frustration as he watched the dark goddess fade into the skies.
He knew he should fly, should seek and kill his enemies.
But he couldn’t move.
“My chromatic children, you are banished, exiled. It is the price of my survival. You must come with me!”
The will of the Dark Queen reached him through space, and he saw the awful truth: By oath had Huma freed the Dark Queen, and by that oath was Tombfyre bound as well.
Takhisis would withdraw from Krynn, and as she had pledged to Huma, a vow made in exchange for her life, she would bear her children away with her, ordering them into exile from the world.
But as always the Queen of Darkness sought to work betrayal.
And as the chromatic dragons were pulled toward the Abyss, Tombfyre was given a lair of comfort and safety deep in the bowels of the world.
And he felt a destiny of greatness and majesty laid upon his shoulders.
Chapter 35
1027 PC
A wild elf brave, Ashtaway, reached Lectral only a few hours after the grievously wounded dragon had sounded the ram’s horn. Marked by the spiral tattoos of black ink that had marked his clan since the time of Kagonos, the warrior found the shallow cave in which the silver serpent had sought shelter. Aided by a Kagonesti maid, Hammana, the brave brought venison to the injured dragon, while the healing skills of the elfmaid helped to stanch the bleeding of his worst injuries.
Slowly, dreamily, he allowed them to tend him, welcomed their ministrations and their company. For a long time, he remained under their care, depending on Ashtaway for food, relying upon Hammana’s poultices to heal his many wounds. Though the brave was often absent, the maid stayed at his side for many days, and the large dragon welcomed her presence. At the same time, Lectral was aware of a deep irony: He had come to save the Kagonesti, and instead it was they who had saved him.
And in his darker moments, when the two elves left him alone, he acknowledged a deeper truth. He had not flown southward solely to serve the Kagonesti, to fulfill a sense of his own duty. Rather, he had also done so to avoid the painful reality of Heart’s choice, her love for a human. Unaware of the course of the war raging in the north, he remained lost in his own musings, occasionally brightened by the presence of the two wild elves.
As he watched them together, saw the tenderness in their mutual looks and hesitant touches, perceived their concern for each other and the longing in Hammana’s eyes when Ashtaway was absent. He realized they were in love with each other. He found the knowledge both heartening and sad. The attraction seemed very natural, their joy together almost palpable-and he could only think of Heart. Could she possibly feel this same kind of affection for her knight?
Over the course of a season or more, his injuries slowly healed, though one rear leg and his wings remained badly damaged, so much so that he still couldn’t fly. Then, late on a warm day, after Hammana had gone back to her village, Lectral heard a rustle of silver wings and saw a familiar snout peering at him from the sunlit woods beyond his shallow cave.
“Silvara!” he declared, his heart pounding with a joy he had thought vanished forever.
The silver female padded into the small cave. “I am glad I found you, Honored Elder. I feared for you more than I can say.”
“And you, Little Sister-you’re a sight more welcome than you can possibly know.”
“You’re hurt!” she declared, moving forward to inspect the red scars of his wounds.
“I have been well cared for. I will live and probably even fly again, given time. But now, tell me of the war, the dragons and their lancers in the skies…?”
“The war is over. The dragons of Takhisis are gone, sent from the world by the Dark Queen herself, in a vow forced upon her by the knight Huma, in exchange for her own life.”
“Heart was right about him, then… He is a man of true greatness.” Lectral felt a stab of shame, sharpened by the fact that he couldn’t completely banish a flush of jealousy.
Silvara lowered her head, and with a growing ache of grief, he suspected the next thing she would have to tell him.
“And what of Heart?” he asked, barely daring to breathe.
“The cost of our victory was high. She was slain, perishing at the same time as her knight,” the silver female replied.
Lectral was silent for a long time. His thoughts churned in a stormy mixture of guilt and grief, wanting to blame the human knight for the death of his nestmate. With another rush of shame, he found that he could not. If anyone was to blame, it was he.
“Have you heard of the red dragons… of the one called Tombfyre?” Lectral thought of the wicked serpent who had taunted and fought him, and now he trembled in profound rage. If he was unable to save her, at least he could look forward to revenge!