The Crown of Tides tingled, swept up her tears and began to multiply them into a river of tears.
In the sky overhead, the black, green, and blue dragons closed the distance to a swarm of glittering silvers carrying Knights of Solamnia. Gold dragons were in the lead and the most numerous. But copper, brass, and bronze dragons were among them, as well.
Gilthanas was astride Silvara, hands clasping a long sword. He spotted a fork of lightning as it stretched down toward the mountains, and his mind snared it, twisting it in midair and hurling it back against the lead black dragon. The black howled and flapped madly to stay aloft, its scales and blood raining down on the plateau.
The dozen silvers behind Silvara were streaking forward. She had called more, but these were the first to reach the Window of the Stars portal, perhaps the only ones who would make it here in time. They would not be enough, Silvara knew, but they could be trusted to sacrifice themselves to keep these foul dragons from joining the overlords below and interfering with Palin’s bid to stop Takhisis. She and Gilthanas would gladly sacrifice themselves, too, if necessary.
Fast behind her were Terror and Splendor, bronze and brass dragons who wanted no part of living beneath the Dark Queen again. They, too, would sacrifice themselves for this just cause.
“A man?” On the plateau, Beryl, the green overlord, paused in her chant and spotted the half-ogre rushing toward her. She inhaled sharply and dropped her head, opened her mouth and breathed a cloud of caustic gas. It drifted toward the half-ogre and the red-haired wolf. Both flattened themselves against the ground as the cloud passed over their heads.
Groller groaned. The liquid burned his eyes and lungs, stung his skin and overwhelmed his senses. Fury nudged his side. The wolf’s coat was drenched with the stuff, but it did not seem to affect him. With the wolf’s prodding, Groller kept going toward the dragon.
Beryl smelled them as Groller and the wolf came closer. She felt the man’s sword strike her and felt the wolf nip at her dew claws. They could not hurt her; they were not worthy of her attention.
Instead, Beryl stared at Malys. She saw the Red shimmer. Something was happening! The ceremony was working! Beryl’s chant came louder and quicker.
“Malystryx, my queen!” Gellidus the White howled. Palin’s flames had melted away a patch of Gellidus’s scales. And now a woman with flame-colored hair and a dark man, Fiona and Rig, struck at the white dragon. Fiona’s sword drew blood, as she targeted her swings for places where the flames had melted away the scales. The mariner labored at the white dragon’s side, the glaive light in his hands. He swung the weapon and watched with amazement as it sheared through the dragon’s scales and yielded a line of red.
“Malystryx!” Gellidus called again. The man was hurting him. A human was causing him pain! The White turned his head, his icy blue eyes narrowing on Rig.
The white dragon inhaled sharply, drawing the hot hateful air into his lungs. Then he exhaled, releasing a blast of cold, a winter storm.
Fiona was familiar with Frost’s tactics. She barreled into Rig, knocking the mariner away from the force of the sharp ice crystals.
Rig slammed his teeth together and felt his legs shake from the intense cold. He sank to the ground, now wet with the melted ice particles. His arms and chest bled from dozens of wounds where the rapierlike crystals had struck him. He knew he would have been killed, had Fiona not knocked him away.
His hands stayed tight around the glaive haft, and he somehow found the strength to stand and swing the blade again.
“Rig!” Fiona called. Struggling to her feet, she saw he was badly hurt. She was shivering, too. “Move in close, where his breath can’t reach you! Hurry!”
The mariner complied, pressing against Gellidus’s underbelly. He swung the glaive at the thick plates that protected the dragon.
Fiona stabbed at the dragon’s open wound, her arm pumping faster as she heard the dragon’s intake of breath. She pressed herself against Gellidus’s side, feeling an intense rush of cold against her back. She was barely out of the reach of the icy shards.
Malys watched Gellidus breathe ice again, staring at the glaive the man was wielding against the white overlord. It was the one she had coveted and had wanted to help fuel her ceremony. The man was gravely hurt. He was stubborn, determinedly clinging to life and to the weapon, as he struck again.
Malystryx felt power flowing from the magical treasure pile and into her—into her claws, up her legs and toward her furnacelike heart. The ceremony was working! The world before her stood stock-still for a single, delicious, unbearable instant, and in that moment she knew she was a goddess.
She would kill Dhamon Grimwulf, then the man swinging the glaive. She would take the glaive and secret it away from all men. She was Takhisis, the All. She tossed back her head and breathed a gout of flame into the heavens. Fire fell back on her, and she relished the sensation.
Dhamon felt the fire strike his shoulders, biting into him. Not so painful as the glaive had felt after he killed Gold-moon, he told himself, nor so painful as being under the red overlord’s total domination.
“Malys!” Dhamon bellowed.
Feril stared up at the red dragon’s massive chin, felt the air cool about her from the gathering water, felt the crown pulse on her head. She concentrated on the ancient bauble, on the dragon, and felt a rush of energy. A beam of water erupted from the crown, a spray as tight and straight as a spear. The water reached up to Malys, knocking the red overlord off balance, sending her back from her magical treasure pile. A white cloud of steam rose into the air, engulfing the dragon.
“You dare!” came a rumbling cry from inside the cloud.
Dhamon spun away from the dragon, his feet slamming against the treasure and carrying him toward Feril. He leapt at her, knocking her to the ground in the same instant that a ball of fire shot out of the steam. It crackled above their bodies and, by happenstance, struck Gellidus squarely in his chest.
“My queen!” Gellidus bellowed.
Fiona fell at the white dragon’s side, catching only the misdirected heat of Malys’s fiery blast. But it was enough to blister her skin and send a wave of pain through her body. Despite her training, the young Knight of Solamnia screamed. Her sword branded her palm, the blade clattering to the ground, and Fiona doubled over.
Rig, too, narrowly avoided the fire blast, protected by Gellidus’s belly. He saw Fiona fall, felt tears well up in his eyes. “Shaon,” he whispered, fearing that Fiona would succumb to a dragon as Shaon had. He didn’t rush to her, though. Instead, he raised the glaive again and struck a blow at the White, cleaving through dragonflesh and striking bone beneath.
Gellidus screamed, beating his wings, and headed into the sky, away from the cloud of black, green, blue and silver dragons overhead. He wanted no part of any more fighting. Krynn’s new dragon goddess could damn him, he realized, but Gellidus, who detested pain and heat, turned his great head toward the west and with painful strokes of his wings started back toward the blessed cold of Southern Ergoth.
“Palin!” Usha yelled. “One of them’s leaving: the white one. I think Rig drove it off!” She watched the mariner hurry to Fiona’s side. Usha breathed a sigh of relief when Rig tugged Fiona to her feet and they moved together toward Onysablet. “Palin, perhaps we truly can win.”
The sorcerer shook his head. “We can’t beat them,” Palin said. “We can’t kill them, not even one of them. We haven’t the power. But we can disrupt what Malys has planned. That would be some measure of victory.”
“Don’t talk like that Palin. Maybe we...”
The words died in her throat. Coming from around the pile of magical treasure were the blue and red lieutenants, Gale and Hollintress. Khellendros had sent his most trusted lieutenant to deal with Palin Majere, the hated sorcerer he thought he’d killed months ago on Schallsea Island.