Then movement of an entirely different sort caught Bobbin's eye, and he raised himself high in his wicker to peer dead ahead. Something was coming from the north, coming toward him, a speck against the horizon but definitely coming his way… and flying. Where exasperation had been, hope surged forward, brightening the gnome's gaze.
Flying! Someone else is up here in another flying machine, Bobbin thought gleefully. I'm not alone. Grinning eagerly, he settled into his wicker seat and lowered the nose of the soarwagon gently, aiming for the approaching flier. Someone to compare notes with! Someone who might have an answer to my dilemma! Someone else in the sky!
At a mile's distance, the gnome studied the stranger. Red in color – bright, crimson red – with movable wings that flapped rhythmically, and a long, trailing appendage of some sort. And legs? Yes, definitely legs. Not wheels or runners, but jointed legs, like an animal's. And who was flying it? Bobbin could not see a cockpit or basket, not even someone mounted on a bench.
Closer still, Bobbin moved. Then his eyes began to widen in incredulous astonishment. The thing looked -he would have sworn it – like a flying dragon. Ridiculous, he told himself. There are no dragons on Krynn. There were dragons once, they said. Ages ago. But not now. Not in the memory of anyone living had there been reports of dragons.
Closer and closer the two fliers came, and more and more Bobbin had to admit that it did look like a dragon. A huge, red, flying dragon, coming along the line of peaks, coming directly toward him.
Fear washed up and down the gnome's spine, a compelling, sweating fear that was like cold fingers gripped him. Then a voice spoke to him. "Who are you?" it asked, seeming to be right there beside him. Bobbin gasped and looked around, this way and that, trying to see who had spoken. The dragon was a halfmile away now, and there was no doubt in the gnome's mind that it was, indeed, a dragon. Again the voice at the gnome's shoulder asked, "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" the gnome shouted. "Where are you?"
"You're looking at me," the voice said. "Yes. Me. And yes, little creature, I am what you think I am. Now, calm down and tell me who you are?"
"Bobbin," Bobbin said. "I… I'm a gnome. Are you really a… But of course you are. You wouldn't say so if you weren't, would you?"
"Bobbin," the voice seemed to purr in his ear. "Just keep coming,
Bobbin. You will have no further doubts, in a moment or so."
Whether it was Bobbin's own numb hands trembling at the control strings, or some vagrant current of air, the soarwagon chose that instant to slip to the right, stall, and go into a nosedive. Suddenly the gnome saw spinning mountaintops straight ahead, and somewhere behind him the air crackled with fire.
"Oh, gearslip?" he muttered, struggling with his controls.
"Aha," the voice at his shoulder chuckled. "A fine dodge, gnome. You were lucky that time. But you won't be so lucky again. I can't let you live, you know."
"Why not?" Bobbin tugged strings, wrestling the plunging soarwagon out of its spin.
"Because you have seen me," the calm voice said.
"That is your misfortune. None who see me must live to tell of it… not yet, anyway. You see, that could spoil the Highlord's plan."
"I wouldn't want to do that, I suppose." Bobbin hauled on his lines, and the soarwagon's nose edged a few degrees down. Bobbin glanced back and gasped. The red dragon was less than a hundred yards back, wings folded, gaping jaws displaying ranks of glittering teeth. The soarwagon screamed into a dive, strained its fabrics, and flattened out of the descent, its wake currents spewing a small snowstorm from the icy top of a rock peak.
Behind the contraption the dragon spread great wings and dodged the pinnacle.
"That was a nice stunt," the deep voice said in Bobbin's mind. "But awfully chancy."
"I'm insane," the gnome explained.
"What a shame," the dragon voice purred. "Well, you won't have to worry about that much longer."
Bobbin glanced around again. He had gained some lead, but now the dragon was winging around, making for him in a flanking attack. The creature was huge, far larger in both length and wingspan than Bobbin's soarwagon. It fairly radiated power and dominance and a mastery of the air. Its very presence was enough to inspire an awful fear, like nothing the gnome had felt before.
"I don't suppose we could come to some… ah… less terminal agreement?" Bobbin suggested, throwing the soarwagon into a side slip that plunged it directly below the dragon. He soared into a climb beyond his pursuer.
"Don't be ridiculous," the dragon voice was tinged with anger now… and something else that tingled just beyond the gnome's understanding. "You might as well stop this dancing around. You don't have a chance of escaping, you know."
"I'm sorry," Bobbin said. "No offense intended, of course, but self-preservation is a difficult habit to break." He increased the soarwagon's pitch and reached for the sky. Behind him, the red dragon beat great wings, powerful in full pursuit. Yet, somehow, the beast seemed a trifle sluggish.
Could the creature be tired? the gnome wondered. The hint in the voice, that subtle something… could it be fatigue?
"Stop this, now!" the dragon commanded. "I don't have all day."
"I'm wrestling with my instincts," Bobbin assured it. "I suppose you've come quite a long way."
"Nearly five hundred miles," the dragon snapped.
"Not that it's any of your business."
"Aerodynamics," Bobbin muttered. "Mass and energy coefficients."
"Stop babbling and come back here!"
"You certainly are big," the gnome remarked, his mind racing. "I'll bet you weigh a ton."
"Closer to three," the dragon voice sneered.
"Five hundred miles, you said?" He dug out a carbon marker and did rapid calculations on the trailing edge of his wing. "At say… twenty knots?
That means you've been in the air for more than twenty-four hours. That's a long time. Do you have far to go?"
"Not much farther. Now let's get this over with. Turn around?"
"I'm still having problems with my autonomic responses," the gnome apologized. Glancing around one more time, he readjusted his lines, dropping the craft's nose in a sudden forty-five degree dive. He wondered how much longer he could stay out of the dragon's reach.
Chapter 25
Camber Meld and Fleece Ironhill stood at the center of a ragged, determined line of refugees, watching goblins advance across the ice.
Twenty-eight fighters formed the motley line, dwarves and humans, most of them male but with a few females among them. A few held weapons of recent make, but most were armed with ancient blades, hammers, axes, and shields broken from the smoking ice – weapons that had been dropped or cast aside by those still under the ice. The two chieftains looked each way along their ragged battle line, then glanced at each other. There was nothing more to say, and nothing now to do except wait for the attack and hold the line for as long as possible while the helpless ones – those in the refugee camps – made their escape.
It was all they could do. The refugees were outnumbered four to one, poorly armed and poorly equipped, a handful of herders and planters against a force of goblins. They all knew that the best they might achieve would be a little time.