Ranks of pikers marched past, yards away, and a drumroll of hooves arose nearby where a company of hired Solamnians maneuvered. People came and went about them, stepping aside to allow the “knight” passage. Then, halfway to the draw, a patrol of Gelnian guard broke stride and veered toward them as its commander shouted, “You. there! Halt and identify yourselves!”
Before Graywing could react, Dartimien dodged around the horse and swatted its haunch, behind its armored skirt. “Break for cover!” The Cat shouted. “I’ll join you when I can!”
It was almost noon, and the armies of Gelnia were moving in on Tarmish, when a great shadow swept over the landscape. Everywhere men looked upward, then turned and ran in blind fear. Years had passed since the great war, when dragons had ruled the skies, and for most people it was years since they had even seen a dragon. But the sight of a dragon in flight had lost none of its impact. Nothing else in the world could inspire such bone-chilling fear in every living thing. Now in the sky above the Vale of Sunder, great wings flapped lazily, and struck cold terror into the hearts of all who glanced aloft.
Verden Leafglow had been asleep for a time, snugly ensconced in a high mountain cavern. In the way of her kind, she sought solitude when there was nothing to do, and finding it, she slept. This sleep amounted almost to an intermittent hibernation, broken only by occasional forages for food. A dragon’s nap could last for many seasons, and for one such as Verden Leafglow, who had died once and been reborn from her own egg, and whose memories were of supreme betrayal, sleep was an alluring alternative to unpleasant reveries.
But now she was awake, though she wasn’t sure why. In her dreams it had seemed that she was being summoned-as though a voice that wasn’t a voice at all kept telling her that she had a duty to attend to, an obligation to be met. And when she swam from the oblivion of sleep into harsh wakefulness, the urgency of it lingered. Somewhere, out there below the mountains, a destiny was nearing full flower, and she must play a part in it.
Now she swept across the breezes above a wide valley, her great, amber-green eyes searching the puny sights below. High sunlight glistened on a huge, bright-scaled body that once had been as green as a spring leaf but now was rich with rosy highlights. She was aware of the changes that had occurred during her hibernation, and in a way she understood why they had come about. Once the servant of an evil goddess, she had borne the colors of that deity. But she had been rejected by her god, and in rejection had accepted another-a puzzling, almost reticent sort of god, but one not so harsh, not so driven to vent his powers upon the world below him.
Among the lowest of the low, Verden Leafglow had taken control of her own destiny, and regained her honor. And in doing so, she had accepted an obligation to the god Reorx, to do … something … when the time came. Something about helping a hero, who would rise among, of all creatures, the Aghar. The bumbling, dull-witted gully dwarves.
Such a thing was absurd, of course. No gully dwarf could ever be heroic. Still, Verden had worn the shield of Reorx in battle, and had felt gratitude in a way. And now her breast tingled in the area between her massive shoulders where that shield had once clung. Deep within her exquisite consciousness, she could feel the shield calling to her.
And the call was like a god’s voiceless voice. The small one will need assistance soon, it said. Find him and be ready.
Assistance? Verden suppressed a hiss of irritation. She and her kind were the most powerful creatures ever to live on this world of Krynn. Yet, through fate and the whims of a fickle god, Verden Leafglow had found herself subservient to the most doltish of the sentient races-the gully dwarves-not once, but twice, in two separate lives. And now she remained beholden to, of all things, a gully dwarf!
In a former, more evil incarnation, she would have simply rejected the thought. No one less than a god could force a dragon to honor any obligation if she didn’t feel like it. And the god Reorx, the god she now grudgingly accepted as her god, seemed not inclined to force his subjects to do his will. Rather, he simply expected of them that they would do the right thing, by choice.
A part of her sneered at the concept. She was, after all, a green dragon. Every instinct of her kind told her to hold all other creatures in contempt, to seek her own satisfactions and never concern herself with others. Yet another part of her was aware of the debt of service she owed, and accepted it. It was that same part of her that had been at work over the years, altering her color, warming the cold green of her scales with tinges of rosy bronze.
Now I’m arguing with myself, she thought, her eyes narrowing in a sneer of contempt. A waste of time. When I know what is asked of me, then I can decide. For now I need only see what is here.
The valley below her was wide, a fertile basin surrounded by forested crests. Tilled fields lay like a tapestry on its floor, and near the center of it, on a barren rise, was a solid, massive fortress of stone.
On the flats around the fortress were large encampments, and armies were on the move, surrounding the fortress, their units moving up for attack as great siege engines were trundled into place behind them.
The contestants were humans, of course. Of all the races on Krynn, many engaged in combat now and then, but it was only humans who truly started wars, wars that too often engulfed the other races around them.
Spiraling beneath the high sun, Verden swept over the fortress for a closer look. The place was packed with people, all scrambling about now in panic at the sight of her. She saw the walls, the battlements, the tower … and there her senses detected the presence of magic. But it was no magic of this world.
Circling closer, her eyes followed the sense of magic to a garlanded balcony halfway up the tower keep. There were gully dwarves there. Her eyes focused on one of them-a gaping, wide-shouldered little dolt with a stick in his hand. But the stick was no stick. Though it seemed only an artifact of carved ivory, it radiated an intense, cold taste of deadly, latent magic. Beside and slightly behind the gully dwarf was a young human female. She was half again as tall as the little Aghar, but he seemed to be trying to shield her by his stance. And though he was quaking visibly with abject fear, the hand with the stick was raised in ridiculous challenge.
So that is our “hero,” Verden thought, almost chuckling at the absurdity of it.
Then the distant, voiceless voice came to her again. Heroism isn’t in appearance or stature, Verden, it said. Heroism is in the heart. One who is willing to try to be a hero, is a hero. It is the intent that counts.
“Reorx?” Verden said aloud. “Do you speak to me?”
You understand about heroes, Verden, the voice said within her. You didn’t have to come, but you are here.
Swerving, she sped toward the source of the soundless voice, a gully near the center of the largest human encampment. Below her, people scattered like fallen leaves in a breeze, but she ignored them. She concentrated on the brush-covered ravine, and then she saw them. More gully dwarves. A whole tribe of them, hiding amidst humans!
With a hiss, she recognized a face, a bewhiskered, pudgy little face that combined arrogance and idiocy in its rough features. The little creature even had the old crown she remembered, a crown of rat’s teeth, askew on its graying head.
“Glitch!” Verden hissed aloud. “You little twit, I thought you’d be dead by now.”
Beside the old Highbulp a female gawked upward at her, then blinked and waved a cautious hand. It was Lidda.