He looked below, seeing that no fewer than three fire dragons had emerged from the cavern. Trailing sparks and smoke, they were flapping after him in determined pursuit. If she had been in the cave, she was certainly dead.
Rage clouded his senses, driving him into a battle fury as he tried to imagine the fate of the female that, he had hoped, would someday become his mate. His own forlorn flight and fruitless search only aggravated his bitterness. If they had killed her, he vowed that he would not allow them to survive.
The fire dragons swept upward from the cave, and with a bellow of rage, Aerensianic turned about and dived toward his fiery pursuers. He roared, a wave of sound that echoed off the cliff and thrummed through the air. Jaws gaping, he spewed his breath of green gas at the first of his pursuers.
The first burning serpent shriveled and steamed, then tumbled from the sky. The next wyrms came after him, and once again Aeren flew into a conflagration of hellish heat. His claws ripped at fiery skin as he felt the membranes of his wings curl and tear from the onslaught.
And then there was more gas around him, and the last two fire dragons were plunging toward the ground. He felt a blast of cold against his wings and actually relished the chill as it soothed the pain of his burns. He saw white dragons diving past, breathing their icy breath to douse the last of the fire dragons. The lifeless bodies of the Chaos wyrms plunged, sizzling, into the sea, and the dragons of ice and poison soared side by side over the western cliffs of the Qualinesti shore. Aeren banked, ignoring the pain that shrieked through his torn and scalded wings. Proudly he nodded his thanks to these kin-dragons, ice-breathing cousins who dwelled on the vast glacial reaches to the south.
Finally he saw the green shape that he had missed, that he had feared for. Toxyria fell into pace beside him, and he saw that she had returned with several more greens as well as a trio of white dragons. The serpents came to rest on the bluff overlooking the sea, and for a moment they were silent, observing the three pillars of steam that marked the graves of the fire dragons.
“What news from the north?” Toxy asked after they had nuzzled snouts long enough to ensure that each was relatively unharmed.
“No dragons to be found there, but it seems as though all Krynn is aflame,” Aerensianic reported grimly. “I saw great forests burning across the land of the elves. Also there were living shadows, deadly and hungry. They were battling with elves, including one called Porthios, whom I once tried to kill.”
“As to finding our kin-dragons, I had better luck,” Toxyria reported, indicating the greens and whites that had come to rest around them. “I flew far, and our kin-dragons were glad to see me, for they had heard strange tales of events here and across the world. They were willing to fly to our lair to seek your advice and wisdom.”
These serpents, none of whom was as large as either of the mature greens, watched respectfully, and Aeren sensed that they were hoping for his approval.
“Thank you for your assistance,” he said gravely. “Not only did you help Toxyria, but your arrival no doubt saved my life.”
“There is other news, brought by our kin-dragons,” the female green dragon added. “As you surmise, this storm wracks the whole of our world.”
“Are the chromatics all battling in the cause of our queen?” Aeren asked.
“Not just the dragons of our own kin and clan,” Toxy said, surprising the big male. “But even silvers and golds have joined with blues and reds, all of them battling the Storms of Chaos that have struck so many places at once.”
“Together?” asked Aerensianic, truly stunned.
“Everywhere,” Toxy declared, fixing him with a look that he found curiously compelling, even as it made him feel just a little bit trapped.
“What should we do?” asked the male.
“You are the biggest, the mightiest of us all,” Toxyria replied in a tone that informed him that her mind was already made up.
Aeren slumped. In point of fact, he wanted nothing more than to fly away from here, to find some shore where the Storms of Chaos had not yet broken. Yet even more than that, he wanted to be with Toxyria, and he clearly understood what that entailed.
“I think we should go and fight these attackers wherever they can be encountered,” he found himself saying.
“I do, too,” the female said, obviously pleased. “And you told me that some of the creatures of Chaos have come as shadows and make their attack upon elves.”
“Then,” Aerensianic declared, making it sound as though it was his idea, “we should go there as well!”
“So that’s why you came to us,” Samar said.
“Yes... I fear that, if not for Toxy, I would have hidden away, and Fate would have found me in good time.”
“Then we all owe her a great deal,” said the elf warrior-mage, “for our situation by then was dire indeed...”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Flames Across the Forest
Gilthas helped his mother toward the doors of his own house. Laurana, burned from her encounter with the fire dragon and bruised from the crash into the tower, limped bravely beside him, but he sensed that without his support, she would have fallen. Still, though she was white-lipped with pain, she made no complaint nor any sound except an occasional gasp for breath.
It had taken them more than an hour to make it down from the Tower of the Sun and across two hundred paces of the besieged city. For some reason, probably nothing more than the luck, good or evil, that seemed to mark the chaotic progress of the attackers, the Speaker’s residence had been spared the damage that had scorched so much of Qualinost. Everywhere across the city, however, the vista was scarred by evidence of the onslaught. Ruined houses and yards, sometimes a whole block of utter destruction, smoldered next to other structures that had been untouched by violence. Across the street, a garden bloomed and a small fountain sprayed merrily in ironic contrast to the shattered house just beyond. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky, marking the destructive swaths of the fire dragons, while panic-stricken elves sought shelter in many of the remaining buildings.
Rashas, trembling with fear, trailed right behind Gilthas. The senator had refused to leave his side since the younger elf had slain the daemon warrior. Indeed, the elder had literally clung to Gilthas’s arm as they had made their way through the charnel house that had once been the chamber of the Thalas-Enthia. The rostrum and the circular floor were covered with charred bodies. The golden doors had been twisted off their hinges, and one had even melted into a puddle of now-hardened metal. Here and there, one of the blackened elven shapes twitched pitifully or stretched open a mouth to draw a rasping breath.
Escorting his wounded and weakened mother, Gilthas had roughly pushed Rashas away, ordering him to go to the aid of some of the elves who moaned so piteously in the ruins. Instead, the senator had slunk along behind him, ultimately darting through the door of the Speaker’s house as if he feared that Gilthas intended to lock him outside.
Kerian and the other terror-stricken members of the household were there to greet them, and swiftly Laurana was carried to a nearby couch, where she was given water and fruit while the young Kagonesti maiden went to fetch some of the poultices she had made up as an antidote to burns. The house was crowded with refugees, many of them burned, others bleeding, and all of them dirty and frightened.
All looked to him with hopeful eyes, and Gilthas felt a bitter sense of irony—now they turned to him for help, when there was nothing he could do for them.