They trudged up the hill, to where the blue dragon was dozing, its wings folded at its sides.
“What are you muttering about?” Tanis asked Caramon grumpily.
The half-elf was regarding the blue dragon with a grim face, keeping a close watch on it. The dragon was apparently not pleased at the smell of elf. It woke up instantly, its nostrils flared. Tossing its head in disgust, the beast snaked out its head and showed its fangs.
Sara Dunstan was a skilled dragon rider, however. With a sharp word of reprimand, she brought her mount swiftly, if sulkily, under control. Caramon climbed into the saddle first, then reached down from his rear seat in the two-person dragon saddle to haul up his friend with an easy swing of a massive arm.
“I was thinking to myself that your boy looks well,” Caramon lied.
Tanis squirmed to get into a halfway comfortable position, practically an impossibility. He would be forced to cling to the back of Caramon’s seat—either that or sit in the big man’s lap.
“Thanks,” said Tanis, brightening, his proud gaze going to his son, who stood on the lawn, gazing at them with wide, almond-shaped eyes. “We think he’s getting better. If we just knew what was wrong with him! . . . Not even Revered Daughter Crysania can tell us.”
“Maybe he just needs to spend some time in the fresh air. You should let him come visit us,” Caramon suggested. “My boys would take him out riding, hunting ...”
“We’ll see,” Tanis said politely, in a not-on-your-life tone. “Any signs of pursuit, mistress?”
Caramon scanned the skies. It had been near dawn when they’d arrived.
The morning was well advanced now, the late autumn sun burning off night’s chill. There was no sign of any other dragons that he could see.
“With luck, they haven’t missed me,” Sara said, though she looked worried.
“I’m a dragon trainer now. I am often gone, exercising the mounts. I foresaw the need for this.”
She spoke a word to the dragon. The blue leapt into the air, propelled by its powerful hind legs, strong wings beating to lift it. They circled the castle once, in order for the dragon to get its bearings, then they soared northward.
“We will arrive at the fortress after dark,” Sara told them. “I regret the loss of this day, but, it can’t be helped, and what time we’ve lost we will hopefully make up. Will there be trouble with the Solamnic Knights?” she asked Tanis anxiously.
“There will always be trouble with the Solamnic Knights,” Tanis growled.
He was in an ill humor, for which Caramon really couldn’t blame him. After all, the half-elf might well be journeying to meet a son he never knew he had.
“But with Paladine’s help, we’ll get through it.”
The blue dragon glared round at them ferociously. Sara spoke sharply, and the beast sullenly turned its head.
“I wouldn’t mention that god’s name again,” she suggested quietly.
None of them could think of anything to say after that. Talking was difficult anyway; they were forced to shout over the rush of air created by the dragon’s powerful wings. And so they traveled in silence, flying far beyond Ansalon, far beyond known civilized lands, flying into darkness.
Two days left.
Two days to save a soul.
Chapter Six
Fortress of Storm’s Keep
“My god!” said Tanis grimly, taking care not to mention which god he was calling on to witness his astonishment. “If s huge!”
“What’s the fortress called?” Caramon asked Sara.
“Storm’s Keep,” she answered. Her words were blown back to him by the violent wind, and it seemed to Caramon that it was the wind that spoke.
“Ariakan named it. He said that when those gates open, a storm will be unleashed on Ansalon that will destroy everything in its path.”
The fortress was located far north of Ansalon’s mainland. Vast and forbidding, Storm’s Keep was built on a large island of jagged rock. The glistening black walls of the stronghold were continually bathed by the spray from the crashing waves of the Sirrion Sea. Watch fires burned on the tall, tooth-edged towers. The light served to guide the flight of dragons, whose wings were black silhouettes against the stars as the beasts wheeled and turned in the night sky.
“What’s all the commotion?” Caramon asked nervously. “This isn’t on your account is it?”
Sara reassured him. “It’s just the soldiers, practicing night attacks. Ariakan says that was a mistake the Dragon Highlords made during the last war—fighting in daylight. The knights and their mounts are being trained to fight in the dark, use the darkness to their advantage.”
“Not a ship could get near this place,” Tanis muttered, eyeing the white foam of the breakers smashing against the steep rock shoreline.
“The seas are far too rough to sail. Not even the minotaurs will venture this far north—one reason Ariakan chose this island. It is accessible only by dragon and by magic.”
“At least no one should notice us in all the activity,” said Caramon.
“Yes,” Sara agreed. “This is what I was thinking.”
No one did notice them, or at least pay much attention to them. A gigantic red dragon shrieked at them in irritation, when the smaller blue dived between the red and the tower under “assault.” The two dragons exchanged curses and snarls in their own language; the soldier atop the red added his own insults, which Sara answered in kind. She held her course, her destination in sight, cutting swiftly through the mock battle.
Caramon, subdued and appalled, stared around in horror, awed by the strength in numbers and the daring skill of the black-armored paladins, who were easily routing the towers' “defenders.” And the dragons were not even using their most powerful weapon—their breath, which could spew acid, belch fire, cast lightning. Tanis’s face was stern and grim, noting and attempting to impress on his mind every detail.
Sara ordered the dragon to land in a cleared area far from the main part of the fortress: This section of the compound was relatively quiet, in sharp contrast to the commotion going on at the battle site.
“These are the stables,” she said in a low voice to Caramon and Tanis, as they dismounted. “Keep quiet and let me do the talking.”
Both men nodded, then hunched their shoulders deep into blue cloaks trimmed with black, which they wore over their own armor. Sara had brought one with her, thinking she would only have to disguise Caramon.
She gave Tanis her own cloak, first taking care to remove the black lily brooch.
“You mustn’t touch it,” she warned him. “It has been blessed by the dark clerics. It might do you harm.”
“You touch it,” he said to her.
“I am used to it,” she returned softly.
The blue dragon settled down in the vast, open yard, an enormous landing site located outside the fortress’s walls.
Beyond, a long row of stalls echoed with the frustrated, eager whinnies of horses. Excited by the sounds of battle, they wanted their turn.
“The knights are taught to ride and fight on horseback, as well as dragon back,” Sara told them.
“Ariakan thinks of everything, doesn’t he? Where do you keep the dragons?"
Tanis asked. “Surely not here.”
“No, the island isn’t large enough. The dragons have homelands of their own. No one is quite certain where. They come when summoned.”
“Hsst!” Caramon tugged on Sara’s sleeve. “Company.”
A hobgoblin was running over to stare at them.
“Who’s that?” the goblin demanded suspiciously, holding up a torch that sputtered in the rain. “No blues out tonight! What the—Ariakan’s woman!”