Markham held his riders back from the west bank of the ford. When the charging wolfpack reached the halfway mark of the crossing, the knight gestured to his signalmen. Trumpets brayed, and a line of armored horses thundered toward the riverbank. The goblins and their snarling wolves scrambling onto the near bank were met by the crushing advance of the heavily barded warhorses and fully armored cavalry. Markham continues:
"My horse pitched and bucked in the midst of a swirling melee. Wolves snapped at my steed's flanks, drawing blood in many places. But a number of the beasts fell with skulls crushed or backs broken by the powerful kicks of the charger's hooves.
"No sooner had the snarling wolves launched into desperate battle with my knights than three thousand kapak draconians surged across the ford in support. Shrieking and hissing in their hideous tongue, the reptilian scourges flapped their wings madly, hastening the speed of their advance into an unnerving rush.
"Their charge was met by the pikemen of Palanthas, who stood in a three-rank line along the shore. The steely heads of their weapons ripped into the lizardlike attackers. Though the momentum of the charge staggered the line with its impetus, the men held against a breach. Savage and snarling, the formation of draconians crowded against the bank of the ford."
Bakaris here began to reveal his own plan — he hurled the rest of the draconian forces into the attack, holding only his companies of ogres in reserve. At the same time, the evil wyrms appeared in the skies overhead, having defeated the silver and copper dragons. The Dragonarmy general mounted his own dragon — a powerful blue.
Before he rode aloft he sent his field report by courier to Kitiara.
"The time to finish this is now — we own the skies over the field! I join my dragonriders, and we shall waste no time in driving onto the Knights of Solamnia, and the pathetic footmen of Palanthas and Ergoth — all of whom stand defenseless against the onslaught!"
Markham's knights had finally driven the last of the wolfriders back; nearly half of the vicious carnivores and their riders lay dead on the riverbank. Now, however, a newer — and far greater — menace approached.
The knight looked upward in raw, frustrated fury as he saw the green and blue forms fill the sky overhead — a sky devoid of metallic colors. The evil serpents tucked their wings, and Markham felt that every one of the beasts glared straight at him. The wyrms fanned into a broad line, spreading to strike the entire army.
The lines of pikemen and knights on the riverbank wavered as the dragonfear swept across them. Markham cursed and shouted, even using the flat of his sword to try and muster shaken footmen — but to no avail. Whole companies broke, fleeing blindly away from the ford, panicked beyond reason by the great, circling serpents above. Fireballs of dragonbreath and searing lightning bolts landed with enormous blasts, eliminating entire ranks and melting the stony bank. Screams of the dying mingled with the terrified wails of panicked men — veterans and rank recruits alike quailed at the dreadful attack. In mere seconds, most of the Army of Solamnia had broken and fled, leaving the ford unguarded.
Excellency, I must here remark upon the fact that, if the evil dragons had not expended so much of their limited breath weapons against Gilthanas and his flight, the carnage would have been many times worse. Nevertheless, in moments, the Army of Solamnia teetered at the brink of total collapse.
Laurana, meanwhile had flown southward with all speed — the timing of her activities was crucial. Soon the flight of good dragons and their Golden General came to the Narrows, where the ice dam had swelled from the overnight pressure of the great river. A vast new lake spread across the plains to each side. Before the huge sheet of white, glistening in the sunlight, but not melting in the cool spring air, Laurana and Quallathon settled to earth. The other golds and brass dragons also dropped, landing on the rocky riverbed. The bronze dragons circled overhead, watchful for any interference from the dragonarmies.
Again the Golden General turned the breath of her dragons onto the River Vingaard — but this time in the form of heat. Explosive fireballs belched forth from the golds; from the brass came blistering waves of scorching wind. The searing breath weapons swept across the frozen surface, assailing with arcane heat the same waters that had earlier suffered the onslaught of cold.
With convulsive force the great sheets of ice cracked and splintered, shifting and breaking under the rapid change of temperature. Huge chunks broke free, white mountains tumbled into the surging water. With a rush, the dam broke away. The waters of the Vingaard thundered forth, many times more powerful than they had been even at the height of the spring flood.
The huge, newly-formed lake roared through its new outlet, carrying massive pieces of ice, like jagged daggers, in the forefront of the advancing tide. Rocks that had rested in the river bed for a century ripped free in the space of a minute, rumbling along with the flow like great engines of war.
Above the water flew the dragons of gold, brass, and bronze. They soared northward now, racing the torrent — but only barely matching it in speed. Thus, both the waters and the good dragons reached Margaard Ford at the same time, little more than two hours after the dam had collapsed.
Nevertheless, according to Gilthanas, the situation stood at the brink of disaster. His silvers still wheeled in the sky, forced back from the fight — and sadly reduced in numbers. He had all but given up hope of victory, when he saw the glint of sunlight on gilded wings.
Laurana's mighty gold. dragons bellowed a challenge, echoed by a hundred throats of gold and brass and bronze. And below the wings of gleaming metal surged a maelstrom of frothing white, capped by the icebergs and boulders.
The waters swept through Margaard Ford with all the impact of a tidal wave, drowning and crushing the enemy troops trapped there. At the same time, the dragons of Laurana and Gilthanas tore into the blues and reds. The evil serpents fought desperately, but the vengeful attackers swiftly slashed the enemy from the skies in the greatest aerial melee of the war. By my calculations, Excellency, it seems likely that nearly four hundred dragons fought in the air over Margaard Ford!
It is worth noting, Excellency, that Bakaris himself was taken captive in this airborne clash. He ended the fight clinging for his life to the mane of a bronze dragon after his own mount had fallen. It was the famed hill dwarf Flint Fireforge, together with his squire, who rode the bronze. This was Fireforge's last flight on dragonback. He vowed everafter to keep his boots firmly on the ground.
The waters of the Vingaard slowly settled to their normal levels. We'll never know how many bodies they carried along their route to Kalaman and the sea. The few surviving troops belonged to the Blue Wing, and they hastened back to Dargaard Keep, where the Dark Lady still held her fortress.
The last of the dragonarmies had been driven from the plains, and Laurana slowed the pace of her march somewhat, to rest her weary army as it at last approached long-forsaken Kalaman. That city had endured a bleak winter of isolation and siege, and so it was only proper that their liberator and heroine should pass through the city gates to commence the Festival of Spring Dawning.
That event concludes the tale of the Vingaard Campaign. I hope Your Grace will forgive the addition of several of my conclusions that, I feel certain, can be comfortably established within the boundaries of objectivity.
It is interesting to note that the Dark Lady, Highlord Kitiara, was sentenced to death by Lord Ariakus for her failures in this campaign. When he arrived at Dargaard to carry out the sentence, however, Kitiara was able to persuade the Emperor that much of the campaign had passed according to her "plan."