Dragonlance 03 - Dragons of Spring Dawning (14 page)

She fell silent for a moment, then drew a deep breath. Her face hardened. “Well, we don’t. It’s no use thinking about it. So we’ll stand here, on the battlements of Palanthas, and wait for death.”

“Now, Laurana,” Flint remonstrated, clearing his throat gruffly, “perhaps things aren’t that dark. There are good solid walls around this city. A thousand men can hold it easily. The gnomes with their catapults guard the harbor. The knights guard the only pass through the Vingaard Mountains and we’ve sent men to reinforce them. And we do have the dragonlances, a few at any rate, and Gunthar sent word more are on the way. So we can’t attack dragons in flight? They’ll think twice about flying over the walls—”

“That isn’t enough, Flint!” Laurana sighed. “Oh, sure, we may hold the dragonarmies off for a week or two weeks or maybe even a month. But then what? What happens to us when they control the land around us? All we can do against the dragons is shut ourselves up in safe little havens. Soon this world will be nothing but tiny islands of light surrounded by vast oceans of darkness. And then, one by one, the darkness will engulf us all.”

Laurana laid her head down upon her hand, resting against the wall.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Flint asked sternly.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “My waking and sleeping seem mixed together. I’m walking in a dream half the time, and sleeping through reality the other half.”

“Get some sleep now,” the dwarf said in what Tas referred to as his Grandfather Voice. “We’re turning in. Our watch is almost up.”

“I can’t,” Laurana said, rubbing her eyes. The thought of sleep suddenly made her realize how exhausted she was. “I came to tell you, we received reports that dragons were seen, flying westward over the city of Kalaman.”

“They’re heading this direction then,” Tas said, visualizing a map in his head.

“Whose reports?” asked the dwarf suspiciously.

“The griffons. Now don’t scowl like that.” Laurana smiled slightly at the sight of the dwarf’s disgust. “The griffons have been a vast help to us. If the elves contribute nothing more to this war than their griffons, they will have already done a great deal.”

“Griffons are dumb animals,” Flint stated. “And I trust them about as far as I trust kender. Besides,” the dwarf continued,
ignoring Tas’s indignant glare, “it doesn’t make sense. The Highlords don’t send dragons to attack without the armies backing them up.…”

“Maybe the armies aren’t as disorganized as we heard.” Laurana sighed wearily. “Or maybe the dragons are simply being sent to wreak what havoc they can. Demoralize the city, lay waste to the surrounding countryside. I don’t know. Look, word’s spread.”

Flint glanced around. Those soldiers that were off duty were still in their places, staring eastward at the mountains whose snow-capped peaks were turning a delicate pink in the brightening dawn. Talking in low voices they were joined by others, just waking and hearing the news.

“I feared as much.” Laurana sighed. “This will start a panic! I warned Lord Amothus to keep the news quiet, but the Palanthians aren’t used to keeping anything quiet! There, what did I tell you?”

Looking down from the wall, the friends could see the streets starting to fill with people—half-dressed, sleepy, frightened. Watching them run from house to house, Laurana could imagine the rumors being spread.

She bit her lip, her green eyes flared in anger. “Now I’ll have to pull men off the walls to get these people back into their homes. I can’t have them in the streets when the dragons attack! You men, come with me!” Gesturing to a group of soldiers standing nearby, Laurana hurried away. Flint and Tas watched her disappear down the stairs, heading for the Lord’s palace. Soon they saw armed patrols fanning out into the streets, trying to herd people back into their homes and quell the rising tide of panic.

“Fine lot of good that’s doing!” Flint snorted. The streets were getting more crowded by the moment.

But Tas, standing on a block of stone staring out over the wall, shook his head. “It doesn’t matter!” he whispered in despair “Flint, look—”

The dwarf climbed hurriedly up to stand beside his friend. Already men were pointing and shouting, grabbing bows and spears. Here and there, the barbed silver point of a dragonlance could be seen, glinting in the torchlight.

“How many?” Flint asked, squinting.

“Ten,” Tas answered slowly. “Two flights. Big dragons, too.
Maybe the red ones, like we saw in Tarsis. I can’t see their color against the dawn’s light, but I can see riders on them. Maybe a Highlord. Maybe Kitiara … Gee,” Tas said, struck by a sudden thought, “I hope I get to talk to her this time. It must be interesting being a Highlord—”

His words were lost in the sound of bells ringing from towers all over the city. The people in the streets stared up at the walls where the soldiers were pointing and exclaiming. Far below them, Tas could see Laurana emerge from the Lord’s palace, followed by the Lord himself and two of his generals. The kender could tell from the set of her shoulders that Laurana was furious. She gestured at the bells, apparently wanting them silenced. But it was too late. The people of Palanthas went wild with terror. And most of the inexperienced soldiers were in nearly as bad a state as the civilians. The sound of shrieks and wails and hoarse calls rose up into the air. Grim memories of Tarsis came back to Tas, people trampled to death in the streets, houses exploding in flames.

The kender turned slowly around. “I guess I don’t want to talk to Kitiara,” he said softly, brushing his hand across his eyes as he watched the dragons fly closer and closer. “I don’t want to know what it’s like being a Highlord, because it must be sad and dark and horrible.… Wait—”

Tas stared eastward. He couldn’t believe his eyes, so he leaned far out, perilously close to falling over the edge of the wall.

“Flint!” he shouted, waving his arms.

“What is it?” Flint snapped. Catching hold of Tas by the belt of his blue leggings, the dwarf hauled the excited kender back in with jerk.

“It’s like in Pax Tharkas!” Tas babbled incoherently. “Like Huma’s Tomb. Like Fizban said! They’re here! They’ve come!”

“Who’s here!” Flint roared in exasperation.

Jumping up and down in excitement, his pouches bouncing around wildly, Tas turned without answering and dashed off, leaving the dwarf fuming on the stairs, calling out, “Who’s here, you rattlebrain?”

“Laurana!” shouted Tas’s shrill voice, splitting the early morning air like a slightly off-key trumpet. “Laurana, they’ve come! They’re here! Like Fizban said! Laurana!”

Cursing the kender beneath his breath, Flint stared back out to the east. Then, glancing around swiftly, the dwarf slipped a hand inside a vest pocket. Hurriedly he drew out a pair of glasses and, looking around again to make certain no one was watching him, he slipped them on.

Now he could make out what had been nothing more than a haze of pink light broken by the darker, pointed masses of the mountain range. The dwarf drew a deep, trembling breath. His eyes dimmed with tears. Quickly he snatched the glasses off his nose and put them back into their case, slipping them back into his pocket. But he’d worn the glasses just long enough to see the dawn touch the wings of dragons with a pink light, pink glinting off silver.

“Put your weapons down, lads,” Flint said to the men around him, mopping his eyes with one of the kender’s handkerchiefs. “Praise be to Reorx. Now we have a chance. Now we have a chance.…”

A
s the silver dragons settled to the ground on the outskirts of the great city of Palanthas, their wings filled the morning sky with a blinding radiance. The people crowded the walls to stare out uneasily at the beautiful, magnificent creatures.

At first the people had been so terrified of the huge beasts that they were intent on driving them away, even when Laurana assured them that these dragons were not evil. Finally Astinus himself emerged from his library and coldly informed Lord Amothus that these dragons would not harm them. Reluctantly the people of Palanthas laid down their weapons.

Laurana knew, however, that the people would have believed Astinus if he told them the sun would rise at midnight. They did
not
believe in the dragons.

It wasn’t until Laurana herself walked out of the city gates and straight into the arms of a man who had been riding one of the beautiful silver dragons that the people begin to think there might be something to this children’s story after all.

“Who is that man? Who has brought the dragons to us? Why have the dragons come?”

Jostling and shoving, the people leaned over the wall, asking questions and listening to the wrong answers. Out in the valley, the dragons slowly fanned their wings to keep their circulation going in the chill morning.

As Laurana embraced the man, another person climbed down off one of the dragons, a woman whose hair gleamed as silver as the dragon’s wings. Laurana embraced this woman, too. Then, to the wonder of the people, Astinus led the three of them to the great library, where they were admitted by the Aesthetics. The huge doors shut behind them.

The people were left to mill about, buzzing with questions and casting dubious glances at the dragons sitting before their city walls.

Then the bells rang out once more. Lord Amothus was calling a meeting. Hurriedly the people left the walls to fill the city square before the Lord’s palace as he came out onto a balcony to answer their questions.

“These are silver dragons,” he shouted, “good dragons who have joined us in our battle against the evil dragons as in the legend of Huma. The dragons have been brought to our city by—”

Whatever else the Lord intended to say was lost in cheering. The bells rang out again, this time in celebration. People flooded the streets, singing and dancing. Finally, after a futile attempt to continue, the Lord simply declared the day a holiday and returned to his palace.

The following is an excerpt from the
Chronicles, A History of Krynn,
as recorded by Astinus of Palanthas. It can be found under the heading: “The Oath of the Dragons.”

As I, Astinus, write these words, I look on the face of the elflord, Gilthanas, younger son of Solostaran, Speaker of the Suns, lord of the Qualinesti. Gilthanas’s face is very much like his sister Laurana’s face, and not just in family resemblance. Both have the delicate features and ageless quality of all elves.
But these two are different. Both faces are marked with a sorrow not to be seen on the faces of elves living on Krynn. Although I fear that before this war is ended, many elves will have this same look. And perhaps this is not a bad thing, for it seems that, finally, the elves are learning that they are part of this world, not above it.

To one side of Gilthanas sits his sister. To the other sits one of the most beautiful women I have seen walk on Krynn. She appears to be an elfmaid, a Wilder elf. But she does not deceive my eyes with her magic arts. She was never born of woman, elf or no. She is a dragon, a silver dragon, sister of the Silver Dragon who was beloved of Huma, Knight of Solamnia. It has been Silvara’s fate to fall in love with a mortal, as did her sister. But, unlike Huma, this mortal, Gilthanas, cannot accept his fate. He looks at her … she looks at him. Instead of love, I see a smoldering anger within him that is slowly poisoning both their souls.

Silvara speaks. Her voice is sweet and musical. The light of my candle gleams in her beautiful silver hair and in her deep night-blue eyes.

“After I gave Theros Ironfeld the power to forge the dragonlances within the heart of the Monument of the Silver Dragon,” Silvara tells me, “I spent much time with the companions before they took the lances to the Council of Whitestone. I showed them through the Monument, I showed them the paintings of the Dragon War, which picture good dragons, silver and gold and bronze, fighting the evil dragons.

“ ‘Where are your people?’ the companions asked me. ‘Where are the good dragons? Why aren’t they helping us in our time of need?’

“I held out against their questions, as long as I could.…”

Here Silvara stops speaking and looks at Gilthanas with her heart in her eyes. He does not meet her gaze but stares at the floor. Silvara sighs and resumes her story.

“Finally, I could resist his—their—pressure no longer. I told them about the Oath.

“When Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, and her evil dragons were banished, the good dragons left the land to maintain the balance between good and evil. Made of the world, we returned to the world, sleeping an ageless sleep. We would have remained asleep, in a world of dreams, but then came the
Cataclysm and Takhisis found her way back into the world again.

“Long had she planned for this return, should fate give it to her, and she was prepared. Before Paladine was aware of her, Takhisis woke the evil dragons from their sleep and ordered them to slip into the deep and secret places of the world and steal the eggs of the good dragons, who slept on, unaware.…

“The evil dragons brought the eggs of their brethren to the city of Sanction where the dragonarmies were forming. Here, in the volcanoes known as the Lords of Doom, the eggs of the good dragons were hidden.