Read Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun Online
Authors: Margaret Weis
went? This is not like him."
The griffon flapped its wings and turned its head, searching
for its riders. The wind of the enormous wings whipped up a gale
that sent wisps of morning fog swirling and lashed the tree
branches. They waited another few moments, but no other griffon
appeared.
"It seems there is to be only one, sir," Gerard said, trying not
to sound relieved. "You and the kender go ahead. I'll see you off
safely. Don't worry about me. I'll find my own way out of Qua-
linesti. I have my horse. . . ."
"Nonsense," said Palin crisply, displeased at any change in
plans. "The griffon can carryall three of us. The kender counts as
nothing."
"I do, too, count for something!" Tasslehoff stated, offended.
"Sir, I really don't mind," Gerard began.
An arrow thunked into the tree beside him. Another arrow
whizzed over his head. Gerard dropped to the ground, grabbing
hold of the kender on the way down.
"Sir! Take cover!" he yelled at Palin.
"Rebel elves," Palin said, peering through the shadows.
"They have seen your armor. We are friends!" he called out in
elven and lifted his hand to wave.
An arrow tore through the sleeve of his robe. He stared at
the hole in angry astonishment. Gerard leaped to his feet,
caught hold of the mage and pulled him to cover behind a large
oak tree.
"They're not elves, sir!" he said and he pointed grimly to one
of the arrows. The tip was steel and the arrow was fletched in
black feathers. "They're Knights of Neraka." .
"But so are you," said Palin, eyeing Gerard's breastplate,
adorned with the skull and the death lily. "At least for all they
know.
"Oh, they know all right," Gerard answered grimly. "You
notice the elf never returned. I think we've been betrayed."
"It's not possible-" Palin began.
"I see them!" Tasslehoff cried, pointing. "Over there in those
bushes. Three of them. They're wearing black armor."
"You have sharp eyes, kender," Gerard conceded. He couldn't
see a thing in the shadows and mists of early dawn.
"We cannot stay here. We must make a run for the griffon!"
Palin said, and started to stand up.
Gerard pulled the mage back down.
"Those archers rarely miss, sir. You'll never make it alive!"
"True, they don't miss," Palin retorted. "And yet they have
fired three arrows at us and we live. If we have been betrayed,
they know we carry the artifact! That's what they want. They
mean to capture us alive and interrogate us." He gripped
Gerard's arm hard, his cruelly deformed fingers driving the chain
mail painfully into the knight's flesh. "I won't give up the device.
And I won't be taken alive! Not again! Do you hear me? I won't!"
Two more arrows thudded into the tree, causing the kender,
who had poked his head up to see, to duck back down.
"Whew!" he said, feeling his top-knot anxiously. "That was
close! Do I still have my hair?"
Gerard looked at Palin. The mage's face was pale, his lips a
thin, tight line. Laurana's words came back to Gerard. Until you
have been a prisoner, you cannot understand.
"You go on, sir. You and the kender."
"Don't be a fool," said Palin. "We leave together. They want
me alive. They have a use for me. They don't need you at all. You
will be tortured and killed."
Behind them, the griffon's harsh cry sounded loud and rau-
cous and impatient.
"I am not the fool, sir," Gerard said, looking the mage in the
eye. "You are, if you don't listen to me. I can distract them, and I
can defend myself properly. You cannot, unless you have some
magical spell at your fingertips?"
He knew by Majere's pale, pinched face that he did not.
"Very well" said Gerard. "Take the kender and your precious
magical artifact and get out of here!"
Palin hesitated a moment, staring at the direction of the
enemy. His face was set, rigid, corpselike. Slowly, he withdrew
his hand from Gerard's arm. "This is what I have become," he
said. "Useless. Wretched. Forced to run instead of facing my
enemIes. . .
"Sir, if you're going, go now," Gerard said, drawing his sword
with a ringing sound. "Keep low and use the trees for cover.
Fast!"
He rose from his hiding position. Brandishing his sword, he
charged unhesitatingly at the Knights crouched in the brush,
shouting his battle challenge, drawing their fire.
Palin rose to his feet. Crouching low, he grabbed hold of
Tasslehoff's shirt collar, jerked the kender to a standing position.
"You're coming with me," he ordered.
"But what about Gerard?" Tas hung back.
"You heard him," Palin said, dragging the kender forward.
"He can take care of himself. Besides, the Knights must not cap-
ture the artifact!"
"But they can't take the device away from me!" Tas protested,
tugging at his shirt to free it from Palin's grasp. "It will always
come back to me!"
"Not if you're dead," Palin said harshly, biting the words.
Tas stopped suddenly and turned around. His eyes went
wide.
"Do. . . do you see a dragon anywhere?" he asked nervously.
"Quit stalling!" Palin seized hold of the kender by the arm
this time and, using strength borne of adrenaline, hauled Tassle-
hoff bodily through the trees toward the griffon.
"I'm not stalling. I feel sick," Tas asserted. "I think the curse is
working on me again."
Palin paid no attention to the kender's whining. He could
hear Gerard yelling, shouting challenges to his enemies. Another
arrow whistled past, but it fell spent about a yard away from
Palin. His dark robes blended into the forest, he was a running
target moving through the mists and dim light keeping low, as
Gerard had recommended, and putting the trunks of the trees be-
tween him and the enemy whenever possible.
Behind him, Palin heard steel clash against steel. The arrows
ceased. Gerard was fighting the Knights. Alone.
Palin plunged grimly ahead, dragging the protesting kender
along with him. The mage was not proud of himself. His fear and
his shame rankled in him, more painful than one of the arrows if
it had happened to hit. He risked a glance backward but could see
nothing for the shadows and. the fog.
He was near the griffon. He was near escape. His steps
slowed. He hesitated, half-turned. . .
A blackness came over him. He was once again in the prison
cell in the Gray Robes' encampment on the border of Qualinesti.
He crouched at the bottom of a deep, narrow pit dug into the
ground. The walls of the pit were smooth. He could not climb up
them. An iron grating was placed over the top. A few holes in the
grate permitted the air to filter down into the pit, along with the
rain that dripped monotonously and filled the bottom of the pit
with water.
He was alone, forced to live in his own filth. Forced to eat
whatever scraps they tossed down to him. No one spoke to
him. He had no guards. None were necessary. He was trapped,
and they knew it. He rarely even heard the sound of a human
voice for days on end. He almost came to welcome those times
when his captors threw down a ladder and brought him up for
" questioning."
Almost.
The bright blazing pain seared through him again. Breaking
his fingers, slowly, one by one. Ripping out his fingernails. Flail-
ing his back with leather cords that cut through his flesh to the
bone.
A shudder ran through him. He bit his tongue, tasted blood
and bile that surged up from his clenching stomach. Sweat trick-
led down his face.
"I'm sorry, Gerard!" he gasped. "I'm sorry!"
Catching hold of Tasslehoff by the scruff of his neck, Palin
lifted the kender and tossed him bodily onto the griffon's back.
"Hold on tightly!" he ordered the kender.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Tas cried, squirming. "Let's
wait for Gerard!"
Palin had no time for any kender ploys. "Leave at once!" he
ordered the griffon. Palin pulled himself into the saddle that was
strapped onto the griffon's back, between the feathery wings.
"The Knights of Neraka surround us. Our guard is holding them
off, but I doubt he can last for long."
The griffon glared back at the mage with bright, black eyes.
"Do we leave him behind, then?" the griffon asked.
"Yes," said Palin evenly. "We leave him behind."
The griffon did not argue. He had his orders. The strange
habits of humans were not his concern. The beast lifted his great
wings and leaped into the air, his powerful lion legs driving into
the ground. He circled the clearing, striving to gain altitude and
avoid the trees. Palin peered down, trying to find Gerard. The sun
had cleared the horizon, was burning away the mists and lighting
the shadows. Palin could see flashes of steel and hear ringing
blows.
Miraculously, the Knight was still alive.
Palin turned away. He faced into the rushing wind. The sun
vanished suddenly, overtaken by huge, rolling gray storm clouds
that boiled up over the horizon. Lightning flickered amid the
churning clouds. Thunder rumbled. A chill wind, blowing from
the storm,! cooled the sweat that had drenched his robes and left
his hair wringing wet. He shivered slightly and drew his dark
cloak close around him. He did not look back again.
The griffon rose high above the trees. Feeling the air currents
beneath his wings, the beast soared into the blue sky.
"Palin!" Tasslehoff cried, tugging urgently on the back of his
robes. "There's something flying behind us!"
Palin twisted to look.
The green dragon was distant, but it was moving at great
speed, its wings slicing the air, its clawed feet pressed up against
its body, its green tail streaming out behind. It was not Beryl. One
of her minions, out doing her bidding.
Of course. She would not trust the Knights of Neraka to bring
her this prize. She would send one of her own kind to fetch it. He
leaned over the griffon's shoulder.
"A dragon!" he shouted. "East of us!"
"I see it!" the griffon snarled.
Palin shaded his eyes to view the dragon, trying not to blink
in case he should miss a single beat of the immense wings.
"The dragon has spotted us," he reported. "It is coming
straight for us."
"Hang on!" The griffon veered sharply, made a steep, banking
rom. "I'm going to fly into the storm. The ride will be rough!"
Tall, spiring clouds formed a wall of gray and purple-black on
the horizon. The clouds had the look of a fortress, massive and
impenetrable. Lightning flared from breaks in the clouds, like
torchlight through windows. Thunder rolled and boomed.
"I do not like the looks of that storm!" Palin cried out to the
griffon.
"Do you like the insides of the dragon's belly better?" the grif-
fon demanded. "The beast gains on us. We cannot outfly it."
Palin looked back, hoping that the griffon might have mis-
judged. Huge wings beat the air, the dragon's jaws parted. Palin
met the dragon's eyes, saw the single-minded purpose in them,
saw them intent on him.
Grasping the reins with one hand and taking firm hold of a
shouting Tas with the other, Palin bent low over the griffon's
neck, keeping his head and body down so that the rushing wind
did not blow him off the griffon's back. The first few drops of rain
pelted his face, stinging.
The clouds rose to immense heights, towering spires of light-
ning-shot gray-black, taller than the mighty fortress of Pax
Tharkas. Palin looked up in awe, his head bent so that his neck
ached and still he could not see the top. The griffon swooped
nearer. Tasslehoff was still shouting something, but the wind took
his words and whipped them away behind him, as it whipped his
topknot.
Palin looked back. The dragon was almost on them. The claws
of the dragon twitched now in anticipation of the capture. She
would breathe her lethal gas on them, then seize them all three in
one of her huge clawed feet and hurl them to the ground. With
luck, the fall would kill them. The dragon would devour the grif-
fon and then, at her leisure, she would rip their bodies apart,
searching for the device.
Palin averted his eyes, stared ahead into the storm and urged
the griffon to fly faster.
The cloud fortress rose before them. A flash of lightning
blinded him. Thunder rolled, sounding like enormous cables
turning a gigantic cog wheel. A solid bank of clouds suddenly
parted, revealing a dark, lightning-lit hallway curtained by driv-
ing rain.
The griffon plunged into the cloud bank. Rain lashed at them
in stinging torrents, deluged them. Wiping the water from his
eyes, Palin stared in awe. Row after row of columns of gray cloud
rose from a mottled gray floor to support a ceiling of boiling
black.
Clouds shrouded them, wrapped around them. Palin could
griffon's head. Lightning sizzled near him. He could smell the
brimstone, thunder crashed, nearly stopping his heart.
The griffon flew a zigzag course among the columns, soaring
up and diving down, rounding and circling, then doubling back.
Sheets of rain hung like silver tapestries, drenching them as they
flew beneath. Palin could not see the dragon, though he could
hear the discordant horn blast of its frustration as it tried desper-
ately to find them.
The griffon left the cavernous halls of the fortress of storm
clouds and flew out into the sunshine. Palin looked back, waited
tensely)for the dragon to appear. The griffon chortled, pleased.
The dragon was lost somewhere in the storm clouds.
Palin told himself that he'd had no choice in the matter, he
had acted logically in escaping. He had to protect the magical
artifact. Gerard had practically ordered the mage to leave. If he
had stayed, he could have accomplished nothing. They would
have all died, and the artifact would have been in Beryl's pos-
session.
The artifact was safe. Gerard was either dead or a prisoner.
There was nothing that could be done to save him now.
"Best to forget it," Palin said to himself. "Put it out of my
mind. What's done is done and can't be undone."
He dropped remorse and guilt into a dark pit, a deep pit in his
soul and covered them with the iron grating of necessity.
Sir," reported Meda~'s subcommander, "the Knight is. at-
tackig-alone. The magIc-user and the kender are escapmg.
What are your orders?"
Attacking alone. So he is," Medan replied, astonished.
The Solamnic came crashing through the underbrush, bran-
dishing his sword and shouting the Solamnic battle-cry, a cry
Marshal Medan had not heard in many years. The sight took the
marshal back to the days when knights in shining silver and
gleaming black clashed headlong on the field of battle; when
champions came forward to duel to the death while armies
looked on, their fates in the hands of heroes; when combatants
saluted each other with honor before commencing with the
deadly business at hand.
Here was Medan, crouched in a bush, safely ensconced
behind a large tree stump, taking potshots at a washed-up mage
and a kender.
"Can I sink any lower?" he muttered to himself.
The archer was drawing his bow. Having lost sight of the
mage, he shifted his aim to the Knight, going for the legs, hoping
for a crippling shot.
"Belay that," Medan snapped, resting his hand on the
bowman's arm.
The subcommander looked around. "Sir? Your orders?"
The Solamnic was closing in. The magic-user and the kender
were out of range, lost in the trees and the mists.
"Sir, should we pursue them?" the subcommander asked.
"No," Medan answered and saw a look of amazement cross
the man's face.
"But our orders," he ventured.
"I know our orders," Medan snapped. "Do you want to be re-
membered in song as the Knight who slew a kender and a
broken-down old mage, or as a Knight who fought a battle with
an equal?"
The sub commander evidently did not want to be remembered
in song. "But our orders," he persisted.
Damn the man for a thick-headed lout! Medan glowered at
him.
"You have your orders, Subcommander. Don't make me repeat
them."
The forest grew dark again. The sun had risen only to have
its warmth and light cut off by storm clouds. Thunder rumbled
in the distance, a few drops of rain pelted down. The kender
and the mage had disappeared. They were on the back of the
griffon and heading away from Qualinesti. Away from Lau-
rana. Now, with luck, he could shield her from any involve-
ment with the mage.
"Go meet the Knight," Medan said, waving his hand. "He
challenges you to combat. Fight him."
The subcommander rose from his place, sword drawn. The
archer dropped his bow. He held a dagger in his hand, ready to
strike from behind while the subcommander attacked from the
front.
"Single combat," Medan added, holding the bowman back.
"Face him one on one, Subcommander."
"Sir?" The man was incredulous. He looked back to see if the
marshal was joking.
What had the subcommander been before he became a'
Knight? Sell-sword? Thief? Thug? Well, this day, he would have a
lesson in honor.
"You heard me," Medan said.
The subcommander exchanged dour glances with his fellow,
then walked forward without enthusiasm to meet the Solamnic's
crashing charge. Medan rose to his feet. Crossing his arms over
his chest, he leaned back against one of the white boulders to
watch the encounter.
The sub commander was a powerfully built man with a bull
neck, thick shoulders and muscular arms. He was accustomed to
relying on his strength and low cunning in battle, hacking and
slashing at his opponent until either a lucky cut or sheer brute
force wore the enemy down.
The sub commander charged head-on like a snorting bison,
swinging his sword with murderous strength. The Solamnic
parried the blow, met it with such force that sparks glittered on
the steel blades. The subcommander held on, swords locked,
trying to drive his opponent into the ground. The Solamnic
was no match for such strength. He recognized this and
changed tactics. He st~ggered backward, leaving himself
temptingly open.
The sub commander fell for the ruse. He leaped to the attack,
slashing with his blade, thinking to make a quick kill. He man-
aged to wound the knight in the left upper arm, cutting through
the leather armor to open a great bleeding gash.
The Solamnic took the blow and never winced. He held his
ground, watched for his opportunity and coolly drove his sword
into the subcommander's belly.
The subcommander dropped his sword and doubled over
with a horrible, gurgling cry, clutching himself, trying to hold his
insides in. The Solamnic yanked his sword free. Blood gushed
from the man's mouth. He toppled over.
Before Medan could stop him, the bowman had lifted his
bow, shot an arrow at the Solamnic. The arrow plunged deep
into the Knight's thigh. He cried out in agony, stumbled,
off-balance.
"You cowardly bastard!" Medan swore. Snatching the bow, he
slammed it against the rock, smashing it.
The archer then drew his sword and ran to engage the
wounded Solamnic. Medan considered halting the battle, but he
was interested to see how the Solamnic handled this new chal-
lenge. He watched dispassionately, glorying in a battle-to-the-
death contest such as he had not witnessed in years.
The archer was a shorter, lighter man, a cagier fighter than the
subcommander. He took his time, testing his opponent with jab-
bing strikes of his short sword, searching for weaknesses, wear-
ing him down. He caught the Solamnic a glancing blow to the
face beneath the raised visor. The wound was not serious, but
blood poured from it, running into the Solamnic's eye, partially
blinding him. The Solamnic blinked the blood out of his eye and
fought on. Crippled and bleeding, he grimaced every time he was
forced to put weight on his leg. The arrow remained lodged in his
thigh. He had not had time to yank it out. Now he was on the of-
fensive. He had to end this fight soori, or he would not have any
strength to pursue it.
Lightning flashed. The rain fell harder. The men struggled to-
gether over the cbrpse of the subcommander. The Solamnic
jabbed and slashed, his sword seeming to be everywhere like a
striking snake. Now it was the archer who was hard-pressed. He
had all he could do to keep that snake's fang from biting.
"Well struck, Solamnic," Medan said softly more than once,
watching with pleasure the sight of such skill, such excellent
training.
The archer slipped in the rain-wet grass. The Solamnic lunged
forward on his wounded leg and drove his sword into the man's
breast. The archer fell, and so did the Solamnic, collapsing on his
knees onto the forest floor, gasping for breath.
Medan left his boulder, walked out into the open. The So-
lamnic, hearing him coming, staggered to his feet with a wrench-
ing cry of pain. His wounded leg gave out beneath him.
Limping, the Solamnic placed his back against a tree trunk to
provide stability and raised his sword. He looked at death. He
knew he could not win this last battle, but at least he would die
upright, not on his knees.
"I thought the flame had gone out in the hearts of the Knight-
hood, but it lives on in one man seemingly," said Medan, facing
the Solamnic. The marshal rested his hand on the hilt of his
sword, but he did not draw it.
The Solamnic's face was a mask of blood. Eyes of a startling,
arresting blue color regarded Medan without hope, but without
fear.
He waited for Medan to strike.
The marshal stood in the mud and the rain, straddling the
bodies of his two dead subordinates, and waited.
The Solamnic's defiance began to waver. He realized sud-
denly)what Medan was doing, realized that he was waiting for
the Solamnic to collapse, waiting to capture him alive.
"Fight, damn you!" The Solamnic lurched forward, lashed out
with his sword.
Medan stepped to one side.
The Solamnic forgot, put his weight on his bad leg. The leg
gave way. He lost his balance, fell to the forest floor. Even then, he
made one last opportunity to try to struggle to his feet, but he was
too weak. He had lost too much blood. His eyes closed. He lay
face down in the muck alongside the bodies of his foes.
Medan rolled the Knight over. Placing his hand on the
Knight's thigh for leverage, the marshal took hold of the arrow
and yanked it out. The Knight groaned with the pain, but did not
regain consciousness. Medan took off his cloak, cut the material
into strips with his sword, and made a battlefield tourniquet to
staunch the bleeding. He then wrapped the Knight warmly in
what remained of the cloak.
"You have lost a lot of blood," Medan said, returning his
sword to its sheath, "but you are young and strong. We will see
what the healers can do for you."
Rounding up the two horses of his subordinates, Medan
threw the bodies unceremoniously over their saddles, tied them
securely. Then the marshal whistled to his own horse. The animal
came trotting over in response to his master's summons to stand
quietly at Medan's side.
Medan lifted the Solamnic in his arms, eased the wounded
Knight into the saddle. He examined the wound, was pleased to
see that the tourniquet had stopped the flow of blood. He relaxed
the tourniquet a notch, not wanting to cut off the blood flow to
the leg completely, then climbed into the saddle. Seating himself
behind the injured Knight, Medan put his arm around the man
and held him gently but firmly in the saddle. He took hold of the
reins of the other two horses and, leading them behind, began the
long ride back to Qualinost.
CHAPTER TWENTYONE
THE DEVICE OF TIME JOURNEYING
The wild and terrif~ing flight. from the dragon ended in
blue sky and sunshine. The flIght took longer than usual,
for the griffon had been blown off course by the storm. The
beast made landfall somewhere in the wilds of the Kharolis
Mountains to feed on a deer, a delay Palin chafed at, but all his
pleas for haste went unheeded. After dining, the griffon took a
nap, while Palin paced back and forth, keeping a firm grip on
Tasslehoff. When night fell, the creature stated that it would not
fly after dark. The griffon and Tasslehoff slept. Palin sat fuming
and waiting for the sun to rise.
They continued their journey the next day. The griffon landed
Palin and Tasslehoff at midmorning in an empty field not far from
what had once been the Academy of Sorcery. The stone walls of
the academy still stood, but they were black and crumbling. The
roof was a skeleton of charred beams. The tower that had once
been a symbol of hope to the world, hope that magic had re-
turned, was nothing but a pile of rubble, demolished by the blast
that had tom out its heart.
Palin had once planned to rebuild the academy, if for no
other reason than to show his defiance for Beryl. When he
began to lose the magic, began to feel it slip away from him
like water falling from cupped palms, he discarded the idea. It
was a waste of time and effort. Better far to spend his energies
searching for artifacts of the Fourth Age, artifacts that still
held the magic inside and could still be used by those who
knew how.
"What is that place?" Tasslehoff asked, sliding down from
the griffon's back. He stared with interest at the destroyed
walls with their gaping, empty windows. "And what happened
to it?"