Richard Knaak - The Legend of Huma

More and more dragons were coming from the Keep. How many Dragonlances had the smith made?

The silver dragon flew as if pursued by the Dark Queen herself. She would glance back in his direction every now and then, that same fearful look in her eyes. He frowned and clamped his hands against the leg wound in order to stanch the flow.

At last, they flew over the Keep walls, narrowly avoiding another set of lancers rising, and she brought him to where other survivors of his band were being treated.

“Take him from me!” The dragon’s voice was so commanding, so harsh, that no one dallied. Huma lost sight of her and the world as a whole.

When he awoke, Gwyneth was over him, cleaning the wound, touching it with her hands in a way that deadened the pain. He could almost feel power flowing from her fingertips. Her face was pale and covered partially by her hair as she leaned over the leg.

Huma’s eyes wandered. They were on a hill, away from the fighting, but not so far that they could no longer hear the sounds of battle. Avondale was there, his left side a bloody mess. Kaz was nowhere to be seen. Of the original band, only nine remained. Bennett, uninjured but looking as if he and his armor had been dragged across the plains, was staring at Gwyneth with an emotion somewhere between revulsion and fascination. His eyes briefly met Huma’s, then turned swiftly away.

“Buoron is dead, Huma,” Oswal’s nephew finally said, his gaze still on Gwyneth. “The last I saw, he and his dragon took on that black one to save you. They perished.”

This last shook not only Huma, but Gwyneth as well. She removed her hands from the wound and cried in them. Huma reached out and touched her arm.

“It’s not Buoron she weeps for—” Bennett was having trouble finding the right words.

“Let it be, Bennett.” Guy Avondale tried to rise.

“Huma!” Bolt flew into sight, with Kaz waving his battle ax in greeting. Both dragon and minotaur were covered with scratches and minor wounds, but neither seemed to be weakened by them. Huma glanced at them only momentarily, then his eyes returned to Gwyneth. She looked away. He continued to stare at her, even when he finally responded to Bennett’s statement.

“What do you mean, Bennett? What are you trying to say?”

The hawklike features of Bennett swerved toward the Ergothian cleric/commander, “Everyone else saw it. Why hide it? If she cannot tell him, someone surely will. He needs to know. I know how he feels about her.”

“It is between them!” Avondale was furious.

“Stop it.”

The words were from Gwyneth. She rose, all the while staring at Huma. Her arms hung limply by her side.

Avondale slumped back suddenly. He glanced at Bennett and Kaz. “You two, help me up. A chill is coming over me. I need to move somewhere less open.”

Reluctantly, Kaz and Bennett helped him rise, and the three moved off.

Gwyneth finally spoke. “I weep for Buoron. I weep for any who fall fighting the Dragonqueen.”

“As have I.”

She tried to smile. “I weep especially for the dragon Buoron rode, the large silver one.”

Brother to his own, Huma recalled. Why would Gwyneth cry so for this one dragon?

She stared moodily around. The area had been emptied. As Huma looked puzzled, her features softened. “Before I tell you this, know that I love you, Huma. I would never do anything to harm you.”

“I love you too.” The words seemed to flow so easily all of a sudden.

“I think you may change your mind,” she said enigmatically.

Huma did not have time to ask what she meant, for Gwyneth was suddenly aglow—almost like the Dragonlances. As he watched in horrid fascination, her face elongated and her nose and mouth grew into a toothy snout. Huma thought of witchery and rose to help her, but his leg was not well yet and the head wound had not been salved. He slumped to the ground.

Her long, slim arms grew even longer—and more muscular. The small hands twisted and turned, becoming terrible claws. She fell onto all fours and seemed to grow and grow and grow. Something wiggled and moved on her back. She was no longer remotely human, and what she did resemble caused the knight to shake his head again and again and again.

Her garments vanished—to Paladine knows where—but she had no more need of them in her present form. The odd wiggling and moving on her backside came from two great humps that burst open, revealing batlike wings. They spread wide, and in moments the transformation was complete. The thing that had been Gwyneth stepped forward, tall, straight—and frightened.

It was a dragon—a silver dragon.

His own.

The silver dragon’s eyes were downcast. “Huma, in Paladine’s name, please say something!”

The voice was unmistakably Gwyneth’s. He looked up into that reptilian face and saw the fear in it—fear that he would reject her. Huma could not say what was truly going through his own mind. Everything seemed to be tumbling down around him. This could not be Gwyneth. Could it?

“You saw my brother that night—as you saw the other who served Duncan Ironweaver—dragons both, but in human form. We admire you so, Huma, you and your kind. In your short lives, you accomplish so much.”

Huma said nothing. Involuntarily, he pulled himself slightly farther from her. It was not out of fear, but out of confusion.

She did not interpret it that way, and her words spilled out faster. Even as she spoke, her form reverted. The wings shriveled. Her four limbs smoothed and twisted until they were once more human and she was able to stand. Her body shrank rapidly, as if the huge form were melting before his horrified eyes. The face grew smaller and rounder and the great maw of the dragon dwindled down to the full, perfect lips. Hair of shimmering silver came sprouting from the dragon’s head, cascading down the back. Huma nearly fled. The metamorphosis he had witnessed could not be real.

“My brother told me what I did not see at first, that I had fallen prey to what has happened to only a few others in the past. I had lived among you for so long that I had come to love as you do.”

“Why?”

She frowned, unsure exactly what he was asking, and then replied, “You embody the very beliefs of Paladine. You are brave, kind, never hateful. I came to love you for you, nothing else.”

“Ah, the happy lovers.”

The cold, triumphant voice woke Huma from his stupor. It could not be, not here . . .

Galan Dracos, looking much as he had earlier, materialized before the knight and the dragon maiden and smiled. “I would have made my presence known sooner, but I did not care to interrupt such a beautiful scene.”

Gwyneth gave a cry that no human could have been capable of and would have struck him, but Huma was already moving and barred her way. The knight succeeded in taking only a few steps before his leg gave out and he fell to the ground. Only then did he remember that the figure before him was an illusion. He silently cursed his own stupidity.

The renegade laughed. “I’ve come to add to your miseries, Huma. I’ve come to repay you for the loss of Crynus. I must admit, his insanity grew unpredictable in the end. But he was my best commander and I shall miss him. Pity.”

Kaz and Bennett, alerted by the voice of one they knew all too well, came racing around the corner. The illusory Dracos raised a hand and they halted, as if striking a wall.

“An eye for an eye, you pathetic mortal.” Dracos raised his hands, and something began to materialize before them. It was not until it was nearly fully formed that Huma recognized it.

“Magius!”

They had tortured him. His face was a bloody pulp, and one eye was swollen shut. His robes were in tatters, and Huma was surprised to see that they were white, not red. One arm was bent at an impossible angle, and neither leg seemed in the least functional. Magius forced himself up with his good arm.