Douglas Niles - The Puppet King

“It looks like the reflection from a great fire,” Aeren said worriedly.

“But there’s nothing except ocean out there. It’s almost a hundred miles to Ergoth!” Toxy, who had spent more time familiarizing herself with the area, explained.

“Then maybe Ergoth is burning,” the male surmised. From his secluded ledge, he lifted his neck and head high, peering over the top of the bluff behind them, scanning the skies for signs of danger. But there was nothing else unusual, aside from the—by then—normal state of heat for that summer. Still, both dragons agreed that the bizarre redness was a strange and unsettling phenomenon.

“I’m going to fly over there and have a look,” he announced, feeling very brave.

“We’ll both go,” Toxy said, fanning her wings beside him.

And so the pair of emerald dragons launched themselves from the cliff, gliding upward in the face of the stiff offshore breeze. Soon the coastline was a verdant fringe to the rear, and the waters of the wide strait expanded before them and to both sides below.

The sun was shining, but the surface of the sea had a curious, leaden quality; it was not the shimmering swath of diamond speckles that they had both become accustomed to. And the air had a strange taste—not like smoke, exactly, but as if an acrid scent somehow permeated everywhere. It reminded Aeren of the ozone aftermath of a lightning strike, though there were neither thunderclouds nor blue dragons in evidence.

The shore thinned farther behind them, and the strange swath of radiation grew more pronounced. Aerensianic was grateful for the female’s company, and he couldn’t deny that he was growing more and more afraid. Yet because of Toxyria, he was determined to put on a show of bravery. He flew with his neck and head fully extended, his tail trailing straight behind as he boldly glared at the distant sky.

“Look there!” gasped Toxy, banking and angling her head downward to point.

Aeren, who had been looking upward, ducked to see specks of brightness bubbling through the water, as if fires were somehow burning in the midst of the brine. They grew more intense, and he counted three patches of orange flame, churning and roiling toward the air with explosive force.

One broke from the surface in a hiss of steam and immediately angled upward. Squawking in astonishment and fear, Aeren saw that this was a fiery flier—a creature of flames, in the shape of a dragon! Moments later the other two burst from the sea, and there was no mistaking the nature and the threat. These were three dragons of pure fire, and they were rising rapidly, blazing wings stroking as they flew straight toward the pair of greens.

“Flee!” cried Toxy, obviously appalled at the horrific apparitions. She banked tightly and, wings driving powerfully, bore toward the Qualinesti coast.

Aeren was right behind. He cast a horror-stricken glance beneath his belly, confirming that the fiery monsters were indeed chasing them. They had altered their climb as the greens had turned and now were swerving after them in crackling, spark-trailing pursuit. Even worse, they were closing the distance!

“Faster!” he gasped, winging powerfully, wishing he could push Toxy through the skies. The larger of the pair, he was also the faster flier, and though he was nearly mad with fear, some deep and unsuspected reserve of courage wouldn’t let him pull ahead of his companion. Instead, the two greens flew side by side, streaking through the air, riding the crest of the wind, instinctively racing toward the safety of their oceanside lair.

Once more Aeren looked back and saw that the fire dragons were even closer. Black, lightless eyes gaped like death from their orange faces. Everywhere a normal dragon would have been scaled, these monstrosities had surfaces of seething, boiling fire. Their wings were like flaming tendrils, somehow smooth and solid enough to bear the beast’s weight. The green dragon couldn’t imagine what it would be like to touch that flame. He pictured it searing his talons away, consuming his flesh with hungry fingers of pure heat. He saw that the leading fire dragon was only five or six lengths behind them, with its two mates a similar distance beyond.

“No good!” he gasped. “They’re... too fast!”

His heart swelled, and in an instant of pure, furious decision, he did something more selfless than he had ever done before. “Keep going!” he cried to Toxy.

Then he curled through an upward loop and flew straight at the fire dragon, his emerald jaws spread wide in a cry of challenge and pure, unadulterated fear.

With the revelation that they’d had a spy in their midst, Porthios realized the elven outlaws would have to move camp again. Privately he placed little hope in Gilthas’s attempt to prevent Guilderhand from reaching Rashas. At best, he hoped the young Speaker might be able to talk his way out of a dungeon, or to avoid an even grimmer fate.

But to the prince, that was a minor problem compared to the threat of blue dragons once again winging downward into the trees. At Splintered Rock, they lacked even the minimal defensive benefits of the ravine, so the elves’ only hope of survival was to keep their location a secret. Despite the many comforts of the site at the base of the craggy bluff, the Qualinesti outlaws and their Kagonesti allies decided they once again had to pack their belongings and begin a trek through the forest.

The outlaw prince was becoming increasingly aware of the difficulties inherent in his status as an outlaw. Qualinesti was a vast forest, surely, but there were only a limited number of places where a large group of elves could find comfortable camp. They needed not only plenty of food, but also a steady supply of clean water—especially now, when summer’s unnatural heat so oppressed them. Also, they had to have a tall canopy of leaves that was thick enough to screen them from aerial searchers, and ideally enough flat and open space between the trees for five hundred elves to camp in some semblance of comfort.

At the same time, he realized how perfect the Splintered Rock site was. A wide stream flowed into the lake, bringing a steady supply of fresh water. There was plenty of space, and ample types of wild game in the area. Both the lake and the stream were well stocked with fish, and since the tribe had arrived here, they had managed to eat very well.

Still, a day after his nephew’s visit, Porthios was agitated and restless. He paced back and forth through the camp, looked around, saw the perfection of the locale... and knew that it was no good to stay there, not since the location was known by the spy called Guilderhand.

Late that afternoon he called a council of his most trusted lieutenants. Alhana, Samar, Dallatar, and Tarqualan all joined him in the snug grove where he had first met with Gilthas. They dispensed with the normal ritual of a fire, since the air was already superheated and the utter lack of wind would have insured that any smoke would merely have formed a haze around their heads.

“I’m thinking that we have to leave,” said the prince. “I don’t want to, but with our position discovered by the spy, it’s too dangerous to stay here.”

“I agree,” Dallatar said. “Though in many ways our camp here is ideal, we have no real protection against an attack.”

Samar and Tarqualan nodded, too, while Alhana, cradling a sleeping Silvanoshei, seemed too weary to make any kind of signal. Instead, she slumped against a tree trunk and watched the proceedings without expression. Porthios couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes, the outline of her strong bones through the pale skin of her increasingly gaunt face.

The prince forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. He addressed Dallatar. “You know these forests better than any of us. Is there another place that might fulfill our needs?”