Douglas Niles - The Puppet King

Finally he saw the green shape that he had missed, that he had feared for. Toxyria fell into pace beside him, and he saw that she had returned with several more greens as well as a trio of white dragons. The serpents came to rest on the bluff overlooking the sea, and for a moment they were silent, observing the three pillars of steam that marked the graves of the fire dragons.

“What news from the north?” Toxy asked after they had nuzzled snouts long enough to ensure that each was relatively unharmed.

“No dragons to be found there, but it seems as though all Krynn is aflame,” Aerensianic reported grimly. “I saw great forests burning across the land of the elves. Also there were living shadows, deadly and hungry. They were battling with elves, including one called Porthios, whom I once tried to kill.”

“As to finding our kin-dragons, I had better luck,” Toxyria reported, indicating the greens and whites that had come to rest around them. “I flew far, and our kin-dragons were glad to see me, for they had heard strange tales of events here and across the world. They were willing to fly to our lair to seek your advice and wisdom.”

These serpents, none of whom was as large as either of the mature greens, watched respectfully, and Aeren sensed that they were hoping for his approval.

“Thank you for your assistance,” he said gravely. “Not only did you help Toxyria, but your arrival no doubt saved my life.”

“There is other news, brought by our kin-dragons,” the female green dragon added. “As you surmise, this storm wracks the whole of our world.”

“Are the chromatics all battling in the cause of our queen?” Aeren asked.

“Not just the dragons of our own kin and clan,” Toxy said, surprising the big male. “But even silvers and golds have joined with blues and reds, all of them battling the Storms of Chaos that have struck so many places at once.”

“Together?” asked Aerensianic, truly stunned.

“Everywhere,” Toxy declared, fixing him with a look that he found curiously compelling, even as it made him feel just a little bit trapped.

“What should we do?” asked the male.

“You are the biggest, the mightiest of us all,” Toxyria replied in a tone that informed him that her mind was already made up.

Aeren slumped. In point of fact, he wanted nothing more than to fly away from here, to find some shore where the Storms of Chaos had not yet broken. Yet even more than that, he wanted to be with Toxyria, and he clearly understood what that entailed.

“I think we should go and fight these attackers wherever they can be encountered,” he found himself saying.

“I do, too,” the female said, obviously pleased. “And you told me that some of the creatures of Chaos have come as shadows and make their attack upon elves.”

“Then,” Aerensianic declared, making it sound as though it was his idea, “we should go there as well!”

“So that’s why you came to us,” Samar said.

“Yes... I fear that, if not for Toxy, I would have hidden away, and Fate would have found me in good time.”

“Then we all owe her a great deal,” said the elf warrior-mage, “for our situation by then was dire indeed...”

Gilthas helped his mother toward the doors of his own house. Laurana, burned from her encounter with the fire dragon and bruised from the crash into the tower, limped bravely beside him, but he sensed that without his support, she would have fallen. Still, though she was white-lipped with pain, she made no complaint nor any sound except an occasional gasp for breath.

It had taken them more than an hour to make it down from the Tower of the Sun and across two hundred paces of the besieged city. For some reason, probably nothing more than the luck, good or evil, that seemed to mark the chaotic progress of the attackers, the Speaker’s residence had been spared the damage that had scorched so much of Qualinost. Everywhere across the city, however, the vista was scarred by evidence of the onslaught. Ruined houses and yards, sometimes a whole block of utter destruction, smoldered next to other structures that had been untouched by violence. Across the street, a garden bloomed and a small fountain sprayed merrily in ironic contrast to the shattered house just beyond. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky, marking the destructive swaths of the fire dragons, while panic-stricken elves sought shelter in many of the remaining buildings.

Rashas, trembling with fear, trailed right behind Gilthas. The senator had refused to leave his side since the younger elf had slain the daemon warrior. Indeed, the elder had literally clung to Gilthas’s arm as they had made their way through the charnel house that had once been the chamber of the Thalas-Enthia. The rostrum and the circular floor were covered with charred bodies. The golden doors had been twisted off their hinges, and one had even melted into a puddle of now-hardened metal. Here and there, one of the blackened elven shapes twitched pitifully or stretched open a mouth to draw a rasping breath.

Escorting his wounded and weakened mother, Gilthas had roughly pushed Rashas away, ordering him to go to the aid of some of the elves who moaned so piteously in the ruins. Instead, the senator had slunk along behind him, ultimately darting through the door of the Speaker’s house as if he feared that Gilthas intended to lock him outside.

Kerian and the other terror-stricken members of the household were there to greet them, and swiftly Laurana was carried to a nearby couch, where she was given water and fruit while the young Kagonesti maiden went to fetch some of the poultices she had made up as an antidote to burns. The house was crowded with refugees, many of them burned, others bleeding, and all of them dirty and frightened.

All looked to him with hopeful eyes, and Gilthas felt a bitter sense of irony—now they turned to him for help, when there was nothing he could do for them.

“What’s happening?” Kerian asked quietly after Laurana had been made as comfortable as possible. “I saw dragons. They looked like they were on fire!”

Gilthas described the attack in as much detail as he could bear. “My mother called these the Storms of Chaos. They sweep across the world, and they have struck our city with unspeakable violence.”

“What can we do?”

Here the Speaker could only shake his head and groan in despair. “Nothing, so far as I can see, except fight them where we can and probably die.”

“The shadows are starting to come up faster,” Darrian said, moving back from the crest of the bluff to Porthios and Alhana. “What do you want us to do?”

“If nothing else, we’ll do what I said before—roll rocks down on them,” the prince said, even though he found it hard to imagine that such crude defenses could have any effect on the lethal, yet insubstantial, attackers.

Still, he and Dallatar rousted the weary elves who had sought respite and shelter amid the scraggly trees growing across the mountaintop. Besides the two leaders, he had identified a few—no more than a dozen—who possessed weapons of ancient power, swords that had proven to have some effect against the shadows, and these went to the tops of many of the ravines that scored the mountainside. There were other routes that were left undefended, but Porthios couldn’t bring himself to expose a defender whose weapon would be useless against these things.

Other elves pried at some of the great rocks that lay precariously balanced at the edge of the bluff, though they waited for a signal from Porthios before pushing them all the way free. He skirted the full perimeter and saw that the shadows were in fact seething and slipping up the slopes of the mountain more quickly than they had before. They curled over rocks, oozed up sheer faces, and slipped through the rough gaps between the many obstacles dotting the slopes of Splintered Rock.