Margaret Weis - Dragons of the Fallen Sun

She spoke to herself, but she spoke, unknowingly, to her son.

Her words impelled Silvan to action. He had been given an order and he would carry it out. Bitterly regretting the wasted time, his heart swelling with fear for his mother, he turned and plunged into the forest.

Adrenaline pumped in Silvan’s veins. He shoved his way through the underbrush, thrusting aside tree limbs, trampling seedlings. Sticks snapped beneath his boots. The wind was cold and strong on his right cheek. He did not feel the pelting rain. He welcomed the lightning that lit his path.

He was prudent enough to keep careful watch for any signs of the enemy and constantly sniffed the air, for the filthy, flesh-eating ogre is usually smelt long before he is seen. Silvan kept his hearing alert, too, for though he himself made what an elf would consider to be an unconscionable amount of noise, he was a deer gliding through the forest compared to the smashing and cracking, ripping and tearing of an ogre.

Silvan traveled swiftly, encountering not so much as a nocturnal animal out hunting, and soon the sounds of battle dwindled behind him. Then it was that he realized he was alone in the forest in the night in the storm. The adrenaline started to ebb. A sliver of fear and doubt pierced his heart. What if he arrived too late?

What if the humans—known for their vagaries and their changeable natures—refused to act? What if the attack overwhelmed his people? What if he had left them to die? None of this looked familiar to him. He had taken a wrong turning, he was lost. . . .

Resolutely Silvan pushed forward, running through the forest with the ease of one who has been born and raised in the woodlands. He was cheered by the sight of a ravine on his left hand; he remembered that ravine from his earlier travels to the fortress. His fear of being lost vanished. He took care to keep clear of the rocky edge of the ravine, which cut a large gash across the forest floor.

Silvan was young, strong. He banished his doubts that were a drag on his heart, and concentrated on his mission. A lightning flash revealed the road straight ahead. The sight renewed his strength and his determination. Once he reached the road, he could increase his pace. He was an excellent runner, often running long distances for the sheer pleasure of the feel of the muscles expanding and contracting, the sweat on his body, the wind in his face and the warm suffusing glow that eased all pain.

He imagined himself speaking to the Lord Knight, pleading their cause, urging him to haste. Silvan saw himself leading the rescue, saw his mother’s face alight with pride...

In reality, Silvan saw his way blocked. Annoyed, he slid to a halt on the muddy path to study this obstacle.

A gigantic tree limb, fallen from an ancient oak, lay across the path. Leaves and branches blocked his way. Silvan would be forced to circle around it, a move that would bring him close to the edge of the ravine. He was sure on his feet, however. The lightning lit his way. He edged around the end of the severed limb with a good few feet to spare. He was climbing over a single branch, reaching out his hand to steady himself on a nearby pine tree, when a single bolt of lightning streaked out of the darkness and struck the pine.

The tree exploded in a ball of white fire. The concussive force of the blast knocked Silvan over the edge of the ravine. Rolling and tumbling down its rock-strewn wall, he slammed against the stump of a broken tree at the bottom.

Pain seared his body, worse pain seared his heart. He had failed. He would not reach the fortress. The knights would never receive the message. His people could not fight alone against the ogres. They would die. His mother would die with the belief that he had let her down.

He tried to move, to rise, but the pain flashed through him, white hot, so horrible that when he felt consciousness slipping away, he was glad to think he was going to die. Glad to think that he would join his people in death, since he could do nothing else for them.

Despair and grief rose in a great, dark wave, crashed down upon Silvan and dragged him under.

The storm disappeared. A strange storm, it had burst upon Ansalon like an invading army, striking all parts of that vast continent at the same time, attacking throughout the night, only to retreat with the coming of dawn. The sun crawled out from the dark lightning-shot cloudbank to blaze triumphantly in the blue sky. Light and warmth cheered the inhabitants of Solace, who crept out of their homes to see what destruction the tempest had wrought.

Solace did not fare as badly as some other parts of Ansalon, although the storm appeared to have targeted that hamlet with particular hatred. The mighty vallenwoods proved stubbornly resistant to the devastating lightning that struck them time and again. The tops of the trees caught fire and burned, but the fire did not spread to the branches below. The trees’ strong arms tossed in the whirling winds but held fast the homes built there, homes that were in their care. Creeks rose and fields flooded, but homes and barns were spared.

The Tomb of the Last Heroes, a beautiful structure of white and black stone that stood in a clearing on the outskirts of town, had sustained severe damage. Lightning had hit one of the spires, splitting it asunder, sending large chunks of marble crashing down to the lawn.

But the worst damage was done to the crude and makeshift homes of the refugees fleeing the lands to the west and south, lands which had been free only a year ago but which were now falling under control of the green dragon Beryl.

Three years ago, the great dragons who had fought for control of Ansalon had come to an uneasy truce. Realizing that their bloody battles were weakening them, the dragons agreed to be satisfied with the territory each had conquered, they would not wage war against each other to try to gain more. The dragons had kept this pact, until a year ago. It was then that Beryl had noticed her magical powers starting to decline. At first, she had thought she was imagining this, but as time passed, she became convinced that something was wrong.

Beryl blamed the red dragon Malys for the loss of her magic—this was some foul scheme being perpetrated by her larger and stronger cousin. Beryl also blamed the human mages, who were hiding the Tower of High Sorcery of Wayreth from her. Consequently, Beryl had begun ever so gradually to expand her control over human lands. She moved slowly, not wanting to draw Malys’s attention. Malys would not care if here and there a town was burned or a village plundered. The city of Haven was one such, recently fallen to Beryl’s might. Solace remained untouched, for the time being. But Beryl’s eye was upon Solace. She had ordered closed the main roads leading into Solace, letting them feel the pressure as she bided her time.

The refugees who had managed to escape Haven and surrounding lands before the roads were closed had swelled Solace’s population to three times its normal size. Arriving with their belongings tied up in bundles or piled on the back of carts, the refugees were being housed in what the town fathers designated “temporary housing.” The hovels were truly meant only to be temporary, but the flood of refugees arriving daily overwhelmed good intentions. The temporary shelters had become, unfortunately, permanent.

The first person to reach the refugee camps the morning after the storm was Caramon Majere, driving a wagon loaded with sacks of food, lumber for rebuilding, dry firewood, and blankets.

Caramon was over eighty—just how far over no one really knew, for he himself had lost track of the years. He was what they term in Solamnia a “grand old man.” Age had come to him as an honorable foe, facing him and saluting him, not creeping up to stab him in the back or rob him of his wits. Hale and hearty, his big frame corpulent but unbowed (“I can’t grow stooped, my gut won’t let me,” he was wont to say with a roaring laugh), Caramon was the first of his household to rise, was out every morning chopping wood for the kitchen fires or hauling the heavy ale barrels up the stairs.