Chris Pierson - Spirit of the Wind

Her father shook his head.

“It was a bison’s horn,” she said. “Kiri-Jolith’s holy symbol. They had to pry it from his fingers.”

A shudder wracked Riverwind’s body. He opened his fist and stared at the Forever Charm. Then he shook his head and draped it around his neck once more. He turned to Brightdawn as he tucked the medallion back into his vest. “I must ask you to do something when we reach Ak-Thain,” he said.

“I know.”

“Return to the Plains,” he pleaded. “Take Swiftraven with you.”

She shook her head. “No. There is more at stake now,” Brightdawn answered. “I owe my life to Kronn and Catt, after today-so does Swiftraven. Neither of us is going to turn our backs on a debt to the kender.”

“You would go against your own father’s wishes, then?”

Brightdawn closed her eyes. “Father,” she said, “have you heard the story of the princess who loved the shepherd boy? She went against her father’s wishes, too.”

“Don’t play games with me, child,” Riverwind snapped.

“I am not a child!” Brightdawn shot back. “I am a grown woman, and I know this isn’t a game. But what would have happened if Mother had heeded her father instead of following what was in her heart? I wouldn’t be standing here, for one thing.” Her strong, sky-blue eyes, so much like her mother’s, fixed on his. “I will go on to Kendermore, Father, because I must. Please don’t ask me to do otherwise.”

With that, she turned and walked away. Riverwind closed his eyes, but tears spilled forth anyway, leaving trails on his cheeks that glistened in the moonlight.

Out across the water, Red Reaver tipped up, slowly sinking beneath the waves.

Hekhorath sighed with pleasure as he glided on the warm updrafts that rose from the blasted ruins of the Dairly Plains. He stretched his claws and hissed with pleasure. He circled slowly over the riven, rocky barrens that once had been fertile grasslands, tendrils of smoke curling from his nostrils and vanishing on the warm, rushing wind. The air held the faint aroma of brimstone and soot. It was a heady scent, and Hekhorath savored it as a man might enjoy the bouquet of a fine wine.

He was still young, as dragons measure time, though he had lived longer than even the oldest elves on Krynn. He had dwelt in the caves to the south of the Dairlies for more than three decades, having been left behind by the retreating dragonarmies at the end of the War of the Lance. He had found plentiful prey there, both animal and human, and though he had to compete with a few other wyrms, he’d carved out his own territory with plenty of livestock and human barbarians to keep him fed. He had even escaped the worst of the fighting during the Chaos War; the All-Father’s legions had attacked the Dairlies, but not in force. The devastation that had ravaged other parts of Ansalon simply hadn’t come to Hekhorath’s comfortable corner of the world. Life had been pleasant, easy.

Then Malystryx had come.

Hekhorath had first heard rumors of the great female red more than a year ago but had paid them little heed. Among the dragons of the Dairlies, a newcomer was always cause for interest, perhaps caution… but never alarm. When he’d heard Malys had taken up in Blood Watch, he had briefly considered flying north to investigate but had set the idea aside and hadn’t thought about her for months.

Then one morning last autumn as he was soaring over the Maw, the narrow bay that divided the Dairlies from the rest of Goodlund, he had been approached by a young green dragon. The green, who had been named Sthinissh, had a lair not far from Hekhorath’s in a small forest near the place called Madding Springs. Sthinissh, like most greens, was fond of talking. He had been the first one to tell Hekhorath about Malystryx’s arrival.

“Hekhorath!” Sthinissh had called to him, arrowing down through a cloud bank. “I must speak with you!”

At first, Hekhorath had considered ignoring him-the green’s prattling often wore on his nerves-but something in Sthinissh’s voice had given him pause: fear.

That caught his interest. Sthinissh had been barely more than a hatchling, still filled with the hubris of the very young. Hekhorath had never known him to be afraid of anything. He had slowed his flight, allowed the smaller wyrm to catch up. “What’s the matter?” he’d asked.

“It’s Malystryx,” Sthinissh had replied. “She’s killed Andorung.”

That had given Hekhorath pause. Andorung had been a red, the oldest, largest dragon in the Dairlies and one of the few left in all of Ansalon who’d been present at the great battle between Takhisis and the vile Huma Dragonbane. If the evil dragons of eastern Goodlund revered anything now that Takhisis was gone, Andorung had been it.

“Dead?” Hekhorath had asked. “Are you certain?”

Sthinissh had nodded. “I saw his corpse myself She’d… done things to it.”

“Things?”

“Yes.” Sthinissh had been silent a moment, an odd look in his glinting red eyes. “He’d withered. It was like he’d lain in the sun for a year.”

“Are you sure that is true?” Hekhorath had pressed. “He was very old… he could have died on the wing, away from his lair…

“I’m sure,” Sthinissh had retorted. “There was blood on the ground around his body-it was still fresh. And.

His voice had trailed off.

Hekhorath had glanced at him sharply. “And what?”

“His head was missing.” Sthinissh had swallowed hard. “I think she took it.”

“What?” Hekhorath had exclaimed. “Why would she take his head?”

“I don’t know. As a trophy, perhaps. But that doesn’t explain why the rest of him was a… a husk. And this isn’t the first time this has happened, either. From what I hear, she did the same thing to a pair of coppers near the Mistlestraits. And others are missing, too.”

“How many others?”

Sthinissh had swallowed again. “Ten, maybe more.”

“Ten?” Hekhorath had echoed, disbelievingly. “That’s almost every dragon north of the Maw!”

“No,” Sthinissh had replied gravely. “That is every dragon north of the Maw. She’s killing them, one by one, and I don’t think it’s just for territory. Strange things are happening at Blood Watch, Hekhorath. The land’s changing. It’s grown barren, and I could swear I saw the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands.”

“Blood of Takhisis.” Suddenly, Hekhorath had understood Sthinissh’s fear. “You don’t think she’s responsible for that, do you?”

The green had looked at him. “Can you think of another explanation?”

Hekhorath had considered this, then shaken his head. “If she’s shaping the land, she’s a more powerful magic user than Andorung ever was… or any dragon since the Age of Dreams.”

“And if she’s slaughtered every dragon in the north,” Sthinissh had said, “then maybe we’re next.”

Hekhorath had thought a great deal about Malystryx over the following weeks. By the time word reached him that she had destroyed the village of Ran-Khal and slain Aester, a bronze dragon who laired nearby, he’d had an idea of what to do about her. When he’d sought out Sthinissh soon after and found the green’s withered, headless body sprawled amid the ashes that once had been his forest, he’d made up his mind. With every dragon who died on the Dairlies, the chances had grown that she would come for him.

And so at the beginning of the winter he had left his lair and flown north, hoping to find her first.

He’d soon discovered that Sthinissh had been right. The land was changing. What had been only a hint of barrenness months before, however, had turned into a full-fledged blight. There’d been more than just the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands, and a volcano had risen at Blood Watch. No tree, no shrub, no plant disturbed the parched, stony landscape. The heat was intense, blistering.