Mercedes Lackey: When Darkness Falls

They had not even kept horses for riding. As Magarabeleniel had said when she reached Windalorianan and had been able to pass the task of driving the herds on to others, horses, as the riders of Windalorianan knew best of any in the Nine Cities, drank a great deal. If the Lerkalpoldarans could not even be sure of providing water for their goats, their cattle, and their talldeer, how much less could they expect to water horses?

And so, after leaving the herds in the south, Magarabeleniel had gone back across the mountains with her people on foot.

When the drought had broken and the rains had come, Gaiscawenorel of Windalorianan, the Viceroy's son, had gone himself over the mountain pass, returning Lerkalpoldara's horses and her herds. The herd had been gathered from across half the Elven Land, for while much of the livestock had been sacrificed when there had been no water to keep it alive, to the Elves, their horses were as precious as their children, and to keep them alive in the drought-time they had taken them to wherever there was water to keep them.

When he had reached the top of the pass that led down into Bazrahil, Gaiscawenorel had seen that the lands belonging to the City-Without-Walls had been terribly injured. The plains had gone tinder-dry with the lack of rain, and somehow they had been set ablaze. As he had looked down from the pass, he saw a black scar of burning that stretched a thousand miles. It was only by the mercy of Leaf and Star that Lerkalpoldara's Flower Forest had been spared from the fire.

* * * * *

THE spring to come would have given Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel a chance to rebuild the herds and the flocks, Jermayan thought grimly, as he and Ancaladar flew through the mountain pass on their way to Lerkalpoldara. But almost as soon as Gaiscawenorel had delivered the horses, and the sibling rulers had gathered up what they could of their scattered and winnowed herds in the teeth of the autumn storms to drive them home again, Andoreniel's summonses had come, and they must send, first their children to refuge at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and then their warriors forth to face the malice of Shadow Mountain.

A sudden gust of wind flipped Ancaladar over and spun him around like a child's toy. Jermayan had never been so grateful for the straps that bound him to his Bonded's saddle. Without them, he would have been dashed to the ice and rocks below a thousand times since they'd begun their flight: The winds were so strong and so unpredictable here in the east that he didn't think that even a combination of his spells (assuming he could actually manage to cast any yet, though the prospect of imminent death was a great incentive) and Ancaladar's speed and strength could save his life if he fell.

The dragon could read weather as well as Jermayan could read the pages of a scroll. Better, in fact, as Ancaladar could see not only what was, and for hundreds of miles around, but tell what was to be for several days' distance. They had left on Andoreniel's errand in the middle of the night (skulking out of the camp like thieves, as Jermayan thought of it) because Ancaladar said it was the time that the air would be most quiet for hours to come. But if this was quiet, Jermayan would hate to see turbulent.

They had flown above the clouds, and dawn had come as they flew. Normally, the high sky was quiet, but this time the rivers of air were not going where Ancaladar wished to go, and the dragon had been forced to leap from one to the next like a salmon in spring, sometimes dropping hundreds of feet with a bone-rattling thump, sometimes being swept a thousand feet into the sky so swiftly it took Jermayan's breath away. And though they crossed the land below faster than the fastest running unicorn, Ancaladar had been forced to fight for every mile of distance.

"Fear not," Ancaladar said aloud, sensing Jermayan's unease through their Bond. "The journey to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns will be far easier — for us, and for our passengers. The wind-rivers run more comfortably in that direction."

"For their sake, I hope so," Jermayan said feelingly.

* * * * *

ANDORENIEL'S decree should already have been passed to all of the Nine Cities by the signaling towers, and in case that had failed, Jermayan's own word would certainly be enough, especially with Ancaladar to back it up. But if they were not already expecting him at his various destinations, he suspected valuable time might be wasted — especially at Lerkalpoldara.

The journey into the east itself had been bad enough, but when it came time to descend into the valley that was their goal, the passage down into the more turbulent air made all the flying Jermayan had ever before done a-dragon-back seem like the most gentle excursion he had ever taken with Vestakia. The mountains did the same for the winds that rocks would have done to the waters in a rushing stream — and finally, in a desperate attempt to seek shelter from at least some of the winds, Ancaladar flew so low that he was below the mountaintops.

Here the winds were fierce and cold, carrying a brutal burden of snow and ice. But they were funneled by the towering granite peaks surrounding them, and they only blew one way.

Three times Ancaladar aimed himself at the pass into Bazrahil that the Elves called the Gatekeeper, only to pull up at the last moment, beating desperately at the air as he drove himself up, away from the sheer granite cliffs that flanked each side of the western side of the pass. The pass was sealed to ground travel this deep into the winter — especially a hard winter like this one — and the only way in or out of Lerkalpoldara's valley until the spring thaw was either for a few Mountain Scouts on foot, which would be wildly dangerous, or for someone like Ancaladar.

The fourth time, as Ancaladar prepared to dive at the pass, Jermayan felt the great black dragon summon all his skill and determination. Ancaladar forced himself higher into the churning air than on the previous three attempts, and this time thrust himself down through the winds with the fury of a striking thunderbolt.

There would be no turning aside this time, Jermayan realized. They would either make it through the pass, or he would discover which was harder — frozen granite or a dragon's head.

The wind whistled over armor, harness, and dragonhide with a sound Jermayan had not known it could make. It was louder than a whistle; it was a scream such as the Stone Golems Kellen had told him about might make, assuming such creatures had voices: wholly inhuman, wholly unalive, utterly dispassionate, yet somehow filled with intent and purpose. It made a stabbing ache in Jermayan's jaw and made his eyes water; the tears were instantly turned to ice, and crumbled as he blinked them away.

The mountains appeared as they shot through the clouds; drew closer. The gap between them, its size difficult to judge, appeared from among a hundred scattered mountains, and in an instant was less than a hundred yards away. Then the granite wall filled the world.

Their force and speed was all that saved them. Suddenly they were through. The scream became a muffled boom — Jermayan winced, as air with nowhere to go pressed against his ears — and he heard a shrill painful grating sound like sword-upon-sword that he identified, after a moment, as the grating of Ancaladar's belly-scales over pack-ice. There was nothing to be done about it: The pass was too narrow for Ancaladar to spread his wings.

Despite that, they shot forward at a speed neatly as fast as Ancaladar's fastest flight. The walls of the pass, crusted in ice, sped by above them, so fast they were no more than a blur of white.

Then they reached the top of the pass, and Ancaladar shot off into space.

It had not, perhaps, been the dragon's intention. He began to tumble, his wings flapping as he desperately strained once more for height. They had left the pass behind, but not the mountains, and at any moment the wind might sweep them back against the rock and ice once more.