Margaret Weis - Dragons of Autumn Twilight

"I have never seen nor heard of magic like this!" Raistlin whispered in awe as he and the others stopped, stunned, beside Sturm.

Seeing their wide eyes focused on his body, Berem instinctively pulled his shirt over his chest. Then, loosening his hold on Sturm's arm, he turned and ran for the gates. Eben scrambled to his feet and stumbled after him.

Sturm leaped forward, but Tanis stopped him.

"No," he said. "It's too late. We have others to think of."

"Tanis, look!" Caramon shouted, pointing above the huge gates.

A section of the stone wall of the fortress above the massive front gates began to open, forming a huge, widening crack. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, the massive granite boulders began to fall from the crack, smashing to the ground with such force that the flagstone cracked and great clouds of dust rose into the air. Above the roar could be dimly heard the sound of the massive chains releasing the mechanism.

The boulders began to fall just as Eben and Berem arrived at the gates. Eben shrieked in terror, instinctively and pitifully raised his arm to shield his head. The man next to him glanced up and-it seemed-gave a small sigh. Then both were buried under tons of cascading rock as the ancient defense mechanism sealed shut the gates of Pax Tharkas.

"This is your final act of defiance!" Verminaard roared. His speech had been interrupted by the fall of the rocks, an act that only enraged him more. "I offered you a chance to work to further the glory of my Queen. I cared for you and your families. But you are stubborn and foolish. You will pay with your lives!" The Dragon Highlord raised Nightbringer high in the air. "I will destroy the men. I will destroy the women! I will destroy the children!"

At a touch of the Dragon Highlord's hand, Pyros spread his huge wings and leaped high into the air. The dragon drew in a deep breath, preparing to swoop down upon the mass of people who wailed in terror in the wide-open courtyard and incinerate them with his fiery breath.

But the dragon's deadly dive was stopped.

Sweeping up into the sky from the pile of rubble made when she crashed out of the fortress, Matafleur flew straight at Pyros.

The ancient dragon had sunk deeper into her madness. Once more she relived the nightmare of losing her children. She could see the knights upon the silver and golden dragons, the wicked dragonlances gleaming in the sunshine. In vain she pleaded with her children not to join the hopeless fight, in vain she sought to convince them the war was at an end. They were young and would not listen. They flew off, leaving her weeping in her lair. As she watched in her mind's eye the bloody, final battle, as she saw her children die upon the dragonlances, she heard Verminaard's voice.

"I will destroy the children!"

And, as she had done so many centuries before, Matafleur flew out to defend them.

Pyros, stunned by the unexpected attack, swerved just in time to avoid the broken, yet still lethal teeth of the old dragon aiming for his unprotected flanks. Matafleur hit him a glancing blow, tearing painfully into one of the heavy muscles that drove the giant wings. Rolling in the air, Pyros lashed out at the passing Matafleur with a wicked, taloned forefoot, tearing a gash in the female dragon's soft underbelly.

In her madness, Matafleur did not even feel the pain, but the force of the larger and younger male dragon's blow knocked her backwards in the air.

The rollover manuever had been an instinctive defensive action on the part of the male dragon. He had been able to gain both altitude and time to plan his attack. He had, however, forgotten his rider. Verminaard- riding without the dragonsaddle he used in battle-lost his grip on the dragon's neck and fell to the courtyard below. It was not a long drop and he landed uninjured, only bruised and momentarily shaken.

Most of the people around him fled in terror when they saw him rise to his feet, but-glancing around swiftly-he noticed that there were four, near the northern end of the courtyard, who did not flee. He turned to face those four.

The appearance of Matafleur and her sudden attack on Pyros jolted the captive people out of their state of panic. This, combined with the fall of Verminaard into their midst, like the fall of some horrifying god, accomplished what Elistan and the others had not. The people were shaken out of their fear, sense returned, and they began fleeing south, toward the safety of the mountains. At this sight, the draconian captain sent his forces pouring into the crowd. He detailed another messenger, a wyvem, to fly from the fortress to recall the army.

The draconians surged into the refugees, but, if they hoped to cause a panic, they failed. The people had suffered enough. They had allowed their freedom to be taken away once, in return for the promise of peace and safety. Now they understood that there could be no peace as long as these monsters roamed Krynn. The people of Solace and Gateway-men, women, and children- fought back using every pitiful weapon they could grab-rocks, stones, their own bare hands, teeth, and nails.

The companions became separated in the crowd. Laurana was cut off from everyone. Gilthanas had tried to stay near her, but he was carried off in the mob. The elfmaiden, more frightened than she believed possible and longing to hide, fell back against the wall of the fortress, her sword in her hand. As she watched the raging battle in horror, a man fell to the ground in front her, clutching his stomach, his fingers red with his own blood. His eyes fixed in death, seeming to stare at her, as his blood formed a pool at her feet. Laurana stared at the blood in horrid fascination, then she heard a sound in front of her. Shaking, she looked up-directly into the hideous, reptilian face of the man's killer.

The draconian, seeing an apparently terror-stricken elven female before him, figured on an easy kill. Licking its blood-stained sword with its long tongue, the creature jumped over the body of his victim and lunged for Laurana.

Clutching her sword, her throat aching with terror, Laurana reacted out of sheer defensive instinct. She stabbed blindly, jabbing upward. The draconian was caught totally offguard. Laurana plunged her weapon into the draconian's body, feeling the sharp elven blade penetrate both armor and flesh, hearing bone splinter and the creature's last gurgling scream. It turned to stone, yanking the sword from her hand. But Laurana, thinking with a cold detachment that amazed her, knew from hearing the warriors talk that if she waited a moment, the stone body would turn to dust, releasing her weapon.

The sounds of battle raged around her, the screams, the death cries, the thuds and groans, the clash of steel-but she heard none of it.

She waited calmly until she saw the body crumble. Then she reached down and, sifting the dust aside with her hand, she grasped the hilt of her sword and lifted it into the air. Sunlight flashed on the blood-stained blade, her enemy lay dead at her feet. She looked around but could not see Tanis. She could not see any of the others. For all she knew, they might be dead. For all she knew, she might herself be dead within the next moment.

Laurana lifted her eyes to the sun-drenched blue sky. The world she might soon be leaving seemed newly made-every object, every stone, every leaf stood out in painful clarity. A warm fragrant southern breeze sprang up, driving back the storm clouds that hung over her homeland to the north. Laurana's spirit, released from its prison of fear, soared higher than the clouds, and her sword flashed in the morning sun.

Verminaard studied the four men as they approached him. These were not slaves, he realized. Then he recognized them as the ones who traveled with the golden-haired cleric. These, then, were the ones who had defeated Onyx in Xak Tsaroth, escaped the slave caravan, and broken into Pax Tharkas. He felt as if he knew them-the knight from that broken land of past glories; a half-elf trying to pass himself off as human; a deformed, sickly magician; and the mage's twin-a human giant whose brain was probably as thick as his arms.