Mary Herbert: Legacy of Steel

"No!" she snapped to herself. "It's only a dream." Almost frantically, she threw her things back into the chest, burying the bundle out of sight.

She snatched up her sword and hurried out the back door to the trees that hemmed in her cottage. Behind her home rose a tree-clad hill, part of a ring of hills that protected the valley where the village was located. Sara climbed the hill on a path she knew by heart and made her way along a ridge to a small glen that angled down the ridge to the east.

There in the narrow confines of rocks and scrub trees, along the banks of a stony stream, Sara pulled her sword from the scabbard and drew herself up into a defensive posture. One after another, with meticulous care, she completed every sword exercise she had ever learned, from thrusts and parries to undercuts and blocks. When she was finished with the right hand, she repeated every exercise with the left. Every day, rain or sun, she had performed these exercises, sometimes adding changes of her own, but always completing the entire regime.

She had begun this practice to maintain her skills for self-defense. She continued it now out of habit. No one in the village imagined she did this; no one in the village knew what she had been or what she really was.

Sara wanted it that way. If any word had leaked out that an exile from the Knights of Takhisis lived in the village of Connersby in Solamnia, the Dark Knights and the good Knights of Solamnia would have swarmed all over this region to find her.

Or at least they would have several years ago. But the old world had been lost and a new world had been found in the Second Cataclysm only two short years ago. In that bitter, flaming summer, most of the knights of the light and the dark had perished together in a brutal war against Chaos, the Father of All and of Nothing. Chaos had been defeated, but in his retreat, he had forced the other gods to go with him, leaving the world of Krynn bereft of its gods, their magic, and most of the finest warriors in Ansalon. Only a few scattered remnants of the two orders remained, and Sara doubted they would be very interested in seeking out old deserters accused of treason.

Still, Sara kept her secret. The life she led until seven years ago was over and not one she recalled with joy. Only the memories of her adopted son, Steel Brightblade, kept that life alive in her memories.

Sara lifted her face to the pale sky and sent her thoughts winging back to the day when the dark-haired woman, Kitiara Uth Matar, thrust her baby into Sara's arms and rode away, never to return. From that moment, Sara Dunstan considered herself Steel's mother, and she devoted her entire life to his welfare.

It was he who had led her into the dark knighthood, and it was in the hope that she could turn him back from that path that she betrayed the Knights' Code and put her own life in danger by trying to lure him away from the goddess, Takhisis. She would have sacrificed anything for him-something his own mother never did.

Even now, two years after Steel's death in the last battle against Chaos, Sara mourned him as deeply as a blood mother could for her own son. The only comfort she found lay in the fact that Steel had died a hero, sacrificing his own life for the sake of his world. Looking back on her life, Sara did not begrudge a single moment she had spent with Steel, or for him.

The woman wiped her face with the hem of her tunic and sat down on a rock. She sighed, glanced down at the weapon in her hands. The sword exercise, if nothing else, had kept her strong and youthful beyond her fifty-one years. But, she laughed ruefully, her age was beginning to tell. Her knees ached and her reflexes were slower. Her eyesight was not as sharp as it once was. Her hair, once light brown, had turned prematurely gray and now hung in a silver braid down her back. And her mind tended to wander too often over old memories.

One day she would have to give up this swordplay and birthing horses and trimming cows' hooves and all the hard, difficult labor she performed and leave it all to someone younger and stronger. One day. Until then, there was lots to do and not enough time to do it all. Already the late winter day was passing.

Rested, Sara sheathed her sword and hurried home to her loom and her chores. She put her dreams and memories aside for another time. What were they, after all, but mere phantoms of the past? There were far more practical things to think about in the light of day.

Like all days, though, the day drained away into darkness, and that night Sara's dream came again. It was an odd dream, for it had no images, no light or color. Then was nothing but impenetrable darkness, the pain of body and soul, and the voice crying its misery to anyone who could hear.

Sara woke to find her pillow soaked with tears and her back stiff and sore from the tension. She lay awake the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling. The next day she looked wan and felt exhausted.

"It will go away," she told herself. "It's only a dream. I don't need to worry about it."

But the voice did not go away. For three more nights, the piteous cries echoed in her sleep until Sara woke screaming, "Leave me alone!"

On the fourth day, Sara was so weary she fell asleep over her loom, and she dreamed again of the darkness and the voice. This time the dream changed. A dim light filtered through the gloom, revealing stone walls and a sand-covered floor. The voice still cried, softly and steadily like a miserable child. Its tone rose and fell as if its maker was half-asleep. Then something moved into Sara's vision and confirmed her suspicion. Two forelimbs, muscular and taloned, stretched out on the sand before her. The pale light gleamed on faded blue scales.

The dragon, as if sensing her presence, raised its head and looked around. Through its eyes, Sara saw the length and breadth of its body. She gasped in her sleep. The dragon was emaciated, its color dull and dry. Its right forearm seemed bent at an odd angle, and a long, seeping wound stretched across its shoulders. It dropped its head back onto the sand and whimpered.

Sara sighed with resignation. "All right," she said aloud. "I'm coming." The dream abruptly snuffed out.

Perhaps her acceptance was all the dragon needed, for that night, after Sara packed her gear and readied her cottage to leave, she slept through the night without a single dream.

Sara left her cottage early the next morning. After leaving word with her nearest neighbors that she would be gone for a while, she slung her pack and a bow over her shoulders and marched west toward the coast.

To be sure, she had little idea where to look for the blue dragon, only a few guesses. Since there were none of the deserts blue dragons preferred in Coastlund, the sandy floor she noticed in her dream probably indicated the dragon was somewhere near the coast in a cave. There were, of course, thousands of miles of coastline in Ansalon, but Sara reasoned the dragon had to be near for its feelings to influence her dreams so powerfully. What it was doing alone, so badly hurt, in a cave in Solamnia, Sara could only imagine.

She traveled as quickly as she was able. The road, little more than a cart track, wound westward past scattered farms and small villages. The sky was overcast, and a stiff wind blew from the west. A light rain dampened her cloak; mud caked her boots. She camped one night in the open and went on early the next day.

By late afternoon, she reached the fishing village of Godnest on the coast. She made her way to a run-down inn near the docks for a meal. As she ate a rather thin meat pie, she debated which way to go. There were only two choices. She could go south toward Hargoth or northeast toward Daron. Either way, the coast was rather barren and rugged enough in places to have sea caves large enough for a blue. But which way? She hated to waste the time and strength searching in the wrong direction. This was winter, after all, the month of Deepkolt, and not the best time to be traveling on foot alone searching for something.