Dragons of Spring Dawning Read online

  Sir Patrick stood up, his face dark. “I cannot accept this,” he said in a low voice. “Lady Laurana is a valiant warrior, certainly, but she has never commanded men in the field.”

  “Have you, young knight?” Astinus asked imperturbably.

  Patrick flushed. “No, but that’s different. She’s a wom—”

  “Oh, really, Patrick!” Sir Markham laughed. He was a carefree, easy-going young man, a startling contrast to the stern and serious Patrick. “Hair on your chest doesn’t make you a general. Relax! It’s politics. Gunthar has made a wise move.”

  Laurana flushed, knowing he was right. She was a safe choice until Gunthar had time to rebuild the Knighthood and entrench himself firmly as leader.

  “But there is no precedent for this!” Patrick continued to argue, avoiding Laurana’s eyes.

  “I’m certain that, according to the Measure, women are not permitted in the Knighthood—”

  “You are wrong,” Astinus stated flatly. “And there is precedent. In the Third Dragonwar, a young woman was accepted into the Knighthood following the deaths of her father and her brothers. She rose to Knight of the Sword and died honorably in battle, mourned by her brethren.”

  No one spoke. Lord Amothus appeared extremely embarrassed, he had almost sunk beneath the table at Sir Markham’s reference to hairy chests. Astinus stared coldly at Sir Patrick. Sir Markham toyed with his wine glass, glancing once at Laurana and smiling. After a brief, internal struggle, visible in his face, Sir Patrick sat back down, scowling.

  Sir Markham raised his glass. “To our commander.”

  Laurana did not respond. She was in command. Command of what? she asked herself bitterly. The tattered remnants of the Knights of Solamnia who had been sent to Palanthas; of the hundreds that had sailed, no more than fifty survived. They had won a victory … but at what terrible cost? A dragon orb destroyed, the High Clerist’s Tower in ruins.…

  “Yes, Laurana,” said Astinus, “they have left you to pick up the pieces.”

  She looked up startled, frightened of this strange man who spoke her thoughts.

  “I didn’t want this,” she murmured through lips that felt numb.

  “I don’t believe any of us were sitting around praying for a war,” Astinus remarked caustically. “But war has come, and now you must do what you can to win it.” He rose to his feet. The Lord of Palanthas, the generals, and the Knights stood up respectfully.

  Laurana remained seated, her eyes on her hands. She felt Astinus staring at her, and she stubbornly refused to look at him.

  “Must you go, Astinus?” Lord Amothus asked plaintively.

  “I must. My studies wait. Already I have been gone too long. You have a great deal to do now, much of it mundane and boring. You do not need me. You have your leader.” He made a motion with his hand.

  “What?” Laurana said, catching his gesture out of the corner of her eye. Now she looked at him, then her eyes went to the Lord of Palanthas. “Me? You can’t mean that! I’m only in command of the Knights—”

  “Which makes you commander of the armies of the city of Palanthas, if we so choose,” the Lord said. “And if Astinus recommends you—”

  “I don’t,” Astinus said bluntly. “I cannot recommend anyone. I do not shape history,” He stopped suddenly, and Laurana was surprised to see the mask slip from his face, revealing grief and sorrow. “That is, I have endeavored not to shape history. Sometimes, even I fail.…” He sighed, then regained control of himself, replacing the mask. “I have done what I came to do, given you a knowledge of the past. It may or may not be relevant to your future.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait!” Laurana cried, rising. She started to take a step toward him, then faltered as the cold, stern eyes met hers, forbidding as solid stone. “You—you see—everything that is happening, as it occurs?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you could tell us, where the dragonarmies are, what they are doing—”

  “Bah! You know that as well as I do.” Astinus turned away again.

  Laurana cast a quick glance around the room. She saw the lord and the generals watching her with amusement. She knew she was acting like that spoiled little girl again, but she must have answers! Astinus was near the door, the servants were opening it. Casting a defiant look at the others, Laurana left the table and walked quickly across the polished marble floor, stumbling over the hem of her dress in her haste. Astinus, hearing her, stopped within the doorway.

  “I have two questions,” she said softly, coming near him.

  “Yes,” he answered, staring into her green eyes, “one in your head and one in your heart. Ask the first.”

  “Is there a dragon orb still in existence?”

  Astinus was silent a moment. Once more Laurana saw pain in his eyes as his ageless face appeared suddenly old. “Yes,” he said finally. “I can tell you that much. One still exists. But it is beyond your ability to use or to find. Put it out of your thoughts.”

  “Tanis had it,” Laurana persisted. “Does this mean he has lost it? Where”—she hesitated, this was the question in her heart—“where is he?”

  “Put it out of your thoughts.”

  “What do you mean?” Laurana felt chilled by the man’s frost-rimed voice.

  “I do not predict the future. I see only the present as it becomes the past. Thus I have seen it since time began. I have seen love that, through its willingness to sacrifice everything, brought hope to the world. I have seen love that tried to overcome pride and a lust for power, but failed. The world is darker for its failure, but it is only as a cloud dims the sun. The sun—the love, still remains. Finally I have seen love lost in darkness. Love misplaced, misunderstood, because the lover did not know his—or her—own heart.”

  “You speak in riddles,” Laurana said angrily.

  “Do I?” Astinus asked. He bowed. “Farewell, Lauralanthalasa. My advice to you is: concentrate on your duty.”

  The historian walked out the door.

  Laurana stood staring after him, repeating his words: “love lost in darkness.” Was it a riddle or did she know the answer and simply refuse to admit it to herself, as Astinus implied?

  “ ‘I left Tanis in Flotsam to handle matters in my absence.’ ” Kitiara had said those words. Kitiara, the Dragon Highlord. Kitiara, the human woman Tanis loved.

  Suddenly the pain in Laurana’s heart, the pain that had been there since she heard Kitiara speak those words, vanished, leaving a cold emptiness, a void of darkness like the missing constellations in the night sky. “Love lost in darkness.” Tanis was lost. That is what Astinus was trying to tell her. Concentrate on your duties. Yes, she would concentrate on her duties, since that was all she had left.

  Turning around to face the Lord of Palanthas and his generals, Laurana threw back her head, her golden hair glinting in the light of the candles. “I will take the leadership of the armies,” she said in a voice nearly as cold as the void in her soul.

  “Now this is stonework!” stated Flint in satisfaction, stamping on the battlements of the Old City Wall beneath his feet. “Dwarves built this, no doubt about it. Look how each stone is cut with careful precision to fit perfectly within the wall, no two quite alike.”

  “Fascinating,” said Tasslehoff, yawning. “Did dwarves build that Tower we—”

  “Don’t remind me!” Flint snapped. “And dwarves did not build the Towers of High Sorcery. They were built by the wizards themselves, who created them from the very bones of the world, raising the rocks up out of the soil with their magic.”

  “That’s wonderful!” breathed Tas, waking up. “I wish I could have been there. How—”

  “It’s nothing,” continued the dwarf loudly, glaring at Tas, “compared to the work of the dwarven rockmasons, who spent centuries perfecting their art. Now look at this stone. See the texture of the chisel marks—”

  “Here comes Laurana,” Tas said thankfully, glad to end his lesson in dwarven architecture.
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  Flint quit peering at the rock wall to watch Laurana walk toward them from a great dark hallway which opened onto the battlement. She was dressed once more in the armor she had worn at the High Clerist’s Tower; the blood had been cleaned off the gold-decorated steel breastplate, the dents repaired. Her long, honey-colored hair flowed from beneath her red-plumed helm, gleaming in Solinari’s light. She walked slowly, her eyes on the eastern horizon where the mountains were dark shadows against the starry sky. The moonlight touched her face as well. Looking at her, Flint sighed.

  “She’s changed,” he said to Tasslehoff softly. “And elves never change. Do you remember when we met her in Qualinesti? In the fall, only six months ago. Yet it could be years—”

  “She’s still not over Sturm’s death. It’s only been a week,” Tas said, his impish kender face unusually serious and thoughtful.

  “It’s not just that.” The old dwarf shook his head. “It had something to do with that meeting she had with Kitiara, up on the wall of the High Clerist’s Tower. It was something Kitiara did or said. Blast her!” the dwarf snapped viciously. “I never did trust her! Even in the old days. It didn’t surprise me to see her in the get-up of a Dragon Highlord! I’d give a mountain of steel coins to know what she said to Laurana that snuffed the light right out of her. She was like a ghost when we brought her down from the wall, after Kitiara and her blue dragon left. I’ll bet my beard,” muttered the dwarf, “that it had something to do with Tanis.”

  “I can’t believe Kitiara’s a Dragon Highlord. She was always … always …” Tas groped for words. “Well, fun!”

  “Fun?” said Flint, his brows contracting. “Maybe. But cold and selfish, too. Oh, she was charming enough when she wanted to be.” Flint’s voice sank to a whisper. Laurana was getting close enough to hear. “Tanis never did see it. He always believed there was more to Kitiara beneath the surface. He thought he alone knew her, that she covered herself with a hard shell to conceal her tender heart. Hah! She had as much heart as these stones.”

  “What’s the news, Laurana?” Tas asked cheerfully as the elfmaid came up to them.

  Laurana smiled down at her old friends, but, as Flint said, it was no longer the innocent, gay smile of the elfmaid who had walked beneath the aspen trees of Qualinesti. Now her smile was like the bleakness of the sun in a cold winter sky. It gave light but no warmth, perhaps because there was no matching warmth in her eyes.

  “I am commander of the armies,” she said flatly.

  “Congratu—” began Tas, but his voice died at the sight of her face.

  “There is nothing to congratulate me about,” Laurana said bitterly. “What do I command? A handful of knights, stuck in a ruined bastion miles away in the Vingaard Mountains, and a thousand men who stand upon the walls of this city.” She clenched her gloved fist, her eyes on the eastern sky that was beginning to show the faintest glimmer of morning light. “We should be out there! Now! While the dragonarmy is still scattered and trying to regroup! We could defeat them easily. But, no, we dare not go out onto the Plains, not even with the dragonlances. For what good are they against dragons in flight? If we had a dragon orb—”

  She fell silent for a moment, then drew a deep breath. Her face hardened. “Well, we don’t. It’s no use thinking about it. So we’ll stand here, on the battlements of Palanthas, and wait for death.”

  “Now, Laurana,” Flint remonstrated, clearing his throat gruffly, “perhaps things aren’t that dark. There are good solid walls around this city. A thousand men can hold it easily. The gnomes with their catapults guard the harbor. The knights guard the only pass through the Vingaard Mountains and we’ve sent men to reinforce them. And we do have the dragonlances, a few at any rate, and Gunthar sent word more are on the way. So we can’t attack dragons in flight? They’ll think twice about flying over the walls—”

  “That isn’t enough, Flint!” Laurana sighed. “Oh, sure, we may hold the dragonarmies off for a week or two weeks or maybe even a month. But then what? What happens to us when they control the land around us? All we can do against the dragons is shut ourselves up in safe little havens. Soon this world will be nothing but tiny islands of light surrounded by vast oceans of darkness. And then, one by one, the darkness will engulf us all.”

  Laurana laid her head down upon her hand, resting against the wall.

  “How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Flint asked sternly.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “My waking and sleeping seem mixed together. I’m walking in a dream half the time, and sleeping through reality the other half.”

  “Get some sleep now,” the dwarf said in what Tas referred to as his Grandfather Voice. “We’re turning in. Our watch is almost up.”

  “I can’t,” Laurana said, rubbing her eyes. The thought of sleep suddenly made her realize how exhausted she was. “I came to tell you, we received reports that dragons were seen, flying westward over the city of Kalaman.”

  “They’re heading this direction then,” Tas said, visualizing a map in his head.

  “Whose reports?” asked the dwarf suspiciously.

  “The griffons. Now don’t scowl like that.” Laurana smiled slightly at the sight of the dwarf’s disgust. “The griffons have been a vast help to us. If the elves contribute nothing more to this war than their griffons, they will have already done a great deal.”

  “Griffons are dumb animals,” Flint stated. “And I trust them about as far as I trust kender. Besides,” the dwarf continued, ignoring Tas’s indignant glare, “it doesn’t make sense. The Highlords don’t send dragons to attack without the armies backing them up.…”

  “Maybe the armies aren’t as disorganized as we heard.” Laurana sighed wearily. “Or maybe the dragons are simply being sent to wreak what havoc they can. Demoralize the city, lay waste to the surrounding countryside. I don’t know. Look, word’s spread.”

  Flint glanced around. Those soldiers that were off duty were still in their places, staring eastward at the mountains whose snow-capped peaks were turning a delicate pink in the brightening dawn. Talking in low voices they were joined by others, just waking and hearing the news.

  “I feared as much.” Laurana sighed. “This will start a panic! I warned Lord Amothus to keep the news quiet, but the Palanthians aren’t used to keeping anything quiet! There, what did I tell you?”

  Looking down from the wall, the friends could see the streets starting to fill with people—half-dressed, sleepy, frightened. Watching them run from house to house, Laurana could imagine the rumors being spread.

  She bit her lip, her green eyes flared in anger. “Now I’ll have to pull men off the walls to get these people back into their homes. I can’t have them in the streets when the dragons attack! You men, come with me!” Gesturing to a group of soldiers standing nearby, Laurana hurried away. Flint and Tas watched her disappear down the stairs, heading for the Lord’s palace. Soon they saw armed patrols fanning out into the streets, trying to herd people back into their homes and quell the rising tide of panic.

  “Fine lot of good that’s doing!” Flint snorted. The streets were getting more crowded by the moment.

  But Tas, standing on a block of stone staring out over the wall, shook his head. “It doesn’t matter!” he whispered in despair “Flint, look—”

  The dwarf climbed hurriedly up to stand beside his friend. Already men were pointing and shouting, grabbing bows and spears. Here and there, the barbed silver point of a dragonlance could be seen, glinting in the torchlight.

  “How many?” Flint asked, squinting.

  “Ten,” Tas answered slowly. “Two flights. Big dragons, too. Maybe the red ones, like we saw in Tarsis. I can’t see their color against the dawn’s light, but I can see riders on them. Maybe a Highlord. Maybe Kitiara … Gee,” Tas said, struck by a sudden thought, “I hope I get to talk to her this time. It must be interesting being a Highlord—”

  His words were lost in the sound of bells ringing from towers all over the c
ity. The people in the streets stared up at the walls where the soldiers were pointing and exclaiming. Far below them, Tas could see Laurana emerge from the Lord’s palace, followed by the Lord himself and two of his generals. The kender could tell from the set of her shoulders that Laurana was furious. She gestured at the bells, apparently wanting them silenced. But it was too late. The people of Palanthas went wild with terror. And most of the inexperienced soldiers were in nearly as bad a state as the civilians. The sound of shrieks and wails and hoarse calls rose up into the air. Grim memories of Tarsis came back to Tas, people trampled to death in the streets, houses exploding in flames.

  The kender turned slowly around. “I guess I don’t want to talk to Kitiara,” he said softly, brushing his hand across his eyes as he watched the dragons fly closer and closer. “I don’t want to know what it’s like being a Highlord, because it must be sad and dark and horrible.… Wait—”

  Tas stared eastward. He couldn’t believe his eyes, so he leaned far out, perilously close to falling over the edge of the wall.

  “Flint!” he shouted, waving his arms.

  “What is it?” Flint snapped. Catching hold of Tas by the belt of his blue leggings, the dwarf hauled the excited kender back in with jerk.

  “It’s like in Pax Tharkas!” Tas babbled incoherently. “Like Huma’s Tomb. Like Fizban said! They’re here! They’ve come!”

  “Who’s here!” Flint roared in exasperation.

  Jumping up and down in excitement, his pouches bouncing around wildly, Tas turned without answering and dashed off, leaving the dwarf fuming on the stairs, calling out, “Who’s here, you rattlebrain?”

  “Laurana!” shouted Tas’s shrill voice, splitting the early morning air like a slightly off-key trumpet. “Laurana, they’ve come! They’re here! Like Fizban said! Laurana!”

  Cursing the kender beneath his breath, Flint stared back out to the east. Then, glancing around swiftly, the dwarf slipped a hand inside a vest pocket. Hurriedly he drew out a pair of glasses and, looking around again to make certain no one was watching him, he slipped them on.