3 - Dragons of Chaos Read online

  THE DRAGONS OF CHAOS

  Edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

  (c)1997 TSR, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved.

  OCR'ed by Alligator

  [email protected]

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Eyes of Chaos

  Sue Weinlein Cook

  2. The Noble Folly

  Mark Anthony

  3. Lessons of the Land

  Linda P. Baker

  4. The Son of Huma

  Richard A. Knaak

  5. Personal

  Kevin T. Stein

  6. The Dragon's Eye

  Adam Lesh

  7. Dragonfear

  Teri McLaren

  8. Tavern Tales

  Jean Rabe

  9. The Dragon's Well

  Janet Pack

  10. The Magnificent Two

  Nick O'Donohoe

  11. There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side

  Roger E. Moore

  12. The First Gully Dwarf Resistance

  Chris Pierson

  13. The Star-Shard

  Jeff Grubb

  14. Master Tall and Master Small

  Margaret Weis and Don Perrin

  15. Icewall

  Douglas Niles

  Eyes of Chaos

  Sue Weinlein Cook

  The last ogre hit the sun-baked ground hard, and he lay still next to the bodies of his companions. After a moment, the dazed creature feebly struggled to crawl forward, away from the carnage.

  The blue dragon drew back her claws to take another swipe at her prey, then hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. She had grown tired of this game.

  She inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp taste of the lightning breath that threatened to explode from her mouth. The dragon eyed the ogre trying in vain to disentangle himself from the pile of corpses. She held her breath until she could stand it no longer.

  A stroke of lightning erupted from the blue monster so violently, it propelled the pitiful ogre back fifty feet through the air, then smashed him into the wreckage of a crude wooden dwelling. He dropped heavily to the ground, his charred body spasming with the massive electrical charges that surged through him. Sparks twined across his blackened, terrorized face. Tendrils of acrid smoke rose from the dry wood, and in seconds the whole structure was awash in hissing, popping flame.

  The ogre did not rise again.

  Her horned nose raised to the sky, the blue dragon let out a mighty roar. She loved the sound of her own voice thundering across the stricken land. She stepped forward, digging her talons deeply into the pile of ogre bodies, now nothing more than carrion. A few more steps, and the dragon tensed her powerful leg muscles, then catapulted herself into the air.

  The dragon beat her wings furiously, accelerating as she climbed into the late summer sky. Clamor loved speed almost as much as she loved sound-velocity and volume consumed her. Faster and faster she flew, fueled by a sudden rush of energy and exhilarated by the flow of cool Khalkist air across her dusky blue hide. Urging her rider to hang on tight, the dragon banked steeply. Clamor dipped her long snout and folded back her powerful wings, then shot toward the ground again like an elven arrow, skimming over the blackened ogre village.

  "What did you think of that, Jerne?"

  Clamor was too pleased with her work to notice that her rider made no reply.

  Surveying the destruction, the satisfied dragon rumbled deep in her throat-it was as close as she could come to imitating the chuckle of her Dark Knight partner. She swept her great head back and forth, taking in the remains of rough huts still smoking from the assault of her lightning breath, and crude stone dwellings blasted to rubble. The smell of charred flesh curled around her nostrils and she noted the ogre remains, scorched nearly beyond recognition, lying within the wreckage. Still more corpses were strewn about the center of the village. But these bodies bore no marks at all. Baskets and tools lay next to them, dropped just before their owners themselves fell. The pigs and lizards the villagers raised for food likewise had collapsed in their pens.

  "Nothing like the last time we were here, is it, Jerne?" Clamor asked coldly. Was it only a month ago that the two of them, along with the rest of their wing of knights, had swept through the land of Blode to conscript all able warriors for service in the Minions of Darkness? "So much has happened since then. Our invasion..."

  Lost in her thoughts, the dragon circled around to overfly the village one last time. She spread her wings wide to catch the air and coasted, reliving those weeks of triumph during the hottest summer in even a dragon's memory. The armies of the Knights of Takhisis, made up of fearsome dark paladins and their dragon partners, had swept across the continent in a conquest unparalleled in any of the Great Ages of Ansalon. "Do you remember how we crushed every nation like twigs snapping beneath our feet? We taught them the meaning of true honor-and fear! The entire land bowed before the glory of Her Dark Majesty..."

  Clamor faltered, not wanting to recall the last chapter of that momentous summer. Instead, her heartbeat pounding in her head, she pumped her wings against the sultry air and climbed again. After gaining altitude, she craned her neck around for one last view of her handiwork. What looked like an ogre hunting party had just entered the village. Clamor smirked as she imagined their amazement at finding their homes-

  A knight must not engage in combat with an unarmed opponent.

  -nothing more than smoldering wrecks.

  One of the hairy creatures looked up and pointed his club at her. The other ogres cowered, looking small standing among the ruins and the dead. "Poor creatures!" she mocked aloud, then shot into the cool whiteness of the clouds.

  Poor Clamor!

  The dragon winced sharply at a sudden pain in her right leg. The limb-blackened, withered, and dripping with green ichor-dangled limply beneath her. She cursed the ogres far below, knowing that her stop in Blode had aggravated the wound. The pain jerked Clamor's thoughts back to the battle in which she had earned her injury. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her skin grew hot despite the cool southern winds as she recalled the moment she had tried so hard to block from her memory. It seemed like yesterday-no, it was yesterday.

  *****

  Clamor was fiercely proud. She and Jerne had received the rare honor of flying second to the valiant knight Steel Brightblade, who was astride Flare. Their wing had departed from the ruins of the High Clerist's Tower to make its way into the newly formed rift in the Turbidus Ocean. Down, down, down they flew, until Clamor was certain they would come out on the other side of the world at any moment. Finally, they emerged in the Abyss and beheld their foes.

  Although few things frightened the great blue, the sight of the giant called Chaos sent waves of terror rippling through her body. The enormous, brutal figure roared like an erupting volcano, laughing at those who had come to battle him. His ugly visage was enough to make even a dragon hesitate in the attack, and his size dwarfed even the mightiest of the reds. But worst of all were the eyes, Clamor thought. Those lidless holes in his face seemed to suck everything they beheld into their vast nothingness. She believed those horrible dark whirlpools could capture her very soul.

  Swooping all about him were fire dragons, terrible minions of Chaos. These creatures of living magma breathed reeking, burning sulphur at their foes as sparks flew from their obsidian scales and fiery wings to singe the flesh of dragon and man.

  Steel ordered his knights to attack the riders of these foul creatures, the daemon warriors. Clamor and Jerne, a practiced team from many years of training together and countless battles during that summer's invasion, launched themselves at their foes with a fury echoed by the other blues, as well as the silvers who accompanied them into battle with Solamnic K
nights. This was a fight for all the children of Krynn, the dragon knew.

  In the oppressive heat of the Abyss, the battle raged on. The shrieks of the attacking dragons mixed with the death cries of the fallen. Clamor and her knight had already destroyed several of the nightmarish daemon warriors when it happened.

  Jerne raised his sword, which had been blessed by Her Dark Majesty on the day of his knighting, and urged Clamor to move in just a little closer to the enemy. Though nearly exhausted after her efforts in this endless battle, Clamor gamely acceded. The daemon warrior grinned ferociously at them as its fire dragon mount beat its flaming wings ever nearer.

  Wait! the blue thought in alarm. Jerne is not sitting properly in the saddle! She tried to veer off the approach, but it was too late. With one final slap of affection on her flank, the knight launched himself off her back and onto his daemon foe in a suicidal attack, screaming his battle cry and swinging his dark blade in a vicious arc.

  Suddenly off-balance, Clamor struggled to right herself. In horror, she watched Jerne topple the daemon warrior from its mount's back, then fall with it to the ground below.

  "No! Jerne!" Her cry of despair turned into a howl of pain as the now riderless fire dragon dived beneath her to scorch her right leg. Enraged, Clamor spun in midair and locked her gaze with the fire dragon. Then she belched forth a bolt of lightning at the chaos-spawn. The impact sent obsidian scales exploding outward and the fire dragon speeding backward toward the lance of an attacking Solamnic Knight and his silver mount.

  The wounded Clamor had just enough strength left to slow her descent before she hit the ground. Through her pain-clouded vision she saw Jerne lying not far away, unmoving beneath the corpse of the daemon warrior. Wanting to see something-anything-but the lifeless sight of her beloved rider, Clamor looked up. She spied Flare and Steel as they stabbed at Chaos and drew a single drop of blood, which fell to the gray ground near her. Her eyes upon Flare, Clamor cheered weakly at the strike. She hardly noticed the small, silver-haired human who scrabbled frantically with two pieces of shiny rock at the sand where the blood had fallen, then, almost in tears, ran off.

  Barely able to contain the throbbing pain of her burned leg, the crippled Clamor managed to rise. She stumbled forward a few paces, trying to get her footing, and placed her injured foot squarely onto the bit of ground stained red with the life-fluid of Chaos.

  As the blood of the Father of All and of Nothing mingled with her own, the blue dragon felt herself inexplicably distracted from the fight. Although she remembered Jerne telling her that the very survival of Krynn depended on the outcome of this battle, she could not resist the voice that now commanded her to fly up, up, and out of the Abyss. Abandoned by reason, Clamor thought she saw Chaos looking right at her with those horrible empty holes of eyes. The last thing she heard before leaving the battle far behind her was the giant's volcanic cackle.

  Child of Chaos!

  *****

  Clamor shook her head, trying to clear it of such disturbing memories. "Jerne, how could you leave me?" she whimpered.

  You don't remember, do you?

  "I don't want to remember!" the dragon roared at the clouds.

  Almost as if in response, the pain in her leg flared up again. Clamor sucked in her breath sharply, feeling the dark malevolence of the wound creep slowly up her leg and across her belly. She knew at that moment she couldn't hide from the dark truth any longer. It's eating away at me, the panicked dragon thought wildly. The wound is of Chaos himself! It's stealing my life! Jerne, what should I do? The only thing that helps is...

  A sudden thought stemmed the fear welling within her. Clamor realized how to fuel the ravenous blood of Chaos within her. If it wanted life, that's what she would give it. But not her own life.

  Flashing exultantly through the air, she blasted out a bolt of lightning that made the clouds blaze with reflected light. A rumble filled her throat. Folding her wings tightly along her back, the blue dragon dropped out of the clouds, surveying the lush forestland below. "I shall conquer all these lands in your name, Sir Jerne Stormcrown!" she proclaimed for the benefit of her absent rider. "All will honor your valiant sacrifice and know you as the greatest of knights!"

  honorhonorhonorhonorhonorhonor

  Clamor hurtled toward the tree line and skimmed the woods for any sign of civilization. She hadn't visited this area of southern Ansalon in the years since the elves had turned back the Nightmare that had cursed the Silvanesti Forest after the War of the Lance. The dragon breathed deeply of the smell of new growth. Only elves could cultivate anything in the middle of this drought, she thought, amid a pang of homesickness for the cold, arid isle where she and her rider had lived and trained so long.

  Clamor's eyes lit on a break in the trees. As she approached, the scene of a tranquil village unfolded beneath her. A lot like the last one, she thought, rumbling with delight as she imagined how furious the elves who lived here would be to hear themselves compared with ogres in any fashion.

  The blue dragon circled the village once, then dived. The rush of air around her was like music. "For you, Jerne!" she roared as she unleashed a gout of lightning at the Silvanesti gathered around a small pool at the center of the village. The blast felled half a dozen elves and knocked several others, flailing, into the pool. Other elves scattered, screeching in terror and surprise. Clamor followed a group of the delicate, blond creatures as they sped toward a graceful spire of a building carved from a living tree. The dragon could smell their fear.

  As they neared their supposed sanctuary, Clamor's gaze fell upon them, compelling them to turn and face her. She hovered, pinning them with her gaze, and marveled at what happened next. Slowly, thin silvery wisps rose from the elves' bodies to hang lightly in the air.

  Strange, the dragon pondered as she willed the silver strands inexorably toward her. The ogres' were bronze. Clamor's relentless gaze drew the elves' delicate life-energies closer and closer, until the silvery light nearly blinded her. The dragon reveled in the infusion of vitality she felt surging through her. She was momentarily taken aback to see on the faces of the dying Silvanesti the same horrified expression she imagined she herself had worn when she first beheld the face of Chaos. Then the elves collapsed like puppets to the ground, and it didn't matter anymore.

  Clamor made short work of the rest of the village, alternately blasting the elves and their dwellings with her lightning breath and devouring their souls to feed the blood of Chaos. Taking little notice of the few Silvanesti who escaped into the woods, the dragon flapped lightly back to the central pool. Feeling positively rejuvenated, she lay contentedly down beside the pool and peered at the water.

  What she beheld in the smooth surface startled her so, she cringed from the sight. Then, slowly, the dragon leaned closer for another look. In horror and disgust, she stared down at her reflection, at the sick, blackened tinge her hide had taken on from the middle of her chest all the way down to her feet. The entire discolored area was covered all over with horrid pustules and cancerous boils. Her burned right foot had shriveled to nothing more than a misshapen stump. She hardly looked like a dragon anymore.

  But worst of all were the eyes. Fixing her gaze on them, Clamor felt fear clamp around her heart. The eyes that stared back at her from the surface of the pool looked like they belonged to a blue dragon even less than did the rest of her hideous body. The lidless holes in her face no longer gave hint of the dragon's intelligence and humor, nor did they offer a glimpse of the dedication and drive she had learned as Jerne's partner. Now they held only a vast blackness. Nothingness.

  Like father like daughter.

  Clamor screamed and launched herself at the sky. No matter how hard she batted her wings, she could not escape the giant, roaring laughter erupting in her ears.

  After what must have been hours of flying headlong, giving no thought to anything but the continued pumping of her great wings, an idea emerged from the frantic dragon's mind. Silvanost! she thought. She was fly
ing straight toward that bright capital of the elves' reclaimed forest. Her other-worldly eyes glittered at the thought. Thousands live in Silvanost! Absorbing that many would surely satisfy this hungry Chaos blood!

  But the dragon's frenzied pace had begun to take its toll on her. Her wings felt strained from the punishment of the breakneck flight, and her whole body had begun to ache. She would never make it to the elven capital at this rate. "Just a quick rest," she announced to her absent rider, swaying a bit with the effort of staying aloft. "A short nap can't hurt. Then I will win you a shining jewel for the crown of your domain!"

  The dragon circled, gliding ever lower in search of a proper resting place. Annoyed at the lack of dry, open places which blue dragons favored, she found a small clearing near a stream and landed. She was surprised at the jolt she gave herself as she roughly met the ground. "Careful, Jerne," she murmured wearily, stretching out carefully on the mossy ground. "I wouldn't want you to fall." The exhausted dragon closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep for the first time since the battle with Chaos.

  wouldn't want you to fall fall

  fall

  fall

  fall

  fall

  *****

  Clamor found herself back in the Abyss, once more in the middle of the raging battle against the Father of All and of Nothing. Once more she smelled the horrible sulphur of dragon breath, and heard the shrieks of dragon and man alike. She heard her knight urge her closer to the grinning daemon warrior astride a fire dragon nearby, felt herself respond to his command. She squinted against the light thrown by the flaming wings of the enemy's dragon mount. It was so bright. Where-No!

  Anxious to avoid contact with her quarry's fiery wing, the half-blind Clamor quickly wrenched herself upward. However, the sudden shift occurred just as Jerne was readying his attack and knocked the knight off-balance. With only a futile swipe to find some purchase, Jerne toppled from his saddle, crying "Clamor!" He twisted his body as he fell and managed to land right atop the startled daemon warrior, sending both of them falling from the mount to the hard ground below.