Planchet removed his cloak and wrapped it around Laurana’s shoulders. She held the cloak fast over her torn dress with one hand and placed her other hand on Medan’s arm. She looked up into his eyes.
“Are you certain you will be all right, Marshal?” she asked softly. She was not talking about leaving him alone with the dracon-ian. She was talking about leaving him alone with his pain.
“Yes, Madam,” Medan said, and he smiled in his turn. “Like you, I found it exhilarating.”
She sighed, lowered her gaze, and for a moment it seemed as if she would say something else. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear her say that her heart was buried with her husband Tanis. He didn’t want to hear that he was jealous of a ghost. It was enough for him to know that she respected him and trusted him. He took hold of her hand, as it lay on his arm. Lifting her fingers, he pressed them to his lips. She smiled tremulously, reassured, and allowed Planchet to lead her away. Medan remained in the dungeons alone, glad of the quiet, glad of the smoke-tinged darkness. He massaged his aching hand and, when he was once more master of himself, he picked up the bucket of water that they used to douse the torches and flung the filthy liquid in Captain Nogga’s face.
Nogga snuffled and spluttered. Shaking his head muzzily, he heaved himself up off the floor.
“You!” he snarled and swung round, waving his meaty fist. “I’ll have you—”
Medan drew his sword. “I would like nothing better than to drive this steel into your vitals, Captain Nogga. So don’t tempt me. You will go back to Beryl, and you will tell Her Majesty that in accord with the orders of my commander, Lord Targonne, I will turn over the elven capital of Qualinost to her. I will, at the same time, hand over the Queen Mother, alive and undamaged. Understood, Captain?”
Nogga glanced around, saw that Laurana was gone. His red eyes glinted in the darkness. He wiped a dribble of blood and saliva from his mouth, regarded Medan with a look of inveterate hatred.
“At that time, I will return,” said the draconian, “and we will settle the score that lies between us.”
“I look forward to it,” said Medan politely. “You have no idea how much.”
Dumat came running down the stairs. The baaz were right behind him, weapons in hand.
“Everything is under control,” Medan stated, returning his sword to its sheath. “Captain Nogga forgot himself for a moment, but he has remembered again.”
Nogga gave an incoherent snarl and slouched out of the cell, wiping away blood and spitting out a broken tooth. Motioning to the baaz, he made his way back up the stairs.
“Provide an honor guard for the captain,” Medan ordered Dumat. “He is to be escorted safely to the dragon that brought him here.”
Dumat saluted and accompanied the draconians up the stairs. Medan lingered a moment longer in the darkness. He saw a splotch of white on the floor, a tattered bit of Laurana’s dress, torn off by the draconian. Medan reached down, picked it up. The fabric was as soft as gossamer. Smoothing it gently with his hand, he tucked it into the cuff of his shirt sleeve, and then went upstairs to see the Queen Mother safely home.
19
Desperate Game
The great green dragon, Beryl, flew in wide circles over the forests of Qualinesti and tried to do away with her doubts by reassuring herself that all was proceeding as planned. As she planned. Events were moving forward at a rapid pace. Too rapid, to her mind. She had ordered these events. She. Beryl. No other. Therefore why the strange and nagging feeling that she was not in control, that she was being pushed, rushed?
That someone at the gaming table had jostled her elbow, causing her to toss the dice before the other players had laid down their bets. It had all started so innocently. She had wanted nothing more than what was rightfully hers—a magical artifact. A wondrous magical artifact that had no business being in the hands of the crippled, washed-up human mage who had acquired it—mistakenly at that, from some runt of a mewling kender. The artifact belonged to her. The artifact was in her territory, and everything in her territory belonged to her. All knew that. No one could dispute the point. In her quite rightful effort to acquire this artifact, she had somehow ended up sending her armies to war. Beryl blamed her cousin Malystryx.
Two months ago, the green dragon had been happily wallowing in her leafy bower with never a thought of going to war against the elves. Well, perhaps that was not quite true. She had been building up her armies, using the vast wealth amassed from the elves and humans under her subjugation to buy the loyalties of legions of mercenaries, hordes of goblins and hobgoblins, and as many draconians as she could lure to her with promises of loot, rapine, and murder. She held these slavering dogs on a tight leash, tossing them bits of elf now and again to whet their appetites. Now she had unleashed them. She had no doubt that she would win.
Yet, she sensed that there was another player in the game, a player she could not see, a player watching from the shadows, one who was betting on another game: a bigger game with higher stakes. A player who was betting that she, Beryl, would lose.
Malystryx, of course.
Beryl did not watch the north for Solamnic Knights with their silver dragons or the mighty blue dragon Skie. The silvers had purportedly vanished, according to her spies, and it was common knowledge—again among her spies—that Skie had gone mad. Obsessed with a human master, he had disappeared for a time, only to return with some story of having been in a place he called the Gray.
Beryl did not watch the east where lived the black dragon Sable. The slimy creature was content with her foul miasma. Let her rot there. As to the white, Frost, the white dragon did not live who could challenge a green of Beryl’s power and cunning. No, Beryl watched the northeast, watched for red eyes that remained constantly on the horizon of her fear like an always-setting yet never-setting sun.
Now it seemed Malystryx had made her move at last, a move that was both unexpected and cunning. The Green had discovered only days earlier that almost all her minion dragons—dragons native to Krynn, who had sworn allegiance to Beryl—had deserted her. Only two red dragons remained and she did not trust them. Had never trusted reds. No one could tell her for certain where the others had gone, but Beryl knew. These lesser dragons had switched sides. They had gone over to Malystryx. Her cousin was undoubtedly laughing at Beryl right now. Beryl gnashed her teeth and belched a cloud of noxious gas, spewed it forth as if she had her treacherous cousin in her claws.
Beryl saw Malys’s game. The Red had tricked her. Malys had forced Beryl to enter into this war against the elves, forced her to commit her troops to the south, all the while building up her strength as Beryl expended hers. Malys had tricked Beryl into destroying the Citadel of Light—those Mystics had long been stinging parasites beneath Malys’s scales. Beryl suspected now that Malys had been the one to plant the magical device where Beryl would hear of it.
Beryl had considered calling back her armies, but she immediately abandoned that plan. Once unleashed, the dogs would never return to her hand. They had the smell, the taste of elven blood, and they would not heed her call. Now she was glad that she had not.
From her vast height, Beryl looked down in pride to see the enormous snake that was her military might winding its way through the thick forests of Qualinesti. Its forward movement was slow. An army marches on its stomach, so the saying goes. The troops could move only as fast as the heavily laden supply wagons. Her forces dared not forage, dared not live off the land, as they might have done. The animals and even the vegetation of Qualinesti had entered the fray.