Feril snatched up the flask. Obelia had already jumped safely inside, just as larger chunks started falling. The Kagonesti turned to run, only to fall to her knees again when a more powerful tremor struck. Feril thrust the flask into her pack.
“Should’ve talked Dhamon into flying,” Ragh grumbled as he staggered down the pass, holding his arms over his head to fend off any stray shards. “Earthquakes aren’t dangerous if you’re up in the air. Elf, stay with me!”
Feril, back on her feet and with the satchel on her back, was rushing past, struggling to keep her balance.
The quake grew in intensity, and large rocks broke free ahead of them, falling and cluttering the trail ahead. The draconian slipped when a chunk careened down and struck him squarely on the back. More pieces followed.
“Elf!” he yelled, struggling to get up from under the onslaught. “Give me some help!”
Feril whirled in time to see more falling rocks pile on Ragh. Before she could take a step to help him, a whole section of the pass broke free, tumbled down, and buried the sivak.
16
Sable relished the darkness and the cramped confines of the tunnel. The odor of the earth and stone was rich and strong here, laced with the scent of burrowing creatures that had died here long ago. The tunnel lacked the beloved pungency of both thriving and decaying plants, but she would smell that again soon enough. Her sight stifled by the utter blackness, the overlord was forced to rely on her other senses, and these she was stretching magically outward.
It had been a long time since she left her wonderful swamp, years she guessed, though time was an abstract concept to her. Dragons lived for centuries, and the passing of a few years—especially to an overlord—meant nothing. She remembered that the last occasion she had left the swamp had been at Overlord Malys’s insistence. At the time, the great red considered herself the most powerful of the massive dragons and ordered around all the others as if they were her servants. Sable raged against Malys’s commands, but like the other overlords and all the lesser dragons the Red deigned to speak with, the Black followed most of Malys’s orders. The few who spurned her died to her furnace-breath.
Sable recalled that the last significant journey away from her glorious swamp had been to the Window to the Stars portal, where Malys thought she would use all her magical power to ascend to godhood. She was thwarted, in the presence of the other overlords, and Sable inwardly cheered the unexpected turn of events. When Malys was finally slain a few years later, she rejoiced.
As Sable continued to tunnel, she inhaled deeply and thought of the time when she first came to Ansalon and claimed her territory. It was years and years ago in human terms—she was reminded of that just by looking at some of her pitiful subjects in the city of Shrentak. Children they were when she first arrived, old, frail, and beaten down by life now. Human time was a mere heartbeat to her.
Sable had followed Malys here, finding the land ripe for conquest, as the dragons native to Ansalon were not so large or powerful, nor for the most part as devious and brutal. Malys thought the land she took was prime, the best in all of Ansalon. Frost took the island of Southern Ergoth, Beryl the land of the Qualinesti. The only native overlord, the Storm Over Krynn, took the desert to the far north.
Sable had been relegated to a stretch of plains between the ogre country and the Kharolis Mountains.
It was actually the very best land for her purposes, Sable knew instinctively. Relatively flat, it was easier to magically sculpt. It wasn’t as populated, so there were fewer humans to challenge her and her minions. What humans there were tended to be clustered in the sparse cities and villages, and they were easy to dominate with her dragonfear and spells. She used them to tend sections of her land and to patrol it; they were useful as puppets, little more than disposable custodians. Few of the humans had the wits to realize they were fortunate to be serving her and to be living in such a sublime paradise.
In the early days she’d spent only a little time patrolling her territory and feasting on the creatures she caught unawares. She spent most of her time shaping the land to fit her foul mood and causing creatures to grow to unnatural size and to mutate bizarrely. She channeled the magic inside of her into the earth and created the greatest of swamps. The ground became marshy beneath her claws. The grass became thicker, the trees—even the smallest ones—stretching high to become giants with dense, woven canopies. Other trees sprouted from nothingness, cypress and black walnuts that wouldn’t have otherwise flourished on this soil. The dragon fancied herself an artist, painting trees and ferns, vines, bushes, everything green and dark and tightly coiled together across her land.
She fed some of her magic into a large river, making it wider and swifter and giving it many branches and tributaries. She enhanced three lakes and made sure the waters were populated with bowfin and alligators, the latter of which she mutated into the size of hatchling dragons.
Sable sent her moist breath across the ground, and where it settled swaths of quicksand sprang up. Lizard-men and bakali flocked to the marsh, as did talons of Knights of Neraka, who swore their loyalty to her in exchange for some measure of power and safety. At the same time, she carved out tunnels and fashioned caverns beneath the swamp, though not so far underground that the odors of the marsh couldn’t seep down and give her pleasure. She chose some of the tunnels as lairs and began to fill them with treasure collected from the coastal towns and from adventurous souls who foolishly trespassed on her property.
Pleased but discontented with her domain, she began spreading the swamp outward. To the east, the swamp started eating away at ogre lands and eroding the mountains. This was excellent sport for her, watching ogre forces slaughtered by small black dragons and forces of spawn and draconians. She scryed on Blöten and listened to the ogre king and his thickheaded advisors worry over their shrinking land. She sent her spies into the ogre strongholds, while continuing to grow the swamp to the west and the south—and until it could extend no farther north, as it already reached the shores of the New Sea and she had no means to turn the water into land.
The great black never cared much for cities, so until this point in her life she had made a habit of staying away from them. Shrentak intrigued her, especially because the walled city nestled deep in her realm had fallen into such beautiful decay since her arrival, so she defied her nature and settled there, coaxing moisture into every stone and structure, furthering the city’s deterioration, but careful not to cause it all to collapse. She enthralled the citizens and wore down their spirits, meagerly rewarding those who became turncoats and spies, betraying their fellows and embracing any ignominious task she assigned.
There were dungeons beneath the foul city, and these she ordered filled with anyone who opposed her. She particularly enjoyed capturing Solamnic Knights and Legion of Steel Knights, as their shining armor and chivalrous natures gave her endless amusement.
She let the shiny pieces rust in her dungeons in front of them and ordered the knights fed from time to time on their own tarnished shields so they would not die too quickly. Their anguish washed like a palpable wave down the corridors and reliably fed her appetite for suffering.
Beneath the dungeons she dug another labyrinth of twisting tunnels, some of them completely filled with brackish water—since she could breathe the foul water as easily as she could breathe air. At the end of the maze was her favorite lair, where the air was heavy and damp, and save for a smooth stretch of rock she enjoyed sleeping on, filled with gold, gems, and choice magical trinkets.