It was true. The Dragonqueen’s presence was overwhelming. Huma shivered from a cold that threatened to numb his mind more than his body. How did one fight a goddess?
“Up ahead, Huma. Can you see it?”
His gaze followed the direction her head pointed and, after wiping his eyes more than once, he identified the tiny object on the horizon.
“Vingaard Keep!” Kaz shouted from ahead of them. By now, they all could see it—and the battle that seemed to cover every inch of ground all the way to its walls.
Lord Avondale cried out and pointed to their right. A gold dragon battled two reds. The combat was fierce, and all three bore wounds. When it became obvious that the gold dragon was beginning to lose. Bolt waited no longer. With Kaz readying his Dragonlance, the two charged into the fray.
Suddenly, there were dragons everywhere, most of them foes. All thoughts of food and rest vanished. There were only the claws and the teeth, the cries and the screams, the blood and the pain.
And the Dragonlances.
The dark dragons here knew nothing of the lances, perhaps because Dracos had not wanted them to fear. They soon learned that fear, however, as one after another perished on the points of lances which, when pulled free, were unstained and unscratched, and glowed with a brilliance all their own.
The children of Takhisis soon began to turn and flee from that brilliance, for they marked it easily as the sign of Paladine and they had no power against him. Others, farther off, noted the frenzy with which their brethren fled the battle and assumed then that the day was lost. The fleeing of the first dragons soon became a wave of confusion in the sky as more and more retreated in uncomprehending panic.
Freed from battling their counterparts, the dragons of Paladine added to the strength of the knighthood, and the tide on the ground began to turn as well. First the west, then the eastern lines of the Dragonqueen’s forces began to bend, give, and then at last crumble. Without the aid of their dragon allies, the ogres and humans who fought for the darkness lost courage, and many simply threw down their weapons and fled.
Eventually, the fighting died. That the skies rumbled ominously and lightning blasted the mountains to the west disturbed only a few. A victory of some kind had been desperately needed, and it had been produced. No one at the time knew how, but they gave thanks to Paladine and his house for the miracle and then grimly waited to see what would happen next.
Well past midday, four exhausted dragons landed in the courtyard of Vingaard Keep. On their backs they each bore a rider, all of whom also were pale and exhausted. A silvery glow encompassed the newcomers and eventually someone realized it was the great lances that glowed so godlike, and not the dragons and riders themselves.
By that time, though, the stories were already spreading.
Chapter 25
“They told me it was you, but I could not believe it! Not after the tales that have circulated.”
“Tales?” Huma and his companions had climbed down from the dragons—where they would have been swarmed by knights and commonfolk alike if not for the quick thinking of Lord Grendal, who controlled the Keep’s defenses. Several of the well-trained veterans who made up Grendal’s force were out and around the newcomers within the first minute after the landing.
Lord Oswal, Grand Master, indicated Huma himself. “You know what I speak of. The stories of your battle with the demon who seeded plague and dissension throughout the land.”
“Rennard?”
“Rennard. Amazing how faulty their memories can be. When he was revealed for what he was and you defeated him there, they quickly forgot how much they wanted to believe the rumors he spread. They blamed him as an evil demon or cleric—I forget what exactly. Then, to top it all off, you supposedly vanish into thin air like Paladine himself.”
Huma’s face turned dark crimson. “The part about my vanishing is true, but I assure my lord that it was not by my own power.”
“Indeed.” Lord Oswal’s eyes strayed to the Dragonlances and his body seemed to shake momentarily. “Are those, then, what you have been seeking? What we have so desperately needed?”
“Yes, milord. The Dragonlances. We would have been here sooner, but we became caught up in the battle.”
“I daresay. I’ve had men and dragons alike speak of how the eight of you came from nowhere, dealing fear and death to the Dragonqueen’s lackeys. Perhaps they are right; perhaps you are Paladine in mortal guise come to Krynn.”
“Lord Oswal!”
The Grand Master chuckled. “I have not come around to that way of thinking, Huma. Not yet.” Despite his evident desire to inspect the lances, Oswal turned to the rest of Huma’s band. “I know you, minotaur, and glad I am that I had faith in you. You live up to all the good I have heard of your kind. I thank you for your assistance.”
Kaz was oddly quiet. “I did what I was required to do. I have sworn an oath to Huma.”
“Is that all it was?” The Grand Master smiled and turned to the others, starting with Lord Avondale. There was just the hint of coolness in the Grand Master’s tone. “I welcome you, Ergothian commander, as a fellow knight. I do not suppose you have brought your army with you?”
“When we met that one time. Grand Master, I knew you would someday hold your present position, but I hoped it would mellow you before we had to face each other again.”
Oswal accepted the veiled reprimand with a more genuine smile. “Forgive me if I sometimes forget I am also in the presence of a cleric of Paladine.”
Huma, Kaz, and Buoron looked at one another. While they respected Lord Avondale, they would have never taken him for a cleric of Paladine. Then again, who was to say what a cleric had to look like so long as his belief and his ways did not contradict the teachings?
“You’ve let out my secret, but it’s just as well. Perhaps Huma now will understand why I wanted him to accompany me to Caergoth. When I noted the sign of Morgion on such an obviously loyal knight, I worried that he might be marked for some foul deed.” Avondale turned back to Huma and smiled.
The Grand Master turned from Avondale and regarded Buoron with some amusement. With his great beard, the knight from the southwest stood out. Buoron was shaking in the presence of the Grand Master.
“You are . . .”
The knight blinked several times before blurting out his name. “Buoron, milord!”
“From one of our remote Ergothian outposts, I imagine.”
“Yes, milord.” Buoron was white.
“Good man.” Lord Oswal patted him on the shoulder and turned away. Buoron breathed a sigh of relief and gave a sickly smile.
“Now, then, Huma.” The Grand Master was all seriousness. “If you would be so kind, I would like you and your companions to join me in my quarters. I want to hear everything.”
“Yes, milord, but the Dragonlances—”
“Will be handled with care and placed in a safe location until we decide what can be done with them. Now come; I suspect you all could do with something to drink. I know after today’s near-catastrophe, I could.”
Huma’s report was punctuated every now and then by the thunder and lightning playing havoc in the mountains to the west. Takhisis letting loose her rage on those who had failed her, Kaz suggested, or perhaps Galan Dracos furious over his followers’ failed attempts to seize the Dragonlances.
Lord Oswal tapped the table as he absorbed all Huma had related. “Paladine! I never would have believed it if it had not been you—and to actually see them! You make an old man proud, Huma. Durac would have been proud, I know that.”
“Thank you, milord.” That compliment meant more to him than all others.
“Made from dragonsilver by a smith with one silver arm, and bearing a god-forged hammer, as well.”