Suddenly there was a silver streak, and a sleek dragon intercepted the black. There was a rider on the silver dragon’s back, and Huma realized it was Buoron. The other knight already had been struck more than once; blood stained his armor and his mount.
Pain! Huma fell back as something sent shockwaves through his left leg. He stared down at blood flowing from a deep wound. The leg twitched and the shockwaves continued to assault his mind. Through tear-covered eyes, he caught sight of an ogre straddling a dragon. With strength beyond that of a human, the ogre had attacked with an ax and his blow had been lucky.
Huma deflected another blow from the ogre, but felt himself unable to concentrate. The pain demanded too much.
To his relief, the silver dragon was at last able to push away her own adversary. The red, weakened by the loss of so much blood from so many wounds, fluttered helplessly toward the ground, taking his hapless rider with him.
“Huma!”
It took him a few moments to realize the silver dragon was calling to him. She looked at him with eyes filled with terrible fear—and not for herself. He had seen eyes like that before, but—
His thoughts were interrupted by a renewal of cries from all around. His first thought was that this was the end, that more dragons were coming to join the ones already attacking the small band.
He was wrong. The dragons he saw as he looked up and around were gold, silver—all the bright metallic colors of the dragons of Paladine. There were more than one hundred, and each had a rider and a knight, armed with a lance that gleamed brightly and aimed true. Dragonlances.
There was mass confusion among the dark dragons. If they had been told anything, they had been told that there were but a handful of Dragonlances. The nearest of the dragons perished without raising claws in defense, so disbelieving were they.
Huma put a hand to his brow and came away with blood—his own. He wondered when that had happened and how.
Thinking of injuries, he again looked down at his leg. The blood was flowing freely still, and he knew he would pass out soon if he didn’t do something to stop it. The silver dragon began to pull away from the fighting.
More and more dragons were coming from the Keep. How many Dragonlances had the smith made?
The silver dragon flew as if pursued by the Dark Queen herself. She would glance back in his direction every now and then, that same fearful look in her eyes. He frowned and clamped his hands against the leg wound in order to stanch the flow.
At last, they flew over the Keep walls, narrowly avoiding another set of lancers rising, and she brought him to where other survivors of his band were being treated.
“Take him from me!” The dragon’s voice was so commanding, so harsh, that no one dallied. Huma lost sight of her and the world as a whole.
When he awoke, Gwyneth was over him, cleaning the wound, touching it with her hands in a way that deadened the pain. He could almost feel power flowing from her fingertips. Her face was pale and covered partially by her hair as she leaned over the leg.
Huma’s eyes wandered. They were on a hill, away from the fighting, but not so far that they could no longer hear the sounds of battle. Avondale was there, his left side a bloody mess. Kaz was nowhere to be seen. Of the original band, only nine remained. Bennett, uninjured but looking as if he and his armor had been dragged across the plains, was staring at Gwyneth with an emotion somewhere between revulsion and fascination. His eyes briefly met Huma’s, then turned swiftly away.
“Buoron is dead, Huma,” Oswal’s nephew finally said, his gaze still on Gwyneth. “The last I saw, he and his dragon took on that black one to save you. They perished.”
This last shook not only Huma, but Gwyneth as well. She removed her hands from the wound and cried in them. Huma reached out and touched her arm.
“It’s not Buoron she weeps for—” Bennett was having trouble finding the right words.
“Let it be, Bennett.” Guy Avondale tried to rise.
“Huma!” Bolt flew into sight, with Kaz waving his battle ax in greeting. Both dragon and minotaur were covered with scratches and minor wounds, but neither seemed to be weakened by them. Huma glanced at them only momentarily, then his eyes returned to Gwyneth. She looked away. He continued to stare at her, even when he finally responded to Bennett’s statement.
“What do you mean, Bennett? What are you trying to say?”
The hawklike features of Bennett swerved toward the Ergothian cleric/commander, “Everyone else saw it. Why hide it? If she cannot tell him, someone surely will. He needs to know. I know how he feels about her.”
“It is between them!” Avondale was furious.
“Stop it.”
The words were from Gwyneth. She rose, all the while staring at Huma. Her arms hung limply by her side.
Avondale slumped back suddenly. He glanced at Bennett and Kaz. “You two, help me up. A chill is coming over me. I need to move somewhere less open.”
Reluctantly, Kaz and Bennett helped him rise, and the three moved off.
Gwyneth finally spoke. “I weep for Buoron. I weep for any who fall fighting the Dragonqueen.”
“As have I.”
She tried to smile. “I weep especially for the dragon Buoron rode, the large silver one.”
Brother to his own, Huma recalled. Why would Gwyneth cry so for this one dragon?
She stared moodily around. The area had been emptied. As Huma looked puzzled, her features softened. “Before I tell you this, know that I love you, Huma. I would never do anything to harm you.”
“I love you too.” The words seemed to flow so easily all of a sudden.
“I think you may change your mind,” she said enigmatically.
Huma did not have time to ask what she meant, for Gwyneth was suddenly aglow—almost like the Dragonlances. As he watched in horrid fascination, her face elongated and her nose and mouth grew into a toothy snout. Huma thought of witchery and rose to help her, but his leg was not well yet and the head wound had not been salved. He slumped to the ground.
Her long, slim arms grew even longer—and more muscular. The small hands twisted and turned, becoming terrible claws. She fell onto all fours and seemed to grow and grow and grow. Something wiggled and moved on her back. She was no longer remotely human, and what she did resemble caused the knight to shake his head again and again and again.
Her garments vanished—to Paladine knows where—but she had no more need of them in her present form. The odd wiggling and moving on her backside came from two great humps that burst open, revealing batlike wings. They spread wide, and in moments the transformation was complete. The thing that had been Gwyneth stepped forward, tall, straight—and frightened.
It was a dragon—a silver dragon.
His own.
Chapter 28
The silver dragon’s eyes were downcast. “Huma, in Paladine’s name, please say something!”
The voice was unmistakably Gwyneth’s. He looked up into that reptilian face and saw the fear in it—fear that he would reject her. Huma could not say what was truly going through his own mind. Everything seemed to be tumbling down around him. This could not be Gwyneth. Could it?
“You saw my brother that night—as you saw the other who served Duncan Ironweaver—dragons both, but in human form. We admire you so, Huma, you and your kind. In your short lives, you accomplish so much.”
Huma said nothing. Involuntarily, he pulled himself slightly farther from her. It was not out of fear, but out of confusion.
She did not interpret it that way, and her words spilled out faster. Even as she spoke, her form reverted. The wings shriveled. Her four limbs smoothed and twisted until they were once more human and she was able to stand. Her body shrank rapidly, as if the huge form were melting before his horrified eyes. The face grew smaller and rounder and the great maw of the dragon dwindled down to the full, perfect lips. Hair of shimmering silver came sprouting from the dragon’s head, cascading down the back. Huma nearly fled. The metamorphosis he had witnessed could not be real.