Dragonlance 16 - Dragons Of A Lost Star (44 page)

Dumat, coughing, turned to Ailea, to say some word of comfort, for his wife would be grieving the Queen Mother’s death. The words of comfort were never spoken. Ailea lay staring up at Dumat with eyes that could no longer see him. A rock shard had pierced her breast. She had not lived long enough to scream.

Dumat stared at the dragon. She was down at treetop level now. Her forefeet touched the ground. Grim and empty, he redoubled his efforts on the rope.

“Pull, damn you!” he shouted. “Pull!”

Beryl’s mad assault on the tower managed to slay her attacker, but that was all she accomplished. She was at last able to draw breath again, though it was wheezing and shallow, but the blow had not dislodged the dragonlance, as she had dimly hoped would happen. Far from shaking loose the splinter, the blow seemed to have driven it still deeper into her head. Her world was burning pain, and all she wanted to do was end it.

Beryl thrashed about, trying to free herself from the ropes, trying to dislodge the lance. Her flailings knocked down buildings, toppling trees. Her tail smashed into Dumat’s house. He held onto the rope until the last possible moment. When the dragon crushed the house to tinder, Dumat fell through the broken roof. The house fell down on top of him. Buried alive, Dumat lay trapped in the rubble, pinned beneath a heavy tree limb, unable to move. He tasted blood in his mouth. Looking through the tangle of broken and twisted limbs and leaves, he saw the dragon above him. She had freed her wings, though ropes still dangled from them. She struggled to gain altitude, to rise above treetop level. But for every rope that snapped, two ropes held. More ropes fell across her. Elves and humans had died, but more had survived, and they continued the fight.

“Pull, damn you!” Dumat whispered. “Pull!”

The elves saw the Queen Mother die, they saw their loved ones die. They saw the dragon destroy the Tower of the Sun, the symbol of elven pride and hope. They used the strength lent them by grief and anger to drag down the dragon, drag her from the skies.

Beryl fought to free herself from the ropes and the horrible pain, but the more she struggled, the more she tangled herself in the elven cobweb. Her thrashing limbs and head and tail, her flailing wings crushed buildings and snapped trees. She struggled furiously to free herself, for she knew that when she hit the ground, she was vulnerable. The elves would move in with spear and arrow and finish the kill.

The elves saw that Beryl was starting to weaken. Her flailing grew less violent, her thrashing less destructive.

The dragon was dying.

Certain of that now, the elves pulled with a will and finally succeeded. They dragged Beryl’s hulking body to the ground.

She landed with a shattering crash that crushed buildings and all those who had not been able to scramble out of the way. The force of the impact sent tremors rippling through the ground, shook the dwarves who waited in the tunnels below, sent rock and dust down on their heads, caused them to look in consternation at the beams that shored up the walls, kept the tunnels from collapsing.

When the tremors ceased and the dust settled, the elves grabbed their spears, moved in for the kill. After they had destroyed the dragon, they would be ready to fight her army. The elves began to speak of victory. Qualinost had been grievously hurt, many had died, but the elven nation would live. They would bury their dead and weep for them. They would sing songs, grand songs about the death of the dragon.

But Beryl was not dead. Not by a long shot, as Dumat had said. The dragonlance had caused her great pain and disordered her thinking, but now the pain was starting to lessen. Her panic subsided and gave way to a fury that was cold and calculating and dangerous, far more dangerous than her tumultuous flailing. Her troops were massing on the banks of the two streams—offshoots of the White-rage River—that surrounded and protected Qualinost. Her troops were even now preparing to cross those streams. The elves had taken out the bridges, but Beryl’s soldiers had brought hundreds of rafts and temporary bridges to carry her army across the one-hundred-foot-wide ravines.

Soon her soldiers would overrun Qualinost, put the elves to the sword. Elf blood would flow through the streets, sweeter to Beryl than May wine. The advent of her troops caused Beryl one difficulty: She could not use her poison gas to kill the elves, not without killing her troops as well. This was only a minor inconvenience, nothing to be concerned about. She would simply kill elves by the tens and not by the hundreds.

Relaxing, Beryl feigned weakness, lay sprawled ignominiously on the ground. She took a grim satisfaction in feeling the trees—so beloved of the elves—smash to splinters beneath her crushing body. Blinking her eyes free of blood, Beryl could see the damage she had wrought upon the once-beautiful city, and the sight was a boost to her spirits. She had never hated anyone or anything—not even her cousin Malys—more than she now hated these elves.

The elves were creeping out of their rat holes, coming to stare at her. They held spears and bows with arrows pointed at her. Beryl scorned them. The spear had not been made that could stay her, not even the fabled dragonlance. Nor could the arrows that were to her the size of bee stingers. She could see the elves all around her, puny, witless creatures, staring at her with their little squint eyes, gibbering in their greasy language.

Let them gibber. They would have something to chatter about shortly, that much was certain.

The pain in her head continued to ease. Resting on the ground, Beryl took careful stock of the situation. She had flung off or dislodged some of the ropes, and she could feel others starting to loosen. The magic spells were waning. Soon Beryl would be free to kill elves, slaying them one by one, stomping on them and snapping them in two. Her army would join her, and between them not one elf would remain alive in the world. Not one.

The dragonlance continued to be an irritant. Every once in a while, molten hot pain shot through her head, increased her rage. She lay on the ground, the elves at eye level, peering at them through squinted lids. In the distance, she heard horn calls, the sounds of her army advancing. They must have seen her fall. Perhaps they thought her dead. Perhaps her commanders were already spending in their feeble brains the loot that they would have been forced to share with her. They were in for a surprise. They were all in for a grand surprise. . . .

Bellowing a roar of defiance and triumph, Beryl lifted her head. Her huge clawed talons dug into the ground. With one push, one massive thrust of her gigantic legs, Beryl heaved herself to her feet.

The dwarven tunnels, a labyrinthine honeycomb built beneath Qualinost, buckled and collapsed under the dragon’s weight. The ground gave way.

Beryl’s roar changed to a startled shriek. She fought to save herself, scrabbling with her feet, frantically beating her wings to lift herself from the ruin. But her wings were still entangled with rope, her feet could find no purchase. An Immortal Hand cracked the bones of the world, split the ground asunder. Beryl plunged into the gaping fissure.

Torvold Bellowsgranite, cousin to the Thane of Thorbardin and leader of the dwarven army that had come to Qualinost to fight the Dark Knights of Neraka, heard the battle being fought above him, if he could not see it. Torvald stood at the foot of a ladder that led up to the surface, about twenty feet above him. He waited for the signal that meant the invading army had started to ford the river. His own army, comprised of a thousand dwarves, would then swarm up out of this tunnel and others dug beneath the city, march to attack.

The tunnel was as dark as deepest night, for the digging worms and their glowing larva had been dispatched back to Thorbardin. The darkness and the confined space and smell of freshly turned earth and worm leavings didn’t bother the dwarves, who found the darkness and the smell familiar, comfortable. They were eager to depart the tunnels, however; eager to face their enemies, to do battle, and they fingered their axes and spoke of the coming glories with grim anticipation.

When the dwarves felt the first shudderings of the ground beneath their feet, they gave a cheer that echoed up and down the tunnels, for they hoped that meant that the elven strategy was working. The dragon had been hauled out of the skies and was lying helpless on the ground, emeshed in magical rope from which she could not escape.

“What’s going on?” Torvald bellowed up at the scout, who was hunkered down near the entrance, his head poking up through the branches of a lilac bush.

“They got her,” was the scout’s laconic answer. “She’s not moving. She’s a goner.”

The dwarves cheered again. Torvald nodded and was about to give the order for his men to start to climb the ladder when a fierce roar proved the scout wrong. The ground shook beneath Torvald’s feet, the tremor so severe that the beams shoring up the walls creaked ominously. Dirt rained down on their heads.

“What the—” Torvald started to holler at the scout, then changed his mind. He began to climb the ladder to see for himself.

Another quake rumbled through the ground. The tunnel’s ceiling split wide open. Dazzling sunlight streamed down through the gaping hole, half-blinding the dwarves. The horrified Torvald saw the blazing red eye of the infuriated dragon glaring down at him, and then the beams holding up the tunnel’s roof cracked, the ladder splintered. The eye vanished amidst a huge cloud of dust and debris. The roof of the tunnel collapsed.

The world fell on top of Torvald, knocking him from the ladder. The horrifying screams of his dying comrades rose above the rending bones of Krynn, the last sounds he heard as tons of rock smashed down on him, crushing his skull and shattering his chest.

Stone, long trusted by the dwarves to shelter and to guard them against their enemies, became their enemy. Their killer. Their tomb.

Rangold of Balifor, now forty years old, had been a mercenary since he was fourteen. He fought for one reason and one alone— plunder. He had no other loyalties, knew nothing of politics, would switch sides in the middle of battle if someone made it worth his while. He had joined Beryl’s army because he had heard they were going to be march on Qualinost. He had long anticipated the looting and sacking of the elven city. A man of foresight, Rangold had brought with him several large burlap bags in which he intended to carry home his fortune.

Rangold stood on the riverbank, eating stale bread and munching on dried beef, waiting his turn to cross the river. The blasted elves had cut the bridges. The ropes dangled far above them, for the banks were steep, the river low this time of year. Their scouts kept watch but reported seeing no elves. The first units had started across, some carrying their packs over their heads, others carrying their weapons. Those who could not swim were clearly uncomfortable as they waded deeper and deeper into the water that swirled around them. The water was cold, but ran calmly this time of year. In the spring, fed by the melting snows, the river would have been impassable.

Occasionally a red dragon could be seen circling high above the army, keeping watch. The men did not like the red dragons, did not trust them, even though they were on the same side, and kept glancing upward, hoping that the beast would fly away. Rangold didn’t care anything about dragons. He shivered when the dragonfear was on him, shrugged it off when it was past and continued to eat his food. The thought of slaughtering elves and stealing their riches gave a fine, sharp edge to this appetite.

His first twinge of unease came when the ground suddenly lurched beneath his feet, throwing Rangold off balance and causing him to drop his sandwich. A limb fell with a shattering crash. A tree toppled. The river water heaved and surged, splashing up onto the bank. Rangold clung to the tree and stared around, trying to figure out what was happening. Overhead, the red dragon spread her wings and flew low over the woods, shouting out what sounded like warnings, but no one could make out what she was screaming.

The tremors continued, grew more severe. An enormous cloud of debris roiled into the air, so thick that it obliterated the light of the sun. Those crossing the river lost their footing, tumbled into the water. Those on the bank began hollering and running this way and that in confusion and panic, as the ground continued to heave and buckle beneath their feet.

“What are your orders?” a captain shouted.

“Hold your ground,” his superior, a Knight of Neraka, answered tersely.

“That’s easier said than done,” the captain returned angrily, staggering to keep his balance. “I think we should get the hell out of here!”

“You have your orders, Captain,” the Knight shouted. “This will stop in a—”

With an ear-splitting crack, an enormous tree limb broke loose and fell with a thundering crash, burying the Knight and the captain beneath its branches. Cries and moans came from the wreckage, pleas for help, pleas that Rangold ignored. He didn’t know what the rest of the army planned to do, and he didn’t care. As the captain had suggested, Rangold was going to get the hell out of here.

He started to scramble up the bank, but at that moment he heard an ominous, rolling, thunderous rumble. Turning to find the source of the sound, he saw a horrifying sight. A wall of water, bubbling and foaming, rushed down on them. The quakes caused the banks of the White-rage River to crumble. Fissures split open the rock ravines through which the river ran. Freed of its confinement, driven into tumult by the repeated tremors, the river went on a wild rampage.

The water uprooted trees, tore huge chunks of rock from the cliff faces through which it thundered, carried the rock and debris before it.