Chapter 11

Hekhorath sighed with pleasure as he glided on the warm updrafts that rose from the blasted ruins of the Dairly Plains. He stretched his claws and hissed with pleasure. He circled slowly over the riven, rocky barrens that once had been fertile grasslands, tendrils of smoke curling from his nostrils and vanishing on the warm, rushing wind. The air held the faint aroma of brimstone and soot. It was a heady scent, and Hekhorath savored it as a man might enjoy the bouquet of a fine wine.

He was still young, as dragons measure time, though he had lived longer than even the oldest elves on Krynn. He had dwelt in the caves to the south of the Dairlies for more than three decades, having been left behind by the retreating dragonarmies at the end of the War of the Lance. He had found plentiful prey there, both animal and human, and though he had to compete with a few other wyrms, he’d carved out his own territory with plenty of livestock and human barbarians to keep him fed. He had even escaped the worst of the fighting during the Chaos War; the All-Father’s legions had attacked the Dairlies, but not in force. The devastation that had ravaged other parts of Ansalon simply hadn’t come to Hekhorath’s comfortable corner of the world. Life had been pleasant, easy.

Then Malystryx had come.

Hekhorath had first heard rumors of the great female red more than a year ago but had paid them little heed. Among the dragons of the Dairlies, a newcomer was always cause for interest, perhaps caution… but never alarm. When he’d heard Malys had taken up in Blood Watch, he had briefly considered flying north to investigate but had set the idea aside and hadn’t thought about her for months.

Then one morning last autumn as he was soaring over the Maw, the narrow bay that divided the Dairlies from the rest of Goodlund, he had been approached by a young green dragon. The green, who had been named Sthinissh, had a lair not far from Hekhorath’s in a small forest near the place called Madding Springs. Sthinissh, like most greens, was fond of talking. He had been the first one to tell Hekhorath about Malystryx’s arrival.

“Hekhorath!” Sthinissh had called to him, arrowing down through a cloud bank. “I must speak with you!”

At first, Hekhorath had considered ignoring him—the green’s prattling often wore on his nerves—but something in Sthinissh’s voice had given him pause: fear.

That caught his interest. Sthinissh had been barely more than a hatchling, still filled with the hubris of the very young. Hekhorath had never known him to be afraid of anything. He had slowed his flight, allowed the smaller wyrm to catch up. “What’s the matter?” he’d asked.

“It’s Malystryx,” Sthinissh had replied. “She’s killed Andorung.”

That had given Hekhorath pause. Andorung had been a red, the oldest, largest dragon in the Dairlies and one of the few left in all of Ansalon who’d been present at the great battle between Takhisis and the vile Huma Dragonbane. If the evil dragons of eastern Goodlund revered anything now that Takhisis was gone, Andorung had been it.

“Dead?” Hekhorath had asked. “Are you certain?”

Sthinissh had nodded. “I saw his corpse myself She’d… done things to it.”

“Things?”

“Yes.” Sthinissh had been silent a moment, an odd look in his glinting red eyes. “He’d withered. It was like he’d lain in the sun for a year.”

“Are you sure that is true?” Hekhorath had pressed. “He was very old… he could have died on the wing, away from his lair…

“I’m sure,” Sthinissh had retorted. “There was blood on the ground around his body—it was still fresh. And…" His voice had trailed off.

Hekhorath had glanced at him sharply. “And what?”

“His head was missing.” Sthinissh had swallowed hard. “I think she took it.”

“What?” Hekhorath had exclaimed. “Why would she take his head?”

“I don’t know. As a trophy, perhaps. But that doesn’t explain why the rest of him was a… a husk. And this isn’t the first time this has happened, either. From what I hear, she did the same thing to a pair of coppers near the Mistlestraits. And others are missing, too.”

“How many others?”

Sthinissh had swallowed again. “Ten, maybe more.”

“Ten?” Hekhorath had echoed, disbelievingly. “That’s almost every dragon north of the Maw!”

“No,” Sthinissh had replied gravely. “That is every dragon north of the Maw. She’s killing them, one by one, and I don’t think it’s just for territory. Strange things are happening at Blood Watch, Hekhorath. The land’s changing. It’s grown barren, and I could swear I saw the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands.”

“Blood of Takhisis.” Suddenly, Hekhorath had understood Sthinissh’s fear. “You don’t think she’s responsible for that, do you?”

The green had looked at him. “Can you think of another explanation?”

Hekhorath had considered this, then shaken his head. “If she’s shaping the land, she’s a more powerful magic user than Andorung ever was… or any dragon since the Age of Dreams.”

“And if she’s slaughtered every dragon in the north,” Sthinissh had said, “then maybe we’re next.”

Hekhorath had thought a great deal about Malystryx over the following weeks. By the time word reached him that she had destroyed the village of Ran-Khal and slain Aester, a bronze dragon who laired nearby, he’d had an idea of what to do about her. When he’d sought out Sthinissh soon after and found the green’s withered, headless body sprawled amid the ashes that once had been his forest, he’d made up his mind. With every dragon who died on the Dairlies, the chances had grown that she would come for him.

And so at the beginning of the winter he had left his lair and flown north, hoping to find her first.

He’d soon discovered that Sthinissh had been right. The land was changing. What had been only a hint of barrenness months before, however, had turned into a full-fledged blight. There’d been more than just the beginnings of mountains in the Hollowlands, and a volcano had risen at Blood Watch. No tree, no shrub, no plant disturbed the parched, stony landscape. The heat was intense, blistering.

In short, for a red dragon it was glorious. A thrill had surged through Hekhorath’s veins as he soared above the blasted terrain, streaking toward the smoldering volcano that was Malystryx’s lair.

Then he’d seen her, and the thrill had given way to awe. She had been gigantic even then, larger than any dragon he’d ever seen—and he had seen the largest wyrms in the dragonarmies. She had emerged from a shaft in the side of the volcano, her beating wings whipping up great clouds of ash and dust, and had spotted him almost instantly. Hekhorath had forced himself to swallow sudden terror as she’d streaked toward him, moving as swift as a hurricane. He’d known she could kill him as easily as he might slaughter a herdsman’s goat. Then she would defile his body, and take his head… unless he gave her another option.

When he’d decided she was close enough, he’d pulled up sharply, soaring high, his wings straining against the pull of gravity. The blasted earth had shot away beneath him, the air around him growing cold and thin. When he’d finally judged he was high enough, he’d drawn a deep breath, raised his head skyward, and exhaled a tremendous jet of flame.

The fiery torrent had shot upward hundreds of yards, hot enough to melt steel. He’d belched it forth until he’d had no more flames in him to breathe. Then, weak and dizzy, he’d tucked his wings in tight against his scarred sides and dived back toward the ground, toward Malys.

She’d looked at him as he approached, her lips curling with amusement. “I take it,” she’d said wryly, “that that’s your way of saying you wish to be my consort.”

“Yes,” he’d answered, unable to summon enough breath to say anything more.

“Interesting.” She had banked, circling lazily around him, forcing him to keep turning in order to face her. “What makes you so sure I have any desire for such a thing?”

Sensing she was testing him, he’d frowned in concentration, choosing each word of his response with meticulous care. “I’m not sure,” he’d said. “But I am drawn to your power nevertheless. If I cannot have this honor, then I beg you to slay me now, for I refuse to live unless I can bask in your glory.”

She had circled him silently for quite some time. Then, suddenly, she had stopped, hovering in the air before him. “I cannot decide,” she’d told him. “Either you are exceedingly clever, or you are the greatest idiot I have ever met. Whichever it may be, you have intrigued me. Very well, then. Let us be mates.”

With that, she had wheeled in midair and soared back toward Blood Watch. Hekhorath had watched her depart, amazed, for a heartbeat. Then, laughing, he had winged after her.

She had shown him many things, both wondrous and horrible, in the months they had shared her lair. Both together and separately, they had scorched the Dairlies, blasting one barbarian village after another. He had watched as she broke the mind of Yovanna, the human woman she had taken as her servant, and remade it to suit her will. He had helped her hunt down and destroy other dragons, though she refused to let him witness what she did to their bodies after they were dead—or what became of the severed heads she brought back to their lair. It was, in every way, a one-sided pairing. Malystryx had power over him, and he had none over her. Even when they lay in her nest, deep within the heart of the volcano, their sinuous bodies coiled about each other, he was always aware that she was his master, and he her thrall.

None of that mattered, though. Of the score of dragons who had once dwelt in the Dairlies, only he remained alive, because only he had been smart enough to make himself useful to Malys, rather than a hindrance.

Baring his fangs in a smile, he banked, gliding north, toward the smoldering peak of Blood Watch.

“Mistress.”

Malys stirred, stretching her vast bulk across the enormous cavern of her nest. The room was dark, but that mattered little; the dragon could see as well in shadow as in light. Her golden eyes burning, she arched her neck to look up the wall of the vault.

A hundred feet above the cavern floor, a smooth, narrow tunnel gaped in the wall. It was one of two entrances to Malystryx’s nest, and the only one usable by beings incapable of flight; the second, a broad shaft that led from the cavern’s ceiling to a fissure in the side of the volcano, was accessible only to Malys and Hekhorath. The mouth of the narrow tunnel led onto a broad ledge that resembled a balcony, and upon that balcony stood a figure swathed in black cloth. Unlike the handful of other mortals who had stood on the ledge, this figure did not shrink back from the dragon’s glare, nor did it tremble when Malys snorted, flames flickering briefly from her nostrils.

“Yovanna,” the dragon purred, her tone vaguely menacing. “You bring news?”

The robed figure bowed in deference. “Yes, Mistress,” she declared. “You asked me to tell you when he returned.”

Malys couldn’t quite hide her smile at the distaste with which Yovanna spoke the word. He. There was very little love lost between her servant and her consort. “Where is he?” she asked.

“Over the Hollowlands. He will be here soon, My Queen.”

“Will you not say his name?”

“I would rather not.”

The dragon growled a chuckle. “It would seem when I reshaped your mind I did not crush your capacity for jealousy Yovanna.”

“Jealousy, My Queen?”

“Of Hekhorath.”

The hooded head angled slightly. “I had not considered it that way,” she said thoughtfully. “With your pardon, however, I think you misread me.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Yovanna replied, nodding. “When you… reshaped me, you made me your protector as well as your servant. What you see as jealousy—and I understand how it might seem that way—is, in truth, mistrust. He is disloyal, Mistress. Not now, perhaps, but someday.”

Malys laughed aloud, the sound of her mirth ringing from the vault’s smooth walls. “Do you think I am blind to this, Yovanna?” she asked.

The robed figure bowed again. “I apologize.”

“You need not. I have fooled him, for my own ends, into thinking I value him somehow. In order to do that, it was necessary to deceive you as well.”

“I understand.”

Malys was silent a moment. “Yovanna,” she said, “I wish you to remain here when Hekhorath arrives.”

At once Yovanna was alert, her body tensed. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“In a way.”

Dragon and servant looked at each other for a long moment, neither speaking.

“Why now?” Yovanna asked.

“Because I have what I need.”

Malys stared at her servant, her eyes shining. Yovanna looked back a moment, not comprehending, then gasped. “Oh, Mistress,” she breathed, then shook her head, as if clearing it of cobwebs. “When did it happen?”

“Several months ago.”

“Does he know?”

The dragon shook her head, her eyes like stones.

Just then, there came a scratching from the shaft in the ceiling. A shower of dust and rock shards sifted down out of the hole, pattering down the cavern’s wall onto the floor. Malys and Yovanna peered up at the shaft, the dragon utterly calm, the human quivering with anticipation. Another small avalanche followed the first; then a crimson claw reached out of the shaft, its talons firmly gripping the stone. A second claw followed, then a horned, reptilian head. Golden eyes gleamed, both below and above, as Malys and Hekhorath beheld each other.

“So,” Malystryx said, her voice flat and toneless, “you have returned.”

Hekhorath hesitated, halfway out of the shaft, a puzzled look on his face. “You are not pleased to see me?”

“On the contrary. I am overjoyed.”

Eyes narrowing, Hekhorath crawled out of the hole. Spreading his wings, he glided down to the bottom of the cavern. His talons clacked against the floor as he landed, then he slithered toward his mate. He held himself tensed, unsure of what to expect. Malystryx, however, raised her wing and folded it about him as he approached, then twisted her tail around his and nuzzled his neck with her muzzle. Gradually, he relaxed, and they coiled about each other.

“How fares my domain?” Malys asked. Her forked tongue flicked between her teeth, dancing tantalizingly along the underside of Hekhorath’s chin.

“Well enough,” he answered, shivering with pleasure. “The ogres have left their war camp and are finally marching on Kendermore.” He bent his head back, letting Malys’s tongue work its way from his chin down his throat, then back up again. He squeezed his eyes shut, sighing, then opened them again. His gaze focused on the balcony, high above.

“What is she doing here?” he demanded.

Malys nuzzled him again. “She brought me word of your return. I asked her to stay.”

“You did?” Hekhorath asked. “What for?”

“This.”

Hekhorath shrieked in sudden agony as Malys dug her claws into his belly and breast. Her talons drove through his tough, scaly hide, and blood pooled on the floor, running into cracks in the stone. He thrashed, kicking against her, but she clutched him close, keeping him from finding any hold. Slowly, painfully, she ripped open his flesh, tearing into his guts, disemboweling him. His cries grew more frantic, and his wings flapped furiously, buffeting Malys’s body. The blows bounced uselessly off her tough hide.

High above, Yovanna smiled.

Growing more desperate with each fading moment, Hekhorath opened his mouth and breathed fire all over her. She only laughed, though, as the flames enveloped her. “Do you really think that will be of any use?” she asked. He began to weaken in her grasp.

“Why?” he moaned, his voice wracked with agony. Blood bubbled in his throat. “What did I do?”

“Everything I wanted,” she answered.

Then her fangs clamped around his throat, crushing his windpipe, and his voice choked off with a wet gurgle. He bucked wildly, so violently he nearly slipped out of her iron grasp. Then she rolled him over on the blood-slick floor, clenched her jaw even tighter, and viciously twisted his neck.

Bones snapped. Hekhorath twitched once, then died.

Malys released him, her claws and face dripping red. “When you first asked to be my consort,” she snarled, “I said you were either clever or an idiot.” She sneered at his tattered corpse, her teeth glistening. “Now I know which.”

A moment passed, then something began to happen to Hekhorath’s body. A lambent, scarlet mist rose from his shredded flesh like bloody steam. She shuddered as it enveloped her, seeping between her thick, crimson scales. As Hekhorath’s life essence flowed from his corpse into her body, Malystryx’s body grew—and his shriveled.

Finally, the last of the mist faded away. Malys looked down upon Hekhorath’s body, which lay withered on the cavern floor, as if he’d lain in the sun for a year. She clamped her jaws around his neck once more and began to saw with her teeth, grinding and crunching. At length, she tore his head from his body.

“Will we add that to the rest, My Queen?” Yovanna asked from high above.

Malys grasped Hekhorath’s head in her claws and examined it, an odd wistfulness in her eyes. “Yes,” she said at last. “But this one, I think, will have a special place.”

She bent over the head, tenderly, running her tongue under his chin one last time. Then, using her teeth, she began to strip the shriveled flesh from Hekhorath’s skull.