Chapter 1

Carried on a current of warm air, the eagle soared and dipped her wings. She circled against the clear, sapphire sky, reveling in the freedom of flight and in the warmth of the sunlight on her feathers. Updrafts. bore her on in a great series of swooping arcs, scarcely moving a muscle as she surveyed her domain.

Far below, the land tilted and swayed beneath her. To the east she could see the rugged shapes of mountains framed against the sky. To the west blue water stretched beyond her sight, lined with whitecaps. To the south was more land framed by the endless sea, while to the north the water stretched to the edge of her sight. Far below her lofty heights, shrieking gulls dived for fish.

Directly beneath her, sunlight glinted on the tiled roofs of houses that lined a curving bay and met in an open square. Beyond the square, the buildings thinned and gave way to well-tilled fields fringed with forest. In one such patch of forest, the eagle’s nest was filled with chicks waiting for their breakfast.

The eagle spotted movement in one furrow of the fields. With a cry, she folded her wings and dropped, talons outstretched, seeking her prey. She accelerated, a long gray and brown streak, until with a whir and thump, feathered death landed with a crunch of marmot bones. Lifting the limp body of her victim, the eagle gave another cry to announce her triumph and winged her way toward the forest and her waiting children.

Just beyond the last house that marked the boundaries of the village, Ayshe watched the attack, the kill, and the slow flight of the victor, marmot dangling from her claws. He breathed deeply of the morning air, smelling wood smoke, cooking, and a faint whiff of pigsty. Then, with a sigh, he lifted the handles of his firewood-laden barrow and trudged on.

The barrow creaked, and Ayshe’s arms bulged. As the only dwarf in a village of humans, he’d had to either construct tools and equipment appropriate to his short stature or force his body to adapt to taller human standards. He’d built the barrow himself some months after coming to work at the smithy. Chaval had informed him his first duty every day was to cut firewood for the forge and bring it to the woodpile behind the smithy. Ayshe had experimented with Chaval’s barrow, but its handles were too long and his arms too short for convenience.

This was Ayshe’s favorite part of the day—at least at this time of year, early fall, when the harvest time of Reorxmont was fast approaching. The air was cool and crisp in the mornings, warm and golden in the afternoons, and in the chill of early evening, it was good to stand near the blazing fire of the forge where Chaval, bare to the waist, hammered at plowshares and pruning hooks. The fire’s ruddy glow drove away the darkness, and it was by no means unusual to find a half dozen of Chaval’s cronies crowded into the forge, each with his mug of beer or wine, conversing with the smith as his hammer blows shaped the red-hot metal. Eventually, of course, Chaval’s wife, Zininia, would drive away the idlers and bring her husband into the peace of their home, settling their newborn child on his lap to dandle, but even she had to admit this sort of thing kept the smith out of the tavern and out of trouble.

No, Ayshe thought, pushing the barrow along the rutted road, it wasn’t a bad life. Three years before when he’d arrived in the village, sick from a voyage Kharolis, with little money in his pockets and no direction to his future, it had, been the blacksmith who’d shown him rough kindness and who had agreed to accept him as his assistant.

“A dwarf assisting a human smith,” he growled. “What’s Krynn coming to?”

Ayshe had patiently explained that although a dwarf, he knew little of metalworking. His knowledge went to mining, wresting the riches of the earth from its clutches. But the mines of the Kharolis Mountains had been largely abandoned by the dwarves during the War of Souls a few years before, and many of the dwarves had fled after the destruction of Qualinost, Ayshe among them. His last coin had been spent purchasing passage on a ship that sailed north. The sailing master hated dwarves and took the first opportunity to knock Ayshe on the head, steal what few possessions he had, and set him on another ship bound to the west. The dwarf was put ashore on the coast of Northern Ergoth, knowing no one, possessing nothing, and with no idea what the future might hold for him. Under such circumstances, the offer from the smith came like a gift from the gods. Ayshe gladly accepted and showed his gratitude toward Chaval and his wife in many ways.

Most of the townsfolk, whatever they might think behind closed doors of the smith’s actions, respected him and his heavily muscled arms enough to accept his choice of Ayshe as his assistant. The blacksmith was a man of standing in the village, and one did not lightly offend his apprentice, whatever one might think in private. They. were friendly to the dwarf and after a few months, children ceased to stare and point when he passed them in the street.

The dwarf skillfully avoided a deep rut between the road’s cobblestones. The village’s main street, lined with whitewashed cottages, ran parallel to the harbor in which half a dozen fishing boats bobbed under the morning sun. Ayshe saw the boats strung across the gravelly beach where children played in the summer and thought of a planned fishing expedition with his friend Kharast a few days hence. Gulls flew shrieking over the water or called from the chimney pots.

A boy and a taller girl ran across the street. The girl was clutching a bun, the boy pursuing her.

“Give it back! Mum said it was mine!”

The girl was giggling; the boy close to tears. Ayshe set down the cart with a thump.

“Shava! Shava Parbainn! Come here, girl!”

The girl looked doubtfully at the dwarf then at her brother, then approached, holding the bun out of the boy’s reach.

“Good morning, Master Ayshe.”

Ayshe made his face as stern as possible. “Are you stealing your brother’s breakfast?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

The two answers popped out simultaneously. Ayshe waited, and after a minute the girl said, “Well… he took mine yesterday. I’m just getting even.”

Ayshe shook his head. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, Shava. Give Eliu his bun.”

The girl handed the bun to the boy, who took an enormous bite out of it as much to mark his ownership as to eat breakfast. He started to turn away, but the dwarf laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Eliu, is what your sister says true? About yesterday’s breakfast?”

The boy seemed to have difficulty swallowing. Red-faced, he nodded.

“Very well,” Ayshe told him. “You should apologize.”

The boy looked from Ayshe to his sister. Staring at the ground, he mumbled something that might have been taken for “Sorry.” The next moment he picked up his heels and ran into the house.

Ayshe lifted the barrow with a grunt. “Next time,” he told Shava, “when he takes your bun, sit on him. That’ll cure him of bun snatching.”

The girl smiled, white teeth gleaming in her dark face.

“Thanks, Master Ayshe.” She, too, disappeared into her house, and the dwarf walked on.

At the end of a long row of houses, he let the barrow down to rest again and stretched his arms, smelling a breeze from the sea.

“Dwarf!”

Ayshe groaned inwardly and turned to face Durnant, the baker.

Most of the townspeople of Thargon had been friendly toward Ayshe, especially after Chaval had taken him into the forge. Durnant was one exception. From the day he’d laid eyes on Ayshe, he’d kept up a flow of barbs and sneers. Ayshe had never determined why the baker disliked dwarves, but it was obvious he did. Now Durnant stood on the street, belly hanging over his apron strings, a smear of flour in his dark, curling hair.

Ayshe forced his lips into a smile. “Morning, Master Durnant.”

“You’ve been cutting from my patch again,” the baker growled. He pointed to the hewn wood in the barrow. “That’s birch. There’s no birch save on the eastern end of my land. You must have cut from there.” His eyes were bright. “That’s robbery. Typical, that is. I’ll have you up for thieving before Gallipol.”

Gallipol, mayor of Thargon, heard all accusations and dispensed justice to the townspeople. Most such affairs concerned animals that had strayed or disputes about grazing rights.

Ayshe sighed and maintained a polite tone. There was no point in provoking a quarrel.

“There are birch trees as well on the western border of Chaval’s land where it touches yours. One had fallen, and I cut it this morning.”

Durnant’s piggy eyes narrowed. “Did it fall onto my land?”

“Yes, a bit of it, but it was growing on Chaval’s land.”

“If it touched my land when it fell, it belongs to me. That’s village law, though you wouldn’t know that, being an outsider. So just wheel that barrow over to my kitchen, and I’ll forget the matter this time. Otherwise, Gallipol will hear about it, and your master won’t be pleased with that.”

Ayshe drew a deep breath. “Master Durnant, I’ll do no such thing. The tree was on Master Chaval’s land, and the wood will go to his forge. As for being an outsider—”

He broke off. The baker’s red face was tilted upward, staring at the sky. Ayshe turned to look.

In what had been a clear blue firmament, a small white cloud had appeared to the northeast. It was thick and round, and it was behaving like no cloud the dwarf had ever seen. The center of the cloud appeared to be pushing outward, expanding more rapidly than anything in nature. At the same time, the sky, which moments before had been a bright azure color, was growing gray.

Ayshe sniffed the air. From the water, a heavy damp mist was moving among the houses. Its probing fingers delved into every cranny, bringing a cold wind that thickened rather than dispersed the fog. Ayshe’s teeth chattered in the chill.

Durnant’s eyes remained fixed on the sky. The strange cloud filled half the horizon. At the center, dark forms stirred, combining and recombining in fantastic shapes. There was a flash of lightning, and a faint boom! resounded through the town.

The baker’s pale eyes met Ayshe’s. “This is no natural storm,” he said, voice shaking.

As if confirming his words, there was a second lightning flash, and the rumble of thunder sounded closer. The mist was so thick Ayshe could barely make out the dim shapes of the houses that lined the street. The other side of the square onto which the street emptied was invisible. The cobbles were slick and shining with moisture.

A terrific concussion split the air, and the dwarf found himself sprawled on the street. His ears rang, and his mouth tasted of metal. His knuckles bled where they’d struck the pavement.

Painfully he got to his feet and looked around. His barrow had been hurled twenty feet by the force of the blast, and the wood was scattered and torn to splinters. Where the bakery had stood a moment before, there was only rubble. One wall stood leaning perilously, and even as Ayshe stared at it, it crashed to the ground. He looked for the baker. There was no sign of Durnant, but a long red streak stretched across the cobbles where he’d been standing and ended at the edge of a pile of rubble.

For the first time, Ayshe heard shrieks and crying and realized the bakery was not the only building destroyed. The street resounded with running footsteps as villagers raced toward the scene of the disaster. The dwarf caught a glimpse of Shava and Eliu running behind their mother, clad in an apron.

From the sky came a long, low growl, below the pitch of any human or animal. Ayshe looked up and stood transfixed.

A dragon.

From out of the storm clouds it came, its wings wider than the entire village and trailing lightning. Its head was wreathed in a cloud of frost. Gray like the clouds that birthed it, it was edged in white fire, ridges sweeping back over a long, wicked snout. One webbed wing swept low over the town, smashing the spire of the temple of Zivilyn, the tallest structure on the square.

Stone blocks flew through the air like chaff before a thresher’s flail. One smashed into the house from which Eliu and Shava had come running. Another sailed over Ayshe’s head and thundered into a dwelling farther along the street. The dwelling of his friend Kharast.

Ayshe ran over toward his friend’s house—or what remained of it—then stopped short. The block had smashed through the front door and crushed the parlor beneath its weight, coming to rest against the back wall. From beneath a pile of rubble, mixed with the wreckage of a breakfast table, the dwarf saw an arm protruding, clad in Kharast’s characteristic black and orange cloth.

It was the work of a few moments to pull away the stones and only a moment more to realize that Kharast had passed beyond any help.

Shouted orders came from the village square. Gallipol had assembled those townsfolk of Thargon who’d had the wits to pick up weapons.

“Archers! Loose!” came his command.

A hail of arrows were aimed and sped toward the great white dragon. It swept its wing again, batting aside the missiles as if they were toys. Its head darted down and took one of the bowmen, Zahrkeea—Ayshe could see his face clearly—in its massive jaws. There was a crunch, and the two halves of Zahrkeea fell to the ground, spilling blood over the paving stones.

The dragon’s growl came again, and with it Ayshe felt a wave of unreasoning, overwhelming, stomach-clenching fear. The street and the figures around him swam before his eyes. He heard Gallipol calling for another volley of arrows, but paid no attention. Instead, he turned and ran. He felt sweat pouring down his forehead as his legs pumped, and his vision became blurred. He scarcely knew where he was running. He had only one thought: to get as far away as he could from that terrifying growl.

He felt the rush of wings above him, and their wind knocked him to his knees. From his prostrate position, he saw the huge white dragon’s head sweeping over the town again. It opened its horrific jaws, but no sound emerged. Instead, a shaft of icy cold air struck down in front of the butcher’s shop on the town square. The butcher and his wife, who had just exited from their front door, were caught squarely in the middle of it. Ayshe saw their bodies stiffen and their flesh turn white then blue with cold. Frost rimed their hair. They fell forward against the cobblestones and shattered as if their bodies had been made of glass. The butcher’s head, eyes wide open, mouth forever shouting in fear, rolled in front of Ayshe. The dwarf sprang to his feet, leaped over the ghastly relic, and ran.

Ahead he saw the smithy. Chaval was standing in the open, staring at the clouds. He half turned as he saw the dwarf. Spurred by fear, Ayshe ignored his master’s cry. Beyond the forge was a stout wooden shack in which the smith stored metal ingots as well as odds and ends, broken plows, wheels, shattered tools, and scraps of half-finished metal. Without hesitation, Ayshe headed for it as the mist tore at his beard, and from somewhere behind him he heard a multitude of screams mixed with the dragon’s growl.

A Never stopping, Ayshe flung himself through the door of the shed. He slammed it shut and dropped across it a bar bound with iron.

The interior of the shed was pitch black, and the dwarf crawled over obstacles, bruising and cutting his hands and knees as he sought the farthest, darkest corner. He crouched there, cradled by the cold earth, and jammed his hands against his ears to shut out the dreadful cries. His face was wet, either with sweat or with tears, and pictures swam before him of Kharast’s crushed body, of Zahrkeea falling in a spray of red, of the butcher’s silent scream, of the great white dragon’s long, low, awful ululation. It seemed to him that he could hear it still, and he wailed to drown out the sound.

As if from far away, he was aware of vibration that made the hut rock and shake. A voice was crying out, a familiar voice, but he blotted it away. For nothing would he open his ears lest he catch the horrid cry of the fearsome wyrm. He buried his head in his knees and knelt in the darkness, praying to all the gods for safety.

Sleep is the body’s way of shutting out horror. Ayshe stirred and found himself once more aware and alert in the darkness of the hut. The fear that had immobilized him was gone. All was silent.

Cautiously he rose and stretched his cramped limbs. He stumbled once or twice, moving toward the door. His hands were stiff and sore, and when he brought them to his lips, he could taste dried blood.

Groping in the dark, he found the door and listened, pressing his ear against it. Nothing.

He lifted the heavy bar and pushed. Nothing happened.

He pushed again, and again the door resisted. It felt ice cold.

The dwarf turned away, and his hand came across a long piece of iron—a crowbar, he realized. He lifted it and inserted one end in the crack between the door and its frame. The dwarf bore down on it and, after a few minutes of silent struggle, was rewarded by a groan of tortured wood. A few heartbeats later, with a snapping sound, the door gave way and creaked open a few inches.

Ayshe pushed and shoved and succeeded in opening the gap wide enough for him to squeeze through. For a moment he was so pleased with having escaped the shed that his brain did not register what his eyes saw.

He had escaped death by a miracle. Almost the entire village as far as he could see had been flattened. Piles of stones, half-smashed timbers, a few precariously leaning chimneys—those were all that remained. Crows circled above in the blue sky, their harsh cries mixed with soft moans that arose from a few survivors poking disconsolately among the ruins.

His foot touched something. He turned, then bent double, retching.

Leaning against the shed’s door, preventing it from fully opening, was the frost-whitened body of Chaval. His frozen fingers still clutched in vain at the door he had sought to open. The dwarf could see scratches in the wood where his fingernails had scraped.

A few feet behind the smith lay Zininia. She lay on her side, as if sleeping. Only the dead white pallor of her skin and the frost that touched her cheek told the true story. She clutched a bundle to her breast, and Ayshe knew with certitude it was her baby—born only six months earlier.

They had sought shelter, as he had, from the dragon’s fury, but they had not found it. Ayshe rocked back and forth in his grief, clutching his brow, bloodied hands tearing at his beard. In his sorrow, he wailed out words in the dwarf tongue, a language he had not spoken in three years or more.

Chaval and his wife had taken the dwarf into their household. They had embraced him, trusted him. In the evenings he’d sat by their fireside, rocking the baby on his lap, listening to her gurgles, humming an old Dwarvish lullaby called up from the dim memories of his soul.

All that destroyed by his cowardice.

“Coward!”

The word tasted bitter on his tongue. He said it again, louder, and struck his hand against the icy door.

His body shook with sobs, but no tears would come, as if his grief were too great for them.

“Master Ayshe!”

Through a cloud of mingled rage, sorrow, and self-loathing, he spotted Gallipol coming toward him. Gallipol’s face was streaked with dirt, and he had a nasty cut along his scalp from which blood had trickled down around his eye.

“Right glad I am to see you alive!” He clapped the dwarf on the shoulder. “Have you seen… ?”

His voice trailed off as he took in the scene. His body seemed to slump in defeat; then he raised his face and looked down at Ayshe. “So many,” he whispered. “So many dead!”

He and the dwarf turned away and walked across what had once been the square. It was strewn with fragments of mortar, timbers, and glass. A few steps brought them to a young man sitting on a boulder that had been hurled from the shore. Ayshe recognized him as Mashalar, son of the town watchman. Before him, lying on her back, was his betrothed, Allanna. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the sky, a pool of blood spread, from beneath her head. Mashalar clasped his knees, slowly rocking back and forth, his lips moving soundlessly. At the approach of the dwarf and his companion, he looked up.

“I tried to save her,” he muttered. “I tried to save her, but she slipped away from me.”

Another wave of guilt and grief washed over Ayshe. As Gallipol bent over the young man, the dwarf turned away, hiding his face. In a gap left by the collapse of a house, he saw another man standing at the edge of the sea. In contrast with the violence of the destruction around them, the waves rippled gently, barely disturbing the sands.

The man kicked at sand and water both, and screamed wordlessly at the sky. He seized stones and hurled them at the indifferent ocean. Still screaming, he rushed forward into the sea.

Ayshe raced after him, ignoring the pain from his bruised legs. He tackled the man—Ulaphon, a fisherman he recognized—and dragged him back from the shallows onto the sand. They clung together for a moment, and Ulaphon twisted out of the dwarf’s grip.

“Why?” he shouted. “Why? Why did it attack? Why?” His face was red and contorted.

The dwarf shook his head. “I don’t know.”

That simple admission loosened something within him. He knelt on the sands, let his tears mingle with the waves that ran against his knees, and let his grief run out to a silent sea.