Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [64]
He couldn’t find the godlord with the torque.
The Sun Goddess had taken refuge in a bank of clouds. Aylis was not afraid. She was waiting for the moment to part the clouds and blaze forth. And when she did so, a bright flash caught Skylan’s eye.
There was the godlord, standing right in front of him. The sun struck him in blazing, terrible splendor, illuminating the Vektan Torque. He wore it beneath his armor, trying to keep it hidden. Aylis had found it, however, and she revealed it to Skylan.
Rage seared his brain, consuming fear as the beacon fire consumed oak. He rose from the ashes of the blaze with one clear purpose—to slay the godlord and recover the Vektan Torque.
“Torval!” Skylan prayed, kissing the amulet around his neck. “I give myself to you.”
And Torval blessed him.
Skylan heard nothing except the roar of the god’s voice in his ears. He felt nothing except the hilt of his sword in his hand. He saw nothing but his enemy, and Skylan struck at anything that stood between him and his target, not knowing if he was killing friend or foe, not caring.
He knew the Torgun were doomed. He knew he was going to die. He would stand before Torval proudly, holding the Vektan Torque in one hand and the head of the ogre godlord in the other.
CHAPTER
14
Skylan was not the only one to see Aylis’s light shining on the Vektan Torque. Other eyes saw it, as the goddess intended. Eyes that had been gazing off in an entirely different direction.
The Dragon Kahg was not angry with the Torgun, as they imagined. He had been busy, preoccupied with fear and worry. The dragon heard the prayers of the Bone Priestess, but they were faint, distant—an annoyance, like gnats—and he paid scant attention. The humans were off on another raid, summoning him to go harass a bunch of goat-herders.
Kahg had other worries, other cares and concerns that were far more important. His goddess, the Goddess of All Dragonkind, the blessed Vindrash, had vanished from the world. Her disappearance had thrown her dragons into turmoil. The dragons had heard rumors of a war in heaven. They had heard rumors that their gods had lost. The dragons did not believe these rumors. They sought out Vindrash to refute the claim, going to the sacred Hall of Vektia, located on the Dragon Isles.
The dragons were shocked and horrified to find the Hall had been attacked by some unknown foe. The dragons who served Vindrash and who should have been guarding the Hall had vanished, both from the Realm of Stone and the Realm of Fire.
Dragons were creatures of magic, created by the dying Dragon Ilyrion when she gave herself to the world. Ilyrion came from the Realm of Fire, as did the fae folk who populated the world. The gods and all races of men (including the races of ogres, Cyclopes, and so forth) came from the Realm of Stone.
The dragons, with their powerful magicks, discovered that since the dying Ilyrion had given herself to the world, which lay in the Realm of Stone, they could live in both realms simultaneously. By leaving a physical part of themselves (the spiritbone) in the Realm of Stone, their spirits could remain safely hidden from their foes in the Realm of Fire. Through the spiritbone, they could manifest themselves physically in the Realm of Stone.
The dragons needed to be in the Realm of Stone, for it was only in this realm that they could find the “shards of Ilyrion,” which were used to create new dragons and perpetuate their race. These shards, made of the scales and teeth of the dying dragon, took the form of gemstones. The dragons scoured the world, searching for gems, taking those they found that were dragons back to the Realm of Fire for nurturing.
The task was long and laborious. To their dismay, the dragons discovered that men coveted these gemstones, not for the fact that they might hold the spark of dragonlife within them, but because they were pretty, because they were rare, because they were valuable.
The dragons might well have gone to war with men over the gemstones (joining the fae folk