Dragons of Spring Dawning - Margaret Weis [122]
Now winter is my memory,
Now autumn, now the summer light—
So every spring from now will be
Another season into night.
5
Neraka.
As it turned out, the companions discovered it was going to be easy getting into Neraka.
Deadly easy.
“What in the name of the gods is happening?” Caramon muttered as he and Tanis, still dressed in their stolen dragonarmor, stared down onto the plains from their hidden vantage point in the mountains west of Neraka.
Writhing black lines snaked across the barren plain toward the only building within a hundred miles, the Temple of the Queen of Darkness. It looked as though hundreds of vipers were slithering down from the mountains, but these were not vipers. These were the dragonarmies, thousands strong. The two men watching saw here and there the flash of sun off spear and shield. Flags of black and red and blue fluttered from tall poles that bore the emblems of the Dragon Highlords. Flying high above them, dragons filled the air with a hideous rainbow of colors—reds, blues, greens, and blacks. Two gigantic flying citadels hovered over the walled Temple compound; the shadows they cast made it perpetual night down below.
“You know,” said Caramon slowly, “it’s a good thing that old man attacked us back there. We would have been massacred if we’d ridden our brass dragons into this mob.”
“Yes,” Tanis agreed absently. He’d been thinking about that “old man,” adding a few things together, remembering what he himself had seen and what Tas had told him. The more he thought about Fizban, the closer he came to realizing the truth. His skin “shivered,” as Flint would have said.
Recalling Flint, a sudden swift aching in his heart made him put thoughts of the dwarf—and the old man—from his mind. He had enough to worry about now, and there would be no old mages to help him out of this one.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Tanis said quietly, “but it’s working for us now, not against us. Remember what Elistan said once? It is written in the Disks of Mishakal that evil turns upon itself. The Dark Queen is gathering her forces, for whatever reason. Probably preparing to deal Krynn a final death blow. But we can slip in easily among the confusion. No one will notice two guards bringing in a group of prisoners.”
“You hope,” Caramon added gloomily.
“I pray,” Tanis said softly.
The captain of the guard at the gates of Neraka was a sorely harrassed man. The Dark Queen had called a Council of War and, for only the second time since the war began, the Dragon Highlords on the continent of Ansalon were gathering together. Four days ago, they began arriving in Neraka and, since then, the captain’s life had been a waking nightmare.
The Highlords were supposed to enter the city by order of rank. Thus Lord Ariakas entered first with his personal retinue, his troops, his bodyguards, his dragons; then Kitiara, the Dark Lady, with her personal retinue, her troops, her bodyguards, her dragons; then Lucien of Takar with his personal retinue, his troops and so forth through all the Highlords down to Dragon Highlord Toede, of the eastern front.
The system was designed to do more than simply honor the higher-ups. It was intended to move large numbers of troops and dragons, as well as all their supplies, into and out of a complex that had never been intended to hold large concentrations of troops. Nor, as distrustful as the Highlords were of each other, could any Highlord be persuaded to enter with a single draconian less than any other Highlord. It was a good system and it should have worked. Unfortunately, there was trouble from the very outset when Lord Ariakas arrived two days late.
Had he done this purposefully to create the confusion he knew must result? The captain did not know and he dared not ask, but he had his own ideas. This meant, of course, that those Highlords who arrived before Ariakas were forced to camp on the plains outside the Temple compound until the Lord made his entry. This provoked trouble. The draconians, goblins, and human mercenaries wanted the pleasures of the camp city