Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [188]
The elfmaid looked up into the dragon’s fiery red eyes. She saw the wounded, bloodied nostril, the gaping mouth twisted in a vicious snarl. On his back, sitting between the giant wings, was Kitiara, the dragon-scale armor glistening, the sun glinting off the horned mask. Sunlight flashed from the point of the dragonlance.
Then, glittering as it turned over and over, the dragonlance fell from the Dragon Highlord’s gloved hand. Clattering on the stones, it landed at Laurana’s feet.
“Keep it,” Kitiara called to her in a ringing voice. “You’re going to need it!”
The blue dragon lifted his wings, caught the air currents, and soared into the sky to vanish into the sun.
The Funeral
Winter’s night was dark and starless. The wind had become a gale, bringing driving sleet and snow that pierced armor with the sharpness of arrows, freezing blood and spirit. No watch was set. A man standing upon the battlements of the High Clerist’s Tower would have frozen to death at his post.
There was no need for the watch. All day, as long as the sun shone, the knights had stared across the plains, but there was no sign of the dragonarmies’ return. Even after darkness fell, the knights could see few campfires on the horizon.
On this winter’s night, as the wind howled among the ruins of the crumbled Tower like the shrieks of the slaughtered dragons, the Knights of Solamnia buried their dead.
The bodies were carried into a cavelike sepulcher beneath the Tower. Long ago, it had been used for the dead of the Knighthood. But that had been in ages past, when Huma rode to glorious death upon the fields beyond. The sepulcher might have remained forgotten but for the curiosity of a kender. Once it must have been guarded and well kept, but time had touched even the dead, who are thought to be beyond time. The stone coffins were covered with a fine sifting of thick dust. When it was brushed away, nothing could be read of the writings carved into the stone.
Called the Chamber of Paladine, the sepulcher was a large rectangular room, built far below the ground where the destruction of the Tower did not affect it. A long, narrow staircase led down to it from two huge iron doors marked with the symbol of Paladine—the platinum dragon, ancient symbol of death and rebirth. The knights brought torches to light the chamber, fitting them into rusted iron sconces upon the crumbling stone walls.
The stone coffins of the ancient dead lined the walls of the room. Above each one was an iron plaque giving the name of the dead knight, his family, and the date of his death. A center aisle led between the rows of coffins toward a marble altar at the head of the room. In this central aisle of the Chamber of Paladine, the knights lay their dead.
There was no time to build coffins. All knew the dragonarmies would return. The knights must spend their time fortifying the ruined walls of the fortress, not building homes for those who no longer cared. They carried the bodies of their comrades down to the Chamber of Paladine and laid them in long rows upon the cold stone floor. The bodies were draped with ancient winding sheets which had been meant for the ceremonial wrapping. There was no time for that either. Each dead knight’s sword was laid upon his breast, while some token of the enemy—an arrow perhaps, a battered shield, or the claws of a dragon—were laid at his feet.
When the bodies had been carried to the torch-lit chamber, the knights assembled. They stood among their dead, each man standing beside the body of a friend, a comrade, a brother. Then, amid a silence so profound each man could hear his own heart beating, the last three bodies were brought inside. Carried upon stretchers, they were attended by a solemn Guard of Honor.
This should have been a state funeral, resplendent with the trappings detailed by the Measure. At the altar should have stood the Grand Master, arrayed in ceremonial armor. Beside him should have been the High Clerist, clad in armor covered with the white robes of a cleric of Paladine. Here should have stood