Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [40]
"Symgharyl Maruel Shadowsil stands before you, O mighty Rauglothgor. I have brought you a gift: a captI’ve, gained among the ruins of Myth Drannor.
Its blood may be valuable to you. But the followers of Sammaster would question it first. It may be one who escaped them at Oversember, and they would know how that was accomplished."
The lady faced the great night dragon calmly and spoke with respect but in tones that held no fear.
Shandril peered sidelong up at it. She dared not meet its eyes again; she shuddered at the very thought. But the thief of Deepingdale saw its great skeletal bulk advance across shifting treasure toward them, vast and terrible. By its great wings and claws and tail it was a dragon, but except for the chilling eyes, it was only bones. Its long, fanged skull leered down at her.
Shandril knew it could see her looking at it and knew further, with a stirring of defiant anger, that it was amused.
"Look at me, little maid," it rumbled, the creature's voice echoing in Shandril's head. She shook her bonds in terror. She would not look at the creature!
Tears blinded her. She sobbed as the ropes tightened about her, pulling her to her knees again, pulling her brow and throat to turn her head up. Through a mist of tears, Shandril looked, and she saw.
The cunning eyes held hers, like two tiny images of the moon reflected in mica panes, like two candles set at the head and foot of a shrouded corpse.
Shandril shI’vered uncontrollably as she looked, and she felt those eyes boring into her very soul. She looked back as deeply herself, and she knew much.
It had been old, this sly and gnarled giant among dragons, when men first came to the Sea of Fallen Stars and fought with elves and the tribes of bugbears and kobolds of the Thunder Peaks, the mountains that the elves called Airmbult, or 'Storm-fangs.' Rauglothgor had been the fangs amid the mountain storms often. Rauglothgor the Proud, dragonkind had called the creature, for its presumption and quickness to take offence or pick quarrels.
In cunning and malice it had sought out weak, old dragons and slain them, often by trickery, to seize their lairs and treasure. Hoard upon hoard had fallen into the dragon's claws, and it had piled them up in deep and secret places beneath the Realms known only to it-for other creatures of all sizes who ventured therein were slain, from peryton to centipede, without mercy or patience.
Years passed, and Rauglothgor grew and devoured whole herds of rothe in Thar and buckar on the Shining Plains and more than one ore horde coming down the Desertsedge from the North. Rauglothgor became strong and terrible, a giant among dragons. It thrust aside pretense and prudence and slew all dragons as it met them; in air, on land, and even in their lairs, slaying with savagery and skill, and adding hoards anew to its own.
Yet in its dark heart the old red dragon grew afraid-as it grew older and escaped clever traps set for it and slew more dragons-that one day its strength would fail and some younger, greedier dragon would drag it down as it had served its elders, and all its striving would have been for naught. For years such worries ate at the creature's old heart, and when men came with offers of eternal strength and wealth, the dragon slew them not, and it listened.
By the arts of the Cult of the Dragon, the great and evil red dragon became, in time, a great and evil dracolich. Dead it was and yet not dead, and the years touched not its vigor and strength, for it had become only bones and magic, and its strength was of the art and could not be diminished by age.
The years passed, and Faerun changed, and the world was not as it had been. Rauglothgor flew less often, for there was little left to match its memories,