safely pass through the barriers that guarded the collar.'
'Then you don't know how Kalestraan knew of the collar and its location? He did not learn of it from you?' Thelvyn asked.
'No, I swear that,' Murodhir responded earnestly. 'I brought the collar to him in the woods near the city of Braas-tar. That was the last I saw or heard of it. Some months later, he sent word of the day and the time when I was to attack the Dragonlord, but the attack did not go well. He hadn't warned me that you commanded magic other than the enchantments of the armor.'
'Do you have any idea what Kalestraan did with the collar?' Thelvyn insisted.
'No. I tried to learn, so that I could still claim the collar for my own if Kalestraan tried to trick me. All I know is that I placed the collar in the back of a wagon. The wizards covered it over with a canvas and drove off into the night. I tried to watch, but after they had gone a mile or so, there was a flash of light beneath the trees and I never saw them again.'
'Well, at least that's something,' Thelvyn said. 'You can take us to that place, I trust?'
Without warning, Murodhir suddenly panicked, as if something the others did not understand had filled him with terror. He began to twist around violently, trying to get his legs beneath him so that he could pull away, except that Thelvyn was still holding him by the horns. Realizing he couldn't get away, the renegade seemed to lose all sanity and became a snarling, thrashing beast. Unable to pull back from his captor, he abruptly thrust himself forward.
Thelvyn was not caught entirely by surprise, but he was in an awkward position. Sitting up on his haunches, he was unable to keep his balance as the weight of the black dragon was suddenly thrown against him. He crashed heavily on his back, and Murodhir was on him in the next instant, the sharp fangs of the renegade snapping inches from his throat. Moved by an instinct to defend himself at any cost, he pulled Murod-hir's head to the left, since he was still holding the renegade's horn by that hand. With an effort, he reached around with his right hand until he was able to get a firm grasp of Murodhir's other horn, then twisted sharply. The renegade king instantly collapsed and went limp, his neck broken.
'A pity you had to kill him,' Marthaen said as he pulled away the body of the black dragon so that Thelvyn could climb free. 'I don't know if we can find the place where the Fire Wizards took the collar without him.'
'I'm not sure that's really important,' Thelvyn said. 'If there were anything in the woods outside Braastar for us to discover, Murodhir would have found it long ago. If he had any idea where the collar is, he would have stolen it for himself after Kalestraan died last summer.'
'That's true,' Jherdar agreed, looking discouraged. 'So now what?'
'First, we're going to search every inch of Murodhir's lair,' Thelvyn replied. 'We know that the Fire Wizards were paying him something for all his little chores and errands. Something they gave him might provide some clue about where to look for their hidden stronghold. Frankly, I was hoping that Murodhir had been in contact with the surviving traitor wizards since Kalestraan's death and would know where they were. But I believe that he was frightened enough to tell us all he knew.'
'And what if you find nothing here?' Marthaen asked.
'Then we go back to Braejr,' Sir George said as he joined them. 'Alessa Vyledaar is still working on the problem. She might have learned something by now.'
CHAPTER THREE
On the southern coast of the small continent of Alphatia, by the temperate waters of the Bellisarian Sea, stood the city of Archport. As its name suggests, Archport was a busy commercial port serving the trade between the great island of Bellisaria to the east, the Isle of Dawn to the west, and the scattering of lesser islands to the south. Large merchant ships from many nations could always be seen tied to the piers or anchored at wait in the harbor, ships from as far away as the sea kingdom of Ierendi far to the west or the wild and little-known continent of Skothar in the distant east.
Archport was also at that time one of the most important ports for the Alphatian navy, where many of the empire's sleek galleys and sturdy troop ships were kept and maintained. By virtue of its location, Archport was as important to Alphatia's commercial interest as it was to the island continent's appetite for conquest. Of course, the previous year's ill-advised war with the dragons had put a considerable dent in the size of the imperial navy, a fact that could be clearly seen by the unusual lack of military vessels to be found in port.
Most foreigners either did not know or else tended to forget that Alphatia was not a single nation, but a collection of eighteen semiautonomous kingdoms bound together by their shared greed and insatiable drive for conquest. Alphatia was a nation of sorcerers, a land where spellcasters were the aristocracy and common folk possessed few rights or little wealth. The land had first been settled by the ancient enemies of the Flaem, and the true Alphatians still dominated the continent. But many elves and dwarves had settled there as well in the centuries that had followed, and they now shared many of the customs and the ambitions of the original people of Alphatia.
The attack came in the deepest part of the night, and it came completely without warning. Ships standing at the piers or at anchor suddenly burst into flames, some catching fire so quickly and violently that they literally exploded. Indeed, since there was no immediate sign of any enemy, the first assumption of many was that a perfectly normal if disastrous fire was sweeping over the piers, spread by bits of burning canvas carried on the brisk sea breeze. But the fires seemed too selective, striking mostly at the swift war galleys and other naval vessels in the harbor, as well as the forts that stood guard over the port.
Defenders hurried to their stations, but there still was no enemy to be seen. No foreign warships stood out at sea, nor were any invading warriors in the streets of the city. The attack itself was swift and over in a matter of minutes. Only afterward did a few of the defenders speak of seeing vast, dark shapes passing below the stars in the moonless night sky, creatures with broad, dark wings, long necks, and tails.
Two other major ports in Alphatia were attacked that same night in similar fashion. The attack in each case was directed at, but not limited to, the ships and facilities of the imperial navy. And in every case, people spoke of seeing the dark shapes passing in the night. Of course, there was little question in anyone's mind that it was the dragons who were behind the attack. The dragons had been provoked into war with the empire the previous year; the Alphatians had treacherously broken their own truce when they thought the dragons were preoccupied with the Dragonlord in the west. But the dragons had kept to themselves since they had destroyed the last invasion force at sea, and there had been little reason to believe that they would retaliate further.
Indeed, the first thing that officials within the empire did following the attack was to make certain that their own people had not provoked the dragons yet again. Alphatians tended to be tenacious in their desire for conquest, even in the face of certain disaster. One problem with an empire of such great size as Alphatia was that one branch of the government or the military often did not know what the other parts might be doing.
Unfortunately, the dragons themselves remained very much an unknown factor. In the past, they had attacked only in just response to provocation, so that the Alphatians were inclined to wonder if they themselves were at fault. As a part of their first treaty with the Alphatians, the dragons had demanded the right to search all of Alphatia for some artifact of magic that had been taken from them. Alphatian spies reported that the dragons had made similar demands upon the Flaem in the distant west. Whatever it was the dragons wanted, they seemed to be returning for a second look. But whatever the cause of the attacks, whether in response to some threat, in retaliation for past transgressions, or merely for sport, all the Alphatians could do was to
prepare themselves as best they could and wait.
* * * * *
On that same night, a cold, restless wind whipped through the narrow Sardal Pass in the mountains of southern Rock-home, the kingdom of the dwarves. The pennants above Kar-rak Castle snapped sharply in the breeze, the only sound to be heard in the night. But the great fortress of Karrak was not entirely asleep, for this was one of the three great fortresses guarding the only passes into Rockhome. Sardal Pass was the most direct way into the desert lands of the Ylaruam and Thy-atis beyond. Sentries patrolled the walkways along the pass and manned the parapets of the massive form of the castle itself. The dwarves guarded their borders as if they were always expecting an attack, and they prided themselves upon the fact that they were almost never taken by
