and groveling, begging for mercy or trying to claw a place of concealment into the hard soil.
Only one displayed the courage, or foolishness, to continue the attack. This was a brutish chieftain who hurled himself at the male dragon and was met by a savage, darting snap of those great jaws. Lectral bit hard and felt the crunch of sturdy bone. He killed the ogre instantly and, with a contemptuous spit, hurled the burly body into the faces of its companions.
Heart’s blast of deadly frost exploded from her silver jaws, a white cloud of death roaring outward in a magical blizzard, expanding with hissing violence through the warm spring air of the clearing. The dragonbreath froze a dozen ogres in the garish postures of instant death even before the brutes realized they were being attacked. Still more of the monsters threw themselves onto the ground, and the wailing of their abject fear echoed through the woods.
Lectral pounced, crushing an ogre with each forepaw, snatching up another in his great jaws. Breaking the muscle-bound body in a crushing bite, he tossed his neck and sent the creature’s remains tumbling into a pair of fleeing ogres. His silver tail lashed around, crushing several more of the monsters, sending the great, brutish warriors tumbling like children’s toys.
Smashing with his great body, the silver dragon settled heavily downward until the desperate thrashing underneath him was crushed into stillness. Whipping his head toward a band of the brutes huddled beyond his left wing, he belched a cloud of killing frost. The lethal breath expanded through the clearing, freezing flowers and bees in the same swath that slew a dozen fleeing ogres.
In an instant, the rest of the monstrous band had vanished into the forest. Terror wafted in their wake, an acrid stench in the air. Lectral saw that many of the brutes had even cast their weapons aside, shrilling cries of utter panic in their haste to reach the imagined shelter of the forest paths. Abruptly four or five more broke from a nearby clump of brush, lumbering toward the trees, casting terrified glances behind.
Heart’s jaws gaped again, and she expelled a cloud of white gas, a forceful explosion of her breath that gusted strongly toward her targets without the roaring destructiveness of her deadly frost. Nevertheless, the monsters saw the mist churning toward them and screamed in panic, sprinting desperately to get away as the vapor swept forward and enveloped them.
When the mist dissipated, the remaining ogres were scattered across the ground, limp and motionless-except for the slow rising and falling of chests stirred by deep, placid breathing. Eyes wide, those ogres lucky-or unlucky- enough to be lying on their backs stared in mute horror at the two serpents looming overhead, masters of this sun- swept patch of meadow. Others, facedown, grunted and groaned but were obviously unable to move a muscle.
“Why didn’t you kill them?” Lectral asked, with a raised eyebrow. Like all the metal dragons, he and Heart possessed a nonlethal breath weapon as well as their deadly expulsions. Still, he was surprised she had used it on the ogres. He prodded one of the motionless brutes with his foreclaws, rolling it onto its back to inspect the tusked maw, which now gaped slackly, allowing a copious spill of drool to soak the ogre’s chest. “They’re just paralyzed.”
Heart shook her great silver head, though her own expression was also a trifle puzzled. “I didn’t have to kill them, so I didn’t. It seemed a good time to show mercy.”
“Well, as Regia says, we dragons could kill all the ogres, and the humans and bakali, too, if we wanted. But why waste the breath?” Lectral replied.
“Our golden sister is too inclined to think in terms of the abstract. It’s more that the threat is gone now… and I don’t feel like killing any more.”
“That sits well with me as well,” Lectral agreed. He leaned forward, trailing his head along Heart’s neck. “In any event, Regia is not the female who concerns me just now.”
The silver male’s lids drooped lazily over his eyes as he reared back and regarded the supple curves, the shimmering scales, and gleaming wings of the silver female. He squatted before her, ready to pounce, waiting for the flick of her tail that would recommence the tantalizing game that had just been interrupted.
But Heart shook her head. “No, Lec… let’s fly, together.”
He was about to protest, but he knew she wouldn’t be swayed by any argument he could make. Too, with the passing of her teasing manner, his own excitement had rapidly faded. Heart seemed to him once more as she had always been: a silver nestmate who had grown to adulthood at his side, a friend and comrade during the hundreds of winters through which they and their kin-dragons had ruled the skies of Krynn.
Callak had been their sire, and their matriarch, Daria, had raised them in her lair, deep in the mountainous wilderness of western Ergoth. For the first century or two of their lives, they and their silver nestmates had been alone in the world, insofar as they had known nothing of other dragons. They had, of course, engaged in social intercourse with elves and humans, and both had formed strong friendships-particularly among the Kagonesti, in Lectral’s case. Heart had enjoyed the company of the wild elves, but also displayed fascination with humankind, most notably the armored and heroic knights who ruled the realm of Solamnia.
After Callak had grown old, he had given Lectral the clan treasure: the horn of the great ram that he now wore on the silver chain around his neck. The silver dragons had grown to maturity with an understanding of the deep bonds between the Kagonesti wild elves and the dragons of argent.
Only after reaching adulthood had Heart and Lectral encountered dragons of other colors-first in the person of the sociable brass dragon Kord, scion of Dazzall, who seemed to know everybody and everything. He had become a good friend to all the silver nestmates, and in turn had introduced them to the less extroverted wyrms of the copper and bronze clans. Lectral had developed a grudging sense of respect for a copper male, Cymbol, who had once demonstrated great speed and quickness in stealing an elk that Lectral regarded as his rightful prey. Eventually the two wyrms had reached an understanding, and Lectral had learned that Cymbol’s barely contained fury was a constant thing, a drive for vengeance against the chromatic dragons that had been inculcated in him by his sire, Tharn. Unfortunately-at least, so it seemed-neither of them had ever encountered one of the Dark Queen’s dragons. To all appearances, they had ceased to exist during the time of their sire’s early life.
The bronze, Bolt, had been less hostile initially than the copper had been, but neither had he been overly friendly. Still, Heart, Lectral, and their nestmates had learned from Daria the tale of the grotto and its abandonment, and it had been good to discover for certain that the others of the metal dragons had also survived to breed.
Lectral had been impressed by the differences even more than the similarities between the five clans. One of the most different was the dignified and studious Arumnus, a gold of approximately Lectral’s age. Scion of Auricus, he was wise and thoughtful, if a trifle dull as a companion. And his sister, Regia, had been only haughty and aloof.
Lately Lectral had been dazzled by the changes he had sensed in Heart as the two of them approached full maturity, a feeling that matters between them were progressing toward something magical. The thought of her elven form fleeing through the woods caused his silver scales to shiver, and once again he regarded her with a sidelong inspection, wishing that she would flick her tail or arch her neck in that gesture of invitation.
Instead, she spread her wings and crouched, ready to take to the sky. With a sigh, Lectral, too, stretched wide, scooping downward as he leapt after her, dragging himself slowly into the air. The grasses of the meadow swept by, and finally he had enough speed to pull upward at the edge of the trees.
The two silvers steadily climbed, moving into the clear skies of late spring. A perfect day, thought Lectral, for flying, or hunting, or doing any kind of living at all. But still, as they flew side by side through summery skies, he pondered the questions of Heart’s strange allure and the mood that had been shattered by the bothersome presence of the ogres.
Of course, the brutes were no real threat to a nearly mature silver such as Lectral or Heart, save the unlikely circumstance of a bunch of ogres coming upon a sleeping dragon. In fact, the world of the two nestmates’ lives contained nothing that was a real threat.
“I wonder what it was like when the evil dragons still lived,” mused the great male, pensive as the measured strokes of his wings carried him forward. “When there was real danger in Krynn… threats even to mighty dragons.”
“Perhaps those old stories were just to scare us,” Heart replied, teasing. “Have you ever seen a dragon that wasn’t gold or silver or one of the brown metals?”
“Regia and Arumnus believe in those old legends!” Lectral replied, rising to the bait. He shivered, unwilling to admit that he, too, sometimes pictured in his dreams a vague, five-headed image, a being he regarded with considerable unease. “And how else do you explain the small number of our forefathers, the five pairs who escaped
