a change of scenery.”
“Saytica stayed behind?”
“Yes,” Silvara replied. “She has an easier time putting up with all the rules.”
“Well, she’s quite a bit older and larger than you. I suppose that makes a difference,” noted Lectral.
“Everyone is,” the young female replied sourly, but then she brightened. “Anyway, it’s as Daria taught us: Dragons should be flying, not reading.”
Lectral chuckled, remembering his matriarch with fondness. Then his brow furrowed. “Have you seen Heart?” he asked, finally getting to the question that was never far from the surface of his awareness.
“No, and Regia hasn’t either. She asked me the same thing just before she sent me away.”
An eagle keened, circling the ledge, silhouetted by the rosy glow of the sun sinking toward the western horizon. Then the birdlike form shimmered and grew, and it was a gold dragon gliding through the air, curling regally and settling toward a landing on Lectral’s ledge.
The two silvers quickly changed shape, using the bodies of wild elves to conserve space, and moved against the cliff wall to leave more room on the narrow perch.
The gold, whom Lectral had already recognized as mighty Arumnus, settled in a downrush of wind and nodded a greeting of stiff-necked formality. The dragon’s rather formal manner wasn’t because he was aloof, but because he’d been spending too much time with Regia, Lectral suspected.
Smoothly Arumnus changed shape, shrinking, curling upright to stand smoothly in the body of a burly Knight of Solamnia. Shiny golden armor protected his strapping form, and a great sword was strapped to his waist.
The two wild elf bodies stepped forward. “Welcome, kin-dragon,” Lectral said, feeling a surprising rush of affection toward the mature gold. After all, Arumnus was one of the few male dragons who was as old as Lectral himself. Despite his aloof and studious nature, he had been a friend and comrade since making Lectral’s acquaintance some three centuries before.
“Have you heard the news?” Arumnus asked, urgency overcoming his traditional gold dragon reserve.
“What is it?” Silvara asked before Lectral could speak.
“War has come again to the world. It has already been waged for several winters in the east, and now it has come against the men of Solamnia. The wyrms of the Dark Queen are awakened, and they, too, have joined the onslaught against the knights.”
“Dragons of red and blue-chromatic serpents?” demanded Lectral, tingling with a sudden sense of discovery- and fear. “But where did they come from?”
“They came from the east,” Arumnus replied. “Sanction is their great city, but much of Solamnia has felt the torch of dragonfire.”
“That is no concern of ours!” Lectral blurted, surprising himself with the outburst and the sentiment. He was aware of Silvara’s look of astonishment and the gold dragon’s expression of gentle reproach.
“How can you say that?” argued the young and graceful wild elf who was the female silver dragon. “We all have friends among the humans! Think of Heart. What will she do when she learns about this?”
“No!” Lectral barked in sudden panic, knowing the affinity the silver female felt toward the knights. Indeed, Heart would no doubt take wing against the chromatic dragons by herself if need be. “That is, we have to find her!”
“It is already a dragon matter,” Arumnus continued. “Young Cymbol has gathered his copper siblings, and at least a dozen of them have flown against the evil dragons in the north. Word is that Bassal was killed, perhaps others as well.”
Lectral felt a glimmer of real menace. These were the names of dragons he knew, at least in passing. And now they were falling, slain? “Cymbol has always been an angry sort. Many times I have heard him boast that he would lead the attack against the Dark Queen’s dragons if only he had the chance.”
“And now he has that chance,” Silvara noted, her own eyes alight.
“Regia is considering the golds’ response even as we speak.” Arumnus looked toward the sky with unseemly urgency. “Perhaps she will have arrived at a conclusion by the time I return,” he added hopefully.
“Don’t just consider. Do something!” Silvara insisted.
Lectral, too, sensed the rising compulsion of a martial summons. “Yes. We silvers shall fight as well. This is the fight that our ancestors waged… that drove our fathers and mothers from the grotto.”
His mind flashed to a thought of the Kagonesti forest in the realm south of Sanction, and he tried to picture the horror if the scourge of dragonfire and waste should spread there. Guilt surged as he realized that it had been many winters since he had flown over the wild elf realms.
“What now? Who’s this?” Arumnus pointed toward the sky, where a silver-winged shape glided across the faces of the rising moons, then settled toward the ledge.
“Heart!” cried Silvara, frantically waving a slender hand.
The elder female silver dragon settled to the ledge, and then she, too, became an elfmaid, as beautiful as Silvara, though with the fullness of a mature woman. Lectral remembered that shape, and again the memories of a forest chase came back. He felt a dizzying sense of emotion, all but staggering as he stepped toward his silver nestmate. He embraced her, felt her arms tight around him.
“Hello, my Heart,” he said thickly, taking her elven hands in his own. “It is good to know that you are safe and well.”
“And you, my nestmate,” she replied, the pressure of her fingers sending ripples of agony through his heart until she broke free of his touch.
“Hello, Sister,” said Silvara, going to Heart and quickly hugging her.
“Greetings, Little Sister. And to you, my friends.”
Lectral’s heart pounded, and he felt a rush of blood in his ears. A raging storm of memories returned to him, and he recalled every detail of the time he had chased her through the woods, had almost captured her.
And, looking at the distant focus of her eyes, he understood that she had, at last, eluded him forever.
“Do you know of the war?” asked Silvara.
“Indeed. The dragons of the Dark Queen have taken to the skies,” Heart declared grimly. “Already some of the brown metal dragons have joined the knights, but we silvers should go as well! The humans are brave and fight valiantly, but they need our help. Saytica has already flown to join them.”
“Of course!” Silvara said. “And what of Huma?”
Lectral looked at Heart sharply, jolted by the question. She returned his look with an expression of frankness and a plea for understanding. “There is one man in particular… the knight called Huma,” she explained. “He has moved me with his courage, his goodness. In part, it is for him that I come to you to beg your help for the knights.”
“The knights… or this one knight?” asked Lectral, his tone a soft growl.
Heart’s head whipped back as if she had been slapped. Then she raised her chin and met her nestmate’s gaze. “I cherish him very much. And I believe that he may lead the knights to victory.”
Lectral suppressed a surge of jealousy. A very strong part of him wanted to find and squash this human who dared to enthrall his nestmate, and he worked very hard to restrain an impulse toward violence.
“What about the wild elves, the Kagonesti in the east?” he asked anxiously. “Who knows whether or not they are suffering under the dragons as well?”
“Who can know?” countered Heart. “But there is more. You all remember the Spear of Paladine, the prophecy as foretold by our honored mother, Daria, at the time the grotto was abandoned.”
“Yes!” cried Silvara excitedly. “The weapon of the gods that would give us means to strike at the Dark Queen.”
“It is a lance!” the elfmaid dragon explained. “A Dragonlance, formed by the hammer of Kharas and wielded by knights from the backs of dragons.”
“And you have these lances?” asked Arumnus.
“We have twenty lances,” she said. “Many are the knights who have volunteered to wield them. We need nineteen dragons to fly with me. I have already heard from Saytica and Cymbol and Bolt, and Arkas as well.”
“And I shall fly at your side!” pledged Arumnus.
“And I!” Silvara cried.
Heart turned her firm expression to the younger female. “You are too small, Little Sister. The lance-wielder must be an armored knight, and I fear the burden would be more than you could carry.”
