Dragons of the Fallen Sun: v. 1 (War of Souls Trilogy S.) - Softcover

Weis, Margaret; Hickman, Tracy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786918071 ISBN 13: 9780786918072

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast, 2001

Synopsis

The people of Krynn have known war in past ages. Some are still alive who remember the triumph of good at the conclusion of the War of the Lance. Still more remember the devastation of the Chaos War, which ended the Fourth Age of the world.

But now a new war is about to begin, more terrible than any have known. This war is one for the very heart and soul of the world itself.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dragons of a Fallen Sun

By Margaret Weis

Wizards of the Coast

Copyright © 2002 Margaret Weis
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780786918072

Chapter One

The Song of Death

The dwarves named the valley Gamashinoch-the Song ofDeath. None of the living walked here of their own freewill. Those who entered did so out of desperation, direneed, or because they had been ordered to do so by their commandingofficer

They had been listening to the "song" for several hours astheir advance brought them nearer and nearer the desolate valley.The song was eerie, terrible. Its words, which were never clearlyheard, never quite distinguishable-at least not with the ears-spokeof death and worse than death. The song spoke of entrapment,bitter frustration, unending torment. The song was alament, a song of longing for a place the soul remembered, ahaven of peace and bliss now unattainable.

On first hearing the mournful song, the Knights had reined intheir steeds, hands reaching for their swords as they stared aboutthem in unease, crying "what is that?" and "who goes there?"

But no one went there. No one of the living. The `Knightslooked at their commander, who stood up in his stirrups, inspectingthe cliffs that soared above them on their right and the left.

"It is nothing," he said at last. "The wind among the rocks.Proceed."

He urged his horse forward along the road, which ran, turningand twisting, through the mountains known as the Lords ofDoom. The men under his command followed single file, the passwas too narrow for the mounted patrol to ride abreast.

"I have heard the wind before, my lord," said one Knightgruffly, "and it has yet to have a human voice. It warns us to stayaway. We would do well to heed it."

"Nonsense!" Talon Leader Ernst Magit swung around in hissaddle to glare at his scout and second-in-command, who walkedbehind him. "Superstitious claptrap! But then you minotaurs arenoted for clinging to old, outmoded ways and ideas. It is time youentered the modern era. The gods are gone, and good riddance, Isay. We humans rule the world."

A single voice, a woman's voice, had first sung the Song ofDeath. Now her voice was joined by a fearful chorus of men,women, and children raised in a dreadful chant of hopeless lossand misery that echoed among the mountains.

At the doleful sound, several of the horses balked, refused togo farther, and, truth told, their masters did little to urge them.

Magit's horse shied and danced. He dug his spurs into thehorse's flanks, leaving great bloody gouges, and the horse sulkedforward, head lowered, ears twitching. Talon Leader Magit rodeabout half a mile when it occurred to him that he did not hearother hoof beats. Glancing around, he saw that he was proceedingalone. None of his men had followed.

Furious, Magit turned and galloped back to his command. Hefound half of his patrol dismounted, the other half looking veryill at ease, sitting astride horses that stood shivering on the road.

"The dumb beasts have more brains than their masters," saidthe minotaur from his place on the ground. Few horses will allowa minotaur to sit upon their backs and fewer still have thestrength and girth to carry one of the huge minotaurs. Galdar wasseven feet tall counting his horns. He kept up with the patrol,running easily alongside the stirrup of his commander.

Magit sat upon his horse, his hands on the pommel facing hismen. He was a tall, excessively thin man, the type whose bonesseem to be strung together with steel wire, for he was far strongerthan he looked. His eyes were flat and watery blue, withoutintelligence, without depth. He was noted for his cruelty, hisinflexible-many would say mindless-discipline, and his completeand total devotion to a single cause: Ernst Magit.

"You will mount your horses and you will ride after me," saidTalon Leader Magit coldly, "or I will report each and every one ofyou to the groupcommander. I will accuse you of cowardice andbetrayal of the Vision and mutiny. As you know, the penalty foreven one of those counts is death."

"Can he do that?" whispered a newly made Knight on his firstassignment.

"He can," returned the veterans grimly, "and he will."

The Knights remounted and urged their steeds forward, usingtheir spurs. They were forced to circle around the minotaur,Galdar, who remained standing in the center of the road.

"Do you refuse to obey my command, minotaur?" demandedMagit angrily. "Think well before you do so. You may be the protegeof the Protector of the Skull, but I doubt if even he couldsave you if I denounce you to the Council as a coward and anoath-breaker."

Leaning over his horse's neck, Magit spoke in mock confidentiality."And from what I hear, Galdar, your master mightnot be too keen on protecting you anymore. A one-armed minotaur.A minotaur whose own kind view him with pity and withscorn. A minotaur who has been reduced to the position of`scout.' And we all know that they assigned you to that postonly because they had to do something with you. Although Idid hear it suggested that they turn you out to pasture with therest of the cows."

Galdar clenched his fist, his remaining fist, driving the sharpnails into his flesh. He knew very well that Magit was baitinghim, goading him into a fight. Here, where there would be fewwitnesses. Here where Magit could kill the crippled minotaurand return home to claim that the fight had been a fair and gloriousone. Galdar was not particularly attached to life, not since theloss of his sword arm had transformed him from fearsome warriorto plodding scout. But he'd be damned if he was going to dieat the hands of Ernst Magit. Galdar wouldn't give his commanderthe satisfaction.

The minotaur shouldered his way past Ernst Magit, whowatched him with a sneer of contempt upon his thin lips.

The patrol continued toward their destination, hoping toreach it while there was yet sunlight-if one could term the chillgray light that warmed nothing it touched sunlight. The Song ofDeath wailed and mourned. One of the new recruits rode withtears streaming down his cheeks. The veterans rode hunkereddown, shoulders hunched up around their ears, as if they wouldblock out the sound. But even if they had stuffed their ears withtow, even if they had blown out their eardrums, they would havestill heard the terrible song.

The Song of Death sang in the heart.

The patrol rode into the valley that was called Neraka.

In a time past memory, the goddess Takhisis, Queen of Darkness,laid in the southern end of the valley a foundation stone,rescued from the blasted temple of the Kingpriest of Istar. Thefoundation stone began to grow, drawing upon the evil in theworld to give it life. The stone grew into a temple, vast and awful;a temple of magnificent, hideous darkness.

Takhisis planned to use this temple to return to the worldfrom which she'd been driven by Huma Dragonbane, but herway was blocked by love and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless she hadgreat power, and she launched a war upon the world that camenear to destroying it. Her evil commanders, like a pack of wilddogs, fell to fighting among themselves. A band of heroes rose up.Looking into their hearts, they found the power to thwart her,defeat her, and cast her down. Her temple at Neraka was destroyed,blasted apart in her rage at her downfall.

The temple's walls exploded and rained down from the skieson that terrible day, huge black boulders that crushed the city ofNeraka. Cleansing fires destroyed the buildings of the cursed city,burned down its markets and its slave pens, its numerous guardhouses, filling its twisted, mazelike streets with ash.

Over fifty years later, no trace of the original city remained.The splinters of the temple's bones littered the floor of the southernportion of the valley of Neraka. The ash had long since blownaway. Nothing would grow in this part of the valley. All sign oflife had long been covered up by the swirling sands.

Only the black boulders, remnants of the temple, remained inthe valley. They were an awful sight, and even Talon LeaderMagit, gazing upon them for the first time, wondered privately ifhis decision to ride into this part of the valley had been a smartone. He could have taken the long route around, but that wouldhave added two days to his travel, and he was late as it was,having spent a few extra nights with a new whore who had arrivedat his favorite bawdyhouse. He needed to make up time,and he'd chosen as his shortcut this route through the southernend of the valley.

Perhaps due to the force of the explosion, the black rock thathad formed the outer walls of the temple had taken on a crystallinestructure. Jutting up from the sand, the boulders were notcraggy, not lumpy. They were smooth-sided, with sharply definedplanes culminating in faceted points. Imagine black quartzcrystals jutting up from gray sand, some four times the height ofa man. Such a man could see his reflection in those glossy blackplanes, a reflection that was distorted, twisted, yet completelyrecognizable as being a reflection of himself.

These men had willingly joined up with the army of theKnights of Takhisis, tempted by the promises of loot and slaveswon in battle, by their own delight in killing and bullying, bytheir hatred of elves or kender or dwarves or anyone differentfrom themselves. These men, long since hardened against everygood feeling, looked into the shining black plane of the crystalsand were appalled by the faces that looked back. For on thosefaces they could see their mouths opening to sing the terriblesong.

Most looked and shuddered and quickly averted their gaze.Galdar took care not to look. At first sight of the black crystalsrising from the ground, he had lowered his eyes, and he keptthem lowered out of reverence and respect. Call it superstition, asErnst Magit most certainly would. The gods themselves were notin this valley. Galdar knew that to be impossible; the gods hadbeen driven from Krynn more than thirty years ago. But theghosts of the gods lingered here, of that Galdar was certain.

Ernst Magit looked at his reflection in the rocks, and simplybecause he Shrank from it inwardly, he forced himself to stare atit until he had stared it down.

"I will not be cowed by the sight of my own shadow!" he saidwith a meaningful glance at Galdar. Magit had only recentlythought up this bovine humor. He considered it extremely funnyand highly original, and he lost no opportunity to use it. "Cowed.Do you get it, minotaur?" Ernst Magit laughed.

The death song swept up the man's laughter and gave itmelody and tone-dark, off key, discordant, opposing the rhythmof the other voices of the song. The sound was so horrible thatMagit was shaken. He coughed, swallowed his laughter, much tothe relief of his men.

"You have brought us here, Talon Leader," said Galdar. "Wehave seen that this part of the valley is uninhabited, that no forceof Solamnics hides here, prepared to sweep down on us. We mayproceed toward our objective safe in the knowledge that we havenothing from the land of the living to fear from this direction. Let usnow leave this place, and swiftly. Let us turn back and make ourreport."

The horses had entered the southern valley with such reluctancethat in some cases their riders had been forced to dismountagain and cover their eyes and guide them, as if from a burningbuilding. Both man and beast were clearly eager to be gone. Thehorses edged their way back toward the road by which they'd arrived,their riders sidling along with them.

Ernst Magit wanted to leave this place as much as any ofthem. It was for precisely that reason that he decided they wouldstay. He was a coward at heart. He knew he was a coward. All hislife, he'd done deeds to prove to himself that he wasn't. Nothingtruly heroic. Magit avoided danger when at all possible, onereason he was riding patrol duty and not joining with the otherKnights of Neraka to lay siege to the Solamnic-controlled city ofSanction. He undertook to perform cheap, petty actions anddeeds that involved no risk to himself but that would prove tohimself and to his men he wasn't afraid. A deed such as spendingthe night in this cursed valley.

Magit made a show of squinting up at the sky, which was apale and unwholesome yellow, a peculiar shade, such as none ofthe Knights had ever before seen.

"It is now twilight," he announced sententiously. "I do notwant to find myself benighted in the mountains. We will makecamp here and ride out in the morning."

The Knights stared at their commander incredulously, appalled.The wind had ceased to blow. The song no longer sang intheir hearts. Silence settled over the valley, a silence that was atfirst a welcome change but that they were growing to loathe thelonger it lasted. The silence weighed on them, oppressed them,smothered them. None spoke. They waited for their commanderto tell them he'd been playing a little joke on them.

Talon Leader Magit dismounted his horse. "We will set upcamp here. Pitch my command tent near the tallest of thosemonoliths. Galdar, you're in charge of setting up camp. I trustyou can handle that simple task?"

His words seemed unnaturally loud, his voice shrill and raucous.A breath of air, cold and sharp, hissed through the valley,swept the sand into dust devils that swirled across the barrenground and whispered away.

"You are making a mistake, sir," said Galdar in a soft undertone,to disturb the silence as little as possible. "We are notwanted here."

"Who does not want us, Galdar?" Talon Leader Magitsneered. "These rocks?" He slapped the side of a black crystalmonolith. "Ha! What a thick-skulled, superstitious cow!" Magit'svoice hardened. "You men. Dismount and begin setting up camp.That is an order."

Ernst Magit stretched his limbs, making a show of being relaxed.He bent double at the waist, did a few limbering exercises.The Knights, sullen and unhappy, did as he commanded. Theyunpacked their saddle roils, began setting up the small, two-mantents carried by half the patrol. The others unpacked food andwater.

The tents were a failure. No amount of hammering coulddrive the iron spikes into the hard ground. Every blow of thehammer reverberated among the mountains, came back to themamplified a hundred times, until it seemed as if the mountainswere hammering on them.

Galdar threw down his mallet, which he had been awkwardlywielding with his remaining hand.

"What's the matter, minotaur?" Magit demanded. "Are youso weak you can't drive a tent stake?"

"Try it yourself, sir," said Galdar.

The other men tossed down their mallets and stood staring attheir commander in sullen defiance.

Magit was pale with anger.



Continues...

Excerpted from Dragons of a Fallen Sunby Margaret Weis Copyright © 2002 by Margaret Weis. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786918071
• ISBN 13: 9780786918072
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 624