“There's—there's not much documentation on dragons. Most of the researchers get eaten.”
Weak as the wizard's attempt at humor might have seemed to Rhonin, Deathwing found it quite amusing.
He laughed. Laughed hard. Laughed with what, in others, would have been an insane edge.
“I had forgotten how amusing your kind can be, my little friend! How amusing!” The too-wide,
tootoothsome smile returned in all its sinister glory. “Yes, there might be some truth to that.”
No longer complacent in simply lying down before the menacing form, Rhonin sat straight up. He might
have continued on to a standing position, but a simple glance from Deathwing seemed to warn that this
might not be wise at such a juncture.
“What do you want of me?” Rhonin asked again. “What am I to you?”
“You are a means to an end, a way of achieving a goal long out of reach—a desperate act by a
desperate creature. . . .”
At first Rhonin did not comprehend. Then he saw the frustration in the dragon's expression. “You—are
desperate?”
Deathwing rose again, spreading his arms almost as if he intended to fly off. “What do you see, human?”
“A figure in shadowy black. The dragon Deathwing in another guise.”
“The obvious answer, but do you not see more, my little-friend? Do you not see the loyal legions of my
kind? Do you see the many black dragons—or, for that matter, the crimson ones, who once filled the
sky, long before the coming of humans, of even elves?”
Not exactly certain where Deathwing sought to lead him, Rhonin only shook his head. Of one thing he
had already become convinced. Sanity had no stable home in the mind of this creature.
“You see them not,” the dragon began, growing slightly more reptilian in skin and form. The eyes
narrowed and the teeth grew longer, sharper. Even the hooded figure himself grew larger, and it seemed
that wings sought to escape the confines of his robe. Deathwing became more shadow than substance, a
magical being caught midway in transformation.
“You see them not,” he began again, eyes closing briefly. The wings, the eyes, the teeth—all reverted to
what they had seemed a moment before. Deathwing regained both substance and humanity, the latter if
only on the surface. “. . . because they no longerexist.”
He seated himself, then held out a hand, palm up. Above that hand, images suddenly leapt into being.
Tiny draconic figures flew about a world of green glory. The dragons themselves fluttered about in every
color of the rainbow. A sense of overwhelming joy filled the air, touching even Rhonin.
“The world was ours and we kept it well. The magic was ours and we guarded it well. Life was ours . . .
and we reveled in it well.”
But something new came into the picture. It took a few seconds for the suspicious mage to identify the
tiny figures as elves, but not elves like Vereesa. These elves were beautiful in their own way, too, but it
was a cold, haughty beauty, one that, in the end, repelled him. “But others came, lesser forms, minute life spans. Quick to rashness, they plunged into what we knew
was too great a risk.” Deathwing's voice grew almost as chill as the beauty of the dark elves. “And, in
their folly, they brought thedemonsto us.”
Rhonin leaned forward without thinking. Every wizard studied the legends of the demon horde, what
some called theBurning Legion,but if such monstrous beings had ever existed, he himself had found no
proof. Most of those who had claimed dealings with them had generally turned out to be of questionable
states of mind.
Yet, as the wizard tried to catch even a glimpse of one of the demons, Deathwing abruptly closed his
hand, dismissing the images.
“If not for the dragons, this world would no longer be. Even a thousand orc hordes cannot compare to
what we faced, to what we sacrificed ourselves against! In that time, we fought as one! Our blood
mingled on the battlefield as we drove the demons from our world. . . .” The dark figure closed his eyes
for a moment. “. . . and in the process, we lost control of the very thing we sought to save. The age of
our kind passed. The elves, then the dwarves, and finally the humans each laid their claims to the future.
Our numbers dwindled and, worse, we fought among ourselves.Slewone another.”
That much, Rhonin knew.Everyoneknew of the animosity between the five existing dragon flights,
especially between the black and crimson. The origins of that animosity lay lost in antiquity, but perhaps
now the wizard could learn the awful truth. “But why fight one another after sacrificing so much
together?”
“Misguided ideas, miscommunication . . . so many factors that you would not understand them all even if
I had the time to explain them.” Deathwing sighed. “And because of those factors, we are reduced to so
few.” His gaze shifted, became more intense again. The eyes seemed to bore into Rhonin's own. “But
that is the past! I would make amends for what had to be done . . . for whatIhad to do, human. I would
help you free the DragonqueenAlexstrasza.”
Rhonin bit back his first response. Despite the easy manner, despite the guise, he still sat before the most
dire of dragons. Deathwing might pretend friendship, camaraderie, but one wrong word could still
condemn Rhonin to a grisly end.
“But—” he tried to choose his words carefully, “—you and she are enemies.”
“For the same insipid reasons our kind has so long fought. Mistakes were made, human, but I would
rectify them now.” The eyes pulled the wizard toward them,intothem. “Alexstrasza and I should not be
foes.”
Rhonin had to agree with that. “Of course not.”
“Once we were the greatest of allies, of friends, and that can happen again, do you not agree?”
The mage could see nothing but those penetrating orbs. “I do.”
“And you are on a quest to rescue her yourself.”
A sensation stirred within Rhonin, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable under Deathwing's gaze. “How did
you—how did you find out about that?”
That is of no consequence, is it?” The eyes snared the human's again.
The discomfort faded. Everything faded under the intense stare of the dragon. “No, I suppose not.”
“On your own, you would fail. There is no doubt of that. Why you continued as long as you did, even I
cannot fathom! Now, though, now, with my aid, youcando the impossible, my friend. Youwillrescue the
Dragonqueen!”
With that, Deathwing stretched forth a hand, in which lay a small silver medallion. Rhonin's fingers
reached out seemingly of their own accord, taking that medallion and bringing it close. He looked down
at it, studying the runes etched around the edge, the black crystal in the middle. Some of the runes he
knew the meaning of, others he had never seen in his life, though the mage could sense their power.
“Youwillbe able to rescue Alexstrasza, my fine little puppet,” the too-wide grin stretched to its fullest.
“Because with this, I will be there to guide you the entireway. . . .”
How did one lose a dragon?
That question had reared its ugly head time and time again, and neither Vereesa nor her companion had
a satisfactory answer. Worse, night had begun to settle over Khaz Modan, and the gryphon, already long
exhausted, clearly could not go on much farther.
Deathwing had been in sight nearly the entire trek, if only from a great distance. Even the eyes of
Falstad, not so nearly as sharp as the elf 's, had been able to make out the massive form flying toward the
interior. Only whenever Deathwing had flown through the occasional cloud had he vanished, and that for
no more than a breath or two.
Until an hour past.
The gargantuan beast and his burden had entered into the latest cloud, just as they had so many others
previous. Falstad had kept the gryphon on target and both Vereesa and the dwarf had watched for the
reappearance of the leviathan on the other side. The cloud had been alone, the next nearest some miles to
the south. The ranger and her companion could see it almost in its entirety. They could not possibly miss
when Deathwing exited.
No dragon had emerged.
They had watched and waited, and when they could wait no longer, Falstad had urged his animal to the
cloud, clearly risking all if Deathwing hid within. The dark one, however, had been nowhere to be found.
The largest and most sinister of dragons had utterly vanished.
“'Tis no use, my elven lady,” the gryphon rider finally called. “We'll have to land! Neither we nor my
poor mount can go any farther!”
She had to agree, although a part of her still wanted to continue the hunt. “All right!” The ranger eyed the
landscape below. The coast and forests had long given way to a much rockier, less hospitable region
that, she knew, eventually built up into the crags of Grim Batol. There were still wooded areas, but
overall the coverage looked very sparse. They would have to hide in the hills in order to achieve sufficient
cover to avoid detection by orcs atop dragons. “What about that area over there
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