Chosen of the Gods Read online

  Lightning flared close by, making her jump as it struck a wooded outcropping only leagues ahead. Trees became torches, and the stone burst, sending rubble and burning wood pouring down the hill. The thunderclap that followed, a heartbeat later, made the ground tremble beneath them, and set Ilista’s ears ringing. The horses reared and snorted, the Knights struggling to keep them calm.

  Hopes of further progress dashed, she nodded to Gareth. “Go.”

  A few barked orders later, the party had reined in, and all but two of the Knights were off their horses, clambering up the slopes toward the caves. They climbed around boulders and scrabbled across gravel, grabbing tree trunks to steady themselves as they went. Soon they disappeared, swallowed by the rain and gloom.

  A small mace hung from Ilista’s saddle. She hadn’t wanted to carry it, being untrained in arms, but Sir Gareth insisted. Now she thanked him silently as she reached down and pulled the weapon free. She gripped it tightly, heart hammering. Though Gareth was near—his sword finally unsheathed—and the two Knights who held the horses hovered close by as well, she felt horribly helpless beneath the looming thunderheads.

  The wind howled. The rain became icy knives. Thunder’s growl rose into a bellow. The Knights did not return.

  Worried, Gareth guided his horse to the path’s edge and called out, but the storm smothered his words. The horses were near mad with fear, and the Knights fought to keep them from bolting. Ilista twisted her own reins, repeating a warding prayer over and over as she stared at the thunderheads. “Palado, me ofurbud op to me bulfant bronint…”

  Paladine, be my shield against those who would do me ill …

  Out of nowhere, something appeared in the sky, streaking down out of the seething clouds. Ilista gaped as she watched it plummet and saw it glint as lightning flashed nearby. Armor, she thought, but couldn’t find her voice. A heartbeat later, it struck the rocks with a horrible crash and tumbled down the slope to stop on the path.

  Ilista’s horse bawled, nearly throwing her. By the time she got it under control again, Gareth was off his steed and sprinting toward the tangled ruin on the ground. Feeling ill, she coaxed her mount forward as the Knight knelt down on the ground, raising his visor to see. He looked up as she came near, his face ashen, and raised a hand to warn her off. It was too late, though—she could already see.

  It was Sir Laonis—or had been, once. Now she recognized the young Knight only by the etchings in his armor. The rest was a ruin, battered and ravaged, a few jagged slashes even tearing through his breastplate. His left arm was gone, and the rainwater pooled around him was pink with blood, darkening as she watched.

  She swayed in her saddle, wanting to vomit, and Gareth was beside her in an instant, steadying her with a firm hand. When the tide of nausea ebbed, she fought for her voice. “What—what did that to him?”

  Gareth shook his head.

  “There!” cried one of the other Knights. He stabbed a finger skyward.

  They turned to look, squinting against the slashing rain. At first, Ilista saw nothing amid the darkness, but then a flash lit the sky and there was something there, silhouetted against the coruscating clouds: a huge, serpentine shape thirty feet long from its head to the tip of its tail. It flew on broad, leathery wings, its body twisting as it banked high above them. Thick, stone-grey scales covered the rest, pale as death on its underbelly. Long, wickedly curving horns swept back from its head, and its narrow eyes gleamed green. Fangs the length of a man’s hand filled its snarling mouth, and its dangling legs sported talons like scythe blades. At the end of its tail was a wicked, bony barb. Its mouth stretched wide, and a shriek like tearing metal rose above the storm’s din—then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, wheeling and disappearing back into the clouds.

  “Palado Calib,” Ilista croaked. “Was that a dragon?”

  Gareth shook his head. “No, Your Grace—the dragons are gone from the world, as the legends say. That was a wyvern.”

  Ilista had heard tales of wyverns. They were kin to the long-vanished dragons, but were smaller and much more stupid, though every bit as cruel as the wyrms that had once filled Krynn’s skies. They possessed no fiery breath, nor did they use magic as true dragons did, but they were still deadly. The barb on the creature’s tail was a stinger filled with venom that could kill in moments. They fed on anything they could find—Gareth’s goats and lizards leaped to Ilista’s mind—and while they were usually too vicious to hunt in packs, they sometimes gathered in swarms.

  The Knights cried out again, and sure enough, a second wyvern swooped out of the clouds. This one’s scales glistened black, but other than that it resembled its brother in every way. There was something odd about it, though, Ilista noticed— something in the way it moved. It struggled rather than soared, moving slowly, jerkily.

  “Huma’s silver arm,” Sir Gareth swore. “It’s carrying something.”

  Lightning blazed, and they saw it: another young Knight clasped in its claws, arms and legs dangling. As they looked on, the monster’s tail shot down, driving its stinger into the man’s body. Then it pulled up, opening its talons and letting the remains plunge earthward like a giantling’s discarded toy. The body smacked into a cliff face, then rolled down in a tumult of stones and broken bones until it stopped, tangled in a mass of Hangman’s Snare.

  High above, the black wyvern screeched, tucked in its wings, and dove.

  Ilista watched in sickened fascination as it plunged straight toward her, its mouth a forest of fangs, its eyes blazing orange. Her mace fell, unnoticed, from her grasp. Beside her Gareth raised his sword high, shouting and slamming his visor shut. He brought the flat of his blade down hard on her horse’s rump.

  The mare leaped forward at once, plunging down the path with Ilista clinging to the reins. Glancing back, she saw Gareth dashing toward his stallion, sword flashing in his hand. The wyvern was too fast, though, and he had to throw himself on the ground, rolling over and over as its talons clutched at the air, missing him. Instead, it snatched up his steed and lifted it off the ground, beating its wings furiously as it fought to rise.

  The horses were all wailing with terror, but Gareth’s screamed loudest of all, struggling mightily as the black-scaled monster bore it away. Its stinger drove into the horse’s flesh once, twice, three times, then the animal gave one last thrash and sagged, twitching. Gareth struggled to his feet, stunned and glaring as the wyvern let his steed drop, then he raced to the other horses and leaped astride one. Above, the wyvern banked and disappeared back into the storm as Ilista reined in again.

  There was shouting now from the hillside. Several men were scrambling down the slope—the Knights, or what remained of them, five now instead of ten. Sir Jurabin limped behind the rest, his right leg ripped bloody, scowling against the pain as he stumbled and nearly fell.

  Another cry sounded from above, and Jurabin turned toward a third wyvern—this one the color of rust—as it bore down on him. A lesser man would have fled from such a sight, but Jurabin was a Solamnic Knight and trained to meet an honorable death. Bracing himself, he brandished his blade and faced down the beast. Ilista, Gareth, and his fellows could only watch as the monster swooped in.

  It hit him hard, claws furrowing his armor, spattering blood across the stones. Somehow, though, the brave Knight didn’t drop his sword, even as it lifted him off his feet; instead he stabbed wildly, the beast’s scales turning away his blade once … twice… .

  The third mad thrust drove home, as Jurabin buried his blade into the flesh beneath its wing. The wyvern’s triumphant cry became a shriek of pain, and it wavered, sinking as the Knight managed to twist the sword, working it deeper. Finally, it stung him and let him go—and his sword snapped, leaving two feet of steel lodged in its flesh.

  Jurabin was dead before he hit the ground. The wyvern, however, had a moment of struggle before it plummeted as well, crunching down atop a broad, flat boulder. The surviving Knights cheered at its death, but Sir Gareth shouted t
hem down, waving his sword at the sky. Ilista looked up, and her mouth went dry. Five more wyverns circled overhead.

  “Ride!” Gareth roared. “Ride, all of you!”

  Ilista was already moving, digging her heels into her horse’s flanks. It hurled itself down the pass, terrified by the storm and the smell of blood, leaping recklessly over stones and bracken alike. She heard the rumble of hoofs behind her as the Knights charged after. She pulled on her reins to let them catch up, but the panicking mare wouldn’t slow. All she could do was hold on and pray as the horse flew down the trail.

  She heard a wyvern shriek above her and looked up to see one of them bank and begin its dive, streaking straight toward her. It was the same gray beast she’d first spotted, its eyes blazing and jaws agape. Its talons and stinger glistened red. Gareth was bellowing in Solamnic somewhere behind her, but the wyvern paid no notice, arrowing toward her—the one unarmored morsel in the lot. She threw herself forward, flattening herself against the mare’s neck and laughing madly. She’d been afraid of goblins!

  Her breath blasted from her lungs when the beast struck, and for an instant there was no sound but a howling roar, no sight but red mist, no taste but blood in her mouth, no feeling at all. Then she came back to herself, and the pain came with it, her shoulder bathed in liquid fire where the wyvern’s claws grazed her, plunging through skin, sinew, and bone alike. The other talon missed her flesh altogether, snagging her robes instead and clutching her. She felt herself lifted in the air. She stared at the ground as it fell away beneath her, her stomach lurching. There was Gareth, gazing up at her in horror, there were his Knights, mouths agape. She tried to call out to them, but it hurt too much to draw breath.

  The wyvern wheeled, and her companions disappeared from view. She rose higher and higher, the wyvern soaring toward the raging stormclouds, and Ilista closed her eyes, waiting for the stinger to strike, the burning poison in her veins. Please, she prayed silently, let death be quick.

  The stinger didn’t strike. Instead, there was a deafening boom, and the wyvern lurched sideways, jarring her and sending fresh spikes of pain through her body.

  The stink of roasting flesh flooded her nostrils, and she opened her tearing eyes. The wyvern’s right wing was on fire, the membrane curling like burning paper. It screeched in agony, its tail whipping about, as it began to whirl and flutter.

  Merciful Paladine, she thought as the ground started rushing toward her. Lightning struck it!

  That was when she saw him, standing on a ledge beneath her: a lone figure in a gray cassock, his hood pulled low against the wind. He was too far away, the storm too fierce, the pain too great, to make out any more details. She watched as he raised his arms, head thrown back, shouting at the storm. Thunder roared again, making her skull buzz, and a blinding lightning bolt flashed down, ripping through the wyvern’s other wing. Shrieking even louder, it dropped like a meteor and let her go.

  All at once, Ilista was tumbling free, spinning as she fell, now looking at the storm-wracked sky, now the wyvern, all aflame, now the ground rising toward her with sickening speed.

  Suddenly, it stopped—or rather she stopped, her shivering body slowing, then halting in midair as the blazing wyvern slammed into the ground below. She gasped, astounded, as she hovered there, then looked down and saw the man in gray again, the one who had summoned the lightning to kill the beast. He was looking at her now, hands outstretched, and she knew he was the one holding her aloft. He moved his arms, and she moved toward him, floating through the air like a leaf on a stream … then he lowered her, slowly, onto the rocky ledge beside him.

  Firm stone pressed up against her, and she lay wheezing, trembling with pain as she stared up at him. She tried to make out his face, but shadow hid his features.

  “Welcome, Efisa,” he said.

  The world went black.

  Chapter Eight

  Istar was a land of grand cities. Besides the Lordcity, there was Karthay in the north, with its tiered gardens and many-colored rooftops; Tucuri at the mouth of the River Gather, all towering minarets and latticed windows; Kautilya, the Bronze City, its sprawling baths shrouded in mist; Lattakay in the east, known for its sprawling wharf and Street of White Arches; and a dozen more that put such exemplary western cities as Palanthas and Xak Tsaroth to shame.

  The borderlands had only one true city of note: Govinna. It was small and dense, standing on twin hills, the two halves surrounded by walls of granite Arched bridges crossed the gorge between, while the River Edessa frothed far below. Within, it was a maze, its stone-and-plaster buildings leaning over the narrow laneways so far that in some places they nearly touched. Here and there, open squares broke up the closeness, wide expanses with fountains or statues in their midst. Markets sprawled along the gorge’s edge, where great winch-lifts and long stairs led to the unquiet waters below. It was a gray town, with few trees and many rooftops shingled with stone, but it was not plain. It could not have been, with its temples.

  Govinna had a surfeit of churches, more than a score in all, looming well above the rest of the city. The borderfolk had built them in a fashion that resembled the worship-halls of Solamnia, more than those of Istar—sharp peaks in place of domes, dragon-shaped gargoyles instead of delicate spires, green-aged copper where gold or silver might have gleamed. Strong-walled and solid, they might have appeared fortresses, had it not been for their stained-glass windows and the god’s triangle mounted above their doors. In the midst of Govinna’s western half, at the crest of the hill, was the Pantheon, the grandest temple of all. It was one of the few churches in Istar that would not have looked tiny beside the Great Temple, though it looked utterly unlike that church, all sharp corners and dark hallways instead of arches and open spaces. Within, in tapestry-hung apartments atop its highest tower, dwelt Revered Son Durinen, the Little Emperor.

  The name had nothing to do with Durinen’s stature, for he was in fact a huge man, nearly seven feet tall and built like an ogre. Rather, it was an inherited title, one his predecessor had borne, and others before him, going back some eighty years, to the time of the Trosedil. In the year 842 the reigning Kingpriest, Vasari the Lion, had died suddenly in his sleep, heirless. In the confusion that followed, two rival hierarchs had vied for the throne. One, Evestel, took the name Vasari II and claimed the throne in the Lordcity. The other, Pradian, fled with his followers to the borderlands, and set up his rival church in Govinna.

  Amid the confusion the Miceram—the ruby-encrusted crown of the Kingpriests—vanished. Scholars argued over the means of its disappearance. Some said Pradian stole it, while others claimed the old Kingpriest’s ghost took it north and flung it into the sea. Still others believed Paladine himself had claimed it, appearing in his form of the platinum dragon and flying away with it clutched in his talons. According to this telling, the god was keeping it in his realm beyond the stars and would return it to Krynn when the need for it was greatest. In its place, Pradian had adopted an emerald diadem instead and Vasari a circlet of topaz. Thus began the War of Two Thrones, which later gained a third when Ardosean IV emerged in the desert city of Losarcum, wearing a tiara of sapphires.

  In Govinna, Pradian won the favor of the powerful, cleric and noble alike, and ordered the Pantheon built. Scholars agreed he was the mightiest of the three warring Kingpriests, a lord of fire and fury, yet pious as well. Even a century later men claimed, sorrowfully, that had fate moved differently he would have won the war. Instead, however, he died untimely, shot by an archer during the Battle of Golden Grasses. Though a successor, Theorollyn HI, rose in his place, the Govinnese faction never recovered from the loss, and so, when the Trosedil ended, it was Ardosean who marched into Istar and beheaded Vasari on the Great Temple’s steps. Theorollyn, denounced and discredited, was imprisoned the High Clerist’s Tower, far away in Solamnia’s northern mountains. From then on, the Kingpriests had worn the sapphire tiara, and those who wore the emerald diadem bent their knees to the east and called themselves Little
Emperors, in memory of what might have been.

  Tonight was the Night of White Roses, the midsummer rite that commemorated the death, a thousand years before, of Huma Dragonbane, the greatest Solamnic Knight who ever lived. Huma had martyred himself while using the fabled dragonlances to drive Takhisis and her dragon hordes from the world, and ever since, temples all over Ansalon had thrown their doors wide so the faithful could pay him homage. Even now, the Pantheon’s gates stood open, and chanting processions bearing icons of Huma and his lance wended through the city’s narrow laneways, toward the great church.

  Durinen stood on the parapet of his tower, draped in silvery robes, his brow aglimmer with emeralds. He tugged at the braids of his long, black beard as he looked out over the city. It was a clear, cool highland night, the sky starry and purple, devoid of cloud or moon. The sounds of hymns rose from below, and candles burned in the night. He scowled, folding his arms across his bearish chest. No, he didn’t like it at all.

  The night’s peace set him on edge. It had been weeks since he’d heard aught of the bandits who were causing so much trouble to the south, and most folk were glad for it, but the quiet only made him worry. His people were still hungry, the Longosai still ravaged the land—a plight he sympathized with, particularly since the plague was beginning to appear within Govinna’s walls, but which he had no power to remedy. The province’s larders were bare, and there was no cure for the Creep. The Lordcity was no help either. With Symeon ailing, Kurnos had taken a hard stance against the borderfolk. Luckily, rumors the imperial army was on the march had proven false, but that would change, if the bandits resurfaced. They would resurface, he was sure, and what better place and time than here and now, with the Pantheon’s doors standing wide open?

  He summoned the captain of his guard, an aging man in polished scale mail, and told him of his worries. The captain ran a hand over his shaven head, listening patiently.