(no subject)

[governorkang]

“Huzzad, Groupcommander Zeck said he had reports on this fort. Do you know what those reports entailed?”

“The usual: troop strength, fortifications, availability of food, water, and”—Huzzad added pointedly—“information on your general.”

“Make sure that door’s shut. What sort of information?” Kang asked.

Slith tested the latch, refilled their mugs all around. The two draconians hunched forward, eager and interested.

“When the Knights found out General Maranta was the one in command here,” Huzzad said in a low voice, “the groupcommander wanted information on him. I saw the report. It was circulated among the officers. Did you know that General Maranta never once held a field command? He never led troops in battle?” She lowered her voice still further. “He was never even involved in a battle, in fact.”

“Wasn’t he in Neraka at the fall?” Slith asked.

Huzzad shrugged. “You might say that. If you count being in the tunnels underneath the city. He and the Queen’s Own had their escape neatly planned. The minutes things started to go wrong, they left. Some say to this day that if General Maranta and the Queen’s Own had stayed, they would have prevented the destruction, saved the day for Her Dark Majesty. I doubt it, though. Not enough of them to really make a difference. It doesn’t matter now, of course. What does matter is that if General Maranta fights this battle, it will be his first.”

She sat back, looked at Slith and at Kang.

Kang and Slith looked at each other. Kang heaved a sigh.

“Damn! This is just all we need!” Kang shook his head. “I’ve been waiting for the general to call us together, present us with a plan for the defense of the fort. He hasn’t done it so far and I’m beginning to think he doesn’t have a plan, except some vague notion that draconians are gonna drop out of the skies to save us.”

“And if they’re as bright as this last lot, then they’ll fall out of the skies and land on their heads,” Slith said morosely.

“If only I had my dragon,” said Huzzad with a wistful sigh. “Flarion and I would have made short work of those vermin. I really miss her.”

“What happened?” Kang asked.

“Some Solamnic Knight with a dragonlance killed her.” Slith guessed.

Huzzad shook her head. “I could have understood that,” she said, frowning. “She was killed by her own kind. She and her mate both. Another red.”

“Since when do red dragons turn on red dragons?” Kang asked, amazed.

“Since these huge, bloated dragons arrived from some other part of Krynn,” Huzzad said. “Or at least, that’s what we assume. No one knows for sure where they came from. The one my partner and I fought calls herself Malystrx. She’s enormous. Three times the size of my red. We never had a chance. I wouldn’t have survived, if she hadn’t protected me. Flarion might have escaped, but she wouldn’t leave me.” Huzzad clenched her fist. “I took a vow over her mangled body that I would avenge her.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “Of course, I’ll never have the chance. No one can stand against Malys. Not the entire Solamnic army, not our own Knighthood. She’ll rule Krynn and the Dark Knights will end up allying with her. Mark my words. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Still, you do have an idea,” Kang observed thoughtfully. “If there’s one thing that scares the crap out of gobbos, it’s a dragon. I don’t suppose there’s any way we could get a message to a red or a blue? Ask one of them to help us?”

“Not that I know of,” she replied. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. Most dragons are in hiding, terrified of ending up as one of the skulls on Malys’s totem.”

“Skulls?”

“According to the rumors, Malys saves the skulls of the dragons she’s killed and has used them to build a monument to herself. She believes that they give her magical power.”

Kang was appalled, disgusted. “It’s sad to see the state the world’s come to. What do you say, Slith? Slith?”

The sivak gave a start. “Sorry, sir, I wasn’t listening. I was thinking.”

“Thinking what?” Kang asked, interested.

“Thinking that if we can’t find a real dragon, maybe we could make one, sir,” said Slith. “You remember that time we built that wicker dragon?”

Kang chuckled. “I’d forgotten about that. Tell Huzzad.”

Slith was glad to comply. “We decided to play a joke on the…who were they, sir?”

“The Thirty-third,” said Kang.

“Right. The Thirty-third Infantry. It was made up a bunch of new hatched baaz. They thought they were hot stuff. Wouldn’t obey orders, weren’t respectful to the officers. We decided to teach them a lesson and so we made this dragon out of wicker. It was a huge contraption. Amazing design. The wings flapped, the jaws opened and shut. You should have seen it.

“Anyhow, during the dead of the night, we hauled this dragon over to where the Thirty-third was bivouacked and we hoisted it into the trees. The next morning, the baaz woke up, all hung over after a night drinking dwarf spirits and they saw this dragon and—this is no lie, I swear it—they all fell flat on their bellies, scared out of their wits. They began to groan and wail. Some fool cleric even started praying to it. We laughed-- Do you remember, Commander? I laughed so hard I thought I hurt something inside.”

“I remember,” said Kang. “And then from out of nowhere, some fool kender climbed into the dragon and began to make it ‘talk’—“

“—and that sent the baaz into a panic!” Slith laughed again, just at the memory. “And then, to make matters worse, a bunch of prisoners the baaz had caught escaped.”

“I’d forgotten about them,” Kang said reminiscently. “There was a half-elf and a Knight and a sickly mage. They’d been captured in that furor over a blue crystal staff. Those prisoners were as stupid as the baaz. Do you remember that adle-pated Solamnic challenging the dragon to a fight?”

“Ha! Ha!” Slith was pounding the table with his mug. “And then the dragon caught fire and the geniuses figured out it was wicker after all. The baaz lost the prisoners in the confusion. I wonder what ever happened to them?”

“They probably drowned in the swamp. You know,” said Kang after the laughter had subsided and he could breathe again, “that’s not a bad idea, Slith.”

“What? Drowning in a swamp?” Huzzad eyed Kang.

“No, building a dragon.”

Slith was nodding. Huzzad started to laugh, then she saw that Kang wasn’t.

“You’re serious!” she exclaimed.

“Damn right I am,” said Kang. “Goblins are stupid, more stupid than even the Thirty-third Infantry.”

Huzzad shook her head dubiously.

“And not only are goblins stupid,” Kang persisted, “they’re short-sighted. Look, a fake dragon doesn’t have to fool them for long! Just long enough to throw them into confusion, panic the front ranks.”

“We could tie keg bombs to it, sir!” Slith said, excited. “If we could figure out some way to make it fly, we could send it over the goblins and—“

“Boom!” said Kang gleefully.

“Boom, sir,” said Slith. “Boom it is!” He gulped down his drink, stood up. “By the gods, sir, I think we may still have those plans. I think they’re in The Chest, sir.”

There was only one chest in the regiment that was mentioned with such emphasis. The Chest was a large box made of solid oak reinforced by iron bands. The Chest had been with them ever since their inception as a unit and it had remained with them throughout their years of exile and wanderings. The Chest held plans, all the plans the draconian engineers had ever made. Plans for bridges, plans for dams, plans for stockades, guard towers, siege engines, plans for their ill-fated village, plans for Kang’s dream of a city, and, buried near the bottom, plans for a wicker dragon.

While Slith went off to investigate, Kang refilled his mug. “What do you think?” he asked Huzzad.

“I think you’re both crazy,” she said. “Totally insane. I’ve known gnomes who made sense compared to you.”

“Yes, well, it’s worth a try,” Kang growled. “I don’t see anyone else coming up with anything brilliant to save our skins.”