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.Next to him, Kitiara staggered.Tanis put his arm around her, though he could barely find the strength to move himself.Kit’s face was drenched with sweat, the dark hair curled around her damp forehead.Her eyes were wide with fear—the first time Tanis ever saw her afraid.Sturm’s breath came in gasps as the knight struggled forward, weighted down by his armor.At first, they seemed to make no progress at all.Then slowly, they realized they were inching forward, drawing nearer and nearer the green-lit room.Its bright light was now painful to their eyes, and movement exacted a terrible toll.Exhaustion claimed them, muscles ached, lungs burned.Just as Tanis realized he could not take another step, he heard a voice call his name.Lifting his aching head, he saw Laurana standing in front of him, her elven sword in her hand.The heaviness seemingly had no effect on her at all, for she ran to him with a glad cry.‘Tanthalas! You’re all right! I’ve been waiting—’She broke off, her eyes on the woman clasped in Tanis’s arm.‘Who—’ Laurana started to ask, then suddenly, somehow she knew.This was the human woman, Kitiara.The woman Tanis loved.Laurana’s face went white, then red.‘Laurana—’ Tanis began, feeling confusion and guilt sweep over him, hating himself for causing her pain.‘Tanis! Sturm!’ Kitiara cried, pointing.Startled by the fear in her voice, all of them turned, staring down the green-lit marble corridor.‘Drakus Tsaro, deghnyah!’ Sturm intoned in Solamnic.At the end of the corridor loomed a gigantic green dragon.His name was Cyan Bloodbane, and he was one of the largest dragons on Krynn.Only the Great Red herself was larger.Snaking his head through a doorway, he blotted out the blinding green light with his hulking body.Cyan smelled steel and human flesh and elven blood.He peered with fiery eyes at the group.They could not move.Overcome with the dragonfear, they could only stand and stare as the dragon crashed through the doorway, shattering the marble wall as easily as if it had been baked mud.His mouth gaping wide, Cyan moved down the corridor.There was nothing they could do.Their weapons dangled from hands gone nerveless.Their thoughts were of death.But, even as the dragon neared, a dark shadowy figure crept from the deeper shadows of an unseen doorway and came to stand before them, facing them.‘Raistlin!’ Sturm said quietly.‘By all the gods, you will pay for your brother’s life!’Forgetting the dragon, remembering only Caramon’s lifeless body, the knight sprang toward the mage, his sword raised.Raistlin just stared at him coldly.‘‘Kill me, knight, and you doom yourself and the others to death, for through my magic—and my magic alone—will you be able to defeat Cyan Bloodbane!’‘Hold, Sturm!’’ Though his soul was filled with loathing, Tanis knew the mage was right.He could feel Raistlin’s power radiate through the black robes.`We need his help.’‘No,’ Sturm said, shaking his head and backing away as Raistlin neared the group.‘I said before—I will not rely on his protection.Not now.Farewell, Tanis’Before any of them could strap him Sturm walked past Raistlin toward Cyan Bloodbane.The great dragon’s head wove back and forth in eager anticipation of this first challenge to his power since he had conquered Siilvanesti.Tanis clutched Raistlin.‘Do something!’‘The knight is, in my way.Whatever spell I cast will destroy him too.’ Raistlin answered,‘Sturm!’ Tanis shouted, his voice echoing mournfully.The knight hesitated.He was listening but not to Tanis’s voice.What he heard was the clear, clarion call of a trumpet, its music cold as, the air from the snow-covered mountains of his homeland, Pure and crisp, the trumpet call rose bravely above the darkness and dead and despair to pierce his heart.Sturm answered the trumpet’s call with a glad battle cry.He raised his sword—the sword of his father, its antique blade twined with the kingfisher and the rose.Silver moonlight streaming through a broken window caught the sword in a pure-white radiance that shredded the noxious green air.Again the trumpet sounded, and again Sturm answered, but this time his voice faltered, for the trumpet call he heard had changed tone.No longer sweet and pure, it was braying and harsh and shrill.No! thought Sturm in horror as he neared the dragon.Those were the horns of the enemy! He had been lured into a trap! Around him now he could see draconian soldiers, creeping from behind the dragon, laughing cruelly at his gullibility.Sturm stopped, gripping his sword in a hand that was sweating inside its glove.The dragon loomed above him, a creature undefeatable, surrounded by masses of his troops, slavering and licking his jowls with his curled tongue.Fear knotted Sturm’s stomach; his skin grew cold and clammy.The horn call sounded a third time, terrible and evil.It was all over.It had all been for nothing.Death, ignominious defeat awaited him.Despair descending, he looked around fearfully.Where was Tanis? He needed Tanis, but he could not find him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]