Kagonesti
From the Creators of the DRAGONLANCE® Saga
THE LOST HISTORIES
The Kagonesti
Douglas Niles
The Irda
Linda P. Baker
The Dargonesti
Paul B. Thomson and Tonya Carter Cook
DRAGONLANCE® SAGA
The Lost Histories
Volume One
THE KAGONESTI
©1995 TSR, Inc.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Cover art by: Larry Elmore
Interior art by: Jeff Butler
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6195-5
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v3.1_r2
Contents
Cover
Other Books in the Series
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue: Darlantan, of Dreams and Light
Part I: Kagonos: 3357 PC Khalkist Mountains
Chapter 1: Meeting at the Edge of the Sky
Chapter 2: The Mountain
Chapter 3: Contest in Blood
Chapter 4: The Guardian and the Stone
Chapter 5: Council on the High Plains
Chapter 6: Passing of a Patriarch
Chapter 7: An Accounting
Chapter 8: Song of the Ram’s Horn
Part II: Ashtaway: 1019 PC (Third Dragon War) Woodlands of Central Ansalon
Chapter 9: Forest of Fire and Fury
Chapter 10: Lectral
Chapter 11: Smoke on the Bluelake
Chapter 12: The Pathfinder
Chapter 13: Vengeful Arrows
Chapter 14: The Younger Pathfinder
Chapter 15: A Cycle of Lunitari
Chapter 16: Mountainous Meeting
Chapter 17: Sanctionheight
Chapter 18: Rank of Charge
Chapter 19: Into Darkness
Chapter 20: A Parting of Friends
Chapter 21: A Final Parting
Part III: Iydahoe: 14 PC Northern Silvanesti Borderlands
Chapter 22: Whitetail and Silvertrout
Chapter 23: A Legion of Istar
Chapter 24: Road-builders
Chapter 25: Ambush
Chapter 26: The Long Reach of Istar
Chapter 27: Wellerane and Vanisia
Chapter 28: The Wrath of the Gods
Chapter 29: Thirteen Days of Doom
Chapter 30: Song of the Grandfather
Epilogue
About the Author
“There it is!” hissed Dall. The younger elf pointed across the basin to the opposite ridge, and Kagonos saw it, too: a glimmer of silver, as Kyrill reached the saddle on the opposite rim and flashed his blade in the sun.
Kagonos threw back his head, lips taut as he put the spiraling horn to his mouth. He blew a harsh, strident blast that carried clearly to the ears of all the elves—yet was virtually inaudible to the ogres, who heard merely a fresh ripple of mountain wind.
To the hundreds of Elderwild warriors waiting among the trees, the Ram’s Horn sounded a clarion call to battle.
3811 PC
Southern Khalkist Foothills
The naked figure sprinted up the silent streambed, bounding from rock to rock, leaping stagnant and muddy pools. A flying spring, one leg kicked out for a graceful landing, spanned twenty feet of jagged boulders. Black hair trailed in a long plume, soaring with each jump, now streaming behind as the slender form reached a smooth stretch and sprinted like a deer.
Kagonos ran for many reasons. He relished the joy of motion for its own sake, his body fleet and powerful, his reflexes reacting to each challenge of the makeshift trail. He savored the discovery of a new path, racing upward into these hills along a route that had never known an elven footstep. He loved the all-encompassing tranquility in the wilds, a peace that descended around his spirit and transcended the petty concerns and fears of others.
These motivations had all been on his mind, two dawns past, when he had awakened in the sprawling encampment of the Highsummer council. He had emerged from his lodge, located in the honored center of the tribal congregation, and spoken to no one while he trotted through the camp. His departure had drawn the attention of the tribal chiefs and shamans, but none had tried to delay or distract him—they all knew Kagonos often ran to a pulse that no other Elderwild could hear. Indeed, some of the priests looked relieved as the naked elf vanished up the forested trail. The shamans remembered more than one outburst from Kagonos that had disrupted a bonding ritual or communing attempt. The upcoming ceremony of Midsummer Starheight promised a greater level of solemnity if Kagonos was out somewhere wandering in the wilderness.
For his part, Kagonos had no patience for silly rituals of stars, sun, or seasons. The diamond speckles that brightened the night sky were best viewed alone. Truly, the stars did seem like magical things—they were masters of the heavens between sunset and sunrise—but how could they be honored by an elven ceremony or the recognition of any other mortal?
The wild elf had run for a day and a night and, now, through the morning of the next day. Still each breath came easily. Only the thinnest sheen of sweat slicked his bronze skin with a cool embrace. Gradually, hour by hour, he loped toward a state of spiritual intensity, an undeniable, consuming, and vibrant sense of life.
A thought flickered through his mind, and he knew the truth: one day soon he would leave the tribe forever, coming into these hills to dwell in solitude. He would be master of himself alone, beholden to none, a being fervently, totally attuned to this majestic land of forest and mountain.
In truth, he didn’t know why he had stayed with the tribes so long. With his fanatical single-mindedness, his intolerance of any kind of weakness, Kagonos knew that he frightened the chiefs and veteran warriors. A stranger to his own parents, the Elderwild had even angered the shamans by declaring that love, among many other things, was a weakness to be scorned and avoided.
The wild elves, for the most part, were a happy people—playful, innocent, and careless. Kagonos did not hesitate to display his anger with that childlike naivete, for he knew that the tribes faced enemies on many sides. Why could not his people see those threats?
None of the braves could match Kagonos, physically—perhaps because his body seemed to thrum constantly, at the very brink of explosion. They treated him with respect, allowed him to come and go, and for the most part listened politely when he spoke. In different decades he had lived with each of the tribes—the Black Feathers, the Silvertrout, the Whitetail, and most recently the Bluelake clan. When danger from ogres or humans had threatened, no warrior had fought more savagely than Kagonos, and his efforts had helped to win many battles.
Kagonos often warned his tribemates about the threat of the House Elves, but here the Elderwild were less receptive to his strident admonitions. Under Silvanos, the golden-haired elves had formed their clans into mighty houses, then created literally that: tall buildings, crowded together into cities, in which they enclosed their lives. To Kagonos, these self-made prisons symbolized with shocking clarity the danger represented by the wild elves’ numerous cousins. At the same time, he knew that other Elderwild were curious about, even attracted to, these garish constructions.
The lone warrior’s mountain run was the perfect opposite to those House Elf desires, and even to the more limited society of the wild tribes. Now Kagonos knew pure, unadulterated freedom, as he escaped the constraints of other elves, of garments, of any edifice or tool showing the bend of a mastering hand—whether human, ogre, or elf. He desperately needed these hours, these days of solitude, in order to keep his internal tension from tearing him apart. Finding this path, racing upward with the wind blowing through his thick, black hair, the fullness of life soothed his tension and gave Kagonos profound joy.
And there was another, even greater reason that had drawn him from his lodge, from the summer gathering of the tribes—a knowledge that, by itself, would have compelled him to race into these hills.
Kagonos believed that today, once again, he would glimpse the Grandfather Ram.
Twice before Kagonos had encountered the mighty creature. Always the ram had been perched on the side of one of the highest mountains in the Khalkists. Kagonos had been below, trekking along a path none other had tr
od. And each of those times, as now, the tribes of the wild elves had been gathered for Highsummer council, and Kagonos had grown tired of the ceaseless discussion and frequent complaints of his clansmen.
On those occasions he had run for days before the Grandfather Ram had appeared. The magnificent animal, horns curling a full three spirals on each side of a broad-skulled head, had regarded Kagonos from on high. It remained lofty and distant, yet a searching presence in the huge, golden eyes had been undeniably close, intimate.
The Elderwild wondered if anyone else had ever seen the ram. He didn’t think so, though he wasn’t sure why he should believe this. True, there had been something about the expression in the magnificent animal’s eyes, something so profoundly personal that Kagonos believed implicitly that it had been a message intended for only him. And surely, even if others had seen the animal, they had not been the beneficiaries of that knowing, soothing gaze.
A shadow flickered across the wall of the gorge above Kagonos, and he flinched, knowing it was too late—he must certainly have been spotted by some flying creature. He spun to look at the sky, realizing that the shade had been far too large for a vulture or eagle. Quickly he saw the broad wings—a span easily twenty feet across—and the bulky body, four legs sweeping backward, confirmed his original impression. A griffon!
Instinctively the wild elf ducked beside the shelter of a large boulder. The hawk-faced creature must have seen him, but it would probably not attack—not unless it was starving, and even from below Kagonos could see that this was a sleek, healthy specimen.
Then he got the real shock. As the griffon flew onward, Kagonos saw a trailing plume of golden hair flowing freely above an armored shirt—a rider on the griffon’s back! Appalled, the wild elf realized that a House Elf had somehow captured and tamed one of the beasts. Kagonos grimaced. It was bad enough that the elves of the house clans should master and saddle horses—must they now bind even the savage flyers of the skies?
As the griffon and rider disappeared around the shoulder of a looming mountain Kagonos resumed his run, but in the flash of that brief encounter his exertions assumed a bitter, fatiguing edge. He no longer felt the tingling joy of pathfinding, not now, when another saw his route before he did. His sense of solitude had been violated in a way that stirred deep resentment in his soul, bringing outrage to the forefront of his emotions. What right did a House Elf have to these heights? The fellow didn’t even sweat as he traveled here—he merely sat on his saddle and discovered places, overlooked paths that should have been the province of the lone Elderwild runner.
Another jolt shook Kagonos as he remembered the Grandfather Ram. Would the mighty mountain sheep show himself to this House Elf? Would he be spotted inadvertently? The thought sent a bolt of alarm through his cloaking fatigue. A deep and fundamental fear drove the wild elf upward with renewed strength, his momentary lassitude forgotten as he all but flew over the jagged rocks of the steeply climbing riverbed.
For hours Kagonos hurled himself higher into the mountain range, through rough gaps in the foothills, over granite, crested ridges, along trails that no elven foot had ever before trod. He ran without thought of direction, yet he knew exactly where he was going. Always he climbed, pressing ever higher, working toward the loftiest peaks in the range.
When he emerged onto a high mountain ledge, coming around the shoulder of a looming peak, he was not surprised to see the griffon of the flying elf tethered in the valley beyond. A saddle of supple leather, studded with gold and gemstones, covered the creature’s back, and the beast’s hawklike face remained fixed on a scene below.
Next Kagonos saw the House Elf creeping downward. The intrusive rider was a hunter, to judge from his bow and arrows, but a wealthy one—perhaps even a noble. He wore pants of golden silk and gleaming black boots, with a tunic of bright white wool. The fellow’s bow was strapped across his back, and in his hand he bore a long-shafted axe with a blade of silvery steel. Carefully the hunter descended, looking toward something in a dip of the mountainside below.
Even before the wild elf stepped forward, he guessed the nature of the House Elf’s quarry.
Then Kagonos saw the white fur of the Grandfather Ram, showing in stark contrast to the gray rocks. From a hundred paces away Kagonos could see the crimson stain blotting the animal’s heaving flank. The feathered shaft of an elven arrow jutted upward from the wound.
Springing forward, Kagonos took vague note of the ram’s proud head, flanked by its triple-spiraled horns. The animal kicked its feet, its long tongue trailing from its mouth as it labored for breath. The elven hunter was barely a dozen paces away, advancing with the axe upraised, fully focused on his prey.
The griffon shrieked a warning—the sound something like an eagle’s cry, but bellowed with the force of a roaring lion. Immediately the golden-haired elf spun, his blue eyes flashing as he spied the naked figure lunging toward him.
“Hold, Wild Elf!” shouted the warrior.
Kagonos slowed his advance to a walk, studying the other. The House Elf hunter wore a steel breastplate and carried a small dagger in his left hand. In the right he brandished a long-bladed axe—a mighty weapon. Emblazoned on his armor was a golden shield marked with the crossed claws of a rampant griffon.
“Leave the ram. Go.” Kagonos spoke sharply, without considering the possibility that he would not be obeyed.
The House Elf threw back his head and laughed, a mocking, bitter sound. “Leave? This is a trophy more splendid than any I have seen. I intend to take this head, use it as my standard!”
The Elderwild did not reply, though he continued his measured advance. He didn’t understand what the other meant about a standard, but Kagonos knew that a great wrong was being enacted before him.
“Stop there. Come no closer!” barked the golden-haired elf.
“Who are you?” Kagonos asked, halting ten paces away.
“I am called Quithas Griffontamer! Remember that name, savage—I sit at the right hand of Silvanos, and when the great war comes it will be I who commands his armies, who defeats the ogres and their dragon-spawn allies!”
“Leave the ram, Quithas Griffontamer. He is not your trophy.”
Quithas laughed again. “Do you intend to stop me? A naked boy, no weapon, no armor? I do not wish to kill you, Wild Elf, but if you try to claim my rightful prey, I shall.”
Kagonos moved with the quickness of thought. His sleek body flew toward the other elf, then tumbled to the ground as the keen axe blade whooshed through the air above him. The wild elf hit the hunter hard, both of them going down in a tangle of limbs. Kagonos grunted as the metal hilt of the dagger smashed against his forehead, but the fury of his onslaught sustained him. He threw his fist into Quithas’s flank, avoiding the metal breastplate, driving the breath from the House Elf’s lungs. Staggered by the impact, the hunter tumbled sideways across the loose rock of the mountainside.
The axe skidded away, and Kagonos leapt forward, stomping one foot on the weapon’s long wooden shaft. Up the mountainside, the griffon shrieked in agitation, but the tether prevented it coming to its master’s aid. Slowly, precisely, the wild elf reached down and picked up the axe. The weapon was surprisingly heavy, though the edge had been honed to a razor’s sharpness. Holding it upward, brandishing it toward the elf who still sprawled, speechless, on the ground, Kagonos trembled under the onslaught of an almost uncontrollable hatred.
“This is a bad thing you have done, to hurt the Grandfather Ram. You said that I could not stop you, for I had no weapon. Now I have a weapon, Quithas Griffontamer, and I send you away.” The wild elf reached forward and snatched the arrows from the other’s quiver. Contemptuously he snapped them, casting the broken pieces at the House Elf’s feet. “Mount your animal and fly, or I shall kill you.”
Sputtering in fury, his eyes flashing a hatred that matched Kagonos’s, Quithas nonetheless scrambled backward, rising to his feet beyond the range of the axe.
“Give me my weapon!” he demanded harshly. “It is more precious than you can know—forged by the master smiths, enchanted by Silvanos himself!”
“The axe shall be my trophy!” retorted the wild elf, tautly. “Now leave, before I claim your head as well!”