Still holding the tufts of mane, Ariakas smiled grimly when Tombfyre turned his head to meet his rider's gaze. The dragon's mouth, too, split into a cruel grin, and a long, forked tongue snaked from between the reptilian lips.

Then, with a forceful shove, Tombfyre pushed away from the precipitous ledge. For a brief moment Ariakas felt weightless, and only his hands tightly gripping the mane prevented him tumbling into the abyss below. But abruptly the dragon's wings thrust downward, biting into the air and firmly settling the human in his natural saddle.

With another powerful wing beat, the crimson dragon curled them into a fast glide, and then they were climb shy;ing higher and higher, spiraling upward … ready to set fire to the sky.

Chapter 25

Conquerors

Tombfyre carried Ariakas through a long, laboring climb. Even in the huge chamber the monstrous red dragon had to spiral constantly, striving every moment to increase their altitude. Ariakas stared above them, seeking some sign of the sky-anything that would show them a way out. Yet the higher they climbed, the more clear it became that this massive vault of stone was sealed by a solid dome of rock overhead.

"How did you get in here?" Ariakas asked, as they soared in a circle near the top of the vast space.

"I don't remember," Tombfyre replied with a rippling shrug of his powerful shoulders and sinuous neck. The serpent's tone was bitter. "The queen placed me here after the war-I have no knowledge of occurrences im shy;mediately following Huma's victory."

"It may salve your pride to know that Huma died in that battle-your army had its vengeance, at least."

"Vengeance is no substitute for victory," growled the wyrm. Abruptly, he tucked his wings, plummeting into the depths of the vast caverns, toward the smoking, smoldering reaches below. The plunge should have taken Ariakas by surprise, but a warning tingled in his mind a second before the dive-he tightened his hands in the dragon's mane, and when the serpent dived, the human clung securely to his back.

Still spiraling, Tombfyre sped through his long descent. Wind whipped Ariakas's hair back from his face, and his lips clenched into a snarling smile of tri shy;umph. The dragon's wheeling path continued down shy;ward, circling around the shaft that had held his prison for more than a thousand years.

Smoke stung Ariakas's eyes, and heat began to build oppressively. They plunged ever lower, still faster, and the human began to imagine an inevitable, fiery end to their descent. The smoldering depths became clear, as he saw eddies of cloudy smoke whisking past bright, flam shy;ing lava. He pictured an instantaneous finale, life blotted out at the very moment they smashed into the abyssal fires seething within the heart of Krynn.

The light grew brighter, forming a reddish haze of flaming illumination, burning the very air around them. Abruptly, and with a dizzying sense of expansion, the shaft they flew down opened through a hole in the ceil shy;ing of an incredibly vast, furiously burning cavern-like a plain of fire, sprawling to the horizons far below the surface of the world.

The dragon pulled out of the dive, and a huge, crim shy;son vista opened before the warrior's astonished eyes. Bubbling lava spread to the limits of vision, smoking, flaming, casting great, liquid gouts upward from the surface of a fiery sea. The shaft where he had found Tombfyre was nothing more than a tall, capped chimney leading upward from this huge, subterranean fire sea.

It seemed to Ariakas that the searing heat should kill him, but though he looked all around, at air shimmering with the scalding effects of fire, those effects did not touch his skin. He rode through the blazes of the inferno as though a bubble of cool, moist air surrounded him.

Great islands of dark stone rose into craggy peaks from the flaming surface, while stalactites funneled downward like inverted mountains from a cavern ceiling that in many places arced a full mile above the violent sea. Bub shy;bling veins of white-hot, molten rock crisscrossed back and forth among the cooler red of the lava, and many of these hot spots spewed geysers of liquid fire.

"Look-there! Smoke's escaping!" Ariakas indicated a vast crack in the cavern's ceiling. They could see shafts of smoke, sometimes accompanied by whirling blasts of flame, surging upward to disappear into the dark hole. "There has to be a vent to the surface!"

Immediately the dragon drove his wings downward, breaking from his glide and striving to gain altitude. The billowing updrafts helped carry them aloft into the crack. Soon stone walls surrounded them, leaving barely room for Tombfyre to wheel through tight circles. Fortu shy;nately the rising air gave them just enough lift to main shy;tain the climb.

With a flash of fierce, savage triumph, Ariakas caught a glimpse of the sky overhead-a pale swatch of blue that might have been sunset or dawn. Curiously, the man realized, he had no idea what the time might be on the outside world.

They reached a side cavern in the great shaft, and as the red dragon continued to labor upward Ariakas caught a strong stench of the Zhakar odor-the com shy;bination of mold and mushroom tea that had been so pervasive around the runty dwarves. With a flash of inspiration he remembered the tunnels leading into the city from the flaming, volcanic reaches below.

"There-go therel" he hissed. "Our vengeance will begin immediately!"

Without hesitating, Tombfyre ducked toward the pas shy;sage, gaining momentum in the level flight. Cave walls sped past them with dizzying speed, and the smell grew stronger.

In another moment they burst into a large cavern, and immediately Ariakas saw the twin rows of pillars mark shy;ing the King's Promenade of Zhakar. He heard scream shy;ing, observed with cruel glee hundreds of panicked dwarves frantically fleeing from their path. As Tombfyre flew over a group of them, the Zhakar collapsed to the ground, groveling in abject fear.

The serpent dipped a wing and curved with regal majesty, flying directly between the columns, diving straight for the twin thrones and the bestial statues at the far end of the promenade. Below, a full rank of Zhakar lizard riders struggled to control their mounts, but the scaly steeds bucked and pitched frantically, terrified by the soaring wyrm. Their powerful hind legs enabled the creatures to jump very high-perhaps twenty feet straight up-and one by one the riders were thrown roughly to the floor.

The populace scattered amid shrieks and wails of hys shy;terical fear. The bigger dwarves trampled their smaller neighbors in haste to reach the shelter of the huge cav shy;ern's corners and niches. As the crowd spread, Ariakas realized that some kind of gathering had been taking place before the great throne of Rackas Ironcog.

Tombfyre dived, skimming the floor in a last rush toward the throne and the cavern wall beyond. Now some Zhakar gaped in frozen horror, abject fear distort shy;ing their disfigured faces in clownish exaggeration.

Amid the terror-struck onlookers, Ariakas saw that Tale Splintersteel knelt before the throne of Rackas Ironcog. The Zhakar merchant was in chains, and a hulk shy;ing dwarf armed with a broad headsman's axe stood beside Splintersteel, awaiting his monarch's command. The executioner gaped upward, motionless, while Splintersteel threw himself, groveling, onto the floor.

Another prisoner stood a short distance away, and Ariakas recognized the shocked visage of Whez Lavas-tone. Rackas had apparently wasted no time in rounding up his enemies: guards flanked Lavastone, apparently in the process of clapping chains on his wrists and ankles when the approaching dragon brought activity to an abrupt halt.