Read Love And War for Free Online Page A

They still lived in the same small hut, their
     clothes were still second-hand rags skillfully repaired by Kyra, and Seron still had to
     work at the inn to supplement their income.
    “You won't believe it!” exclaimed Seron in a rush of words as he burst into their one-room
     home. “I was up on Cold Rock Point,” he explained, “and I saw the Highlord atop her blue
     dragon. She was leading a whole phalanx of soldiers riding their own dragons. The entire
     sky was filled with them. Everywhere you looked there were dragons! Their wings were
     flapping with a power that nearly blew me off the cliff, and their great mouths were
     screaming in cries that nearly deafened me. But the sight of it, Kyra! I've got to paint
     it!”
    For days, then weeks, he worked on the image he had seen. It consumed him. He had to
     finish it before he forgot how it looked, how it felt, what it meant.
    Kyra watched him work. At first she saw only dark outlines, then the dragons appeared, one
     at a time. And each of the dragons was more malevolent than the last. There was danger in the picture. The
     Highlord and her dragonarmy soldiers took shape with menacing faces, and the sky was dark
     and forbidding. Kyra could feel the cold wind from the wings of the huge beasts, sense the
     hot breath from their snarling jaws, and she knew - all at once - that the painting had
     captured the ineffable horror of their conquerors.
    Of course, they couldn't sell the painting. If the Highlord or any of her soldiers ever
     saw it, they'd cut off Seron's hands. Nonetheless, he wasn't sorry that he had done it.
     And neither was Kyra. They both hoped that eventually the dark days would pass, and his
     picture would be a valued - and valuable - reminder of this evil time. More than that,
     they both hoped it would forever establish Seron as Krynn's pre-eminent artist.
    They kept the bleak masterpiece hidden in a wooden crate under their bed. However, it soon
     began to rankle them both that Seron's greatest work had no audience. What was the point
     of having painted the picture if no one ever saw it?
    It was then that they conceived their daring plan to smuggle the painting to Palanthas
     where it might be prominently displayed in a gallery. But they would need help.
    “Let's send word to Tosch,” suggested Kyra. “He could fly here one dark night and take the
     painting away with him.”
    “Do you think Tosch would really do it; would he risk his life for a painting?”
    “We have nothing to lose by asking,” she said.
    Two days later, the peddler who had bought a Seron painting of Tosch carried a coded note
     out of the city and into the mountain warrens. The note asked their friend to come to them
     after sunset during the night when the two moons were at their smallest. It was a great
     favor, and they didn't ask it lightly. And they said as much in the note. If Tosch felt it
     was too dangerous, they said, he shouldn't come; they would understand.
    But still they hoped he would glide down to them out of the dark sky.
    The nights passed as slowly as a gnome builds a machine. The days were even longer.
     Eventually, though, the moons went through their glowing phases. It was almost time.
    As the sun descended, sending long shadows across a sad, beleaguered city, Kyra and Seron
     grew anxious. Tonight was the night.
    “Do you think the note actually reached Tosch?” wondered Kyra.
    “I don't know.”
    “What if the peddler were intercepted? If the Highlord deciphered our message - ”
    Suddenly a loud knock sounded at their door. Instinctively, they both reached for each
     other. Neither of them uttered a word. The worst, it seemed, had happened. They had been
     found out.
    The pounding on the door continued, matched only by the pounding of their hearts. Seron
     took a deep breath and kissed his wife lightly on the forehead. “Let's try to be brave,”
     he said in a voice that nonetheless betrayed his fear.
    She