her helm like a pennant of streaming gold in her wake.
Those long golden locks could be seen a mile away on the
battlefield.
“Hail to the General of the Golden Banner!” they
cried. Soon it became “Hail to the Golden General!”
And the Vingaard Campaign had begun.
Next I journey to that keep. Excellency, there to sit
upon the banks of the river – and ponder the next example
of Laurana’s audacity, the crossing of the Vingaard.
In devotion, as ever,
Foryth Teel, Senior Scribe of Astinus
*****
To the Great Astinus, Lorekeeper of Krynn,
I am here, now, at the shore of the Vingaard River.
The season is spring, as it was when Laurana ordered her
forces across – and I cannot but wonder at the courage and
vision that compelled an army to ford its murky depths.
Now, when the snow is melting in the Dargaard
Mountains and along the north slopes of the Garnet
Range, the river runs high and deep. It seems propelled by
anger, roaring across this great plain toward the distant
seaport of Kalaman, nearly two hundred miles away.
During its course, the river passes within a dozen
miles of Dargaard Keep, yet in the next weeks Laurana
would dare to bypass that dark bastion and press on to her
destination – but I get ahead of myself. First, I must
describe the crossing. The land troops of the Army of
Solamnia reached the banks of the river after a three-day
forced march from Westgate.
We know from the multiple sources that the good
dragons, fresh from their victory at Vingaard, joined the
landbound army at the banks of the river, some forty miles
north of the liberated fortress. The Vingaard is wide and
deep here, navigable only by ferries – except in a dry
summer, when a few fords appear. Such was not the case
that spring, of course. Here, we see another example of the
elven general’s ingenuity – for she employed a tactic that
no by-the-book Knight of Solamnia could have imagined
in his most daring dreams.
She ferried the troops across the river – by air! One
can imagine the shrill neighing of the knight’s terrified
horses as they were hoisted aloft, gently, in the claws of
the largest of the great dragons. Or the poor, trembling
foot soldiers, mounted six or eight to a dragon, eyes
squeezed tightly shut, praying to the gods of good (or any
others!) for their very survival.
It was still a long, slow process. Mellison records that
her mistress camped at the shore of the river for three
days – we can assume that this was the time required to
cross. The baggage train, which had been light to begin
with, was abandoned here. From now on the army would
survive on the food it could capture or forage. A screen of
flying griffons, mounted with elves, guarded the crossing.
The fears of the knights – that the army would be
attacked by massive dragonforces in the midst of the
crossing – proved unfounded, for two reasons. First, the
rout of Vingaard Keep had sent the nearest enemy wing
into chaotic flight; and second, the sheer speed of
Laurana’s march seemed to have taken the Highlords by
complete surprise. We know from his own records, for
example, that by the time Ariakus learned the Golden
General had left Westgate Pass, the Army of Solamnia
was already gathered on the east bank of the Vingaard.
One small force did try to disrupt the crossing. Highlord
Toede sent six of his green dragons from Throtl to
investigate the activities of Laurana’s army. The beasts
could have wreaked terrible havoc on the heavily laden
good dragons, but the griffon-mounted elves intercepted
them a few miles from the river. Nearly a quarter of the
griffons and their riders fell during that skirmish in the
skies. It was a tragic and irreplaceable loss, but none of the
greens survived to pursue the attack. Gilthanas writes a
long eulogy to the bravery of the griffon-mounted elves
and even the official records of the Solamnian Knights,
Excellency, include generous words about their sacrifice!
Her forces again assembled on the opposite bank of