Inner cover:  Richard Bober

Dragondoom
Takes place:  3E1602-03

Tell me, my son, what is the color of the Dragon?
Crimson, Master, ever crimson, no matter what sees the eye.

A Dragon comes winging . . .

Sleeth's great yellow eyes slid open; behind crystalline membranes, long slitted pupils expanded wide in the ebon darkness.  His great forked tongue flicked in and out, tasting the blackness of the cavern:   Empty.  Dire spume dripped from wicked fanges, and where it struck, froth sizzled and popped, and rock dissolved.  Sleeth's juices ran high, for he was ravenously hungry, yet this night he would not seek to fill his belly; he was after other prey.

Slithering out from his den, Sleeth crossed the wide foreledge, fetching up against its precipitous lip.  Stone fell sheer before him, plummeting down into the black depths far below.  Silvery moonlight streamed through black pinnacles behind, pales beams splashing iridescently upon lapping scales -- armored hide, virtually idestructible.  Great muscles rippled and bunched, and with a roar that struck and clapped among the frozen crags, Sleeth leapt into the air, vast leathery pinions beating upward into the crystal sky, climbing toward the stars.

Circling, spiraling, up and up he flew, till he was high above the clawing peaks.  And then he arrowed westward, into the angle of Gron, wings hammering across the night.

'Ware, Folk of Mithgar, a Dragon comes.

-- Excerpts from the book.