Join me as I review The Black Wing by Mary L. Kirchoff, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Dragonlance Villains series, released on January 1, 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/46my4vL
About The Black Wing
Presents the story of the black dragon of Xak Tsaroth, ruins that lie in the heart of a murky and dangerous swamp, detailing the origins of the creature and its role as a minion of the Dark Queen. Original.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Reapember the 27th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Black Wing by Mary L. Kirchoff. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this YouTube channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
We begin the tale with Khisanth sitting in Xak Tsaroth, reading Fistandantilus’ spellbook. She grows bored and begins reflecting on her life, and resenting her being stationed here to guard a staff that she isn’t even supposed to look at. She did transform into a mouse and saw the staff, unimpressed by it. Then we go back in time to when she was first awakened from her sleep before the war.
Khisanth was awoken by two Nyphid’s who needed her help to rescue the last female Nyphid named Dela. Apparently humans caught her and she is dying. The two Nyphids are Joad, Dela’s father and Kadagan, the betrothed to Dela. Khisanth is groggy and in a sour mood for being woken prematurely. She expected Takhisis to wake her. She refuses to help and threatens them. They leave but as she is unable to use her atrophied arms and wings to climb out, they lift her with magic from an artifact named Maynus. This object feeds power to Dela, but can be used by others. Now they feed and bandage Khisanths wounds from trying to leave the cave earlier, she is still obstinate, but eventually relents.
They trade knowledge of Qhen, or shapeshifting. It’s a very zen-like practice that Khisanth doesn’t take kindly to, and as the months pass, they finally realize they have to go after Dela or she will die. So Khisanth transforms into a human and adopts the name Onyx. She is met by an old woman who takes her to an inn. In the inn she meets Led, the man who took Dela and is planning on selling her for a fortune. Onyx pretends to be a magic using mercenary and joins Led’s band. They end up sleeping with each other and Onyx dreams of having Led ride her into battle, believing it is an omen from Takhisis.
They spoke of joining the fledgeling Dragonarmies as rumors have sprung up, and Onyx likes the idea. She goes to rescue Dela who is locked in a wagon they are escorting, but she is caught by the lieutenant Yoshiki Toba who Onyx traps in the Maynus globe. Led is furious that he is gone though they continue traveling to Kernen. They come across a band of Knights of Solamnia led by Sir Harold Stippling who demands to see what’s in the wagon, but they refuse leading to a standoff. The standoff lasts a couple heartbeats as Led attacks the Knights horse and pandemonium ensues. Near the end of the battle Onyx burns a knight in his armor with magic who runs off, and an ogre jumps from a cliff to the wooden card, busting it up and revealing Dela the Nyphid, sick and dying.
The Knight of Solamnia goes to save her and is electrocuted, which was the last of Dela’s life essence and she dies, then from the Nyphids who were following, her father Joad dies out of heartbreak. Led is infuriated for losing his chance at money, and as they mop up the rest of the knights, Onyx goes after the knight who ran away. She catches him, and scratches his face leaving three massive scars but he punches her in the nose, knocking her out. As the knight flees, no one knows where Onyx went and the surviving brigands leave.
Onyx wakes infuriated and after realizing Led abandoned her, she wants revenge. The last Nyphid tells her what happened to Dela and blames Onyx, then he dies, returning his energy to the source. Onyx shifts to a dragon again and hunts them, eventually eating Led. Then she travels the land for years, finding a nice lair in a swamp. She is attacked by another Black Dragon who she learns is named Talon. Talon regularly does this to get others’ treasure hoards, and as Onyx trails him, she discovers an ancient dragon named Pteros, or Pitch as humans call him. He is old and afraid and wants to be left alone. Khisanth believes she can reawaken his lust for life, and they Blood Mingle, which bonds the two together. Pteros will teach Khisanth ancient magic, and Khisanth will invigorate Pteros.
They spend much time together, and when Pteros learns of the Maynus, he wants to test its capabilities. It draws them into the elemental plane of lightning where Maynus reveals that he is an elemental and the Nyphids were slaves who escaped. It offers to send them home but is distracted by an old nemesis named Fraz. As Fraz leaves, Pteros and Khisanth try to find some way out, they are discovered by Fraz who has slain Maynus and demands they fight a storm giant to win their freedom. The Storm giant ends up being an illusion created just to mess with them, and Takhiss demands Fraz return the dragons to Krynn. This is a pointless story arc and I have no idea why it was included. No one learns anything new or grows as a result, and it is a complete waste of a read.
They are returned to Pteros’ old lair which Talon stole from him, and Talon and a young Black Dragon emerge and fight them. Khisanth eventually kills Talon, and Pteros kills the young black, but it mortally wounds him, and Khisanth is furious that he didn’t help her fight earlier, then mercy kills him. Years pass and we are given a crazy long chapter about the knight that Onyx burned. He was supposed to set up a keep to earn his Knight of the Sword rank. The bakery catches fire and they fight it. This is another entirely, thus far anyway, pointlessly long chapter. I want to read about Khisanth, not a rando Knight of Solamnia. I know where Khisanth ends up, so fill in the gaps already…
Then we get Khisanth flying up to the Black Wing Dragon Highlord in his citadel, and he is wildly impressed, but after Led and Pteros, Khisanth wants no rider, which limits her usefulness in the wing. Dragon Highlord Maldeev insists on his mount Jahet convincing Khisanth to take a rider, but she even refuses her newly blood mingled friend. I do really like the back and forth between Maldeev, Jahet and Khisanth. It’s nice to see how Khisanth has grown incredibly powerful by learning from the Nymph, Pteros, and even Led to some degree, and she is better than even Jahet, but the highlord can’t promote her or favor her without a rider. She is given an ultimatum and with the final third of the novel left, I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.
What can I say, I both loved and hated the ending. Well, perhaps hate is a strong word. I was less than thrilled. It was incredibly rushed, and it didn’t need to be if we just skipped over less interesting portions earlier in the novel. The Knights of Solamnia led by Sir Tate, the knight Onyx scarred and punched her in the face, made a pact with traitorous black dragons led by the Black Wing’s second in command, Khoal. They offered the Black Wing’s tower in return for swampland in Solania. The Knight couldn’t resist and agreed to the deal. The author does her best to make the Knights of Solamnia interesting but as they are only stuffed into a tiny portion of the novel, they end up feeling pointless.
The Knights attack the Black wing’s tower, and the three traitor black dragons refuse to fight, and Khisanth and Jahet have been trapped in their lairs by the dragons. As the Black Wing begins losing the battle, Khisanth transforms into a Bulett and dogs their way out of the cave. Jahet retrieves Maldeev while Khisanth transforms into Onyx, tricks the traitorous dragons that she is from the Knight of Solamnia and two of them flee. Khoal sees through her deception and the two fight, with Khisanth eventually killing him. She then goes on a frenzy killing knights. Finally Sir Tate confronts her and they exchange blows before inexplicably Khisanth leaves, then kills Sir Tate’s mentor. Setting them up for a big showdown.
The Knights are routed, and after the battle Khisanth screams at the highlord about how the Dark Queen will never win this war if everyone is fighting for their own pieces of the pie, rather than unifying behind her goal. For this, Khisanth is drawn into the Abyss by the Dark Queen and threatened. Apparently Takhisis wanted the traitorous dragons to defect, then she would convince them to return, rather than being killed. This is an odd moment that makes no sense to me, but explains why the Queen lost, she sucks at tactics. So Khisanth is sent back and tells the Highlord that she will take a mount. Months go by, and Draconians arrive as reinforcements from Neraka. Then the Black Wing attacks the Solamnics castle.
They devastate the Knights, but the Knights have griffons and as one of the new Black Dragons is killed, Maldeev on Jahet, and Khisanth go after Sir Tate. Maldev intentionally kills Jahet to trick Khisanth into becoming his mount, and Khisanth has an unsatisfying fight with Tate, killing him. She had a great moment of fleeting sadness over killing Tate. She kinda wanted him to be her rider if he was evil. She discovers Maldeev’s treatury and Salah Kahn feeds both highlord and dragon mutual discord until finally Khisanth murders him.
She is taken to the abyss again, and given a second chance to serve, then sent to Xak Tsaroth. The novel ends with her attacking Riverwind and the elf he was with after taking the Blue Crystal Staff from the events of Riverwind the Plainsman novel. That was a nice tie in, but the end and Khisanth’s revenge was wrapped up too quickly. I learned to love and respect Khisanth in a whole new way, and it makes me equally frustrated that the Heroes of the Lance killed her. If the Dark Queen would have let Khisanth lead with Ariakan, I believe they would’ve had a better chance at winning the war.
It was great learning about dragon specific traits like the blood mingle and hearing about Keptu, the ritual dragon suicide. Even that the dragons themselves fought and argued with each other like the mortals of the Dragonarmies. Ultimately I would recommend this novel, even with too much time spent on writing about pointless aspects of the story, then fast tracking the really interesting bits.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Black Wing by Mary L. Kirchoff. What did you think of Khisanth? Did she get the death she deserved? And finally, would you run her as a monster differently after having read this novel? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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