Join me as I review Trail of the Black Wyrm by Chris Pierson, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Taladas Trilogy set after the War of Souls. You can pick up Trail of the Black Wyrm here: https://smile.amazon.com/Trail-Black-Wyrm-Dragonlance-Taladas/dp/B00BMD1LGG/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1651507688&sr=8-1
About Trail of the Black Wyrm
The Battle of the Run is over, but for Barreth Forlo victory is bitter.
With only a dragon’s scale to aid them, Barreth and his friends must find his missing wife before it’s too late. A strange evil is stirring and a foul ritual has begun.
And Forlo’s unborn child lies at the heart of it. Explore the legendary continent of Taladas, where barbarian chiefs struggle for survival against power-mad sorcerers in the uneasy aftermath of the War of Souls.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Fleurgreen the 11th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of Trail of the Black Wyrm by Chris Pierson. I will be spoiling the story, so if you don’t want to know it, stop watching now! I would like to take a moment to remind you that you can pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
The introduction picks up with Essana, Barreth Forlo’s pregnant wife, who was abducted with the statue of Maladar at the end of the last novel. She is presented to the faceless ones, and compelled with the yaggol psionically. The ziggurat structures are part of the once great yaggol’s civilization, now in ruins. This is where the faceless ones will attempt the ritual to pull Maladar’s soul from the statue, and instill it into Essanas child. She is being taken care of by the Keeper, who is gentle and patient with her, or more so than any of the others. Essana is horrified about the situation, but is literally helpless, assuming her husband died in the battle. It isn’t until later that she realizes there is a bit of contention between the faceless ones, and that the Uigans were routed in the battle. She still doesn’t know if Forlo is alive or not.
This novel then opens with a brutal first chapter as well. Barreth Forlo, Shedara the Moon-Thief and Hult the Uigan barbarian are planning on hunting down the statue of Maladar and Forlo’s wife, when just outside of Coldhope, Forlo’s keep, they are attacked by many of the shadow kender. They are overrun and only survive because of the wild elf, Eldako, who was hired by the late Chovuk Boyla. He escaped the flood in the battle and tracked the survivors. It turns out only Hult survived from the Uigan tribes. Eldako rescues them, and brings them back to Coldhope, tending to their wounds. Forlo nearly dies. Then Minotaurs burst through the doors to capture Forlo for desertion. This is really just a ploy by the now emperor, Rekhaz, who hates Forlo and wanted him to die in the battle, and now will see him executed. The fourth legion minotaur warriors don’t want to hear any of the rationale from Forlo, and attack.
The group fights off the minotaurs as they run up to the master bedroom, which has the strongest door and lock. Shedara casts feather fall as the minotaurs cut through the door. Only she and Edlako escap. Hult and Forlo are captured and taken back to the capital. Shedara and Eldako travel to Armach-nesti, the Silvanae elf homeland that was decimated by the black dragon and faceless ones to ask her brother for help retrieving Forlo, Hult, and the Statue. They arrive to see it is overrun by the shadow kender and they run for their lives from hundreds of them. It turns out only 60+ elves still live, and they are all scarred and dispirited from the invasion. Shedara and Eldako convince them to travel to the kender home, the valley of Marak, to stop the kender from being turned into these abominations, and then to destroy the statue after they find it.
Forlo is presented to Rekhaz, the new emperor in a mock trial and chooses combat over sentencing. He and Hult have to face giant insects in the arena. They are nearly defeated but Hult rips the head off one, and loses some fingers from the other rescuing Forlo, as elves appear all around the arena, dropping magical disguises and attack. Led by Shedara, her brother and his troops capture the emperor and Forlo ends up murdering him. They escape through the rift the earthquake opened and flee over the sea. The minotaurs gave chase and after a few days, they lost them. They head directly for Panak, odd it wasn’t Marak as previously stated, where they are told an ancient silver dragon lives who can identify the scale of the dragon that took Forlo’s wife. Hult is given a magical necklace that allows him to speak and understand any language nearby.
The Armach elves leave to retake their homeland from the shadow kender invasion, and Hult, Eldako, Shedara and Farlo travel to Panak for the dragon. They are met by Angusuk, a native to these frozen plains and they travel through terrain I thought Hult had a nightmare experience in, but later it notes that Eldako had the experience. So either I misremembered or there was a type. I could go back and look but I just don’t care enough. There are Ningasuk, idols called The patient Folk in the native tongue, which are erected to keep undead wights away, though it doesn’t always work. Hult or Eldako is terrified, reliving his escape from these lands in the past, and the party is attacked, but saved by the village elder, a sorcerer. They enter his hut and watch a ceremony where the elder uses blood magic to commune with his ancestors. It tells them where to travel for the dragon named Ukamiak, an ancient silver, and that they must kill it. Forlo agrees and they head out. It takes days on a snow sled to get to the mountains, where they meet snow ogres. Hult communicates with them. It turns out they are protectors of the ancient wyrm.
They enter Ukamiak’s lair and find he is near death. Their coming was foretold and they present the scale. The dragon identifies through magic that the scale belongs to Sashekul, or Gloomwing. He lives in the boiling sea, the valleys of Marak, where the kender are from. So if they skipped this entire experience, nothing would have changed… I wonder if they put it in after to thicken up the book… The dragon finally dies, and the ogres mourn its passing. Every elf sheds tears and they leave for the day’s long return to the icefolk’s camp. They arrive and the shadow kender have slaughtered the entire village. Angasuk freaks out, rightfully so, and after burying the dead and watching polar flares streak across the sky, he takes them to their ship. They confirm that everyone will stay together to face the hooded one and Gloomwing, as Marak is weeks away.
We are taken to Neron where Essana is being held. Her pregnancy is going at a furious rate. Between the yaggol keeping tabs on her mind and her nightmares about her son being Maladar, she is tormented. The faceless one who watches over her finally reveals a secret that he is working against the other faceless, and is going to rescue her. Essana feels relief flood her as they wait for the right time. The master faceless doesn’t trust this caretaker, and knows he is a spy. When they finally move to escape, they are caught. Essana is now bound to the room in chains, and the traitor is flayed and pieces of him removed. He is tortured until the birth as punishment, and all within sight of Essana.
The companions all travel by boat to the Valley of Marak where they begin to climb the mountains and sleep in a cave, only to be woken by a rebel band of Kender. They fled the invasion of the Teacher, the faceless one who corrupted Chovuk Boyla and is turning the Kender into shadow monsters. The shadow kender hunts this group who actively tries to free their captive brothers and sisters. The Kender were friends with Gloomwing before the Faceless came, and Gloomwing turned on them and left. The Kender take the companions to the valley and show them while Neron is high in the sky, the Teacher turning kender. They make a plan of attack, glide invisibly across the lake to the ziggurats and attack the teacher as the kender distracts the sea of shadow kender.
The hooded one fights back but is ultimately overwhelmed. They each fight the urge to murder him, and after torturing him for information, realize how far they have fallen in the search for Maladar and Essana. They were good people in their own right, and now they are revenge fueled murderers. They kill the faceless one, and learn that Gloomwing is in Neron. They sail to the area only to have a vision which actually happens, of Essana giving birth to her very large son, who was two months late. They haven’t been able to put Maladar into the son yet, and she is taken to her cell without her baby. Gloomwing sends a mental message to Shedara and Forlo that it is too late. Then they see the dragon flying toward them and attacks their ship. They all jump overboard.
Shedara casts water breathing on herself and goes after Forlo who is drowning. The dragon makes multiple passes to destroy the ship completely then eat the survivors from the water. As he is approaching Shedara and Forlo, Eldako attacks the dragon with his bow, wounding it, and turning its attention, and holds it off as the native elves who are being kidnapped and sacrificed to Maladar, come out, ready to attack the dragon. Eldako stands off against Gloomwing much like Sturm Brightblade and ends up getting covered in the acid breath weapon as the Cha-asii elves all attack at once, bringing down Glooming. It was at this moment Shedara knew she loved Eldako, and ran looking for him. They were unable to locate him, and were brought to the Cha-asii camp where the female elder, Yu-Shan, welcomes them and speaks of a prophecy that four came to liberate them. Without Eldako, they cannot win the fight, so she skries for him, and finds he is taken by the Yaggol. They now have to rescue Eldako, Essana and destroy the statue before Maladar is transferred into Forlo’s son.
They discover the Yaggol holding Eldako and rescue him. Reunited, but horrifyingly scarred and a fraction of his strength, he is healed as much as possible, but his days are numbered. Shedara loves him but is startled by his appearance. They make plans to travel to the ancient temple and rescue Essana. Essana is forced to watch as her son grows rapidly and will be just over twenty with the mind of a child controlled by the remaining faceless ones, by the time the moon is full. Maladar will have the final ritual where the son kills the mother and he enters the son’s body. She is tormented and weak, stuck between pain in life or pain in her dreams.
The group leave with the Cha-asii in the long trek to the temple and come across native monsters with the yaggol. They defeat them with the Cha-asii charms that prevent the yaggol from getting into their minds. They move on to the temple but there is an army of Yaggol waiting for them there as well. They eventually break through only to be faced with the faceless ones. They barely fight their way up the temple when Hult is paralyzed with Forlo. Shedara is stuck in a magical web, but as a final act, Eldako hits one of the faceless with an arrow through the eye, and charges, sacrificing himself to destroy the master by running off the edge of the massive temple with him, killing them both. Forlo rages against the magic as his son nears killing his wife, but he leaps on her body and is stabbed in the back. The son comes to his senses and falls to the ground. Hult, finally free, threatens him, and Shedara looks after Forlo to see if he is alive. Maladar’s statue explodes and for a moment they believe it is over.
Maladar enters Forlo’s body and rises up, gives a final monologue and vanishes in flames. He appears next to The Burning Sea and is met by the god Hith. He sends him into the lava field, and they briefly discuss their plans. Hult and Shedara and the remaining Cha-asii bury Eldako and mourn for Foro, though Essana refuses to believe he is dead. Her son, named Azar after the Keer who took care of Essana and tried to escape with her, is now in his right mind, and feels horrible. She embraces him, and tells the rest that they need to find help in the Rainward Isles. That is where the Keeper Azar tried to take her, and they will rise against Maladar.
This was an emotional rollercoaster. I had completely forgotten the son was born and speed aged. The horror of living with the Yaggol is much like a Lovecraft story. It’s great! Once again Chris Pierson brought adventure, new exciting cultures and environments to the forefront, and I was emotional and excited the whole time. I can’t wait to start the final book in the trilogy. If you enjoy Dragonlance, or Taladas you must read this book.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Trail of the Black Wyrm by Chris Pierson What do you think of the cultures of Taladas? Have you ever played a campaign there? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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