Introduction
A world’s destiny hung in the balance. In the distant past a god had fallen to Q’zar, vanquished during a battle with other gods in the firmament. It was said that the god died, but his weapon did not. The Wardragon had the guise of a common mailshirt, but it was powerful, alive, and very intelligent. The people of Q’zar were spared the evil of the Wardragon for a thousand years, because it had been broken in the great fall, and many of its links scattered. Alas, learned but unwise war-lords and wizards such as the Preceptor and Fa’red began to gather the scattered links together, thinking to become masters of the restored mailshirt … but they did not understand the ways and deceits of the ancient and forgotten mindsmiths.
The Wardragon was not the weapon of a god, the Wardragon was the god. Anyone who wore the completed mailshirt would become its slave, not its master. Aided by the unlikely allies, Daretor and Zimak, the young sorceress Jelindel unwittingly achieved what the greatest of kings and sorcerers had been unable to do for a thousand years: she reassembled the Wardragon. Too late, she realised her mistake, and in a battle of magical energies that turned allies to traitors, and even swapped the minds of Daretor and Zimak with each other’s bodies, she destroyed the Wardragon and brought peace to Q’zar.
But the Wardragon was more resilient than Jelindel had realised …