Dragon War
First edition
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| Author | Laurence Yep |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | David Wiesner |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dragon |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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Publication date
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1992 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 313 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 24320127 |
| LC Class | PZ7.Y44 Dqp 1992 |
| Preceded by | Dragon Cauldron (1991) |
Dragon War is a fantasy novel Chinese-American author Laurence Yep first published in 1992. It is the fourth and final book in his Dragon series. Yep attempted to put the beauty and gallantry of dragons he had gleaned from his research of them in Chinese mythology into Dragon War. By contrast, in the first three books of the series he "had tried to capture their quirkiness and strength".
The story picks up where Dragon Cauldron left off. Exiled dragon princess Shimmer along with Indigo and Monkey attempt to rescue Thorn, whose soul is trapped within Baldy's cauldron. The cauldron is now possessed by the powerful immortal wizard known as the Boneless King, who has possessed the body of the tyrannical human king known as the Butcher and launched an all out war against the dragons with the aid of Shimmer's brother Pomfret.
The Boneless King captures Shimmer, Monkey, and Indigo. They manage to escape and attempt to retrieve Baldy's cauldron, in which Thorn's soul is now sealed. However the Boneless King turns the tables on them and traps them in an underground cavern beneath Egg Mountain where he was formerly imprisoned with the river poisoned and cavern sealed up. Indigo figures out that water is the exclusion to the barrier spell as the river can flow in, so transformed into ice versions of themselves, they are able to escape. Returning to the Boneless King's tomb disguised as soldiers, they find that he has finished his excavation and left. The three catch up to where the pack train is camped for the night, but are unable to bluff their way past the pickets and are forced to transform into horses. They discover that some of the guardsmen and horses have been poisoned from drinking the river water and that the pack train is transporting the stone soldiers that were found in the Boneless King's tomb. Still disguised, they accompany the pack train on its journey. On the way, mysterious gases emitted by the statues follow the pack train, arousing such resentment and fear from the population such that "the countryside was almost ready to rise in rebellion" by the time they reach the capital, Ramsgate. The pack train is nearly attacked by villagers at the capital's gates, but is saved by reinforcements. The statues are buried in a pit on the palace grounds.
The three manage to follow the Boneless King disguised as guardsmen to the harbor and onto the flagship of his war fleet, necessitating a change in disguise to being sailors. Determining that Thorn is in the captain's cabin, they manage to convince the Boneless King's puppet wizard Horn to let them in, but rouse his suspicions and that of his massive white dog Snowgoose, who he had rescued from his island. Unable to retrieve Thorn in time, they transform into fleas and hide on Snowgoose's collar. Able to smell them but unable to determine where they are, Snowgoose gets so upset that the Boneless King loses patience with her and has her locked in a storeroom. They leave and return to the deck just as the fleet sets sail. Pomfret arrives after the fleet is underway to relay intelligence of the dragon army gathered at the Hundred Children, an archipelago formed from an undersea mountain chain. He also recognizes that the strange, deep sea creatures that suddenly attack the fleet are illusions cast by dragon mages, resulting in the Boneless King dispelling them. The fleet is confronted with a wall of fire as it nears the Hundred Children. As the Boneless King attempts to disperse it, Shimmer makes her move to rescue Thorn, but she and Monkey are captured. At that moment the dragon army advances towards the fleet despite counterattacks on the vanguard with a flammable liquid that can burn in water. As the Boneless King prepares to use the cauldron to boil the ocean, Shimmer and Monkey escape and leap into the sea. Along with Indigo in dragon form, they are chased by Pomfret and marines transformed into alligators. They are nearly captured while attempting to lose their pursuers within the caves of the Hundred Children which Shimmer played in when she was younger, but by using the buoyancy properties of the needleweed juice that Indigo has been carrying all this time, Pomfret and the marines are rendered helpless as they are carried to the surface.
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