I love dragons; who doesn’t?! They’re often seen as the pinnacle of fantasy creatures; mighty, cold and deadly intelligent, dragons can be both the noblest and most sly of beings.
Steven Erikson’s dragons are complex creatures. They are rarely seen, but their presence is felt throughout the many books. Today’s quote describes a dragon from Erikson’s Deadhouse Gates, the second book in the series. It’s a chilling description that dwarfs the dragons shown before.
The dragon came low to the earth. It defied every image of a draconian being Kulp had ever seen. Not Rake, not Osric. Hugely boned, with skin like dry shark hide, its wing-span dwarfed even that of the Son of Darkness – who has within him the blood of the draconian goddess – and the wings had nothing of the smooth, curving grace; the bones were multi-jointed in a crazed pattern, like that of a crushed bat wing, each knobbed joint prominent beneath taut, cracked skin. The dragon’s head was as wide as it was long, like a viper’s, the eyes high on its skull. There was no ridged forehead, instead the skull sloped back to a basal serration almost buried in neck and jaw muscles.
A dragon roughly cast, a creature exhaling an aura of primordial antiquity. And, Kulp realized with a breathless start as his senses devoured all that the creature projected, it was undead.
The fact that this dragon is greater in size even than Anomander Rake chills me to the bone.
I might by a bit of a fanboy where the Son of Darkness is concerned; such an awesome character, that one.
The Grimoire Reliquary 
You know, I’ve always pictured dragons as beautiful and terrifying in their ancient wisdom and great power, but this dragon looks terrifying.I wonder why it’s so different from all the other ones I’ve read about.
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