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In the Shadow of the Dragons
The Dragon Lords
Who is Swayne, and why do we care?
Warning: potential spoiler information on this page.
Lord Swayne is one of Dagnan Te Daelan's ancestors. Lord Swayne's father was Lord Kieran Te Daelan. Kieran's father died circa S.Rh. 3165. Kieran won the Challenge and became Dragon Lord, but one of Kieran's rivals coveted the power of the Dragon Lord and would not be satisfied. He had Kieran killed, when Swayne was only an infant. Swayne's mother was a priestess, and she would not allow her lover's killer to take his seat through treachery. She convinced the Council to allow the seat to remain empty until Swayne was old enough to fight for the seat himself. When Swayne himself came of age, the Challenge went forward, and he became Dragon Lord.
At that time, and for all time before him, the great weapon of the Dragon Lords was the Dragonsword. A specially forged blade, which was a gift from the Dragons as another symbol of their unity, imbued with power that made the wielder far stronger than he would be alone. For millennia, this had been passed from generation of Dragon Lords to the next. It was what made it possible for them to finally defeat the Ishada during the Draedishad. But not long after Swayne had taken power as Dragon Lord, he disappeared in S.Rh. 3192, taking the Dragonsword with him. For a time, many were convinced that it was murder, as with his father, and so they granted his son the same special exception to delay the Challenge until he was mature that they had his father, but no body was ever found, nor the Sword.
I will just add here that the Swayne apparition that visited Dagnan in The Dragons' Gift was real, and we will be revisiting what this means and why it matters in the next several books of the series.
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Last updated: 2005 August 23