The Black wing (d-2)

by Mary Kirchoff

  "Where are you going?" the living shadow asked the knighf s shade.

  "Marsssh souuthh. …" it responded in the slow, lazy, dark-toned drawl of most shadows.

  "I can see that!" snapped the cleric impatiently. "Where to, and what for? Answer quickly, or you'll be making tracks for a gully dwarf!"

  "Taahhhwer . . . fight eeeevil draaagguns. .. ." it said immediately, heeding Andor's threat.

  "That would be Shalimsha, all right," the shadow mum shy;bled worriedly. At their current rate of travel, Andor esti shy;mated they would reach the stronghold of the Black Wing within the hour, for a surprise attack at dawn. He would have to fly like the wind to have any chance of warning the wing in time to mount a defense. The cleric's thoughts turned from personal glory to self-preservation. Andor whipped his shadow around to the south and began to race for the alarm bell as if his life depended on it.

  Chapter 16

  Khisanth's sensitive hearing woke her with the first strike of clapper to bell. The dragon sat bolt upright on the dirt floor of her lair. Irri shy;tated at the intrusion to her sleep, she listened for confirmation that the ringing of the daxon had been a prank. But the tolling continued-frantically-and Khisanth knew that this was no trick, not even a surprise drill. Something was definitely wrong at the tower. She sniffed the air almost delicately but detected no odor of fire, which so frequently plagued towers like Shal-imsha. What else could have caused such commotion? Deter shy;mined to learn the cause of the ringing claxons, Khisanth removed the magical wards on her archway and stomped off, headed for the meeting chamber and the exit beyond.

  Khisanth came to the archway. Suddenly her snout met with a wall, both clear and hard, where there should have been only air. The dragon was too big to suffer injury from the unexpected blow at such a slow speed, but it did put her back a step. A wave of aggravation replaced her first moment of confusion. Khisanth impulsively, stubbornly, dipped her left wing shoulder and prepared to ram her way through the arch shy;way. Her whole body crashed flat against an invisible barrier that sent her leathery flesh quivering in recoil. The black dragon tried again and again to smash through, but her attempts proved futile.

  Dragon rage boiled her blood. She remembered Kadagan's teaching. "The angry dragon will defeat itself." Think clearly, she told herself. Answers came in moments.

  Someone had erected a magical wall of force to trap her in her lair. The black dragon knew in a flash that somehow, the barrier and the claxons were linked. She could see through the invisible wall that the other dragons were not about. Khoal was the only one of them powerful enough to create something like this-he used it frequently to seal off his own lair. Even the vin shy;dictive ancient dragon would not have trapped her here simply to make her look bad for missing a surprise drill. Those claxons were ringing for the first time to signal an attack.

  A terrible sense of foreboding blossomed in Khisanth, fan shy;ning the fires of suspicion kindled in Khoal's meeting the day before. Who would attack the wing, and how were the other dragons involved? Khoal had sent her on a wild-goose chase to the south while he went north. The stronghold of the Knights of Solamnia was to the north. Khoal had been report shy;ing for months that the number of knights in residence at Lamesh was pathetically low. "It appears to be nothing more than a renewed farming community, with a few knights around to keep the monsters at bay."

  Khisanth thought about that, but there were still too many pieces missing to complete the puzzle. She had to get out of here and learn the whole truth. The dragon closed her eyes and summoned a mental picture of herself standing on the drill field. Nothing happened. She could still feel the cool, musty air of the cave against her scales. Khisanth's eyes popped open. The teleport spell hadn't worked. Suspicious, she hastily tried her flaming talon cantrip, but wasn't able to summon even a spark. Khoal had dampened her magic, too.

  Out of desperation, not expecting it to work, Khisanth closed her eyes and concentrated all her energy into changing her shape. To her surprise and relief, Khisanth felt her enor shy;mous weight fall away. She'd found a loophole in Khoal's spell. He and the other dragons thought they'd trapped her here, but they didn't know of the mental discipline that allowed her to shapechange, or of the narrow crevice that linked her lair with Jahef s.

  The dragon had changed into her favorite diminutive form, a brown field mouse. Wasting not another moment, she scur shy;ried the long distance through the crevice and darted around the rocky curtain on Jahef s side.

  At first glance, Jahet didn't appear to be in her lair either. Khisanth skittered past piles of her superior's gems, which looked like unscaleable mountains to a mere mouse. Jahet had very likely left for the tower with the first sound of the claxons. For a brief moment, Khisanth wondered if her friend could be in league with the other dragons. She discounted the thought almost before it was finished.

  Khisanth abruptly heard noise in the antechamber. She scampered on mouse feet toward the sound and stopped cold in her tracks. Looming more than twenty-five feet above the field mouse was the ranking dragon, throwing herself again and again, to no avail, against an invisible barrier on the arch shy;way that led outside. Jahet's red eyes were wide and frantic, like a trapped cow's. Slather sprayed in thick ropes from her maw. Her breathing was ragged.

  Khisanth felt a flash of relief that Jahet wasn't part of the conspiracy. They had pinned her in as well. But it also meant her emergency escape route had been cut off.

  Perhaps she could squeeze through some small crack between wall and floor on the side that faced the ponderosa pines. Once outside, she'd revert to dragon form and get the answers to her questions. The more she thought about it, the more certain Khisanth was that it could work, even if it meant she had to change into a shape even smaller than a mouse … like a spider.

  The field mouse was forced to dance to the side suddenly to avoid a nasty but accidental tail slap from Jahet. The ranking dragon was giving in to her temper, still thrashing about in fury and frustration. Khisanth then realized the flaw in her newest plan for escape.

  It left Jahet still trapped in her lair.

  Her concern for Jahet's escape had nothing to do with friendly feelings. If Khoal, Dnestr, and Neetra had betrayed the wing, Khisanth would need Jahet in the ensuing battle. To free Jahet, Khisanth would have to reveal herself.

  "Hey, Jahet, down here!" the dragon-turned-mouse bel shy;lowed as loudly as her tiny vocal chords would allow. "Look down here, if s me!" she hollered in Dragon.

  Jahet stopped her thrashing to locate the source of the faint sounds that rose up from the darkness below her. Squinting, craning back awkwardly, the ranking dragon could barely make out the minuscule shape of a mouse at her left hind foot. "You've certainly picked a foolish time to squeak a challenge at me," Jahet growled. With that, she turned her attention back to the invisible barrier.

  Khisanth stomped in frustration. She cupped paws around her soft muzzle. "Hey, Jahet! If s me, Khisanth!"

  Jahef s jaws locked tight. The mouse was undeniably speak shy;ing in the Dragon tongue. If that weren't odd enough, the crea shy;ture had the temerity-and bad timing-of calling itself Khisanth! Jahet decided to silence the pesky little creature once and for all. She bent low and swung out with her claw to snatch up the rodent.

  Abruptly Jahet was snout to snout with the black dragon Khisanth. "Khisanth! What the-"

  "I can shapechange," Khisanth supplied quickly, stepping back to give them both more space.

  "Why didn't you tell me before? I nearly crushed you!"

  Khisanth looked mildly indignant at the reproach. "My position in the wing requires that I fly and fight," she said stiffly, "not that I cast magic. I have personal reasons for con shy;cealing the skill. I don't know the extent of your spell abilities, either," she said accusingly.

  "We are not equals," said Jahet with similar starch. "We shouldn't be fighting with each other now." Her expression turned from displeasure to frustration as she regarded the invisible wall. "This must be the
work of those worthless cler shy;ics Maldeev was forced to accept from Neraka."

  Khisanth measured her words carefully. "I don't think they're the magic-wielding culprits here, Jahet."

  Jahet squeezed her red eyes shut. "Don't start your old 'the-other-dragons-aren't-loyal' story. I'm not in the mood."

  "How else can you explain why we're the only two dragons trapped in our lairs?" Khisanth challenged. "I looked-Khoal, Dnestr, and Neetra are gone."

  Khisanth saw confusion in the ranking dragon's eyes as she digested the news. Khisanth could understand her puzzle shy;ment-trapped as they were, the situation suggested more questions than answers. Jahet didn't even know as much as Khisanth did about the others. It would take too long now to fill her in-time better spent getting free.

  Khisanth held up her claws in surrender. "Never mind them now. We've got to think of a way out of here. Then we'll be able to see for ourselves whaf s happening outside."

  "Lef s teleport," suggested Jahet.

  Khisanth shook her head. "I doubt if 11 work here. I tried it in my lair-magic seems suppressed."

  "Then how were you able to shapechange?

  Khisanth struggled for the words to explain qhen. "The only thing I can figure is that shapechanging is more a mental than a magical discipline. The distinction must be a loophole in the spell that negates our magic." Khisanth snapped her talons. "You've given me another idea." She rubbed her claws together in preparation. "Stand back."

  At a loss for any other solution and growing more desper shy;ate, the highest ranked dragon did as the lowest bade.

  Khisanth concentrated, trying to sharpen the edges on an old memory. On the first seasonable day one spring back in the Great Moors, the ice on her pond had nearly all melted, and she'd gone to ground in search of fresh, warm prey. But the selection had been strangely slim, considering mammals' penchant for warm weather-a few young, foolish ground squirrels and an elderly, nearly blind ferret. Khisanth had an excellent long-term memory for meals.

  She had been about to close on the ferret when the ground began to tremble, then shake violently. Suddenly-unexplain-ably-a twenty-foot-tall, budding maple tree shot out of the ground and fell over. Sharp talons emerged in the tree's wake, digging a tunnel to the surface at a rate that had impressed even Khisanth. A hideous, snout-nosed creature emerged, tangled in the dirt clods that dangled from the tree's torn roots. Snarling and slathering wildly like a rabid dog, the gigantic creature thrashed itself free. It had an elliptical; bluish-green body cov shy;ered with thick plates and scales. The creature snatched up the fear-frozen ferret and choked it down in a gulp.

  The dragon had watched the creature solely out of curiosity; her taste was more particular than to consume something so hideous and tough. Thaf s why she'd been so surprised when its milky-yellow eyes and sky-blue pupils locked onto the largest meal it had ever seen. It sprang into the air like a jackrabbit, launching directly at Khisanth, four clawed feet raking and scratching. It seemed not even to notice that Khi shy;santh was twice its size.

  The surprise move had left time only for instinct. Hot green acid spewed from Khisanth's jaws and splashed across the creature's exposed underbelly. In moments, the thing was digested. She'd killed her first bulette, a rare and widely feared carnivore. Now she was about to become one herself.

  "You'd better step into your lair," Khisanth advised. Stand shy;ing in the archway between her two chambers, Jahet looked mildly annoyed at what she considered Khisanth's theatrics, but again did as the other dragon suggested.

  Painfully aware of the claxons still pealing outside, Khi shy;santh hastily envisioned her own powerful dragon body trans shy;forming into her memory of the bulette's. She felt herself grow shorter, stiffer under the plates and scales; her vision was not as keen. But the most significant change was one she'd never before encountered in a shapechange; her mood shifted abruptly. She felt jumpy and agitated, with an overriding impulse to burrow frenetically. It took all of her dragon sensi shy;bilities to make herself dig in a logical place.

  The bulette Khisanth sank her squared, pawlike claws into the packed dirt floor of Jahef s antechamber and sent it flying on either side of her armored flanks in two steady, thick black streams. Digging under the outside wall, her claws tore through layers of hard clay and rock, until a hole large enough for a bulette to pass through was carved. Her claws bit into the base of the supporting wall itself to make room for a dragon's escape. When she finished, Khisanth was not the least bit tired.

  Khisanth was anxious to doff the bulette form and quickly did so before calling to Jahet. The other dragon had watched the bulette with amazement from between the growing mounds of dirt and rock in the antechamber.

  In deference to her rank, Khisanth waved Jahet through the underground trench first. Hurrying after, she heard Jahet's angry gasp from the other side of the ponderosas. Khisanth stepped through the hedge of trees and stopped next to her friend to view the fortress in the early light.

  An army at least six hundred strong, colorful banners wav shy;ing, was launching an all-out assault on the Black Wing of the Dark Queen's army.

  Maldeev stepped onto a parapet above the courtyard, hands in their usual position on his breech-covered hips. The yellow light of the torches made his rippling chest look as if it were carved of the palest marble. Under his highlord helm, Mal shy;deev's expression was beyond anger as he tried to make sense of the chaos around him.

  The early morning atmosphere had changed from the softly glowing calm of a sleeping encampment to a torchlit frenzy of activity; half-dressed, droopy-eyed men hopping about, pulling on clothing, barking orders without true understand shy;ing or purpose. This was not how he'd trained his troops! Why weren't his commanders restoring order? Where was that dandy, Wakar, his second-in-command?

  What was the meaning of this unexpected call-to-arms? It was still dark, several hours before the scheduled drill. The wing was not yet at war. Someone had intentionally disrupted the order of the compound. Maldeev scowled in the direction of the bell tower, where the claxons still rang, looking for the culprit. He blinked, then looked again. The rope jerked up and down, but he saw no one pulling it.

  Magic. Maldeev's eyes narrowed to tiny black slits. Andor and the other two dark clerics … He'd reluctantly accepted their presence at Neraka's insistence, distrusting magic as he did. If they were in any way responsible for initiating this prank, Maldeev would see their heads roasted slowly until their skulls exploded!

  Where in the Abyss were the blasted clerics, anyway? Mal shy;deev spun around and stormed back into his chambers. He began dressing in his armor as quickly as he could; he had to do it alone since no amount of bellowing brought a servant to his aid. Maldeev had pulled on just one boot when he heard a cry outside that cut through all the din, a cry that made his blood run cold.

  "Army of knights approaching from the north!"

  Maldeev's mind dashed frantically through denial, past the expected questions, and settled on acceptance. Obviously, the pathetically small company of knights from Lamesh had decided to launch an attack on Shalimsha. It would be a swift and easy slaughter, especially with the aerial support from his dragons.

  Speaking of dragons, he recalled abruptly, he'd seen neither hide nor tooth of Jahet, nor any of the dragons. Maldeev angrily jammed his foot into his other boot. Where in the name of Takhisis were those greedy and undependable black beasts who were supposed to win the war for the Queen of Darkness?

  Maldeev could scarcely believe how wrong things had gone in one short night. If he had any hope of righting them, he'd first have to reorganize his ragged troops. Then he'd find those dragons and kick their lazy hides from here to Neraka! With that pleasant thought propelling him, Maldeev charged from his apartments, headed for the stairway that led down to the courtyard. And the chaos.

  Chapter 17

  Studying the crumbling north wall of Shalimsha Tower, Sir Tate Sek-forde felt a momentary twinge of regret that it hadn't been possible to drag
a catapult from Lamesh. Two or three well-placed boulders would have tumbled the remaining links in the wall like a child's set of wooden blocks. As it was, the fortress would be so ridiculously easy to breach, Tate never considered trying to batter down the central gate. The knight couldn't conceive of raising an army without repairing the outer curtain. He could only conclude that the man inside who called himself a highlord must be very arrogant to assume no one would attack him.

  Tate's legion of soldiers, along with their baggage wagons, pack animals, and all the train of war, had marched over the parched land for four and a half days-thirty-three leagues in choking dust. At least it wasn't hot, thought Tate, just damnably dry. The knight was grateful enough for the rela shy;tive coolness. He was wearing his heavy plate mail, the only heirloom he'd taken from Castle DeHodge. Still, the constant clouds of dust didn't help the sore throat he'd woken with on the morning they were to set out. But he couldn't delay the march if they were to take advantage of the waxing moon. Tate was glad they hadn't. They'd marched the last three miles tonight in moonlight so bright it looked as if daylight's wick had simply been turned down. Now the sky was light shy;ening toward dawn; the time for attack had come.

  "Sir Wolter," Tate called to his sponsor, who was talking to some men-at-arms a short distance away. The stout, gray-haired knight nudged his horse next to Tate's. "Take fifty knights, our best swordsmen, and get them into position near that big breach." He pointed at the largest section of crum shy;bled wall, to the right of the north wall's arched wooden gate. "Tell them to wait until Regist's archers have flanked them and picked off the few bowmen on the ramparts. Then send the knights in, led by a handful of crossbowmen who can shoot into the breach just before the charge. The crossbows can fall back after firing. Obviously, the attack will have to be made on foot. Find a place to shelter and tether the horses."

  "What about the dragons?" Welter's bushy gray eyebrows were raised.