The boy's face reddened. "It's pretty dark, and I couldn't see much more than a black trail. Maybe it's nothing, maybe
draconians___"
The young soldier's inexperience was clear to see. "Hurry now," the renegade dark-elf mage said, pushing the boy up the steps. "Take me to your post and show me this legion of soldiers."
Minutes later, both men stood atop the guard tower star shy;ing down toward the plain below the stronghold.
The elf's heightened sense of sight confirmed the sentry's fear. "That does indeed look like an army." Andor glanced toward the horizon, still dark, though lightening. "We have some time yet before dawn. Wait for me here-don't sound the alarm until I return."
Glad to have the weight of responsibility lifted, the sentry stepped aside, making room for the cleric to approach the ladder. But instead of leaving the tower, the dark elf reached below his cloak into a pouch at his belt. He removed a vial and held it up with the crescent moon behind it. The crystal shone faintly in the eery light, refracting bars of light onto the cleric's face and robes.
Wide-eyed, the sentry watched the cleric unstop the vial while muttering prayers and incantations beneath his breath. In one swift motion he tossed the contents of the cruet down his throat, then swiftly replaced the stopper and vial in his pouch.
Nothing seemed to happen for several moments. But then the dark blue cloak sagged and collapsed to the floor. A shadow flowed out of the pile of clothing and slipped over the brink of the guard tower. The sentry peered over the edge and saw the inky black cloud racing across the rocks toward the plain. The human moved in a wide path around the robes on the floor to stand as far from them as possible.
Andor sped across the broken ground. He was in a four-way race, pitting his cunning against the coming dawn, which would reveal him clearly; the advancing army, which would shortly reach the Black Wing's citadel; and the limited duration of his potion. But this was an opportunity for advancement Andor was not going to waste.
It was possible, he thought, that the youth was right; per shy;haps this was the troop of draconian reinforcements Maldeev expected. That possibility faded completely when Andor saw the banners waving atop the army's sharp-tipped pikes, when he saw the well-groomed, skirted, and barded horses. Atop the mounts were grim-faced humans in luminously polished plate mail.
These were Knights of Solamnia.
The human at the front of the parade of knights was obvi shy;ously their general. His plate mail armor was polished to rival a looking glass; pressed into the metal on his left breast was an oval the size of a human hand, inside which was an elaborately detailed crown.
The visor of the general's closed-face helmet was pushed back for greater visibility and comfort while he rode; blond curls escaped its confines above dark brown eyes. His face was surprisingly young, by human standards, the double Solamnic mustache so lightly colored and sparse that it was difficult to see. His cheeks were covered with a light stubble, presumedly to mask three razor-thin, parallel scars on one cheek, though it did little toward that end.
The fresh-faced general was flanked by two knights, one younger still, the other much older, thick with gray hair. They, too, wore polished chain mail, with crossbows slung on their backs and swords girded. Behind them on horseback were at least one hundred well-armed knights, possibly more. Following the knights, Andor estimated, were fifty or sixty sergeants mounted on horses and armed with lances and swords; another one hundred fifty men-at-arms carrying spears, bills, shields, and halberds; another eighty or so archers; and pulling up the rear, a general assortment of mot shy;ley humans, no doubt short-term levies and down-and-out sell-swords.
The cleric knew he needed to get specific information if he was to impress Maldeev with his courage and cunning. He picked the knight who rode at the general's left shoulder and surged forward to merge with the human's moonlight shadow.
"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.