If Khoal had not been concentrating on his own incanta shy;tion, he might have noticed her shield in time to alter his spell. The six bolts of lightning that flashed from the tips of Khoal's long, pearly talons bounced off her shield, zagged around wildly, then fizzled out. Khisanth's globe twinkled and winked away.
"Tell me, Khoal, when you awoke this day, did you sense it would be your last?"
The taunt, in addition to his thwarted spell, only served to further enrage Khoal. The ancient dragon charged like a bull directly at Khisanth, the ground shaking in his wake. He turned, preparing for a wing buffet. Reacting quickly, Khi shy;santh focused her thoughts on the first image that came to mind; the female dragon abruptly became a seven-foot-tall owlbear. Aiming his buffet to connect with Khisanth's head at dragon height, Khoal's wing swept harmlessly over the owl-headed bear. While the ancient dragon's back was turned, Khisanth reverted to dragon form. Springing high into the air, she delivered a stunning, one-footed kick to Khoal's right flank, a blow that sent him reeling, snout-first, into the dusty field.
Khoal scrambled onto all fours and spun around. Humilia shy;tion had turned the dragon's yellow eyes fiery and streaked them with blood. "I'll pull your entrails out and eat them while you still live!" Khoal snarled, rabid slather spraying from his jaws.
"Shouldn't you be winning, to make such a vow?" Khi-santh asked artlessly, stepping backward to contemplate her next move. The dragon knew she wouldn't be able to shape-change indefinitely; her energy was already flagging. Khoal's rage was making him careless. That's good, she thought, let his own anger defeat him.
Squealing in panic and pain, an ogre whose rags and fur had caught fire ran at full speed into Khisanth's flank. The hysterical brute flailed at her scales, trying to climb across the obstacle, too blinded by fear to turn aside. Glancing back, the dragon swept her wing outward, shoving the doomed crea shy;ture away.
Khisanth's head jerked up in time to see that Khoal had closed the gap between them. The black dragon's neck shot forward, and sagging old lips pulled back to expose his long, jagged teeth. He was heartbeats from severing Khisanth's head from her neck.
Again, the spry young dragon did the first thing that came to mind-she changed into the familiar form of the brown field mouse, far, far below the slathering jaws of the enraged dragon. She hadn't time to be smug about the close call, because Khoal was thinking fast as well. He raised his hind foot and, creating a cage of sorts with his spread wings, pre shy;pared to stomp the little mouse.
Khisanth knew she was trapped. She couldn't revert to dragon form easily in the small area; even if she could, Khoal's foot would crash into her skull before she could top shy;ple him. Or would it?
Taking a chance, Khisanth summoned her dragon form. The instant she felt the change begin, the dragon reached out, snagged Khoal's hind foot, and struggled to tip him off bal shy;ance before he could squash her. Khoal was a much heavier dragon than Khisanth, thick-muscled and dense. Just as Khi shy;santh was beginning to despair of toppling the ancient dragon, her form expanded beneath him. She felt the crush of his incredible weight for only a moment, before the stunned
dragon tumbled from her back and crashed unceremoniously to the ground from a height of at least twenty feet. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs. Khoal lay in a heap, gasping raggedly for air.
Khisanth launched herself at the other dragon. Before he could raise a claw to defend himself, Khisanth sank her teeth into Khoal's fleshy chest, tearing away large, bloody bites, scratched at his eyes and face with her claws until Khoal couldn't see through his own gore. But the killing blow came when Khisanth simply leaned in, clamped her jaws around his neck, and twisted until she heard a loud snap. What was left of his eyes rolled back into his enormous skull. Khisanth unclenched her claws and let Khoal's head drop to the dirt with a loud, flat thud that raised an enormous cloud of dust.
Khoal's death gave Khisanth great satisfaction. The black dragon turned her sights to the knights who'd penetrated Shalimsha's north wall and were engaged in battle with the wing inside the courtyard. Khisanth would need to hear the death cries of a great many humans to still the hatred throb shy;bing at her temples.
Chapter 18
"Look, sir, they're fleeing." Tate followed the finger of the young knight who pointed skyward. There he saw two black shapes, winging upward like monstrous bats. A general cry of amaze shy;ment burst from the knights as they watched the creatures take flight and streak straight away over the mountains.
A hint of hope crept into Tate's heart. Two dragons … That left three unaccounted for. Still, three was better than five. Tate studied the shapes a few moments longer, until they dropped from view behind the distant range. Satisfied that they wouldn't return, he intended to plunge into the melee seething just inside the breach. A battle still raged beyond the walls, though Tate believed the odds of victory had increased tremendously with the dragons' departure.
But again Tate was stopped when Sir Albrecht emerged from the rolling dust at a gallop and reined up before him.
He was covered in brown filth so thick that his sweated horse looked as if it had rolled in mud. When the knight flipped open his visor, even his eyes were circled with grime where it had filtered through the eye slits.
Tate gripped Albrecht's arm to steady the panting knight in his saddle. "What is it, Albrecht?" Tate shouted. "What have you seen?"
"I bring an ill report, I fear." Albrecht drew a long breath and licked his lips with a dry tongue. "The battle was well in hand. Then the dragons appeared."
Tate's grip tightened on the knight's arm. "We saw two leave. Are others attacking us? Or them?"
"Neither, at first," panted Albrecht. "Two took wing, then two others battled between themselves. Both fought like creatures possessed. Finally, one managed to knock the other down, then nearly devoured it." Albrecht shuddered. "It was incredible-and gruesome."
Tate pulled a heavy glove from his left hand and slapped it angrily against his tunic where it draped across his thigh, rais shy;ing puffs of dust.
By now the din from the courtyard was impossible to ignore, dramatically shifting from the sounds of active battle to the chaos of a rout. Vague clumps of shapes could be seen through the obscuring dust, running through the breach toward Tate. Men-at-arms, he concluded. No Knight of Solamnia would run in so cowardly a fashion.
"Follow me," the lord knight commanded, spurring his horse toward the commotion.
Soon the knights were surrounded by men-at-arms falling back to higher ground. Tate noted that at least they still car shy;ried their weapons, so the position had not crumbled com shy;pletely. He and his retinue immediately set about driving the reluctant soldiers back toward the breach and the courtyard beyond. First they tried bold words of encouragement. When that failed, they turned in their desperation to leveling threats of punishment if the soldiers didn't resume their fighting. Tate had never seen men so fearful in his life. He managed to collar a sergeant who was himself dragging a trooper forward.
"Sergeant, these men have fought battles before. Tell me whaf s happened to cause such panic?"
The sergeant sent his charge reeling forward with a kick in the seat. "There's a dragon loose amongst the men, sir. It's only this damnable dust concealing the creature from general view that prevents every last one of our soldiers inside from scattering like mice."
Tate scanned toward the line, but saw only outlines and shadows. "Where is it?"
"Damned if I know," replied the sergeant. Pointing for shy;ward, he added, "Somewhere in there."