Tate stood with the help of the archer. "Bring my sword," he breathed.
Before anyone could comply, Wolter loomed above Tate, his fatherly eyes shining out from a grimy face. Blood and dirt darkened his tattered tunic and caked his charger. Tate reached up to the knight. "We've got to kill the dragon. Give me your sword, Wolter."
Wolter gripped the extended hand instead. "I know that, lad. You've fought valiantly, but you haven't the strength. Lead the surviving men back through the breach and to a safe distance, where we can regroup. I'll join you there." Wolter turned and muttered to Albrecht, "Get him safely away."
Tate didn't like the tone of voice, or the look in the tired old knight's eyes. "Wolter," he called, "don't risk it," but his voice was so weak Wolter seemed not to hear him.
The elder Knight of the Rose swung down from his skittish horse and addressed the archers. "Loose one last volley on my command and then retire-now!"
Dozens of bowstrings thunked as one. The dragon screeched at every impact, more in anger than pain. The missiles were
little more than pinpricks against the thick hide and scales on her flanks, but she had been robbed of her prize knight.
Sword raised above his helm, Wolter plunged forward toward the waiting monster.
Once again she forced the acid up her throat and blew it in a steaming haze toward the rushing knight with the gleam shy;ing long sword, and toward the line of men with bows. Many fell screaming as it burned or seeped through the openings in their light armor. Those who were able fled in pain and panic.
Stumbling and swearing, Wolter ripped away the acid-drenched tunic and pulled off his pitted, hissing great helm. Melted holes showed in the chain mail beneath. His face was burned and blackened. He shook the rapidly dissolving shield from his left arm. Clutching the long sword in both hands now, and with the name of Kiri-Jolith on his lips, he charged ahead.
The sweeping claw of the dragon met the knight's stab shy;bing blade. The sword pierced the bony scales and impaled itself completely through the flesh. Bloodied talons ripped through layers of metal. Wolter's body tumbled across the ground to land in a sprawl. Feebly he reached for the dagger at his belt, but the dragon pounced with her jaws open. Dust surged up around them, obscuring the scene but not the sound.
"Wolter!" cried Tate, helplessly watching his friend's fatal fall. Bending down in his stirrups, Albrecht grabbed his hor shy;rified superior by the belt and dragged Tate's struggling weight across his saddle. Albrecht spurred his horse into a gallop and waved the survivors from Lamesh to follow him through the breech. Leaving the horrid scene of monsters and destruction, the two Knights of the Crown, one unconscious, the other in shock, sped off toward the foothills.
In the Black Wing's camp, Khisanth licked at the lacerated claw. Around her, ogres and mercenaries gleefully set about the business of killing the injured and looting the dead. Min shy;utes later, Jahet swooped overhead and then landed nearby, Maldeev on her back, holding a bloody mace.
"We've survived, if not emerged victorious," Jahet said, trying to raise spirits. "Your brilliance in battle will be leg shy;end," she added to the other dragon, casting a glance at the destruction surrounding them.
Khisanth eyed both Maldeev and Jahet sardonically. She made no reply to Jahef s comments. Instead, she asked, "You have dealt with Dnestr and Neetra?"
The other dragon nodded. "It is done." She could see the anger in Khisanth's eyes. "What's wrong? We were losing, but look around us now. Hundreds lie dead. Solamnic knights litter the field."
"We made the best of a bad situation brought on by treach shy;ery. Three of our own kind turned against us. What hope is there for the Dark Queen's cause if her agents so readily turn on each other?"
Khisanth rose to her feet. "I've spoken many times of my amazement that humans rule the world while dragons live in the shadows. I couldn't understand how such a thing was possible. After today, I begin to comprehend."
Anger squeezed Khisanth in its enormous grip. She tipped her head back, raised a bloodied claw to the skies, and howled, "Takhisis, I've called you my queen! Can treachery be your plan?" The black dragon blasted her fury and frus shy;tration into the sky, exhaling a cloud of acid that rocketed upward. Spraying out, it rained back down in sizzling droplets and gobs. Ogres, men, even Jahet and'Maldeev, scrambled out of the burning mist.
Only Khisanth did not emerge, for she was no longer on the Prime Material plane.
Chapter 19
Khisanth stood among the burned and broken bodies.. Her raised and clenched claw was extended toward the smoke-filled sky. Suddenly the dragon felt her bones contract and expand simultaneously, as if she were being squashed and stretched. The pain was excruciating. Khisanth wondered briefly if she hadn't suffered more grievously in the fighting than she'd thought. Craning her neck, the dragon looked down the length of her spine, but saw nothing that should cause such torment.
Is this how it feels to die? Must your soul be torn to incom shy;prehensible bits or compressed into nothing, to leave no trace behind?
Khisanth didn't take a step, or even twitch a muscle, but the world around her shifted, wavered, like summer's heat on pond water. As she peered through the haze, the landscape around her altered dramatically. Battlements, even the mountains, were gone, and the land stretched on forever, empty and flat against an eerily glowing red sky. The sky itself seemed to merge with the sandy ground, leaving no horizon, showing no stars nor moons nor sun. And yet, for all the radiant red, the area seemed as black as shadow.
At least, unlike in the plane of lightning, there was ground here. Khisanth dropped to all fours and stepped warily, half suspecting the ground to drop away beneath her like quick shy;sand. Movement was slow, but there was nothing to walk to, no landmark for which to head. Khisanth scanned the entire area, but still saw nothing.
Until she looked forward again. Misty vapors were slip shy;ping upward from the sand before her and coalescing into vaguely human forms. Blobby, molten flesh ran more than rested on their amorphous frames. They looked like anguished, twisted, mobile, melted candle wax. Only the occasional sug shy;gestion of a face separated one from another.
"What-who are you? Where am I?" she demanded.
Silence.
Suddenly, like an unstoppable, soundless tidal wave, a row of the hideous creatures surged forward. They raised molten claws from the depths of their blobby forms and raked the air before the black dragon.
Khisanth darted backward-into an equally dense row of the silent and bizarre creatures behind her. She saw more than felt claws sinking into her scales from before and behind. Each did little enough damage, but together the growing legions of nameless creatures were beginning to draw blood, and pain.
Like a sickle through tall grass, she swished her tail from side to side, sending the creatures tumbling across the sandy landscape. Some snapped in half like cold and brittle wax, then lay still, but more quickly rose from the sand behind her to replace them. The ones in front of her tore relentlessly at her chest, forelegs, anything they could sink a claw into. Khi shy;santh kicked and lashed out and bucked around wildly like a horse, trying to throw them off. Then she noticed that the
ones that had snapped in half had, like worms, formed into two new, tenacious creatures.
Desperate, she summoned the bile that waited in her stom shy;ach. It surged up her throat and shot out between her jaws in a hot green stream. Khisanth pivoted, aiming her acid down shy;ward, shaking gruesome creatures from her and into the cor shy;rosive acid. The creatures' faces twisted into even greater anguish as they dissolved. Hope flickered in Khisanth's breast. She shook and spewed with a fury, until every last creature was reduced to smoldering gray patches.