Slipping inside the reach of her thrashing wing, one knight drove his spear into the dragon's neck. Shadow screeched and belched acid to dissolve the weapon's shaft. But before she could win free, two more men rushed forward and plunged their pikes into the great beasf s heart.
A tremendous cheer rose from soldiers on the wall as Shadow's body fell slack. Her slayers simply let go of their weapons and rejoined the rest of the sortie party as they fell back inside the castle.
Jahet and Khisanth were circling away from the castle when Shadow was snared by the defenders. Their first inkling that something was wrong came when Khisanth spotted Lhode flying by himself, trying frantically to catch up with the two other dragons and the highlord.
"Take us over the eastern wall to see how Salah Khan fares," ordered Maldeev, oblivious of events there.
The dragons climbed briefly to get above the archers in the castle and to better survey the battlefield. Maldeev flew into a rage on seeing the mauled body of Shadow lying in the moat along the eastern wall, amid the wreckage of that attack.
In the wake of Shadow's death, the castle's defenders were solidly in control of the battlements. Pointing with his mace, Maldeev indicated one section of wall for each dragon to attack: Lhode to the north, Khisanth to the east, and Maldeev and Jahet to the south.
Wheeling in unison, the dragons circled the castle once before diving again into the heartened defenders. It seemed that wherever their shadows passed, men felt the fear of burning death. When the dragons' screams reverberated from the walls, those warriors with faint hearts dropped their weapons and ran for shelter. The ones who stood their ground were swept away, others who sheltered behind the battlements were burned and suffocated by acid.
Broken ladders and piles of dead ogres and stone-hard draconians beneath the southern wall testified to the bitter shy;ness of the escalade. Khan had voiced concern about the dra shy;conians being the ones to lead the charge-if they made it to the top and were killed, the baaz would turn to stone and crush anything beneath them on a ladder; a dead kapak would similarly shrivel his fellow troops with acid.
But now that the dragons had cleared the ramparts, ogre and draconian forces clambered freely up and over the walls. Flaming arrows arced overhead and into the courtyard, not discriminating friend from foe, though they did little to the brutish ogres or machinelike draconians.
A lone, anguished cry suddenly cut through the din of battle raging in the inner ward. Khisanth looked up. Her eyes narrowed upon spotting the knight she'd been waiting for. The visor of his helmet was open, showing his face clearly.
Tate showed no signs of fear, only rage. The knight shook his fist skyward, then turned unexpectedly and darted into the arched doorway to the citadel's main keep.
Startled, Khisanth's first instinct was to chase him down and obliterate him from the face of Krynn, once and for all. But something felt wrong, and she realized what it was- she'd lost sight of Jahet. Almost too late, she spotted the dragon and her highlord nearby, locked in close combat with a handful of sword-wielding knights who had put their backs to the southeast tower wall and were now fighting des shy;perately. Jahet was in no real danger, but she couldn't close with one knight without others attacking her.
Neither dragon nor highlord appeared to notice the three archers crouched in Jahef s shadow, barbed tips aimed pur shy;posefully at her underbelly.
Khisanth knew she could neither get around Jahet nor accurately use her breath weapon in time to stop the shots. The dragon did the only thing she could think of-she slammed into Jahet. The ranking dragon was knocked off balance and out of harm's way, nearly dumping Maldeev from the saddle. The highlord grabbed the saddle horn and righted himself. Then he cast a stormy glance at Khisanth, in time to see her take an arrow in the lower abdomen, an arrow meant for Jahet.
Khisanth touched down on the battlement briefly and looked below at the small, feather-tipped stick protruding from her belly. Reaching down with almost clinical detach shy;ment, she snapped the arrow at the base and flung it away. Her eyes turned on the wide-eyed archers who still crouched beneath her. One jumped up and began to run. Jahet's hind claw reached out and snatched him up; flapping her wings rapidly, she flew straight up about fifty feet and uncurled her claws, dropping him into the courtyard. The archer's com shy;rades had only seconds to contemplate his demise. Khisanth unleashed a stream of green acid that reduced them all to shrieking, then silent puddles of half-eaten flesh and bone.
The three remaining dragons were now together on the top of the east wall. Maldeev was formulating a plan for them when his mount murmured, "Griffons!" Khisanth's head snapped up from the sizzling remains of a knight.
Two wooden doors twice the height of a man had been thrown wide open, and several of the lion-bodied creatures with the wings, heads, and forelegs of eagles were poised for flight. On the back of the lead griffon was Tate.
Khisanth had never before seen these creatures, notorious for their obsession with horseflesh. Though shorter at the shoulder than the average human, the creatures' furry yellow thighs looked dense and well muscled. Golden feathers adorned their front halves, from wingtips to razor-sharp beaks. Tate's griffon stepped from the confines of the thresh shy;old and spread its wings to an incredible span of twenty-five feet, the length of a dragon. Emitting the shrill cry of its eagle cousin, Tate's mount sprang into the air, followed closely by four other griffons bearing knights.
"They can't hope to survive a battle in the air against us," scoffed Maldeev.
"They won't have to," observed Khisanth, nodding toward the griffons, who had begun knocking lumbering draconians and ogres from Lamesh's battlements, "if they keep that up."
Maldeev snarled, then dug his heels into his dragon. Jahet and Khisanth tore fiercely after the griffons. To the dragons' amazement and annoyance, the smaller griffons darted away from the cumbersome dragons like startled flies.
"Get them!" Maldeev cried, while Jahet tried desperately to comply.
Laughing aloud at their frustration, Tate tugged his griffon to tuck a wing and bank abruptly to the left. His heels dug in and drove his griffon to sprint away from Lamesh, headed southwest between tree line and cloud. The other four griffons had scattered to every corner of the compass as well. Lhode looked about to pursue, when Maldeev barked, "Lhode, return to Volg and protect your unit. Cover Shadow's unit as well. Jahet, Khisanth, and I will chase down their leader."
Khisanth felt oddly clumsy and ponderous watching the griffon's agile movements ahead of them. The more powerful dragons quickly closed the distance to less than ten feet. Tate watched them approach over his shoulders. Khisanth could see through the holes in his helmet to the fearless look in his dark brown eyes. His hand was on the grip of his sword. Tate's grif shy;fon shrieked and wheeled abruptly to face the pursuers.
"Stand and fight, brave knight," jeered Maldeev, maneu shy;vering Jahet into face-off position.
Tate appeared not to have heard the dragon highlord's insult, or even noticed the human. In fact, he was looking around Maldeev at Khisanth with obvious interest. "I didn't piece it all together," he said to her, "until I got it from the horse's mouth."
"We'll not meet again, you and I," Khisanth said. "I won shy;der, will your brand of knighthood hold you in good stead at the door to your god's domain?"
Tate's eyes narrowed at the presumption of his death.
"The principals of Good are the only things worth living-or dying-for."
"Damn you, Khisanth," Maldeev snarled suddenly, "do your job and kill the bastard!"
Rattled, Khisanth called forth her acid and sent it spraying from her maw at the same time Jahet stretched her right wing forward for a wing slap. Neither connected, as the griffon bearing Tate shot up into a thick cloud. Khisanth could see and hear her acid sizzling uselessly through the branches of a tree beneath her; Jahet and Maldeev tumbled slightly before recovering from the missed slap.