Led suddenly seemed to regain use of his senses. The old, fearless smile came to his lips. He reached for her hand, his own trembling. "You spoke in riddles last night, with your talk of dragons and the gathering armies. I dismissed the
idea because I didn't want to be an ordinary grunt. I didn't know about, well, you being a dragon. We'd rise to the top, you and I. Didn't I say we made a great team?"
Onyx let her cold hand rest in his as she considered his anxious words.
"You've got to believe me, Onyx. I thought you were the one who abandoned me." Led bent his head to hers, his lips brushing her cool ones. He pressed himself against her naked body. "We were so good together. I should have known bet shy;ter."
"Yes, you should have," the young woman mumbled in agreement against his lips. Onyx could feel Led relaxing against her, eyes closed. In a heartbeat, the dragon Khisanth replaced Onyx. She jerked him off the ground and held him up like a child examining a bug. Before the mercenary could cry out, his handsome face disappeared into the dragon's jaws. Then it was too late.
There was nothing left for him to scream with.
PART TWO
Chapter 10
Khisanth's neck muscles tensed into thick black cords. Her scales rose like hackles. There it was again, that malevolent, watchful presence. Someone was definitely following her. Or some shy;thing. The dragon squinted skyward from the trail she'd beaten through the tamarack to her lair. Turning a full circle, Khisanth scanned the horizon. As before, she saw nothing to confirm her suspicion.
Ever since she'd started across the Miremier to the Great Moors in search of a lair, the dragon had not been able to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. That was many lunar cycles ago, when snow had still blanketed the tamarack and ice had covered the ponds-not long after she'd eaten her human lover. Led's death was a delicious memory for Khisanth, and she used it to reckon time-one season after the devouring of Led, four lunar cycles since,
and so on.
She'd discovered the huge fen she now called home on a practice flight with Kadagan past the sandy desert on the western edge of the Endscape peninsula. Strong westerly winds had made flight difficult that day and pushed the heavy, pungent scent of stagnant water and rotting humus within reach of her sensitive nostrils. Kadagan had told her that the Great Moors were so vast that it took an entire day for the winds to push the clouds from west to east above them. Some instinct had told Khisanth that she belonged in such a bleak place, that a lair in the swamp would soothe her soul the way a cold meal sated her stomach.
After the events at Needle Pass, Khisanth couldn't bear the thought of living near there. She felt no kinship with moun shy;tains. Neither was she interested in returning to the tiny, unremarkable lair the nyphids had found for her in the grass shy;lands of Endscape. The dragon had never liked it anyway.
Khisanth's soul had stirred with the memory of the moor. Taking whatever treasure she fancied from Led and the dead ogres, Khisanth had gathered up her maynus choker and headed straightaway for the swamp. She had not looked back.
Khisanth usually explored her pond, her territory, by foot as a dragon. To practice her qhen techniques she would occa shy;sionally take on the forms of smaller creatures indigenous to the area-such as field mice or mundane serpents-to view the swamp as they would. The dragon had been curious to see how her lair looked from a muskrat's reed-and-mud dam in the center of her pond. The furry, beaverlike creature had been delicious.
Now, as she approached the hollow tree lair she'd taken for her own, Khisanth's gaze fell happily on the area sur shy;rounding it. Large, looming willows and other water-loving trees fanned out to where the earth met the dark purple sky. Low-growing shrubs covered everything else, hiding slip shy;pery bogs. At odd intervals the dead gray stumps of stripped pine trees poked skyward through the greenery, giving the tamarack an invitingly bleak appearance.
Khisanth walked the perimeter of her small pond. The southern edge was flanked by graceful willows whose drap shy;ing branches fanned the filmy surface of the pond. Their size attested to their ancient origins; most of them towered more than three times Khisanth's height. Best of all, their trunks were thick with knotted roots that formed tall, vaulted arch shy;ways where the water lapped against them.
Khisanth stepped into the chill, murky pond and waded toward an enormous tree whose roots arched majestically some eight feet above the pool's green surface. She bent her head to the water and half ducked, half swam, through the archway into the tree.
Nature had hollowed the place as if it were intended as a dragon's lair. Bright, glowing lichen that looked almost mag shy;ical clung to the moist, corklike walls. Pond water reached halfway through the chamber. Toward the back of the lair, the tree climbed onto the bank and provided solid ground for abed.
Living so close to water, Khisanth had learned to glory in swimming, to revel in the feel of tepid water gliding over her scales and filling her nostrils. The feeling would never replace that of flying, but it was a close second.
She discovered a whole new world underwater, where fish and other aquatic creatures provided tasty tidbits so flavorful they surpassed even the most tender moose. Though she was the largest creature to swim in these waters, Khisanth had learned to glide beneath the surface so quietly that she could surprise beavers on their dams and gobble them whole, before panic could spoil the flavor of their meat.
Territorial skirmishes had given Khisanth the chance to taste creatures whose flavors, no matter how rewarding the kills, were unappealing. The lizard-bird cockatrice's ability to turn her to stone with its touch caused her to forego her favorite trick of biting off its head. Instead, she'd leveled it with her acid, leaving little to taste. Then there'd been that giant poisonous toad. Khisanth still shivered at the taste of its slimy, scaleless body filled with bitter-if not deadly- poison.
Still troubled by the thought of being followed, Khisanth curled up on the floor of her lair and fell into her favorite pas shy;time: counting and sorting the treasures hung on her choker. Though the necklace had been conceived to transport her cache and leave her claws free, its constant presence around her neck had become a comfort, a talisman. She'd taken to stringing the skulls of her enemies between the shiny weapons as spacers, to keep the trinkets fanned out around her entire neck instead of sliding down to hang in a clump from her throat like a lead weight. She removed the choker only to add new valuables, or to count and stroke her baubles, or to stare into the most valuable of all her prizes, the maynus globe.
Khisanth's thoughts frequently turned to those who had given her the maynus and what they had taught her. The memories began warmly enough, of Kadagan's patient train shy;ing and Joad's healing hands. But the remembrances always turned prickly when she would recall the younger nyphid's last words to her. They had planted seeds of doubt that easily germinated in the fertile, damp silence of the moors.
Khisanth knew now that she had not done everything she could to save Dela. If she'd not gotten so distracted by her human form, she would have killed the entire party the sec shy;ond she was certain Dela was in the wagon. Even before.
The dragon suffered no guilt at this failure, but she did feel regret. She deeply rued that she'd been so horribly wrong about Led. Yet, she was convinced that she wasn't responsi shy;ble for that, either. She blamed her faulty thinking entirely on her human form.
As the dragon began to muse about the nyphids and the limitations of humankind, a familiar, unpleasant sensation dragged her attention back to her lair. Khisanth fell as still as stone, her musings banished. There it was again, that feeling…. Whoever it was had come close to her home this time-too close for Khisanth's peace of mind.