She was rising to her feet when a piercing series of shrieks rang out above her willow tree. Khisanth clapped her claws to her ear holes. Her head felt as if it would be split in two by the hideous noise, which seemed to come from the Abyss itself.
Khisanth knew of only one creature that made that sort of noise-a dragon. The spine-tingling, high-pitched screeches might have come from her own mouth. Khisanth dived through the archway to the pond and looked up just in time to confirm her suspicions. The body of an enormous black dragon, wings fully extended, sped away through the dusky sky. Its underbelly was well scarred.
Khisanth looked upon the first fellow dragon she'd seen since before the Sleep. The strange wyrm tucked its wings, turned sharply, and dived right for her lair. When it seemed the dragon would plunge straight into the tree, a slight twist of its wings sent it into a sharp bank. The wyrm-Khisanth could see he was a male now-leveled off just yards above the delicate willow branches, blasting leaves from their limbs. Still moving impossibly fast, the dragon curled his lips back from the yellowed knives of his teeth. The night ex shy;ploded in a crackling billow of stinking green acid.
Bile engulfed the graceful, arching branches of Khisanth's beloved willow. The ancient tree split and splintered. Great holes opened as branches exploded and spun into the air. Raising a claw, the attacking dragon boldly swooped to within a tail's length of his astonished target. Retracting one talon, he raked two deep scratches into the living wood above Khisanth's head. Then, with a mighty pump of his wings and a last threatening screech, he rose above the siz shy;zling willow and into the dark sky.
The shriek of challenge finally shook Khisanth from her daze. She gave a mighty slap of her tail that sent a wave of water crashing over the still-smoking husk of her willow tree, washing away whatever was left of the other dragon's acid. The corrosive bile sputtered wherever it touched the water. Khisanth's lair at the base of the tree was still largely intact, though hideously scarred.
Think twice, act once, Kadagan had always said. Khisanth called on her qhen training to still the fury and the urge to chase after the wyrm. She had learned the price of such foolishness the hard way-lost information from her first battle with ogres, pain and humiliation from the disastrous skir shy;mish with the young Solamnic Knight at Needle Pass.
At least this unprovoked attack had solved one mystery. "He's obviously the one who's been watching me," Khisanth muttered aloud. But the intent of the assault still puzzled her. The dragon's acid could easily have destroyed her lair, if that was his goal. He was either a bungler or a rival for the same territory.
Her fury turned to puzzlement, then curiosity. Another dragon … It would be interesting to talk to another of her kind. Looking at her still-smoldering lair, she thought it unlikely he had conversation on his mind.
Khisanth sprang from the ground and into the air. She headed west, in the direction the other dragon had taken. From her one flight over the rest of the moors, when she had scouted for her lair, she knew the place was enormous. Even a simple flight from east to west would take many days, and the moor was twice as long from north to south as it was from east to west. A shrub-by-shrub examination could take a lifetime. Pushing herself hard, she hoped she would gain enough ground to catch sight of the dragon again, but she couldn't be sure of his flight trail.
After some time, when her wings began to ache and she had seen only Lunitari in the dark night sky, she landed. The dragon adopted the shape of the first creature she saw. Upon questioning, the blue-necked mallard admitted seeing another flying creature, much larger than itself. But it had never encountered the winged creature on the ground.
Khisanth traveled westward on foot in a variety of guises, from snout-nosed aardvark to zebra, questioning everything she met for some sign pointing to the other dragon's lair.
Her first useful clue came when, as a curly-tusked warthog, she learned of a place over which an enormous winged crea shy;ture flew regularly. The other warthog had also heard loud rumblings just beyond a ridge of rocks to the north and west. Changing yet again into the sleek, weasel-like body of a meerkat, hoping to be overlooked as a rodent by a wary
dragon in his lair, Khisanth scampered over a low ridge.
From the rise Khisanth surveyed the stretch of marsh ahead. With her magic, she detected dark emotions in the vicinity, too far away to read but too strong to come from even the largest bear, or even the deadly, many-headed hydra.
Khisanth knew better than to approach the other dragon's lair too closely, knowing from her own experience that his senses would warn him of intruders if they were too bold. Instead, she took to the sky as a dragon to scout at a distance.
A dragon's imprint on the area was unmistakable to another dragon's eye. The largest trees were withered and blackened, but left standing as signs of ownership. Where boulders jutted above the water or marshy ground, they were cut deeply with parallel claw marks.
At the center of this area was a knob of ground covered in reeds and rocks. The stones looked unnatural, as if deliberately placed there ages before. The pattern suggested a series of con shy;centric rings, but most of the rocks were now tumbled and overgrown with rushes and swamp grass. Near the center of this knoll there was a blackness, clear indication of a lair.
Khisanth intended to leave a message not unlike his-the destruction of her tree. Blood once again pulsed pleasantly behind her eyes. Using the maynus, she banished the dark shy;ness from the night sky. A blinding beam of light shot for shy;ward from her claws to the entrance of the wyrm's lair, enveloping it in absolute brilliance.
As Khisanth had hoped, the other dragon crawled from the mouth of its lair and into the painfully bright light. Blink shy;ing against the light, the other dragon held up a claw arm to block it out. It kept the light from cutting at his eyes, but still he could see nothing but blinding whiteness around him.
Khisanth now had perfect opportunity to study her fellow black dragon, illuminated as he was. He had deep age lines around his eyes. His graying, spotted lips sagged on the sides like an old man's jowls, revealing more teeth missing than not. He was decked out in a necklace of sky-blue sapphires and forest-green emeralds with a matching anklet. Circling
his massive head was a pearl diadem, a large pear-shaped ruby at its center.
Khisanth allowed herself a brief, smug smile at his pain and confusion. She chose her first words carefully. "Now, dragon, we meet on equal footing." She hadn't heard her voice in so long that its deep, even timbre pleased her.
The other dragon held as still as stone for a moment. His eyes, one orange, the other blue, shifted from side to side. "Is that you, Talon?" his old voice rumbled, curious and con shy;cerned. "Put out that light so that I can see you."
"No, I'm not Talon. And as for the light, answer my ques shy;tions first, and I will consider dimming it." Khisanth watched for the other dragon to ready his breath weapon. His chest rose slowly, evenly. Still, her eyes never left him. "First, so that we may converse like civilized dragons, tell me your name."
"You say you're a dragon, but you don't sound like one. If you were a true wyrm, you'd know that dragons are not civi shy;lized. However, if you allow the absurdity of the term, 'civi shy;lized' dragons don't toy with each other this way. Either kill me," the older dragon challenged, "or douse the light so that I may see."
Khisanth's fury rose. "Civilized dragons don't attack each other without provocation," she countered.