The truth was, without the old knight to steel his resolve, Sir Tate's interest in rising to the Order of the Rose had waned. In a secret corner of his soul, Tate had even dared to wonder if Kiri-Jolith hadn't abandoned him first.
As the lord knight picked his way through the sleeping bodies in the courtyard, he couldn't help thinking that many were taking their last mortal rest. The thought propelled Tate faster toward a long overdue talk with his god.
Chapter 22
Maldeev was feeling confident. The highlord sat apart from his four black dragons, who waited restlessly for daybreak on a rocky cliff west of Lamesh. He knew that when the sun crested the horizon to the east, Salah Khan would issue the order for the ground troops to advance on Lamesh's south wall. The sec shy;ond he saw the knights' attention devoted there, Maldeev would lead the dragons in an attack on the west wall. It was a plan the highlord was certain couldn't fail.
The pace of the assault had gone from boring to breakneck in one long night. The draconians, under Horak's watchful eye, had chopped down trees that the ogres turned into makeshift bridges for fording the moat and ladders for climb shy;ing crenelated walls.
Maldeev had flown to this vantage point with the dragons late in the night. Though the steady downpour was an uncomfortable nuisance for the highlord, it seemed to act like a mental balm for the black dragons. They'd dropped into sleep after foraging for food in the mountains farther west.
Wound as tight as a spring, the highlord had been the first to awaken, though he wasted no time in rousing the others to draw a crude battle diagram in the dirt. The plan had changed little from the one drawn up at a war council of officers and dragons the day before the march north. Truly, the only alter shy;ation was to the role of the dragons, and that was as obvious and simple as the dirt in which Maldeev had drawn it.
"Whoever built Lamesh obviously did not consider aerial attacks," the highlord said. "It must have been built during the time your kind was banished from Krynn."
"Technically, we still are," Khisanth interjected mildly. "The Dark Queen's return to Krynn is the point of the war, isn't it?"
"Yes, I guess so." Maldeev's eyebrows raised unpleasantly at being openly addressed by a dragon other than Jahet. Per shy;haps Khisanth had presumed too much from the highlord's willingness to let her respond to the knight's emissary the previous evening. Maldeev had had the messenger slain instantly by Jahet. The highlord had intended the riderless horse to be his answer to the request to let women, children, and old men go free. But Khisanth had insisted that she'd fought the leader of the knights and knew just what response would shake him. Maldeev had allowed it, seeing no harm.
He stood, stretched, and looked again to the sky, which was starting to show signs of dawn between the swollen rain clouds overhead. "Prepare yourselves. It's nearly time."
Atop Jahet, Maldeev was to lead the dragons. Volg and Horak would direct their ogre and draconian troops forward in the initial southern charge, so Lhode and Shadow would pick them up on the battlefield after the dragons joined the fray.
Since Khisanth had no rider, she stood by, almost idly watching Maldeev pull on the last of his war attire, a pair of tight leather gauntlets that flared at the wrists. He pulled something from a small bag tied to his waist and held it to
the light. It was a plain gold ring topped by a smooth, flat cir shy;cle of onyx. At length, Maldeev placed it over the gloved index finger of his right hand.
"New ring, Maldeev?" Jahet asked idly as the dragon shrugged to adjust the ornate saddle he'd tossed up between her wing blades.
"Yes," the dragon highlord said quickly, withdrawing the band almost self-consciously. "Andor insisted I take along a protective ring." He saw Jahet's interest stir. "He is my dark cleric, after all-if s his job to think of such things. I only took it to humor him. You know how I hate magic-didn't even want Andor near this battle." With a shrug, Maldeev wiggled the ring from his gloved finger.
Jahet shook her head slowly. "You already know what a mistake I think his absence is. Wear the bloody thing, Mal shy;deev," she prompted. "What will it hurt? It just may come in handy." Maldeev jammed the black-and-gold ring over the gloved index finger. Jahet looked satisfied, though she won shy;dered at this new, acquiescent side of her soul mate.
"Jahet," Maldeev called to his dragon, tipping his head to indicate that she should turn her ear to him. The highlord whispered briefly, and Jahef s face lit up.
"I'll ask her," she said to the highlord. The ranking dragon turned to Khisanth. "Maldeev has suggested, and I concur, that you ride as our wing dragon." She looked intently at her friend. "This is offered to honor your solo value, Khisanth. If s not an order."
The younger black dragon felt pride swell in her breast. "It would be my honor," she said. Maldeev nodded once and strode away to mentally prepare himself for battle.
"Stay close to us, Khisanth," Jahet whispered to her sud shy;denly, with the highlord out of earshot. "I sense a reckless shy;ness in Maldeev I've never seen before, as if he believes he can't lose…."
Khisanth nodded. She heard a distant noise and cocked a sensitive ear to the west. A trumpet. . . the knights had sounded the alarm.
"Fly!" cried Maldeev. Jahet dropped her left shoulder to the ground. Using it as a step, the highlord bounded into the saddle and swung his broadsword over his head thrice. Jahet sprang from the ledge, covered the short distance to the ravine below the cliff, and arched into a dive, Khisanth in sync at her left side. Pulling up short just above the gurgling, waterfall-fed reservoir at the bottom of the ravine, Jahet pre shy;pared for ascent.
Not even a feeding frenzy would have stirred Khisanth's senses as much as the thought of what they were about to do. She felt that old, familiar bloodlust in her veins. The dragon drew on that energy for speed, summoned every drop from the farthest reaches of her body to propel her skyward in stunning opposition to the waterfall pounding earthward.
Khisanth crested the cliff face beside Jahet. One hundred knights stood on the walkways between the double crene shy;lated walls, bows in their hands. They were poised in profile to the dragons as they fired arrows down upon the attackers to the south. Khisanth opened her jaws to loose a primal scream that split the humid morning air. The knights spun around in unison at the nerve-shattering shrieks of four bloodthirsty dragons. Most froze, bows dropping uselessly from many a hand at the sight. How she loved the look of panic she caused in the eyes of men! She smirked at the sight of the humans in their knightly finery, trembling in her shadow.
Khisanth kept Jahet locked in the corner of her right eye. The ranking dragon banked left slightly to address the lim shy;ited forces on the cliff wall, compelling Khisanth to hook as well. While Maldeev sliced heads from shoulders and Jahet breathed acid, Khisanth angled herself to the southwest cor shy;ner. Lowering her shoulder just slightly, she swept a fifty-foot stretch of wall clean of fear-struck knights with the edge of her wing. As she swerved away, she grasped the last man in the line with her claws and flung him screaming over the cliff to the ravine below. At a nod from Jahet, they climbed quickly in unison to prevent attacks against their bellies,. They dived again into the frenzied throng, scattering men like chickens.
On the opposite wall, Lhode and Shadow were carrying out a similar maneuver. Neither dragon had ever fought in a battle before, but they had practiced this sort of coordinated attack many times on the drill fields and walls of Shalimsha. But those drills had been against dummies, never against a determined enemy. And Tate's knights, while not as pre shy;pared for this battle as they might have been, had spent months licking their wounds after the defeat at Shalimsha and devising ways to fight dragons.