"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.
"Follow him!" bellowed Maldeev, nudging Jahet's flanks with his heels.
"We can't chase him through the clouds," snorted Jahet. "We're likely to bump into him and get wounded ourselves. You're letting your rage control you, Maldeev." She looked behind her at the battle at Lamesh. "Isn't it obvious he's just trying to keep us away from the battle?"
"If you'd been doing your job," said Maldeev, "he'd be dead by now, and we'd be back in the fray. Now, think of some way to find him in these damned clouds!" His tone of voice assured that he would not be swayed.
"I've an idea for drawing them out," interjected Khisanth. She spoke quickly to Jahet.
The ranking dragon nodded. "You'd better cast it. My spells aren't what they used to be." Jahet could feel Maldeev shifting in the saddle, growing more impatient. "Do it!"
Khisanth got the idea from a favorite trick of Pteros's; the old dragon used it to entice meals to come to him. She quickly summoned the scent of raw horseflesh from her memory of eating her own mount. Focusing intently, Khi shy;santh envisioned the strong, meaty aroma slipping through the confines of her skull and being swept up by the winds.
"What's that awful stench?" demanded Maldeev, shud shy;dering.
Neither dragon, whose salivary glands were furiously working, could respond. Answering the illusionary scent of its obsession-horse meat-the griffon shrieked like an eagle and flew out of the protection of the cloud, headed right for the waiting dragons. Tate tugged furiously at its rope bit but couldn't compete with the griffon's driving hunger.
Maldeev caught on to the nature of the spell Khisanth had cast. "Brilliant!" he crowed to the dragon.
With wings fully extended, the griffon rushed mindlessly toward the scent, bringing Tate within striking distance.
Struggling to control his mount, the knight pulled a morn shy;ing star from his saddle and swung it around his head. The spiked ball at the end of its chain circled ever closer to the highlord's head. Jahet angled slightly and took the blow her shy;self. The morning star bounced harmlessly off her scales.
Maldeev gave Jahet a two-tap signal and pressed his legs tightly to the dragon's sides. Jahet abruptly rolled over to throw off their opponent. She completed the rotation and squared off again, stunned to see that it had neither unnerved Tate nor increased the distance between them. In fact, the knight had pressed in closer and switched to his sword, wav shy;ing it at the dragon and highlord as if daring them to strike. She couldn't even unleash acid at such close range because the inevitable splash would strike Maldeev. She decided to pivot and hit the knight with her tail.
Khisanth couldn't see how close they were. The roll-over maneuver had put Jahet between Khisanth and Tate. The wing dragon moved to dart around Jahet's head when the sun sliced through the cloud cover. Khisanth was nearly blinded by a flash of brilliant light glinting off something in Maldeev's hands.
Jahet's left wing lifted for a backhand strike at Tate, but she abruptly reared and choked uncontrollably, her red eyes wide. The gagging sounds stopped within heartbeats. Jahet began inexplicably to drop like a rock from the sky, with Maldeev clinging to her back.
The knight and griffon were forgotten as the wing dragon was struck dumb, witless. What had happened to Jahet?
"Khisanth!" she heard the highlord cry.
The sound brought the dragon from her stupor. She blinked and saw that the lifeless dragon and thrashing
human separately spiraled earthward.
Khisanth forced herself into a nosedive. Gauging Maldeev's speed, she focused her sights on a location between his falling form and the treetops, swooping under shy;neath him and into position. The highlord sprawled awk shy;wardly with a jarring thump upon her spine. Maldeev clawed his way to where a saddle would have been.
Maldeev was speaking into Khisanth's ear, but she could scarcely hear him as she watched the body of her friend crash unceremoniously through the canopy of trees below.
"He must have killed her!" Khisanth heard Maldeev at last. He clung to the scales on her neck. "It's an incredible bit of luck that you were riding as wing dragon, or I would have dropped to my death as well."
On the ground, the broken branches settled around Jahef s still, twisted body.
Khisanth's eyes shot skyward to where she'd last seen Tate. The knight was gone. Then her fevered eyes spotted the knight's bright silver armor against the dull sky. He was relentlessly spurring his griffon toward Lamesh.
She engaged all the speed Jahet had envied in her and quickly closed the distance between them. Khisanth was angling herself for a mighty tail slap when Maldeev's voice, high-pitched with agitation, penetrated her pounding head.
"What do you think you're doing? I'm without a saddle back here. Disengage immediately!"
"Then you'd better hang on," she said coldly, and Maldeev clutched her scales. Like a whip, Khisanth's tail snapped against the griffon's lionlike hindquarters. The creature shot forward, its feathered head jerked back hard. Knight and griffon began tumbling earthward. Khisanth shot forward to bat them back and forth between her wings like a cat with a mouse in its paws. The disoriented griffon, its wings broken in many places, began to spiral out of control.