Lady Meredith stepped up to him and adjusted the hang of his sword, her cobalt blue eyes twinkling. She took the moment to whisper to him, "Milord, are you absolutely certain this is the right thing?"
"No," he returned with a smile.
"Lord Gunthar, before you proceed," Liam Ehrling said from the back. "I wish it known that I am utterly opposed to this. The Knights of Takhisis cannot be trusted."
"I am sure, Sir Liam," Gunthar returned, "that they feel the same way about us."
The captain of the guards of Castle uth Wistan stepped in from the courtyard and bowed to Lord Gunthar. "Milord, we are ready."
5
"Do you feel them?" Alya shouted into the wind.
"Feel what?" Tohr asked in return, twisting in the dragonsaddle to better hear his lieutenant.
"Eyes, in the forest below, watching us," she shouted as she leaned forward in the large, three-man saddle.
"What did you say?" asked the Knight riding behind her. She ignored him.
"I hadn't noticed," Tohr answered her.
For a moment, their dragon ceased the slow beat of his wings and glided through the night air above the Forest of Gunthar. He twisted its great cerulean-scaled head around to gaze at the riders on his back.
"I feel them," he said in a voice which boomed like a great bass drum. "And I've seen them, too, silver dragons, lurking about down there in the dark. They don't want us here," he said, then returned to his flying. The riders lurched back in their seats as the dragon's great wings resumed their slow rhythm, and the creature rose to fly over a tall tree-covered hill rising from the dark ahead.
As they turned, Alya Starblade glanced behind them. In the dark sky, she picked out eleven other blue dragons, all similarly accoutered with the large, three-man dragonsaddles. They flew in perfect formation, four groups of three each. Occasionally, starlight glinted off a buckle here or a spur there, the only sign that each dragon also carried riders. She shifted again in the seat, trying to ease her aching back. The saddles were almost unbearably uncomfortable, having been originally designed for the transport of draconian troops, and the heavy dragonscale armor she wore didn't make things any better.
At least, she thought, there aren't any silvers following us, upsetting our blues.
"How much longer before we get there?" shouted the Knight behind her. Alya ignored him, but she was wondering the same thing herself. The flight from Qualinost was the most grueling dragon flight she'd ever undertaken in her brief but eventful career as a Knight of Her Dark Majesty, Takhisis. Silently, she cursed the short supply of blue dragons of late. Even only a few years ago, all thirty-six Knights sent on this expedition could have ridden their own dragons, in battle harnesses that were a luxury compared to these blasted draconian contraptions. But the coming of the new dragons from across the sea had changed all that. Blues and reds were vanishing, the black dragons had retreated to their murky swamps and meres, the greens had gone the-gods-only-knew where, and the whites were useless, restricted as they were to the arctic regions.
As much as she hated boats, Alya almost wished they had taken a ship, but then she remembered how unsafe it was to sail to Sancrist these days. Her youngest sister had gone down with Donkaren, a war galleon in the Knights of Takhisis's navy, when it was attacked by the red dragon Pyrothraxus off the coast of the Isle of Cristyne. That was only a few months ago, at the beginning of summer, but already the leaves of the trees were turning to gold and auburn. The pain of that loss was still fresh to her.
A growl from their dragon started Alya from her thoughts. Below them, gray stone battlements shone dully in the starlight. The tops of the towers of a Solamnic castle rose from the trees crowning a hill. The dragon's flight took it within spear-throwing distance of the castle's towers, and as they flew over it, Alya was delighted to see the startled faces of a group of sleepy guards staring up at them in surprise and horror. She laughed into the wind.
"This land would be so easy to take," she said. The dragon agreed with a laughing rumble, which attested its willingness to join such an endeavor.
"What?" asked the Knight behind her.
Without turning, her commander and the leader of this expedition, Sir Tohr Malen said, "Yes, but you couldn't keep it. Look behind you."
Alya turned. A huge bonfire, built in an iron rack atop one of the castles towers, flared and burst into flame as she watched. In its light, she saw the figures of armed men running frantically about, pointing at the sky. One by one, the other dragons also passed over the castle, their bluescaled bellies sharply underlit by the fire.
"Now look there," Sir Tohr said.
In the darkness a few miles ahead of them, atop another hill, a glimmer of fire sparkled. Soon, it too was a raging bonfire. At Tohr's command, the dragon banked to avoid flying too near it. Before long, as far as they could see, hilltops blazed with signal fires. Some seemed to blink, as Alya saw men waving blankets before them.
"What are they doing?" she asked.
"They have a code," Tohr answered. "They are not only signaling that danger is approaching but also what kind of danger. It is really quite ingenious."
"I could stop them," the dragon offered.
"There is no need. We are expected," Tohr said.
"Are you sure? Those people seem quite surprised to see us," Alya said of a tiny village carved from the forest below them. In the clearing, she saw villagers dashing about with torches and staring fearfully over their shoulders at the sky.
"But we aren't being attacked by silver dragons," Tohr answered her. "Don't imagine for a moment we could have gotten this far if Gunthar hadn't forewarned the silvers of our arrival."
"Steer clear of the signal fires and villages," Tohr ordered the dragon. "We want to avoid any possibility of an incident."
"Yes, Lord Tohr," the dragon growled.
"And when you leave us, fly straight back to Neraka where our supreme commander Mistress Mirielle Abrena awaits your return. As long as you are over Sancrist, the silvers will be watching you, so no looting along the way, or you'll ruin everything."
"Yes, Lord Tohr."
Alya leaned well forward in the saddle and placed her hand on Tohr's arm. At her touch, he started but did not turn. "And no fraternizing with your superiors, soldier," he said out of the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, Lord Tohr," she answered in a low voice.
"What?" asked the Knight behind her.
Finally, Alya answered him. "No one was speaking to you, Trevalyn," she snapped at him over her shoulder.
For perhaps the hundredth time, he tugged his cloak closer around his body. "I hope this doesn't take much longer," Trevalyn snarled. "I must have rest and time to study my spells."
"Why? You can't cast them!" Alya laughed.
"It is the curse of the mage that he must nightly renew his spells," the Knight said, repeating it like a mantra.
"Magic is dead. It vanished with the moons," Alya taunted. "You are here as a representative of the Order of the Thorn, nothing more. Don't try your tricks and mysteries on me. You have no power." She turned, saying under her breath, "And I don't know why the Thorns are still part of the Knighthood anyway. They're useless."
It is well that she couldn't see Trevalyn's face at that moment. He imagined spouts of flame erupting from her eye sockets, finally contenting himself with watching the panorama of Sancrist Isle at night, spread below him like a velvet ebon blanket sprinkled with shining jewels.
Swiftly, their dragon led the winding way among the low forested hills of southern Sancrist, flying just above the treetops, because it was well known that Lord Tohr Malen did not care for heights. Trevalyn eyed the rich forest lands below with something akin to contempt. He was of a desert-loving race; he cared little for forests and farmlands, except to destroy them with his magic. Now his magic was gone, as Alya had said. At the end of the Chaos War, when the gods fled Krynn, they took magic with them, leaving the mages of the world powerless, as empty and hopeless as princes robbed of their birthright. Still, some inkling of magic was left to Trevalyn. His senses were still attuned to things. The wind brought to his keen nostrils the sweet heathery smell of cattle and cattle barns, the toothy aroma of wood smoke and roasting meat, but it also roused the wet, rotted-wood stink of silver dragons, reminding him that this land was guarded ceaselessly by those cursed shining foes. There, in an undercurrent of the breeze, floated the sulfurous but utterly alien fume of the strange new dragon who lorded over the northern half of this island. Trevalyn knew of Pyrothraxus-what mage didn't know of the new dragons from across the sea, what mage didn't see them in their dreams and long for the magic they seemed to possess?