“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.

  Khisanth snatched the knight from its back and let the creature plummet. She did not even follow its descent, con shy;centrating instead on her own landing. She scarcely felt Mal shy;deev scramble from her back.

  Khisanth squeezed the talons of her right claw tightly around Tate, pinning his arms and compressing the metal of his armor. She held him up before her eyes, pushed back his visor, and inspected him as a child would a bug. Almost ten shy;derly the dragon traced a talon along the scars she’d scratched into his flesh. “What a waste. You were in the wrong army,” she said.

  Though he gasped for breath against the pressure of her claw, Tate’s heartbeat was slow and steady. Looking into the dragon’s tawny eyes, Tate did not appear afraid. Instead, the knight calmly turned to consider the gray sky. ‘The barbar shy;ians say it is better to die on a good day than live through a thousand bad ones. I think, perhaps, they are right.”

  “You’ll find out sooner than I.” Khisanth flicked one long talon and pierced Sir Tate Sekforde’s brain. The Knight of the Crown didn’t scream. Retracting her talon, Khisanth watched the light fade from the knight’s brown eyes as his lifeblood spurted onto the claw that held him.

  “Now we are even,” she said at last. But when the final flicker of life left Tate, the dragon was surprised to discover she didn’t feel the great satisfaction she’d anticipated. Instead, she felt strangely hollow.

  Khisanth let Tate’s body drop to the ground. It rolled to a stop at the feet of the highlord. The dragon looked from the dead knight to Maldeev and back, more than a little disqui shy;eted by the fleeting thought that she’d slain the wrong human.

  Chapter 23

  “After the ceremony, there’ll be no more incidents of disobedience like the one at Lamesh,” Maldeev was saying, pacing before the highly stoked fireplace in the great hall. “When I tell my mount to disengage, you will do so without question. You might have killed me!”

  Khisanth looked up with one lazy eye from her reclined position on the reed-covered plank floor. “As I recall, I saved your life. What’s more, my disobedience”- she shivered at the patronizing word -“led to the demoralization of the remaining knights. The battle was over within minutes.”

  Maldeev scowled. “You’re being amply rewarded for that.” He stopped his pacing to look squarely at the dragon. “I’m getting the distinct feeling you don’t realize the honor I’ve bestowed upon you.”

  Khisanth sighed. She knew her attitude did not reflect recent events. “It’s just that I always envisioned Jahet in the position. I keep waiting for her to return.” That was partly true, Khisanth reminded herself. While she had been moody since the events at Lamesh, the highlord seemed to be adjust shy;ing to his soul mate’s death with the stoic detachment neces shy;sary for a truly effective highlord.

  The other part of Khisanth’s unease, the part she couldn’t tell her soul-mate-to-be, was that she couldn’t forget her comparison of Maldeev and Tate.

  “Did it really never occur to you under what circum shy;stances you would assume the number one rank?”

  Khisanth’s eyes focused; Maldeev was looking at her incredulously. “I never thought that far ahead.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Maldeev returned to the fire to stir the coals pensively. “I think we are fated to be together.”

  Khisanth propped herself up on one elbow. “What?”

  “I can tell you this, now that we are to be soul mates,” he said through the mask he would continue to wear in her presence until after their union ceremony. Rocking back on his heels, the human appeared to choose his words carefully.

  “I didn’t seek my position as dragon highlord. Takhisis herself selected me, from all the officers in her service, to raise the Black Wing.”

  Khisanth looked suitably impressed.

  “I know that you, too, have been god-touched.”

  Khisanth looked startled. She had told no one, not even Jahet.

  “Were the rumors incorrect?” Maldeev asked, though he already knew the answer. Andor, his dark cleric, had long since confirmed that a black dragon had had audience with the queen in her domain and had been sent away alive. The dragon could only have been Khisanth.

  “I spoke with our queen, yes.”

  “What did she look like?” Maldeev pressed, his voice eager. “What did she say?”

  “Hideous … and breathtakingly beautiful,” remembered Khisanth dreamily, giving voice for the first time to the odd contrast. “She told me-warned me, really-to pursue our common goals more intelligently.” She paused, wondering if she should share the next memory with Maldeev, then plunged ahead. “She told me to take a rider, said I would know the right one when I met him, and that I would do great things in her name.”

  “There you have it! She was telling you your destiny!” Mal shy;deev had begun pacing again, working himself into a lather. “How else can you account for the foresight that brought me to suggest you ride as wing dragon? What greater thing could you do in her name than unite with a dragon highlord selected by the very god who bestowed the prophecy?”

  Khisanth was beginning to see the logic in his argument. She could hardly reject the wing highlord to join with Salah Khan now anyway. She felt mildly reassured. Any reserva shy;tions she felt likely resulted from her former resolve to remain riderless.

  Still, something else plagued her, something she could not share with anyone, something she needed to do before she could move into her new role. When Salah Khan stepped into the great hall and nodded curtly to his once-intended before addressing Maldeev, Khisanth took the opportunity to slip from the room.

  *

  Three hours later, Khisanth was in the guise of an eagle. Her sharp eyes scoured the hilly landscape south of Lamesh Castle. She was looking for Jahet’s body. The heat of battle distorted her memory of the location; still she thought she had to be close.

  As she flew, Khisanth told herself the intense desire to lay her friend’s body to rest was simply a last gesture of respect for Jahet. They had, after all, blood-mingled. Jahet was the only dragon who had not betrayed her. Jahet had served the forces of the Dark Queen admirably, died with honor, and deserved better than to rot in the sun or provide food for timid, pointless creatures who would not have dared ap shy;proached her while she lived.

  Khisanth would have liked to sink her friend into a swampy grave, a fitting tribute for a black dragon. Unfortu shy;nately, she knew of no marshes nearby, and felt it would be even more disrespectful to magically carry Jahet’s body around the countryside looking for one. Jahet’s soul would have to be content with a covering of rocks.

  The black eagle was nearly blinded by a sudden, powerful flash of reflected sunlight from the ground. She waited for the spots of brightness to fade from her vision before shifting her position and squinting cautiously below again. There, covered in large part by broken branches, was the oddly twisted neck and head of Highlord Maldeev’s soul mate.

  Khisanth quickly descended. She could see only flashes of Jahet’s black body through all the branches that covered her. After landing, Khisanth returned to dragon form and began to clear the brush away with her claw arms. She took great care not to further desecrate Jahef s mortal form with scratches from her talons.

  Now that her view was clear, Khisanth could see that loot shy;ers had taken the saddle and Jahet’s diamond nose stud. Despite that, it appeared that no creatures had ventured for shy;ward to taste their first dragon. Except for the odd twist to her neck, Jahef s body was intact, as if she were asleep.

  “Well, Jahet, you were right and I was wrong. Maldeev is still pushing me to take a rider. Unfortunately, we were both wrong about who it would be.”

  Khisanth leaned in closer to whisper conspiratorially, “I think I may have to break my original vow to never take a human rider.” She grimaced slightly and shook her head. “I can’t shake the feeling that Maldeev is right, that this is the sign from Takhisis for which I’ve been waiting.”

  “Thaf s right, I never told you about my meeting with our queen, did I?” The black dragon laughed without humor. “I could tell you what the Abyss is like, but you probably know more about it now than I do.

  “Takhisis told me that when I met the human worthy of my talents, I would know it,” said Khisanth. “How else could I interpret the fates that placed me near you and Maldeev when you were struck down? Maldeev would have been dis shy;graced to lose his dragon, not to mention dead if I hadn’t plucked him from the sky. Even I’m forced to agree that a highlord is worthy of me. This is my fate.”

  Her problems seemed trivial compared to Jahef s. “You’re beyond such earthly concerns now, aren’t you? What’s it like to die?” Khisanth recalled the physical torment she’d suf shy;fered traveling to the Abyss while alive.

  Almost without meaning to, Khisanth began to look for the killing wound. She ran her eyes over Jahef s length. The dragon could find only minor nicks and dents in the scales. There was no obvious wound here. Khisanth paused to remember her position to Jahet at the time of the dragon’s death. She was certain that the side now turned skyward had been away from Khisanth, facing the knight Tate. Could Jahet have died from an earlier wound to her other side?

  Before undertaking the immense task of turning the hefty dragon over, Khisanth had another idea. She retracted her talons and lay a gentle claw onto the body to examine the vulnerable skin between scales. Startled, she pulled her claw back. Jahet felt as smooth and cold as black glass, and equally as hard. Khisanth had touched enough dead creatures to know that they did, in fact, turn ice cold-but they were soft and bloated and squishy. Stiff after many days, yes, but never hard like glass.

  The dragon’s puzzlement deepened. She reached out with the intention of rolling Jahet over. Her claw again touched Jahet’s glassy spine, but when she exerted the first trace of pressure, Khisanth heard a noise like the crackling, snapping sound of ice settling in winter. Without even conscious thought, she snatched back her claw, but it was too late. She had started a chain reaction that she was powerless to stop.

  Before her stunned eyes, Khisanth watched a crack appear where she had touched Jahet. The crack raced forward and fractured into thousands of tiny lines, like the thin, silvery strands of a spiderweb. Within mere heartbeats, the entire length of Jahet’s body, from snout to tail, had shattered like an impossibly large pane of glass. The fractured corpse caved