and Windriders were near, but not seen. Well, Garan of the Silvanesti was no fool. He had his griffins secreted somewhere and never mind the stink of them.
Outside, one sharp voice shouted an order, and another responded. Phair Caron looked around at the bare essentials of her camp-life-a small coffer in which she kept her clothing, the table upon which her breakfast lay scattered in grease and bones, the map still pinned to the tent wall. No more did she have but her war-gear, and that lay ready upon the lid of the coffer. With careful, precise motions, she lifted her mail shirt of shining steel and pulled it over her head. It settled comfortably on her shoulders, the weight of it like the hand of an old friend. She drew on her trews of red leather and belted on a long, tooled leather scabbard. She took up her hair and braided it, winding those braids round her head like a golden crown. She lifted her dragon helm and placed it on her head. Last, she reached for her sword. The grip, made of one whole ruby, fitted perfectly into her hand. Sliding the blade into the scabbard, she whispered, 'I am yours, Dark Majesty. Lady of Death, Lady of Dread, my soul is yours, my heart is yours.'
Her prayer made, she walked out into the young day beneath an iron sky. If the sun rose, it rose far away and behind a gray curtain of storm waiting to be born. Outside the tent, two human soldiers snapped to sudden attention. On the ground before them lay the dragon saddle, a hulk of leather and straps and steel. She gestured to it, and one of the two hefted it onto his shoulder. The other she dismissed with a curt word, sending him into the mass of the army to find his troop, his captain, and his place in the battle. She went to a clear place near the tors and bid the soldier wait. He did, his eye on the Highlord and the dragons on the heights.
'Stand easy,' she said, and she didn't blame the man for his unease. She asked a lot of her soldiers, but not the impossible until the impossible was necessary. For some, like this one, it was only barely possible to stand still and not flee the great beasts on the tors.
Phair Caron lifted her head, smelling the damp breeze, the stink of sweat and leather, the musk of dragon, the weary odor of campfires being doused. These things she smelled as one who encounters a favored perfume. On the tors the dragons roused, their cries contentious, the beasts growing restless. Hawks and eagles and the gulls from the sea had abandoned the sky. Even ravens kept low, hiding in the shadows of the tors, waiting.
'It is good,' she said to the day and to the soldier beside her.
A scar-faced youngster from Nordmaar by the blond look of him, one of those who'd early seen the wisdom of running with the strongest wolf, he said, 'Milady, it is.' He looked to the tors again, the red dragons preening. He swallowed hard, but managed a grin. ' We'll carve those elf bastards to ribbons.'
She slapped his shoulder-he staggered a bit-and said, 'Go now, back to your troop-unless you'd like to help me haul the saddle onto the dragon.'
Color mounted to his face, a flush of embarrassment because he'd like to have gone away, or one of pride for being asked to help the Highlord at this important task. The youngster held his ground. 'I'm at your command, Milady.'
Phair Caron's laughter rang out against the tors. He, and thousands other. Nearby, soldiers stopped what they were doing, some curious, others moved to cheer. She raised her arm, circling her fist in the air. Blood Gem lifted up from the stony height, wide wings spread. The soldier went white, but he stood firm as the dragon sailed down to the clear place where Phair Caron waited. At the Highlord's request, Blood Gem bent his knees, bringing his bulk closer to the ground. Together, the guard and his commander hefted the saddle, shifting it onto the dragon's broad back.
'Enough,' she said when that was done. 'Go now and find a good place for the battle.'
He saluted, and then he bowed, his eyes on hers, a little in love with her, but mostly terrified of her. 'The Dark Queen go with you, Milady,' he said.
'She always does. Now, go!'
Phair Caron completed the task of saddling the dragon herself, and no one in her army had the temerity to offer to help. She had long ago learned that in battle she must harness herself and harness her dragon. No one else could do that so well as she. No one else could be counted on. The dragon lowered a wing for her to climb, lifting her when she was steady and letting her clamber into the saddle.
Her heart found a rhythm unlike any other she knew, thundering on the brink of battle. She looked around at the other dragons spiraling down from the tors, her captains saddling their steeds, her army spreading around her, finding the shape of their battle formations. Her blood ran in her, racing through her veins, slamming through the chambers of her heart, sounding like the drums of war. Somewhere Lord Garan of the Silvanesti waited, his army in place, his Windriders ready to take the griffins into battle.
'It's strange we don't smell the griffins,' she said. 'I usually smell those things no matter if they are upwind or down.'
Blood Gem turned his head, his long neck snaking back so that he and his rider were eye to eye. He opened his mighty jaws wide and the dull light of the gray morning slid lazily along fangs that were as long as Phair Caron's forearm. Never worry, lady. I have a taste for griffin today. We'll flush them out no matter how deeply they hide.
She looked back over her shoulder to the dark shadows of the tors. The wind came from the east, and she imagined that she could smell the sea so far away. She looked at her five commanders. Each sat ready upon his own crimson steed with five wily warriors ranged behind, ready to support the legions on the ground. Beside her, Tramd rode upon Doom. The mage's handsome face shone lively with anticipation, cheeks flushed, blue eyes glinting. Seeing him like that, it wasn't easy to remember that here was simply unliving flesh made animate by the will of a mage who resided in a place that he'd not chosen to reveal to Phair Caron.
'All right,' she said, her right hand gripping the hold on the saddle, her left filled up with her ruby-gripped sword. 'Let's do what we do best, my friend.'
With a wild cry, Blood Gem lifted from the ground, and in the moment his roaring began, the sky filled up with a concerted shout like war-horns winding as the rest of the red dragons leaped into the sky. Wide wings outspread, they sailed from the tors, each with a helmed and armored rider, the Highlord and her mage and four of her strongest, most canny commanders.
Screaming his joy, Blood Gem thrust downward with powerful wings, surging ahead of all. Upon his back Phair Caron matched his battle cry, her voice the rough song of all her rage. She pumped her fist in the air, saluting her dragon riders. One after another, the mage and her commanders returned the salute.
Below, her army had found its shape, five legions of ogres and humans and the dark-spawn of Takhisis's heart- the fierce dragonmen who were neither human or dragonkind, but a hideous combination of each. They went like an arrow, the dragonmen at the fore to make the arrow's point, the other companies spreading out behind so that, from this cold height, they looked like the arrow's shaft.
This glorious arrow she would loose right into the heart of the Silvanesti nation.
The speed of her flight took her out past the foothills, out where her raids had blackened the forest with burning. Nothing grew there now, nothing lived. All the game was dead or had fled, and the vegetation was burned to the root.
Phair Caron laughed, and her laughter echoed in the roaring of her dragons.
'They will starve in winter, those elves, and they will sell their souls to me for food if ever they want to eat again!'
Blood Gem banked and turned, taking her back over the army, the roaring mass of warriors who now longed to loose every horror of war as though setting a feast table for their Dark Queen. Phair Caron lifted the visor of her dragon helm. Sword high, she flung back her head and loosed her wild war cry again. The cold wind of the heights stung tears from her eyes and tried to snatch the breath from her lungs. That no wind could do, for it seemed to Phair Caron of Tarsis that from the day she'd scrabbled in the gutters of the city for a copper tossed by an elf complaining of his supper, she had been aimed like a weapon in the hand of the Dark Goddess herself, right at this killing moment.
'For Takhisis!' she shouted. And on the ground, the dark tide of her army echoed her roaring charge.
In the very moment the cries reached her, as her heart was rising, her blood running hot with the lust for killing, Phair Caron turned and saw what had become of the griffins.
They were behind her.
