At the moment just a crimson speck in the distance, one of the dragons was currently in the air. So were some smaller flying creatures, hanging over their comrades on the ground like a cloud of mosquitoes, perhaps to deter griffon-riding bowmen from getting too close. Still, Gaedynn would have to venture nearer to obtain a better look at the blots.
He needed to do it alone too. He didn’t want a fledgling rider like Oraxes going any nearer. He waved for the wizard to stay back, then urged Eider forward. She grunted like she was questioning his judgment, but obeyed as willingly as ever.
Making sure he’d notice if his flying foes moved to attack him, he divided his attention between them and the ones on the ground. At first, squinting, he couldn’t differentiate between the two columns. Points of yellow sunlight gleamed from each. But then he saw that in the larger one, it was reflecting from reptilian scales. In the smaller, it was glinting on steel.
A company of warriors-men, orcs, or goblinkin, he still couldn’t tell-had reinforced the dragons and the beasts they controlled. Wary of the brutes, they were maintaining some distance until such time as they all needed to fight as one.
It was bad news, but, as he made a rough count of the soldiers, worse arrived. Leathery wings beating, a second red dragon flew out of the north to join the one in the air.
Praying that he’d somehow lost track of a wyrm, that it had gotten up into the sky without him realizing it, Gaedynn peered back down at the ground. No, curse it, the dragon he’d seen there was still striding among the lesser reptiles. It was green too, a fact he’d apparently repressed to give himself an instant of false hope.
He peered at the second red, trying to decide how old, large, and accordingly formidable it might be, and then it snarled. Though he couldn’t speak the language of dragons, he could tell the sound was complex and patterned enough to have words inside it. Three of the lesser specks abruptly hurtled forward.
Gaedynn turned Eider as fast as he could, which was pretty fast. Yet in those few heartbeats the enemy flyers streaked close enough for him to make out the pale green of their hides, the long horns sweeping back from their almost birdlike heads, and their serpentine tails. They were the sort of reptile called spiretop drakes, and they shouldn’t have been able to close the distance as fast as they were. The red had apparently cast an enchantment to make their wings beat as quick as a hummingbird’s.
Hoping the magic would run out of power soon, Gaedynn kept glancing back as he fled, and each time the spiretop drakes were closer. But raw speed didn’t equate to skill and maneuverability. If he turned again and fought, he might be able to kill the wretched things. But what if other flying foes, maybe even the dragons themselves, caught up to him before he finished?
A red spark streaked past him and then, with a boom, exploded into fire. The mote of light hadn’t flown quite far enough for the blast to engulf any of the drakes, but they screeched and veered off. And as they aimed themselves at Gaedynn once again, their pounding wings finally slowed down.
Oraxes wheeled Queen Umara close enough to call across the intervening distance. Which was closer than Gaedynn would have preferred, given the wizard’s lack of experience in the saddle. “That showed them!” Oraxes yelled.
“Shut up!” Gaedynn snapped. “Head for camp as fast as you can.”
They didn’t actually need to run all the way. The drakes gave up the pursuit before they’d flown much farther. But Aoth would want to hear their report as soon as possible.
Jhesrhi seldom minded killing people. She wouldn’t have lasted long as a sellsword if she did. But helpless animals were a different matter, and as she approached the metal and wooden cages the army had brought from Soolabax, she felt a pang of reluctance.
She quelled it as every mage learned to silence distracting thoughts. She had to keep her mind focused on her purpose, or the power she’d raised with her purifications and invocations would slip from her control.
She opened the first cage, a dainty brass miniature palace. The canary inside was wise enough to mistrust her and, wings fluttering, tried to evade her grasp. But wizards have nimble hands, and she seized it anyway, although not before it gave her a stinging peck on the thumb.
She looked skyward, recited a final incantation, and drew the blade of a small silver knife across the canary’s throat. Wind swirled around her, and the bird’s blood spiraled upward, dispersing into mist and then disappearing entirely. A drop or two of her own blood went with it, but that was all right. It might make the binding stronger.
As she killed each bird in its turn, her inner eye gradually started to perceive entities who were vast, formless, and invisible to ordinary sight. Still for the moment, or nearly so, the winds of the plain hovered above her, greedy for a sip of life and magic. Willing to indenture themselves for the taste.
The final offering was a dove. She could feel its heartbeat through her wet, red fingers. She started to make the cut, and then Tchazzar said, “My lady!”
She hadn’t realized he’d come up behind her. His voice startled her, and she didn’t slice as deeply as she’d intended. Wounded but not slain, the dove shuddered.
She felt a shift in the attitude of the hovering spirits, a sudden doubt that she was strong and clever enough to command them. She rattled off words of power and made a second cut. The dove stopped struggling. For a moment it looked like the blood was going to drip to the ground, but then it whirled upward like that of the previous sacrifices.
Jhesrhi sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she recited the closing incantation and made a chopping motion with her staff to end the ritual safely. She felt the residual power drain into the ground, and the winds departed with a
Tchazzar was a dragon, a monarch, and the Brotherhood’s employer. All good reasons not to let on that she was annoyed with him. Still, as she turned around, she had to struggle to keep it from showing in her expression. She had yet to learn if he was a wizard or if all his legendary powers were innate. But either way, he surely knew enough about magic to understand that it was stupid to disturb a conjuror in the middle of a ritual.
But when she saw the contrition and anxiety in his handsome face, it took the edge off her irritation. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were still working. Did I spoil it?”
“No, Majesty,” she said. Although the binding likely wasn’t as strong as it could have been.
“Good. Come walk with me.”
Her throat was raw from reciting so many incantations, and her body sore from standing in one spot for too long. Still, even at a moment when she would have preferred to flop down on the ground and drink a jack of ale, it was flattering that he desired her company. She found a smile for him and used the butt of her staff to open the circle she’d earlier drawn on the ground.
Then they strolled through the darkened camp with its paucity of crackling, smoky fires. (Aoth didn’t want enemy scouts to count the points of light and arrive at an accurate estimate of the size of their army.) Chessentan soldiers and sellswords alike saluted as the war hero passed. Tchazzar acknowledged them, but in a perfunctory fashion.
For a while Jhesrhi wondered if they were simply going to wander around in silence. Then he said, “The enemy force is stronger than expected.”
“I know,” she said. By then everyone knew what Gaedynn and Oraxes had seen.
“Hasos recommends that we fall back to Soolabax.”
She said what she knew Aoth must have said if he’d heard that particular proposal. “Your troops didn’t break one siege of the town just to run back inside the walls and wait for another. We need to take the fight to the enemy to solve the problem of Threskel for good and all. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Tchazzar smiled a tight-lipped, troubled smile. “Of course. What king, what god, could tolerate a part of his dominions defying his authority? It’s just … Do you understand why I didn’t want that wretched little witch to call the dead?”
Jhesrhi hesitated. “Not entirely, Majesty.”
“The dead are dark things. And it was here, in this very place, that dark things held and tortured me until I nearly lost my mind.”
“It wasn’t really here, Majesty. It was in the Sky Riders. It was also in the Shadowfell, a whole different world than the one we’re walking and talking in now.”
“Can I trust a necromancer, who draws her strength from darkness? Or a Thayan mage? They’re all
