“Amun. Take a squad up top. Above the clouds.”
“They’ll be able to see us.”
Samael’s muscles unclenched a millimeter. This was how he and Amun had always communicated—only the two of them where the others couldn’t hear the argument so that they presented a united front to the men.
“Not if you see them first. I need someone hitting the fuckers before they can drop on us.”
“Sir.”
In the flash of illumination from a lightning bolt, the shadows of several dragons angled upward, wings beating to carry them aloft, told him he’d been obeyed.
Next, he sent his thoughts out to his scouts. The men on duty who’d caught the incoming forces in the first place, watchers constantly rotating duty to protect their mountain from all comers. “Report.”
Silence greeted his command. Not a good sign.
“Japeth?”
Nothing.
“Amun, do you see anything up top?”
“Not a damn thing. This has to be the worst storm we’ve seen in—”
Only the crackling roar of sound warned Samael that the burst of gray coming at him from the right was flame and not cloud.
Gray. One of his own. Dammit.
“Evasive maneuvers,” he shouted as he flipped up and over the column of flame, coming at his attacker from the side.
He barreled into a smoky-colored dragon that blended perfectly with the clouds. Immediately, he recognized Padram. One of his men. No satisfaction hit him as the thing’s ribs crunched under the impact. Rather than risk the trained fighter’s talons and teeth, Samael flared his wings wide, letting the other dragon’s momentum carry it into the side of the mountain where two of his faithful dragons waited, ready to beat at whatever came at them. Samael couldn’t see what happened, but the sounds of Padram’s screeches and the thuds of tails slamming into scales and bones reached him all the same. Followed by the tumble of a body against rock, sliding down the mountainside.
One of his dragon’s voices sounded in his mind. “Was that—”
“Padram. Yes,” Samael answered, voice grim. “We’re fighting some of our own today, brothers. If you can’t face them, get the fuck off the mountain.”
A cry went up around him. A roar of fury and grief. No one wanted to fight men they’d lived with, joked with, eaten dinner with, fought beside.
They had no choice.
Use your words. Meira’s teasing voice haunted him. Could words help them now?
Samael pulled his wings in against his body, dropping him like cannon shot.
Around him, the sky lit up, not with lightning, but with flame as his outlying forces engaged the larger one coming at them. Only white and black flame.
Where are the green dragons?
Their cunning and extraordinary agility made them the hardest dragon shifters to capture or kill. Which was why few had remained in the blue mountain of Ben Nevis even after the attack that had almost lost Ladon his clan’s home.
Coming out underneath the storm in clearer skies, the clouds churning slowly above him, changing shape and color, Samael leveled out.
“Brothers and sisters of the Black Clan.” He sent the thought to every dragon in and around Ararat, particularly aiming his message at those black dragons fighting against their people. “My name is Samael Veles and I am the captain of King Gorgon’s guard.”
Immediately protests of “traitor” came from a small number of voices. Hopefully not those on the mountain to his left.
“Your king lives.”
Another garbled mess of answers, but with less conviction.
“Taken by Pytheios, Gorgon has returned to Ararat and leads us once more. Leave the fight now, and we will welcome you home with open arms after the battle is won.”
“How can we trust the word of a commoner who didn’t protect his king when it mattered most?”
The single thought penetrated his mind through the noise.
“Because your king commands your trust.” Gorgon’s voice thundered through Samael’s mind, so loud it reverberated against the inside of his skull, and he wobbled in the air.
As soon as he regained control, he swiveled his head to search for the main entrance, the door still wide-open. No black dragon stood in its gaping maw. Only a woman and a hellhound.
Meira.
Where was Gorgon? He’d left for his chambers. Too exhausted to fight. He couldn’t be out here.
Silence followed the king’s statement.
Why silence?
The blast of dragon roar followed the electric crack of lightning close by. The sky flashed, showing him the clash of titans happening in the raging sky. He couldn’t spend any more time appealing to those who fought against their own kind.
“Make your choice,” Samael commanded.
He waited for another flash to show him where dragons lurked, then shot straight up, coming at them hard.
In the dense clouds, only the sound of hissing and spitting dragons gave him an idea of what direction to head. That and the sound of the bellows that marked a dragon stoking its fire, told him where to go. He flew through a small pocket without clouds and twisted to avoid hitting the pewter-colored dragon from his own clan who faced off against two white dragons.
Except silver-tipped fire followed Samael as he shot past. Another traitor. Avoiding the flames, he flipped backward then came up under all three. At the last second, he reoriented his body again, coming at them talons first, which he sank into one of the white dragon’s belly.
The thing gave a terrible screech as his claws managed to rend their way past dragon scale and the metallic scent of blood filled the air. It thrashed in his grip and would have used its long tail to skewer him, but Samael had struck at such an angle that he’d wrapped his own tail around the white dragon’s, immobilizing it.
Sucking in, stoking
