Panting, she lowered the staff and willed out the fires at the ends. “That’s all I know to do.”
“Then it will have to be enough. Especially since the fellows below are finally readying their crossbows. We need to reach the Brotherhood.”
“I know.” She spoke to the wind, and it swept them onward.
Jet prowled the muddy field where his fellow griffons lay sleeping. Still not quite recovered from the race back to Chessenta, he wished he could join them in their slumber. But a nagging uneasiness was keeping him awake.
He turned east and reached across the city with his thoughts. Are you there? Is everything all right?
But all that he sensed in response was a jumbled blur of a mind that sluggishly shifted away from his psychic touch. Aoth, too, was asleep. Happy that he’d outmaneuvered Tchazzar, he’d likely eaten too much, drunk too much, and spent himself mating with his female.
Idiot, Jet thought, although not without a certain amount of envy. Don’t drop your guard while you’re still in a dragon’s lair.
And at that moment, fire erupted from a point above the War College. The blazing orbs arced outward and spilled down the sides of the fortress like spray from a fountain.
Jet didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he very much doubted it was good. Are you awake now? he called.
No. Aoth wasn’t. Although it was possible that his sleep wasn’t quite as deep as before.
Jet trotted, unfurled his wings, lashed them, and rose into the air. “Danger!” he screeched. “Danger!” Then he drove on toward the War College.
Wake up! he cried, tearing at the barrier of Aoth’s unconsciousness as he would rend a foe with his talons. Wake up, wake up, wake up!
Aoth dreamed that he was back on the mountaintop in Szass Tam’s private little hell, and somewhere amid all the undead giants and beholders, Jet was crying out in anguish. He fought madly to reach the griffon, but for every foe he destroyed or blasted aside, two more loomed before him, and he couldn’t even catch a glimpse of his steed.
His eyes snapped open. But Jet’s voice was still ringing inside his head. It made him feel addled.
What you are, the familiar rasped, is drunk! Sober yourself up!
Aoth touched one of the tattoos on his forearm. A surge of clarity and vitality washed his muddled daze away. What’s wrong? he asked.
Something was floating above the War College tossing balls of fire. It’s stopped now, but you still needed to know.
Aoth grabbed Cera’s shoulder and shook her. “Muh?” she murmured.
He shook her harder. “Wake up!”
She frowned up at him and knuckled her eye. “What’s wrong?”
“If we’re lucky, Tchazzar’s just amusing himself. Or the citadel’s under attack.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Then Jhesrhi just tried to warn us that the dragon’s turned on us. Dress fast. We don’t want to be in these rooms if somebody’s on the way to kill or arrest us. Jet’s coming to carry us to safety.”
Cera rolled out of bed and grabbed her shift. “What if Tchazzar does still trust us but then finds out we ran away?”
Aoth pulled on his breeches. “I’ll think of some excuse.”
Once they were dressed, he reached for his mail but then left it on the stand. It took time to put on armor, and he was afraid they didn’t have it. He thrust Cera’s mace and buckler into her hands, grabbed his spear, and led her into the sitting room.
He cracked the door open. No one was waiting right outside, but the War College had begun to echo with excited voices. He couldn’t tell if it was because people were simply reacting to the rain of fire or because Tchazzar and his officers were already giving orders.
He did know the closest staircase was to the left. Since it was a good idea to get off that level, he and Cera headed in that direction. I’m nearly there, said Jet.
Good, Aoth answered. We’ll get out on a balcony or someplace like that.
I had to swing wide to avoid Tchazzar. He was in the air in dragon form.
Was he chasing Jhesrhi? Or on his way to attack our camp?
All I know is he was headed west.
Curse it! Get here as soon as you can!
What do you think I’m trying to do? Several moments passed before the griffon spoke again. A couple of the buildings near the War College are on fire.
There may be a reason to care about that later. Right now, we have other problems.
Aoth reached the top of the stairs and led Cera to the left again. Every upper level of the fortress provided some sort of access to the open air. He just had to find one of the doors.
But before he could, a squad of Tchazzar’s guards armored in gilded breastplates and helms with scarlet horsehair crests came around a corner. Spying Aoth and Cera, they reached to draw their swords. Their leader sucked in a breath to shout.
Aoth shouted first. He bellowed a word of power and jabbed at the soldiers with his spear.
Magic amplified the shout in a boom like a thunderclap. Loud as it was, the noise didn’t hurt him or Cera, but the guards reeled and fell.
Aoth strode forward and looked down at the officer. The Chessentan was bleeding from the nose and ears and looked dazed. But his eyes were open.
Aoth poised his spear at the fellow’s throat. “My followers and I want out of Chessenta,” he said.
The officer goggled back at him.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Cera said. She murmured a prayer that set her fingertips aglow with golden light, stooped, and touched the fallen man on each ear. “Try it again.”
“My men and I just want to leave,” Aoth said. “If Tchazzar allows it, there won’t be any trouble. But if he tries to stop us, I guarantee the battle will lay waste to Luthcheq.” He remembered the blazing aerial display and the burning buildings Jet had told him about. “In fact, I’ll burn the place to the ground. Tell him.” He waited for an answer, but the man just kept gawking. “Say you understand or I’ll kill you.”
“I… I understand,” the warrior stammered.
“Good,” Aoth took a look at the other battered soldiers. They were all still too groggy to cause any trouble. He and Cera picked their way through them then hurried on.
“You can’t burn Luthcheq,” she said. “There are tens of thousands of innocent people here.”
“I had to threaten them with something,” he said. Then, at last, he found what they were looking for.
The door opened on a walkway behind a row of merlons. He pulled it open, and wings beating, blacker than the night behind him, Jet lit on one of the sandstone blocks.
“Tchazzar’s chasing us,” said Jhesrhi, her golden hair streaming and nightclothes flapping in the gale that swept her and Gaedynn along.
He looked around. He could see the War College, its walls stained by the wavering yellow light of the fires near its base, but nothing in the air.
“I assume the wind told you,” he said.
“Yes. We’re faster than he is, but…”
“But he’d catch us eventually. When you ran out of magic if not before.”
