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Jehal watched Drotan's Top burn. If I'd been really careful and really clever, I suppose I might have been able to save it. But as it is, Zafir loses an eyrie and five dragons. And what she loses, I gain. He took off the silk around his eyes, raised his arm and shouted, 'To the skies!' Wraithwing responded at once, surging forward, leaping into the air with an eagerness that matched Jehal's own. They'd been waiting here in the Maze all through the night and they were restless. You feel it, don't you? You know we're going to fight.
It was exactly four weeks to the day since Kithyr had come to him.
Around him another fifty dragons followed his lead. The Red Riders were coming almost right to him. They were flying low, racing across Gliding Dragon Gorge, dropping low for the valleys and canyons of the Maze that would take them to the safety of the Worldspine and the Spur. Looking for cover before Zafir spots you. But you're too late for that. He flipped through Prince Lai's Principles in his mind one last time. Fifty-one dragons against seventeen, if he'd counted right. An ideal advantage. In a perfect world he'd have a reserve circling above, just inside the clouds, waiting to be called to chase down any runaways.
He glanced up. He didn't have a reserve and there wasn't any cloud. Perfection would have to wait. Have you read Principles, Rider Semian? I hope you have because then you'll know you're beaten before the fighting even begins. Prince Lai would have called this a skirmish, not a battle. People forget skirmishes. In the old days, before Vishmir and the War of Thorns, they wouldn't have even called it that. A scrap. A trivial disagreement. Maybe a simple matter of honour. They certainly wouldn't have called it anything more. And that's how it's going to end. In something too small to even have a name. A little annotation in the thort history of Zafir's rule of the realms. There'll be plenty of battles bigger than this soon enough, and I'll be there and you won't. Will you be thinking about that as I destroy you?
He put the silk across his eyes one more time, checking the distance that the Red Riders had covered. Timing was everything. Most of their dragons were hunters, most of his were war-dragons. Which gave him the advantages of endurance and speed over long distances. The Red Riders, on the other hand, would have the advantages of agility and sprint speed. If he gave himself away too soon, while they were still over the gorge, they might scatter and turn and make it back past Drotan's Top into the mess of mist and cloud and valleys that was the Raksheh. If he delayed too long then some would break past him and into the maze of canyons and tributaries that led into the Purple Spur. He had to take them when they were over relatively open ground in the middle of the gorge. So he kept his own dragons low, down between the dead stone walls of the canyons, snaking in a long line at the bottom of their valley, following the rushing tumble of some nameless river racing for the Fury. A height advantage would have been been nice. But in the end it won't make any difference.
He took the silk off for the last time and raised his hand again. He could see the Red Riders with his own eyes now, hurtling towards him.
It's time.
He swept his hand down. In perfect response, a third of the dragons behind him started to climb. Jehal stayed low. He'd had plenty of time to think about this. He knew exactly what he planned to do. They should see the numbers arrayed against them and scatter, but in case they don't…
The Red Riders finally saw him but they didn't turn or scatter; if anything they drew closer to each other. The two formations of dragons crashed together; Jehal plunged into the middle of the battle and everything went mad. A dragon shot past Wraithwing's nose, so close they almost collided. Wraithwing lunged forward, snapping at the other dragon's tail. He missed. Jehal didn't even know whether the dragon was one of Semian's or his own. He looked around. There were dragons everywhere. From above the battle might seem to have some order to it; from within, it was chaos. The Red Riders showed no signs of breaking; in fact, if anything, they were coming back for more.
Does he see some advantage in being so badly outnumbered? Or is he simply mad? Wraithwing twisted in the air and shot up between two hunting-dragons. He lashed at the nearest and then Jehal found himself in clear air. He turned back into the fight. Running wouldn't do them any good now. I outnumber you here by two to one, even with a third of my force high above. You should have run when you could.
In front of him a hunting-dragon ripped a rider out of his saddle and hurled him away, then almost collided with another dragon. The hunter swerved right across Wraithwing. Jehal caught a glimpse of a red cape before Wraithwing engulfed rider and dragon in fire. When the flames cleared, the cape was gone and the rider was slumped in his harness. The dragon flew aimlessly away. Jehal watched. One of the dragons overhead peeled away and dived after it. My dragon now.
A scorpion hit Wraithwing in the neck. The dragon shuddered with anger and veered sideways, intent on retribution. Jehal couldn't see where the bolt had come from. That's the northern way, Semian. The cowards' way we call it in the south. Did you know that? Even if we invented the idea, you'll not find any dragons with scorpions on their backs in Clifftop. Tooth and claw and tail andfire, Rider Semian. I had thought better of you.
Another thought couldn't quite keep itself quiet. Some of the riders he'd brought with him didn't come from Furymouth; a few served Zafir, and Zafir's dragons most certainly did carry scorpions. Is it possible that they have some extra orders, orders that I don't know about?
Wraithwing veered again as one of the more agile hunting-dragons dived towards him. The hunter twisted and snapped its jaws, then unleashed a blast of fire that missed Jehal. The two dragons almost collided as they passed. Wraithwing tore a piece out of the hunter's wing, but as the hunter sped down, its long whiplike tail shot out. The very tip of it caught Jehal a glancing blow on the shoulder, knocking him forward, almost senseless. Then that dragon was gone and there was another, coming straight at him. Jehal caught a flash of red – one of Semian's riders – yet even as he started to turn Wraithwing away, one of his own hunters passed overhead. A tail coiled around Semian's man. Both dragons jerked. The straps and harnesses that held rider and dragon together tore apart and snapped as though they were made of cheap twine. With a flick, the hunting-dragon hurled the Red Rider screaming into the air.
Jehal scanned the melee for the dark bulk of Semian's war-dragon. We're not winning. We're not losing either, but we're not winning. Not yet. He saw two of Semian's hunters chase one of his war-dragons until they caught the rider between them and ripped him from his saddle. They turned back into the swarming chaos.
War-dragons. Jehal grimaced. We're riding war-dragons. Big, clumsy, war-dragons, Semian has mainly hunters. He tried to count the numbers of each, but it was impossible. Several dragons had gone to ground though. A dozen maybe, which meant a dozen riders ripped out of their saddles. Which is how hunters fight. I could lose this fight if I really tried. There have to be ways… For a moment, he pulled Wraithwing back up above the mass of spiralling dragons. He tried to think. Prince Lai would have written it down somewhere. Battles were supposed to be fought by riders on war-dragons. Hunters were for mopping up survivors, scouting, relaying messages and so forth. They weren't supposed to be the core of a fighting force. Zafir's riders wouldn't know how to fight them and nor would his, but there had to be some tactic or strategy in Principles for a battle like this. What can war-dragons do that hunting-dragons can't? A hunter can accelerate harder, turn more tightly. They have long necks and even longer tails and can snatch their prey with either. So why do we fight with war-dragons and not hunters? Why am I on Wraithwing and not some hunter?
He had the Red Riders pinned at least. If they run, everything collapses to a series of chases. War-dragons against hunters, two or three against one each time. If they run, they lose. But how do I make them run?
The Red Riders were all too preoccupied to come after him, and yet he felt as though he was on the brink of defeat, not victory. What do war-dragons do better? They're stronger. More robust. Faster once they get going. But what can you do with that? How do you make that win a battle? Come on, Lai, where arc you when I need you?'' Shit shit shit. This is what you get from a generation of peace among the realms. No one knows how to fight any more.
The answer, when it came to him, seemed to come from outside, as though the thought wasn't his own. Of course that couldn't be right – it had to be his – but he felt strangely detached from it. As though the old master of war was whispering in his ear. And with the thought came a vision, of dragons arrowing out of the sky, plunging straight down from the clouds into the midst of the melee. Of dragons colliding and knocking each other bodily out of the air, of forcing the enemy to the ground.
The Carpenter. That's what Prince Lai had called it. That's what war-dragons were for. With one hand the
