The Black Wing (19 page)

to decide just what he would say. In the silence, he heard sounds from inside. Having
heard nothing for hours but the quiet of the night, the soldier was surprised that someone
else in the fortress was awake. There was no mistaking Bild's gravelly laughter. The young
sentry was even more surprised to hear it echoed by a woman's high-pitched titter. He
close his eyes and rubbed his freckled face again. Waking the sergeant would be bad
enough, but interrupting him while he___No, that was definitely a bad idea. The soldier
turned away from the door and stood forlornly in the open-roofed yard, wondering what to
do next. There were other sergeants, though he didn't know their names. He'd just have to
find one, and fast. Dashing past the row of doors under the colonnade, trying to decide
which one to knock on, the soldier was surprised again to see light filtering out through
a shuttered window. What luck! He would be saved the awkwardness of having to wake
someone. The sentry scurried down the steps cut into the ground that led to the basement
of the tower. He stepped up to the door and rapped tentatively. Immediately he heard move-
ment inside. Footsteps approached the door. “Who's there?” “My name is Caithford. I'm on
sentry duty.” “No, you aren't,” the voice responded. “You're knocking on my door when you
should be on the ramparts. What do you want?” Rattled, the soldier stammered back, “Uh,
I've seen something. Down on the plain to the north. It looks like it might be, um, an
army.” Feet scuffed on the floor inside the room. A heavy bolt clanked and the door swung
inward, revealing one of Mal-deev's dark clerics. This one was the dark-skinned elf,
Andor. Behind him, the walls of the candlelit chamber were lined with stoppered bottles
containing powders, tiny creatures suspended in oil, and other things so gruesome and odd
he couldn't assign them names. “Yes? Well?” The cleric shifted to obscure the human's
view. The shocked sentry jolted upright to attention, slapping his spear against his
shoulder. The mysterious, hooded clerics were feared by the soldiers, but young Caithford
did his best to hide his apprehension. “I apologize, your reverence, I saw the light and
thought one of the sergeants had these quarters.” “Never mind,” Andor muttered. He pulled
the hood of his cloak up over his dark head to cover his ears and slipped the deep cowl up
around his neck. “If you think it's an army, why didn't you ring the alarm bell?” The
boy's face reddened. “It's pretty dark, and I couldn't see much more than a black trail.
Maybe it's nothing, maybe draconians___” The young soldier's inexperience was clear to
see. “Hurry now,” the renegade dark-elf mage said, pushing the boy up the steps. “Take me
to your post and show me this legion of soldiers.” Minutes later, both men stood atop the
guard tower staring down toward the plain below the stronghold. The elf's heightened sense
of sight confirmed the sentry's fear. “That does indeed look like an army.” Andor glanced
toward the horizon, still dark, though lightening. “We have some time yet before dawn.
Wait for me heredon't sound the alarm until I return.” Glad to have the weight of
responsibility lifted, the sentry stepped aside, making room for the cleric to approach
the ladder. But instead of leaving the tower, the dark elf reached below his cloak into a
pouch at his belt. He removed a vial and held it up with the crescent moon behind it. The
crystal shone faintly in the eery light, refracting bars of light onto the cleric's face
and robes. Wide-eyed, the sentry watched the cleric unstop the vial while muttering
prayers and

incantations beneath his breath. In one swift motion he tossed the contents of the cruet
down his throat, then swiftly replaced the stopper and vial in his pouch. Nothing seemed
to happen for several moments. But then the dark blue cloak sagged and collapsed to the
floor. A shadow flowed out of the pile of clothing and slipped over the brink of the guard
tower. The sentry peered over the edge and saw the inky black cloud racing across the
rocks toward the plain. The human moved in a wide path around the robes on the floor to
stand as far from them as possible.

Andor sped across the broken ground. He was in a four-way race, pitting his cunning
against the coming dawn, which would reveal him clearly; the advancing army, which would
shortly reach the Black Wing's citadel; and the limited duration of his potion. But this
was an opportunity for advancement Andor was not going to waste.

It was possible, he thought, that the youth was right; perhaps this was the troop of
draconian reinforcements Maldeev expected. That possibility faded completely when Andor
saw the banners waving atop the army's sharp-tipped pikes, when he saw the well-groomed,
skirted, and barded horses. Atop the mounts were grim-faced humans in luminously polished
plate mail.

These were Knights of Solamnia. The human at the front of the parade of knights was
obviously their general. His plate mail armor was polished to rival a looking glass;
pressed into the metal on his left breast was an oval the size of a human hand, inside
which was an elaborately detailed crown. The visor of the general's closed-face helmet was
pushed back for greater visibility and comfort while he rode; blond curls escaped its
confines above dark brown eyes. His face was surprisingly young, by human standards, the
double Solamnic mustache so lightly colored and sparse that it was difficult to see. His
cheeks were covered with a light stubble, presumedly to mask three razor-thin, parallel
scars on one cheek, though it did little toward that end. The fresh-faced general was
flanked by two knights, one younger still, the other much older, thick with gray hair.
They, too, wore polished chain mail, with crossbows slung on their backs and swords
girded. Behind them on horseback were at least one hundred well-armed knights, possibly
more. Following the knights, Andor estimated, were fifty or sixty sergeants mounted on
horses and armed with lances and swords; another one hundred fifty men-at-arms carrying
spears, bills, shields, and halberds; another eighty or so archers; and pulling up the
rear, a general assortment of motley humans, no doubt short-term levies and down-and-out
sell-swords. The cleric knew he needed to get specific information if he was to impress
Maldeev with his courage and cunning. He picked the knight who rode at the general's left
shoulder and surged forward to merge with the human's moonlight shadow. “Where are you
going?” the living shadow asked the knighf s shade. “Marsssh souuthh. ...” it responded in
the slow, lazy, dark-toned drawl of most shadows. “I can see that!” snapped the cleric
impatiently. “Where to, and what for? Answer quickly, or you'll be making tracks for a
gully dwarf!” “Taahhhwer . . . fight eeeevil draaagguns. .. .” it said immediately,
heeding Andor's threat. “That would be Shalimsha, all right,” the shadow mumbled
worriedly. At their current rate of travel, Andor estimated they would reach the
stronghold of the Black Wing within the hour, for a surprise attack at dawn. He would have
to fly like the wind to have any chance of warning the wing in time to mount a defense.
The cleric's thoughts turned from personal glory to self-preservation. Andor whipped his
shadow around to the south and began to race for the alarm bell as if his life depended on
it.

Khisanth's sensitive hearing woke her with the first strike of clapper to bell. The dragon
sat bolt upright on the dirt floor of her lair. Irritated at the intrusion to her sleep,
she listened for confirmation that the ringing of the daxon had been a prank. But the
tolling continuedfranticallyand Khisanth knew that this was no trick, not even a surprise
drill. Something was definitely wrong at the tower. She sniffed the air almost delicately
but detected no odor of fire, which so frequently plagued towers like Shal- imsha. What
else could have caused such commotion? Determined to learn the cause of the ringing
claxons, Khisanth removed the magical wards on her archway and stomped off, headed for the
meeting chamber and the exit beyond. Khisanth came to the archway. Suddenly her snout met
with a wall, both clear and hard, where there should have been only air. The dragon was
too big to suffer injury from the unexpected blow at such a slow speed, but it did put her
back a step. A wave of aggravation replaced her first moment of confusion. Khisanth
impulsively, stubbornly, dipped her left wing shoulder and prepared to ram her way through
the archway. Her whole body crashed flat against an invisible barrier that sent her
leathery flesh quivering in recoil. The black dragon tried again and again to smash
through, but her attempts proved futile. Dragon rage boiled her blood. She remembered
Kadagan's teaching. “The angry dragon will defeat itself.” Think clearly, she told
herself. Answers came in moments. Someone had erected a magical wall of force to trap her
in her lair. The black dragon knew in a flash that somehow, the barrier and the claxons
were linked. She could see through the invisible wall that the other dragons were not
about. Khoal was the only one of them powerful enough to create something like thishe used
it frequently to seal off his own lair. Even the vindictive ancient dragon would not have
trapped her here simply to make her look bad for missing a surprise drill. Those claxons
were ringing for the first time to signal an attack. A terrible sense of foreboding
blossomed in Khisanth, fanning the fires of suspicion kindled in Khoal's meeting the day
before. Who would attack the wing, and how were the other dragons involved? Khoal had sent
her on a wild-goose chase to the south while he went north. The stronghold of the Knights
of Solamnia was to the north. Khoal had been reporting for months that the number of
knights in residence at Lamesh was pathetically low. “It appears to be nothing more than a
renewed farming community, with a few knights around to keep the monsters at bay.”
Khisanth thought about that, but there were still too many pieces missing to complete the
puzzle. She had to get out of here and learn the whole truth. The dragon closed her eyes
and summoned a mental picture of herself standing on the drill field. Nothing happened.
She could still feel the cool, musty air of the cave against her scales. Khisanth's eyes
popped open. The teleport spell hadn't worked. Suspicious, she hastily tried her flaming
talon cantrip, but wasn't able to summon even a spark. Khoal had dampened her magic, too.
Out of desperation, not expecting it to work, Khisanth closed her eyes and concentrated
all her energy into changing her shape. To her surprise and relief,

Khisanth felt her enormous weight fall away. She'd found a loophole in Khoal's spell. He
and the other dragons thought they'd trapped her here, but they didn't know of the mental
discipline that allowed her to shapechange, or of the narrow crevice that linked her lair
with Jahef s.

The dragon had changed into her favorite diminutive form, a brown field mouse. Wasting not
another moment, she scurried the long distance through the crevice and darted around the
rocky curtain on Jahef s side. At first glance, Jahet didn't appear to be in her lair
either. Khisanth skittered past piles of her superior's gems, which looked like
unscaleable mountains to a mere mouse. Jahet had very likely left for the tower with the
first sound of the claxons. For a brief moment, Khisanth wondered if her friend could be
in league with the other dragons. She discounted the thought almost before it was finished.

Khisanth abruptly heard noise in the antechamber. She scampered on mouse feet toward the
sound and stopped cold in her tracks. Looming more than twenty-five feet above the field
mouse was the ranking dragon, throwing herself again and again, to no avail, against an
invisible barrier on the archway that led outside. Jahet's red eyes were wide and frantic,
like a trapped cow's. Slather sprayed in thick ropes from her maw. Her breathing was
ragged. Khisanth felt a flash of relief that Jahet wasn't part of the conspiracy. They had
pinned her in as well. But it also meant her emergency escape route had been cut off.
Perhaps she could squeeze through some small crack between wall and floor on the side that
faced the ponderosa pines. Once outside, she'd revert to dragon form and get the answers
to her questions. The more she thought about it, the more certain Khisanth was that it
could work, even if it meant she had to change into a shape even smaller than a mouse ...
like a spider. The field mouse was forced to dance to the side suddenly to avoid a nasty
but accidental tail slap from Jahet. The ranking dragon was giving in to her temper, still
thrashing about in fury and frustration. Khisanth then realized the flaw in her newest
plan for escape. It left Jahet still trapped in her lair. Her concern for Jahet's escape
had nothing to do with friendly feelings. If Khoal, Dnestr, and Neetra had betrayed the
wing, Khisanth would need Jahet in the ensuing battle. To free Jahet, Khisanth would have
to reveal herself. “Hey, Jahet, down here!” the dragon-turned-mouse bellowed as loudly as
her tiny vocal chords would allow. “Look down here, if s me!” she hollered in Dragon.
Jahet stopped her thrashing to locate the source of the faint sounds that rose up from the
darkness below her. Squinting, craning back awkwardly, the ranking dragon could barely
make out the minuscule shape of a mouse at her left hind foot. “You've certainly picked a
foolish time to squeak a challenge at me,” Jahet growled. With that, she turned her
attention back to the invisible barrier. Khisanth stomped in frustration. She cupped paws
around her soft muzzle. “Hey, Jahet! If s me, Khisanth!” Jahef s jaws locked tight. The
mouse was undeniably speaking in the Dragon tongue. If that weren't odd enough, the
creature had the temerityand bad timingof calling itself Khisanth! Jahet decided to
silence the pesky little creature once and for all. She bent low and swung out with her
claw to snatch up the rodent. Abruptly Jahet was snout to snout with the black dragon
Khisanth. “Khisanth! What the” “I can shapechange,” Khisanth supplied quickly, stepping
back to give them both more space. “Why didn't you tell me before? I nearly crushed you!”
Khisanth looked mildly indignant at the reproach. "My position in the wing requires

that I fly and fight,“ she said stiffly, ”not that I cast magic. I have personal reasons
for concealing the skill. I don't know the extent of your spell abilities, either,“ she
said accusingly. ”We are not equals,“ said Jahet with similar starch. ”We shouldn't be
fighting with each other now.“ Her expression turned from displeasure to frustration as
she regarded the invisible wall. ”This must be the work of those worthless clerics Maldeev
was forced to accept from Neraka."

Khisanth measured her words carefully. “I don't think they're the magic-wielding culprits
here, Jahet.” Jahet squeezed her red eyes shut. “Don't start your old
'the-other-dragons-aren't-loyal' story. I'm not in the mood.”

“How else can you explain why we're the only two dragons trapped in our lairs?” Khisanth
challenged. “I lookedKhoal, Dnestr, and Neetra are gone.” Khisanth saw confusion in the
ranking dragon's eyes as she digested the news. Khisanth could understand her
puzzlementtrapped as they were, the situation suggested more questions than answers. Jahet
didn't even know as much as Khisanth did about the others. It would take too long now to
fill her intime better spent getting free.

Khisanth held up her claws in surrender. “Never mind them now. We've got to think of a way
out of here. Then we'll be able to see for ourselves whaf s happening outside.” “Lef s
teleport,” suggested Jahet. Khisanth shook her head. “I doubt if 11 work here. I tried it
in my lairmagic seems suppressed.”

“Then how were you able to shapechange? Khisanth struggled for the words to explain qhen.
”The only thing I can figure is that shapechanging is more a mental than a magical
discipline. The distinction must be a loophole in the spell that negates our magic.“
Khisanth snapped her talons. ”You've given me another idea.“ She rubbed her claws together
in preparation. ”Stand back." At a loss for any other solution and growing more desperate,
the highest ranked dragon did as the lowest bade. Khisanth concentrated, trying to sharpen
the edges on an old memory. On the first seasonable day one spring back in the Great
Moors, the ice on her pond had nearly all melted, and she'd gone to ground in search of
fresh, warm prey. But the selection had been strangely slim, considering mammals' penchant
for warm weathera few young, foolish ground squirrels and an elderly, nearly blind ferret.
Khisanth had an excellent long-term memory for meals. She had been about to close on the
ferret when the ground began to tremble, then shake violently. Suddenlyunexplain-ablya
twenty-foot-tall, budding maple tree shot out of the ground and fell over. Sharp talons
emerged in the tree's wake, digging a tunnel to the surface at a rate that had impressed
even Khisanth. A hideous, snout- nosed creature emerged, tangled in the dirt clods that
dangled from the tree's torn roots. Snarling and slathering wildly like a rabid dog, the
gigantic creature thrashed itself free. It had an elliptical; bluish-green body covered
with thick plates and scales. The creature snatched up the fear-frozen ferret and choked
it down in a gulp. The dragon had watched the creature solely out of curiosity; her taste
was more particular than to consume something so hideous and tough. Thaf s why she'd been
so surprised when its milky-yellow eyes and sky-blue pupils locked onto the largest meal
it had ever seen. It sprang into the air like a jackrabbit, launching directly at
Khisanth, four clawed feet raking and scratching. It seemed not even to notice that
Khisanth was twice its size. The surprise move had left time only for instinct. Hot green
acid spewed from Khisanth's jaws and splashed across the creature's exposed underbelly. In
moments, the

thing was digested. She'd killed her first bulette, a rare and widely feared carnivore.
Now she was about to become one herself. “You'd better step into your lair,” Khisanth
advised. Standing in the archway between her two chambers, Jahet looked mildly annoyed at
what she considered Khisanth's theatrics, but again did as the other dragon suggested.

Painfully aware of the claxons still pealing outside, Khisanth hastily envisioned her own
powerful dragon body transforming into her memory of the bulette's. She felt herself grow
shorter, stiffer under the plates and scales; her vision was not as keen. But the most
significant change was one she'd never before encountered in a shapechange; her mood
shifted abruptly. She felt jumpy and agitated, with an overriding impulse to burrow
frenetically. It took all of her dragon sensibilities to make herself dig in a logical
place.

The bulette Khisanth sank her squared, pawlike claws into the packed dirt floor of Jahef s
antechamber and sent it flying on either side of her armored flanks in two steady, thick
black streams. Digging under the outside wall, her claws tore through layers of hard clay
and rock, until a hole large enough for a bulette to pass through was carved. Her claws
bit into the base of the supporting wall itself to make room for a dragon's escape. When
she finished, Khisanth was not the least bit tired.

Khisanth was anxious to doff the bulette form and quickly did so before calling to Jahet.
The other dragon had watched the bulette with amazement from between the growing mounds of
dirt and rock in the antechamber. In deference to her rank, Khisanth waved Jahet through
the underground trench first. Hurrying after, she heard Jahet's angry gasp from the other
side of the ponderosas. Khisanth stepped through the hedge of trees and stopped next to
her friend to view the fortress in the early light.

An army at least six hundred strong, colorful banners waving, was launching an all-out
assault on the Black Wing of the Dark Queen's army. Maldeev stepped onto a parapet above
the courtyard, hands in their usual position on his breech-covered hips. The yellow light
of the torches made his rippling chest look as if it were carved of the palest marble.
Under his highlord helm, Maldeev's expression was beyond anger as he tried to make sense
of the chaos around him.

The early morning atmosphere had changed from the softly glowing calm of a sleeping
encampment to a torchlit frenzy of activity; half-dressed, droopy-eyed men hopping about,
pulling on clothing, barking orders without true understanding or purpose. This was not
how he'd trained his troops! Why weren't his commanders restoring order? Where was that
dandy, Wakar, his second-in-command?

What was the meaning of this unexpected call-to-arms? It was still dark, several hours
before the scheduled drill. The wing was not yet at war. Someone had intentionally
disrupted the order of the compound. Maldeev scowled in the direction of the bell tower,
where the claxons still rang, looking for the culprit. He blinked, then looked again. The
rope jerked up and down, but he saw no one pulling it.

Magic. Maldeev's eyes narrowed to tiny black slits. Andor and the other two dark clerics
... He'd reluctantly accepted their presence at Neraka's insistence, distrusting magic as
he did. If they were in any way responsible for initiating this prank, Maldeev would see
their heads roasted slowly until their skulls exploded! Where in the Abyss were the
blasted clerics, anyway? Maldeev spun around and stormed back into his chambers. He began
dressing in his armor as quickly as he could; he had to do it alone since no amount of
bellowing brought a servant to his aid. Maldeev had pulled on just one boot when he heard
a cry outside that cut through all the din, a cry that made his blood run cold. “Army of
knights approaching from the north!” Maldeev's mind dashed frantically through denial,
past the expected questions, and