The Black Wing (27 page)

that up.“ Maldeev snarled, then dug his heels into his dragon. Jahet and Khisanth tore
fiercely after the griffons. To the dragons' amazement and annoyance, the smaller griffons
darted away from the cumbersome dragons like startled flies. ”Get them!“ Maldeev cried,
while Jahet tried desperately to comply. Laughing aloud at their frustration, Tate tugged
his griffon to tuck a wing and bank abruptly to the left. His heels dug in and drove his
griffon to sprint away from Lamesh, headed southwest between tree line and cloud. The
other four griffons had scattered to every corner of the compass as well. Lhode looked
about to pursue, when Maldeev barked, ”Lhode, return to Volg and protect your unit. Cover
Shadow's unit as well. Jahet, Khisanth, and I will chase down their leader.“ Khisanth felt
oddly clumsy and ponderous watching the griffon's agile movements ahead of them. The more
powerful dragons quickly closed the distance to less than ten feet. Tate watched them
approach over his shoulders. Khisanth could see through the holes in his helmet to the
fearless look in his dark brown eyes. His hand was on the grip of his sword. Tate's
griffon shrieked and wheeled abruptly to face the pursuers. ”Stand and fight, brave
knight,“ jeered Maldeev, maneuvering Jahet into face-off position. Tate appeared not to
have heard the dragon highlord's insult, or even noticed the human. In fact, he was
looking around Maldeev at Khisanth with obvious interest. ”I didn't piece it all
together,“ he said to her, ”until I got it from the horse's mouth.“ ”We'll not meet again,
you and I,“ Khisanth said. ”I wonder, will your brand of knighthood hold you in good stead
at the door to your god's domain?“ Tate's eyes narrowed at the presumption of his death.
”The principals of Good are the only things worth livingor dyingfor.“ ”Damn you,
Khisanth,“ Maldeev snarled suddenly, ”do your job and kill the bastard!“ Rattled, Khisanth
called forth her acid and sent it spraying from her maw at the same time Jahet stretched
her right wing forward for a wing slap. Neither connected, as the griffon bearing Tate
shot up into a thick cloud. Khisanth could see and hear her acid sizzling uselessly
through the branches of a tree beneath her; Jahet and Maldeev tumbled slightly before
recovering from the missed slap. ”Follow him!“ bellowed Maldeev, nudging Jahet's flanks
with his heels. ”We can't chase him through the clouds,“ snorted Jahet. ”We're likely to
bump into him and get wounded ourselves. You're letting your rage control you, Maldeev.“
She looked behind her at the battle at Lamesh. ”Isn't it obvious he's just trying to keep
us away from the battle?“ ”If you'd been doing your job,“ said Maldeev, ”he'd be dead by
now, and we'd be back in the fray. Now, think of some way to find him in these damned
clouds!“ His tone of voice assured that he would not be swayed. ”I've an idea for drawing
them out,“ interjected Khisanth. She spoke quickly to Jahet. The ranking dragon nodded.
”You'd better cast it. My spells aren't what they used to be.“ Jahet could feel Maldeev
shifting in the saddle, growing more impatient. ”Do it!“ Khisanth got the idea from a
favorite trick of Pteros's; the old dragon used it to entice meals to come to him. She
quickly summoned the scent of raw horseflesh from her memory of eating her own mount.
Focusing intently, Khisanth envisioned the strong, meaty aroma slipping through the
confines of her skull and being swept up by the winds. ”What's that awful stench?"
demanded Maldeev, shuddering. Neither dragon, whose salivary glands were furiously
working, could respond. Answering the illusionary scent of its obsessionhorse meatthe
griffon shrieked like an eagle and flew out of the protection of the cloud, headed right
for the waiting dragons. Tate tugged furiously at its rope bit but couldn't compete with
the griffon's

driving hunger. Maldeev caught on to the nature of the spell Khisanth had cast.
“Brilliant!” he crowed to the dragon. With wings fully extended, the griffon rushed
mindlessly toward the scent, bringing Tate within striking distance. Struggling to control
his mount, the knight pulled a morning star from his saddle and swung it around his head.
The spiked ball at the end of its chain circled ever closer to the highlord's head. Jahet
angled slightly and took the blow herself. The morning star bounced harmlessly off her
scales. Maldeev gave Jahet a two-tap signal and pressed his legs tightly to the dragon's
sides. Jahet abruptly rolled over to throw off their opponent. She completed the rotation
and squared off again, stunned to see that it had neither unnerved Tate nor increased the
distance between them. In fact, the knight had pressed in closer and switched to his
sword, waving it at the dragon and highlord as if daring them to strike. She couldn't even
unleash acid at such close range because the inevitable splash would strike Maldeev. She
decided to pivot and hit the knight with her tail. Khisanth couldn't see how close they
were. The roll-over maneuver had put Jahet between Khisanth and Tate. The wing dragon
moved to dart around Jahet's head when the sun sliced through the cloud cover. Khisanth
was nearly blinded by a flash of brilliant light glinting off something in Maldeev's
hands. Jahet's left wing lifted for a backhand strike at Tate, but she abruptly reared and
choked uncontrollably, her red eyes wide. The gagging sounds stopped within heartbeats.
Jahet began inexplicably to drop like a rock from the sky, with Maldeev clinging to her
back. The knight and griffon were forgotten as the wing dragon was struck dumb, witless.
What had happened to Jahet? “Khisanth!” she heard the highlord cry. The sound brought the
dragon from her stupor. She blinked and saw that the lifeless dragon and thrashing human
separately spiraled earthward. Khisanth forced herself into a nosedive. Gauging Maldeev's
speed, she focused her sights on a location between his falling form and the treetops,
swooping underneath him and into position. The highlord sprawled awkwardly with a jarring
thump upon her spine. Maldeev clawed his way to where a saddle would have been. Maldeev
was speaking into Khisanth's ear, but she could scarcely hear him as she watched the body
of her friend crash unceremoniously through the canopy of trees below. “He must have
killed her!” Khisanth heard Maldeev at last. He clung to the scales on her neck. “It's an
incredible bit of luck that you were riding as wing dragon, or I would have dropped to my
death as well.” On the ground, the broken branches settled around Jahef s still, twisted
body. Khisanth's eyes shot skyward to where she'd last seen Tate. The knight was gone.
Then her fevered eyes spotted the knight's bright silver armor against the dull sky. He
was relentlessly spurring his griffon toward Lamesh. She engaged all the speed Jahet had
envied in her and quickly closed the distance between them. Khisanth was angling herself
for a mighty tail slap when Maldeev's voice, high-pitched with agitation, penetrated her
pounding head. “What do you think you're doing? I'm without a saddle back here. Disengage
immediately!” “Then you'd better hang on,” she said coldly, and Maldeev clutched her
scales. Like a whip, Khisanth's tail snapped against the griffon's lionlike hindquarters.
The creature shot forward, its feathered head jerked back hard. Knight and griffon began
tumbling earthward. Khisanth shot forward to bat them back and forth between her wings
like a

cat with a mouse in its paws. The disoriented griffon, its wings broken in many places,
began to spiral out of control. Khisanth snatched the knight from its back and let the
creature plummet. She did not even follow its descent, concentrating instead on her own
landing. She scarcely felt Maldeev scramble from her back.

Khisanth squeezed the talons of her right claw tightly around Tate, pinning his arms and
compressing the metal of his armor. She held him up before her eyes, pushed back his
visor, and inspected him as a child would a bug. Almost tenderly the dragon traced a talon
along the scars she'd scratched into his flesh. “What a waste. You were in the wrong
army,” she said. Though he gasped for breath against the pressure of her claw, Tate's
heartbeat was slow and steady. Looking into the dragon's tawny eyes, Tate did not appear
afraid. Instead, the knight calmly turned to consider the gray sky. 'The barbarians say it
is better to die on a good day than live through a thousand bad ones. I think, perhaps,
they are right.“ ”You'll find out sooner than I.“ Khisanth flicked one long talon and
pierced Sir Tate Sekforde's brain. The Knight of the Crown didn't scream. Retracting her
talon, Khisanth watched the light fade from the knight's brown eyes as his lifeblood
spurted onto the claw that held him. ”Now we are even," she said at last. But when the
final flicker of life left Tate, the dragon was surprised to discover she didn't feel the
great satisfaction she'd anticipated. Instead, she felt strangely hollow. Khisanth let
Tate's body drop to the ground. It rolled to a stop at the feet of the highlord. The
dragon looked from the dead knight to Maldeev and back, more than a little disquieted by
the fleeting thought that she'd slain the wrong human.

“After the ceremony, there'll be no more incidents of disobedience like the one at
Lamesh,” Maldeev was saying, pacing before the highly stoked fireplace in the great hall.
“When I tell my mount to disengage, you will do so without question. You might have killed
me!”

Khisanth looked up with one lazy eye from her reclined position on the reed-covered plank
floor. “As I recall, I saved your life. What's more, my disobedience” she shivered at the
patronizing word “led to the demoralization of the remaining knights. The battle was over
within minutes.”

Maldeev scowled. “You're being amply rewarded for that.” He stopped his pacing to look
squarely at the dragon. “I'm getting the distinct feeling you don't realize the honor I've
bestowed upon you.” Khisanth sighed. She knew her attitude did not reflect recent events.
“It's just that I always envisioned Jahet in the position. I keep waiting for her to
return.” That was partly true, Khisanth reminded herself. While she had been moody since
the events at Lamesh, the highlord seemed to be adjusting to his soul mate's death with
the stoic detachment necessary for a truly effective highlord.

The other part of Khisanth's unease, the part she couldn't tell her soul-mate-to-be, was
that she couldn't forget her comparison of Maldeev and Tate. “Did it really never occur to
you under what circumstances you would assume the number one rank?”

Khisanth's eyes focused; Maldeev was looking at her incredulously. “I never thought that
far ahead.” “I don't believe that.” Maldeev returned to the fire to stir the coals
pensively. “I think we are fated to be together.”

Khisanth propped herself up on one elbow. “What?” “I can tell you this, now that we are to
be soul mates,” he said through the mask he would continue to wear in her presence until
after their union ceremony. Rocking back on his heels, the human appeared to choose his
words carefully. “I didn't seek my position as dragon highlord. Takhisis herself selected
me, from all the officers in her service, to raise the Black Wing.” Khisanth looked
suitably impressed. “I know that you, too, have been god-touched.” Khisanth looked
startled. She had told no one, not even Jahet. “Were the rumors incorrect?” Maldeev asked,
though he already knew the answer. Andor, his dark cleric, had long since confirmed that a
black dragon had had audience with the queen in her domain and had been sent away alive.
The dragon could only have been Khisanth. “I spoke with our queen, yes.” “What did she
look like?” Maldeev pressed, his voice eager. “What did she say?” “Hideous ... and
breathtakingly beautiful,” remembered Khisanth dreamily, giving voice for the first time
to the odd contrast. “She told mewarned me, reallyto pursue our common goals more
intelligently.” She paused, wondering if she should share the next memory with Maldeev,
then plunged ahead. “She told me to take a rider, said I would know the right one when I
met him, and that I would do great things in her name.” “There you have it! She was
telling you your destiny!” Maldeev had begun pacing again, working himself into a lather.
“How else can you account for the foresight that brought me to suggest you ride as wing
dragon? What greater thing could you do in her name than unite with a dragon highlord
selected by the very god who bestowed the prophecy?” Khisanth was beginning to see the
logic in his argument. She could hardly reject the wing highlord to join with Salah Khan
now anyway. She felt mildly reassured. Any reservations she felt likely resulted from her
former resolve to remain riderless. Still, something else plagued her, something she could
not share with anyone, something she needed to do before she could move into her new role.
When Salah Khan stepped into the great hall and nodded curtly to his once-intended before
addressing Maldeev, Khisanth took the opportunity to slip from the room.

*****

Three hours later, Khisanth was in the guise of an eagle. Her sharp eyes scoured the hilly
landscape south of Lamesh Castle. She was looking for Jahet's body. The heat of battle
distorted her memory of the location; still she thought she had to be close. As she flew,
Khisanth told herself the intense desire to lay her friend's body to rest was simply a
last gesture of respect for Jahet. They had, after all, blood-mingled. Jahet was the only
dragon who had not betrayed her. Jahet had served the forces of the Dark Queen admirably,
died with honor, and deserved better than to rot in the sun or provide food for timid,
pointless creatures who would not have dared approached her while she

lived. Khisanth would have liked to sink her friend into a swampy grave, a fitting tribute
for a black dragon. Unfortunately, she knew of no marshes nearby, and felt it would be
even more disrespectful to magically carry Jahet's body around the countryside looking for
one. Jahet's soul would have to be content with a covering of rocks. The black eagle was
nearly blinded by a sudden, powerful flash of reflected sunlight from the ground. She
waited for the spots of brightness to fade from her vision before shifting her position
and squinting cautiously below again. There, covered in large part by broken branches, was
the oddly twisted neck and head of Highlord Maldeev's soul mate. Khisanth quickly
descended. She could see only flashes of Jahet's black body through all the branches that
covered her. After landing, Khisanth returned to dragon form and began to clear the brush
away with her claw arms. She took great care not to further desecrate Jahef s mortal form
with scratches from her talons. Now that her view was clear, Khisanth could see that
looters had taken the saddle and Jahet's diamond nose stud. Despite that, it appeared that
no creatures had ventured for- ward to taste their first dragon. Except for the odd twist
to her neck, Jahef s body was intact, as if she were asleep. “Well, Jahet, you were right
and I was wrong. Maldeev is still pushing me to take a rider. Unfortunately, we were both
wrong about who it would be.” Khisanth leaned in closer to whisper conspiratorially, “I
think I may have to break my original vow to never take a human rider.” She grimaced
slightly and shook her head. “I can't shake the feeling that Maldeev is right, that this
is the sign from Takhisis for which I've been waiting.” “Thaf s right, I never told you
about my meeting with our queen, did I?” The black dragon laughed without humor. “I could
tell you what the Abyss is like, but you probably know more about it now than I do.
”Takhisis told me that when I met the human worthy of my talents, I would know it,“ said
Khisanth. ”How else could I interpret the fates that placed me near you and Maldeev when
you were struck down? Maldeev would have been disgraced to lose his dragon, not to mention
dead if I hadn't plucked him from the sky. Even I'm forced to agree that a highlord is
worthy of me. This is my fate.“ Her problems seemed trivial compared to Jahef s. ”You're
beyond such earthly concerns now, aren't you? What's it like to die?" Khisanth recalled
the physical torment she'd suffered traveling to the Abyss while alive. Almost without
meaning to, Khisanth began to look for the killing wound. She ran her eyes over Jahef s
length. The dragon could find only minor nicks and dents in the scales. There was no
obvious wound here. Khisanth paused to remember her position to Jahet at the time of the
dragon's death. She was certain that the side now turned skyward had been away from
Khisanth, facing the knight Tate. Could Jahet have died from an earlier wound to her other
side? Before undertaking the immense task of turning the hefty dragon over, Khisanth had
another idea. She retracted her talons and lay a gentle claw onto the body to examine the
vulnerable skin between scales. Startled, she pulled her claw back. Jahet felt as smooth
and cold as black glass, and equally as hard. Khisanth had touched enough dead creatures
to know that they did, in fact, turn ice coldbut they were soft and bloated and squishy.
Stiff after many days, yes, but never hard like glass. The dragon's puzzlement deepened.
She reached out with the intention of rolling Jahet over. Her claw again touched Jahet's
glassy spine, but when she exerted the first trace of pressure, Khisanth heard a noise
like the crackling, snapping sound of ice settling in winter. Without even conscious
thought, she snatched back her claw, but it was too late. She had started a chain reaction
that she was powerless to stop.

Before her stunned eyes, Khisanth watched a crack appear where she had touched Jahet. The
crack raced forward and fractured into thousands of tiny lines, like the thin, silvery
strands of a spiderweb. Within mere heartbeats, the entire length of Jahet's body, from
snout to tail, had shattered like an impossibly large pane of glass. The fractured corpse
caved in on itself and crumbled into a heap, sending the stunned dragon reeling back. The
deafening sound of breaking glass rang in Khisanth's ears for many moments as she tried to
make sense of what had transpired. Almost absently, she noticed slivers of pink-veined
rock just beneath the layer of black glass that had been Jahet. It looked like quartz.
Blood. Khisanth's mind turned to the obvious. Only magic could explain the odd and swift
transformation of the dragon's body. Khisanth was certain she would have known before
Jahet's death if there had been something inherently different about the dragon's magical
abilities. Impulsively, Khisanth cast a spell to tell if the glass were magical. She
waited impatiently for the expected answer, and was surprised to detect only a negligible
amount of magical energy, which would be the last vestiges of Jahef s nature or traces of
Krynn's own elemental magic. Poison? It was possible, considering Jahet's symptoms before
death; she'd choked, then grew stiff and soundless. Khisanth knew little about poisons,
but she doubted any mundane poison was potent enough to instantly kill a dragon. Out of
the corner of her eye, Khisanth saw something floating above the shards, and she looked up
slowly. A misty form was coalescing. It stretched and rose like thick white smoke to hover
high above the splintered glass, reminding Khisanth of the tormented creatures she had
encountered in the Abyss. The twisting, gyrating cloud was vaguely dragon shaped, if only
from the suggestion of a tail and snout. There were two large black gaps in the white mist
above the nose and one beloweyes and a mouthwhich seemed to melt and sag in steady and
unrelenting anguish. Khisanth had seen enough in her life that she felt neither threatened
nor surprised. Perhaps she had reached her capacity for amazement. “Were you Jahet?” she
asked calmly. For an answer, the misty, swirling thing flared up high, a sharp contrast to
the azure blue sky, then dropped back down to nearly Khisanth's height. “Your death was
unnatural, and because of it, you're in torment, aren't you?” The apparition flared again.
Khisanth closed her eyes and thought of Dela those years ago in the wagon. There would be
no rocky grave for Jahet. With a cold, hard certainty forged in the fires of experience,
Khisanth knew what she must do to end the suffering of Jahet's spirit. Bolts of white-hot
fire surged from each of her six talons and bore into the pile of shards, with a hundred
times the intensity of a glassmaker's torch. Khisanth held the flames to the glass beneath
the apparition until the shards began to melt. The faceted splinters turned shiny, like
wet, polished stones. The dragon directed her flaming talons to the liquefying glass until
her claw arms ached and the flames petered out, as if determination could inspire heat
enough to fire up glass. When she could hold her arms aloft no longer, Khisanth sat back
on her haunches and watched the red-hot glow of molten glass slowly recede, sinking into
the earth from which creatures of magic first received their powers at the beginning of
time. As the slag dwindled, so did the ghostly apparition of Jahet's soul above it. Upon
later refection, Khisanth was never quite sure if she had actually witnessed its vague
expressions of torment turn to ecstasy, or if she had simply projected her own hopes onto
the mists. The dragon flew from the small glowing pile at dusk, long after the misty
phantom had

dissipated. Flight was painful, for the efforts of her claw arms had affected her wing
muscles. She pressed on, anxious to put distance between herself and the memory of the
strange abomination Jahet had briefly become. Khisanth could not resist the temptation to
look back at the softly glowing mound of hot glass. For one brief and explosive moment, a
thin pillar of flame shot high into the twilight sky, as if trying to touch the
constellations themselves. Then the flame was gone.