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 shy;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 some shy;thing. 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 crea shy;tures 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 cler shy;ics 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 star shy;ing 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 here-don'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; per shy;haps 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 obvi shy;ously 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 mot shy;ley 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 mum shy;bled worriedly. At their current rate of travel, Andor esti shy;mated 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.
Chapter 16
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. Irri shy;tated at the intrusion to her sleep, she listened for confirmation that the ringing of the daxon had been a prank. But the tolling continued-frantically-and 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? Deter shy;mined 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 arch shy;way. 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.