"Ariakas has arranged it so that he still has the greatest fighting force, while the rest of us struggle along, looking like pathetic imitations of highlords in his shadow!" Maldeev slammed one gloved fist into the other. "Well, I will not accept his charity, or his rejects!"

Jahet stooped slightly to squeeze her highlord's shoulder in a possessive gesture that suggested caution. The very last thing Maldeev needed now was to appear unhinged before a newly reassigned commander. The dragon closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Maldeev struggle to regain his composure and shake off any outward signs of rage.

"You're right, Horak," said Maldeev smoothly. "We'll use these draconians to fight for the Queen of Darkness. With them, the Black Wing will surpass even Ariakas's perfor shy;mance in the upcoming war!"

"Yes, sir." Horak was knocked a bit off balance by Mal shy;deev's extremes of behavior, but recovered quickly. "My troops and I are fatigued from the march from Neraka. Where will we be quartered?"

Maldeev hastily gave directions to his adjutant to place the commander's and his human officers' belongings in quarters within the inner curtain, near his own high-ranking soldiers.

"As for the draconians," said Maldeev, "we've made preparations for the construction of tents." The highlord drew an arc in the air with his finger to indicate the area where Horak's troops now stood. "They'd better start build shy;ing, if they wish to rest anytime soon."

Horak gave a brief salute. "Very well, sir," he said. The commander pulled on his gelding's bit and headed off on foot to establish a camp for his troops.

Jahet dismissed Khisanth, who was not unhappy to take wing for the warrens.

Watching the other dragon in flight, Jahet herself turned to leave. "I'd better get started on my recruitment of dragons," she said to Maldeev.

"I am very pleased about Khisanth's turnaround," Mal shy;deev said, almost to stop Jahet from leaving.

"If s good news, but I predicted it would happen."

"You don't sound as pleased as I would expect," observed Maldeev. "Don't you trust her motives?"

High above Maldeev's head, Jahet's wings shrugged, but her eyes were contemplative. "No more or less than ever. She's a black dragon." Jahet's eyes narrowed slightly. "But she is different. Something-the battle, perhaps-has changed her."

It didn't settle Jahet's concerns to see the look of undis shy;guised admiration in her highlord's eyes as they both watched Khisanth's dark form in flight against the backdrop of deep green pines.

Chapter 21

Sighting the overwhelming urge to nap, Khisanth absently picked with a sharpened talon at a shred of carrion lodged between a knifelike incisor and her black-spotted gums. The newly pro shy;moted second-in-command dragon of the Black Wing was squeezed into the meager late-afternoon shade of a lone oak tree on the crest of a bluff in the mountains southwest of their destination: Lamesh Castle. Even during years of endless drill and preparation for battle, Khisanth had not realized how truly tedious war could be.

It isn't a war, yet, Khisanth reminded herself. The Black Wing was preparing to launch an isolated offensive against the Knights of Solamnia who had, just months before, brought the fledgling wing to its knees. For nearly four days, the dragon had been flying as an advance scout for the north shy;bound army.

The assignment had proven to be a tedious exercise: fly north for a half hour, wait for a half day for the plodding dra-conians to bring up the rear, fly north for another half hour. It frustrated Khisanth that, unfettered by the army, she could have flown the distance from Shalimsha to Lamesh in less than three hours.

The second-ranked dragon of the Black Wing knew exactly how far it was to Lamesh, because she'd been flying recon shy;naissance there every other day since Khoal's death. Her shapechanging ability was no longer a secret after her battle with the ancient dragon, so Khisanth used it freely on her missions for the wing. Her form of choice was a big black raven, which allowed her to fly directly into the Solamnic compound and closely monitor the rebuilding of its forces.

The decision to retaliate against the knights at Lamesh had been made months before, when Khisanth was able to consis shy;tently report that the knights had not regrouped to any sig shy;nificant extent. They appeared to have replaced very few of the patrician warriors, and acquired, at best, seventy-five mercenaries. That low number was consistent with the Black Wing's own difficulties in recruiting many new sell-swords in the sparsely populated, isolated region.

All of this was fine with Khisanth. It meant there would be fewer bodies to wade through when the time came for her revenge. The knight who had broken her nose at Needle Pass and then slipped from her clutches at Shalimsha would not escape again. The dragon looked forward to the day when his sword and skull jangled on her necklace with the rest of her trophies.

Looking to the south with heavy-lidded eyes, Khisanth realized that the wing had made more progress in the last hours than she'd expected. They'd picked up the pace signifi shy;cantly after rounding the Hand of Chaos, a sharp southern leg of this isolated section of the Khalkist Mountains. The procession was perhaps a quarter league away, down the southern slope of the bluff upon which Khisanth was perched. Jahet hovered just above the ground at the head of the impressive file of troops. Airborne behind her, prodding troops along, were two newly recruited black dragons.

There were three dragons under the ranking black dragon's command now, due to Jahet's active recruitment in the Great Moors. Khisanth had suggested that any uncommitted black dragons would gravitate to that swamp upon awaking from the Sleep, as Khisanth herself had. The two very young, "green" dragons, a male who called himself Lhode, and a female known as Shadow, were a refreshing change from their predecessors. Lhode and Shadow looked up to the older, seasoned dragons; the relationship came as near to kin shy;ship as black dragons could. Unfortunately, they simply weren't as adept at flying and fighting as those they had replaced. That would come with time and experience.

The battle against the Knights of Solamnia had brought another important change: the dragons were no longer an autonomous division. The reorganization made good sense. Everyone knew Maldeev had divided the dragons to prevent the concentration of power that had made the betrayal of Khoal, Dnestr, and Neetra so possible and so devastating.

Each dragon was now assigned to a specific fighting unit, to provide the ground troops with focused air protection. Not coincidentally, the leader of each unit was also the dragon's soul mate. As Dragon Highlord Maldeev's mount, Jahet was to oversee the entire army. Lhode would control the ogres with his ogre rider, Volg. Shadow and her rider and soul mate, Horak, were in command of the draconians.

As for Khisanth, her promotion had come at a price. She had all but promised Maldeev to take his lieutenant as her rider, in exchange for allowing her to fight this one battle unfettered. If she had not yet grown used to the idea of the very logical union between equal counterparts, she had accepted its inevitability. Once her scouting assignment was completed, Khisanth was to coordinate her efforts with Salah Khan and the ranks of humans.

The front ranks of the wing were now close enough for Khisanth to clearly see Maldeev in gleaming plate mail, his horse, as well as those of his officers, decked out in dress black-and-white skirts. Khisanth could see only flashes of the

highlord behind the waving folds of the Black Wing's ban shy;ner, which he insisted on bearing on the tip of his own pike. The commander's joy at being in the field again was evident in his eyes through the holes in his horned helm. The wing's first offensive was obviously a moment Highlord Maldeev had long awaited.