Gilligan peered deeper into the tank. There were a lot of red dots closing in on the lone green diamond. “From the looks of it I’d say we’re going to have plenty to worry about anyway.”
“Are we ready for the next phase?” asked Bal-Simba.
Gilligan looked at Kuznetsov and both men shook their heads. “We want them committed as fully as possible before we spring our next little surprise on them.”
“A while more,” Kuznetsov said.
Gilligan watched the battle develop and tried not to think about Karin and what she was doing.
TWENTY-SIX – THE EXECUTIONER
No sea birds, Karin thought, scanning the gray sky above the gray-green sea. She spared a glance down at the crag. No nests and no signs of them. Not even the deposits of whitewash left by birds using the rocks for fishing lookouts. The place probably smelled better for the lack, but it did not make it any less forbidding.
The Executioner’s attraction was its geography and topography, not natural beauty. There were several reefs and bars within a two-hour dragon flight of the ruined City of Night, none of them big enough or high enough above water to be called islands. But the Executioner had one thing the others lacked: Hiding places. The volcanic rock was laced with crevices, blowholes, fissures and pumice caves that could keep a dragon or two and their riders safe from eyes in the sky.
Karin and her partner had been here for almost two days now, keeping concealed and waiting for the signal. Karin hugged the jagged rock and stared out over the sullen ocean, scanning from horizon to horizon and back again for any speck that might be an approaching dragon. But the sky was as empty as the sea. Finally satisfied, she twisted on the narrow ledge and waved to her companion below.
Senta was a small, dark woman who was unusual in being both a skilled magician and a dragon rider. Karin was with her as her wingman and to use her scouting skills to keep them undetected and out of trouble until they had done what they came for.
I wonder where Mick… But she pushed the thought from her mind and concentrated on the business at hand.
Down below, back under a lava overhang, Stigi and Senta’s dragons were restive. They didn’t like being on the ground when there were enemies about, and the undead dragons made them nervous besides. Well, that was fine with Karin. She was nervous too. As soon as they completed their job here she would be only too glad to be back in the air and winging her way home.
Back in the Wizards’ Keep, the command group around the tank watched in satisfaction. The diversion had worked perfectly. The Enemy had thrown almost all his forces north, out over the Freshened Sea. Now those forces were fully committed and it would take time for the Enemy to recall them. Too much time.
Of course that also meant that one lone biplane was the focus for every undead dragon and rider the Enemy had in his first wave, and he had a lot of them.
Gilligan looked at the clocks on the walls. “Okay, initiate phase two.”
He stared into the tank to watch the aerial ballet he had choreographed unfold. He tried not to think of Karin.
Karin spared another glance for Senta, standing now on the black rock and lashed by ocean spray. Now the signal had come and at last, at last they could do something besides wait.
Senta reached into her pouch and pulled out one of Taj’s Origami dragons. She placed it in the palm of her hand, holding it against the wind with a curled little finger. She spoke a spell, blew on the bit of folded parchment and tossed it into the air with a cry of “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.” As soon as it left her hand it began to grow and change. Now there was a dragon and rider swooping up past Karin to circle over their heads. Even this close the illusion was well-nigh perfect to Karin’s senses, right down to the rush of air on her face as the “dragon” climbed past her. She only hoped it appeared as perfect to the Enemy.