“Seventh group coming in,” sang out one of the Watchers. “Airborne. Probably dragons.”
Bal-Simba studied the configuration written in lambent script on the wall.
“Launch dragons to intercept. Tell them not to stray over the water.”
“Dragons away, Lord.”
“Time to intercept seventeen minutes,” another talker reported. Others huddled over crystals keeping contact with the dragon force.
“Porpoises report three krakens moving toward the Hook. Formation suggests they are screening something else.”
Around the room crystals glowed green, red and yellow as the talkers contacted the forces of the North and prepared for the struggle. >From the most battle-ready guard troops to the hedge-witches in the villages the word went out. All the North braced to receive the assault.
But no one thought to tell the inhabitants of a small keep hidden away in the Wild Wood.
High above the Capital the Dragon Leader climbed for altitude. Reflexively he checked the great bow carried in a quiver by his steed’s neck. The fight was unlikely to close to a range where arrows would do any good, but it gave him a sense of security to know they were there. Outside the freezing wind tore and whistled about him, but inside his magically generated cocoon a warming spell kept him comfortable. He would have to turn that off as he approached intercept to present minimal magical signature and to make his detectors more sensitive, he knew, and he hated that more than he feared dying.
Echeloned out below and behind him were the seven other dragons of his squadron. He spared them a glance as he checked his communications with the other dragon flights and with the Watchers back in the high hall of the keep.
His dragon’s wings beat air as the beast clawed for height. With each stroke the Dragon Leader felt muscles pulse and jump beneath his thighs. With gentle leg pressure he turned his mount south, toward the Freshened Sea and the swiftly moving misty patch on the magic detectors that might indicate an air attack coming in. Reflexively his head swiveled, seeking any sign of his foes.
The moon was bright and just beginning to wane. The silvery light picked out the surface of the clouds, creating a wonderland of tops and towers, nubbly fields and high streaming pennons beneath him. Here and there the contorted fields of clouds were marked by pools of inky black where an opening let the light stream through to the ground below.
The Dragon Leader took it all in as he scanned the surface. He was less interested in the beauty than in what the clouds might conceal. As the first group off, his troop had drawn high cover—flying above the clouds to seek out the League’s agents. Other troops were at work beneath the clouds while the clouds themselves were searched magically. Somewhere ahead of him was the enemy—or what appeared to be the enemy, he corrected himself. It was not unknown for the League to enhance a bat or a raven to make it look like a ridden dragon. The Dragon Leader bit his lips and kept scanning the cloud tops.
“Time to intercept twelve minutes,” a voice said soundlessly inside his skull. He did not reply.
One of his men waved and pointed below. There silhouetted against the pale cloudtops, were four dragons skulking north. The Dragon Leader did not need to call the Capital to know they were not in the Council’s service.
He rose in his stirrups and looked behind him. The rest of his troop had seen the enemy too and were waiting expectantly for his signal.
The Dragon Leader switched off his warming spell, gestured down at the other dragons and patted the top of his head in the time-honored signal to dive on the enemy. A gentle nudge with the knees, a slight pressure on the reins and his mount winged over to dive on the invading force.
The Dragon Leader was well into his dive when the four dragons below him winged over and scattered into the clouds. The leader swore under his breath and signalled his squadron to break off the attack. We’ll never find them in that, he thought. Sharp eyes in that patrol. It was almost as if they had been warned.