Chapter Fifteen

Oh, lady, I'm an earthbound beast! Oh, lady!

Firegold dipped and climbed with the air currents, wings wide, then tucked, then soaring wide again. Behind Crysania, pressing hard for balance, quivering, Tandar closed his eyes, and so darkened the sight he again lent to Crysania.

Can you open your eyes?

He did, and again Crysania saw the Plains of Solamnia rushing by beneath them. The scene was colorless, as before, but even so it took her breath away. So long! It had been so long since she had been able to know with certainty what lay around her without having to touch, to taste, to listen, to smell.

Oh, gods! What a gift!

And the gift was gone, vanished as Tandar closed his eyes tight once more and moaned.

The great dragon swiveled its head back to glance at her. "Lady, I assure you I will not let you or your friend fall," she rumbled. "Tell the tiger he need not grip so tightly."

She brushed her hair back as it whipped across her face. "I think he's doing his best not to hurt you."

Firegold snorted, as if to say it didn't feel as if he was doing his best, but she let the matter drop.

Tandar, show me our friends. Can you?

The tiger groaned, then sighed to find the matter easier than he'd imagined. Through Tandar's eyes, Crysania saw her companions. Lagan rode a swift silver dragon, a young female named Chase. He clung to her, wide-eyed, seeming as desperate to be down from the dizzying height as was Tandar.

"Well done, Lagan!" she cried, calling him to give him courage.

He might have heard her, but if he did, he dared not turn his head to acknowledge her words. His face was marble white, rigid and unmoving. She thought she saw his lips moving in constant prayer.

Kela, who had been delighted by the idea of going aloft, rode with Jeril on a golden male named Goldstrike who easily kept pace with Firegold. They were beautiful together, those two natives of the desert, hair wild and flying, faces flushed with delight. Once Crysania saw the mage fling back her head, laughing. What wonderful stories they would have to tell their children!

In her mind, Tandar rumbled, a grim, wordless sound of unhappiness. He did not like the mage, that much was clear.

Why, Tandar? She fought well and hard for us. She's been a good friend.

A companion, he amended. Look, lady, is that the river below?

It was. It showed as a brown stripe on the land, no wider than her finger. Far away, the mountains scored a dark blue streak between the tan of earth and the blue of sky. To the north, a hazy smudge of gray caught Tandar's eye, thus hers. A thumb shaped smear reached into the sky.

"What's that?" She pointed, then realized that Firegold couldn't see her arm. "To the north. The gray streak."

The gold dragon turned that way. "Fire."

"We must go and see," Crysania said. "There is a village at the bend in the river. If they are in danger, we must warn them. Or help."

"As you wish, Revered Daughter."

The great leathery wings beat an extra turn, and Firegold rushed forward, leaving Crysania's stomach lurching. Tandar made a piteous sound, then settled to groaning. Firegold bugled one long cry to the others, then separated from the wing. She banked gracefully, turning toward the smoke on the horizon. Swiftly the others followed.

Wind screamed past them, tearing at their hair, their clothing. It was deliriously cool so high up.

Not so below, though.

In the village below, one of the huts was on fire, its thatched roof flaring, flinging sparks into the air. A bare circle of ground formed a common area, where villagers and blue-skinned barbarians fought. Even so high up, Crysania heard the terrible song of steel on steel, the screams of the dying, the groans of the wounded, for she heard all that in her heart.

Tandar roared, the sound fierce and warlike. Firegold answered, trumpeting.

Crysania leaned over the dragon's neck. Tandar! What do you see?

He showed her, and her stomach turned. Mixed among the blue-skinned attackers were creatures from nightmare, terrible things that were part human, part dragon.

Firegold cried, disgusted. "Draconians!"

The Dark Queen's creatures! Twisted beings created from evil magic and born of the stolen eggs of dragons. They were the terror unleashed during the War of the Lance. Thirty years later, they were not the force they once were, but even a band of them could savage an unsuspecting village or town.

They've come out from Neraka, lady. As we've guessed.

On their left, Goldstrike banked hard, coming in low over the fighting. Villagers and attackers alike fled as the huge dragon dropped down from the sky. Tandar roared again. Jeril's battle cry tore the air. Chase, with Lagan hanging on tight, followed, the rest of the watch spreading out around them. Only Firegold held back.

"Take me down!" Crysania cried. "Take me down, Firegold!"

The gold obeyed, but in her own time, circling the village once and again as the attackers scattered. They were a good-sized unit, but the way they broke up, running for the plains, leaving some of their kind to fight alone, made Crysania think they had no leader.

Firegold took the second turn, then landed in the center of the village beside Goldstrike. Goldstrike stayed only long enough for Kela to get to ground, then leapt to the sky again, joining the others. Crysania looked up through Tandar's eyes and found Chase, with Lagan still firmly in his seat. Sunlight glinted off the edge of his war axe. Whatever fear he'd felt being on dragonback burned away in the fires of anger as he looked below and saw the devastation.

Together Chase and Goldstrike raced to join the other dragons in pursuit of the enemy across the plains.

Upon the ground, tears sprang to Crysania's eyes. All around her rose the groans of the wounded, the sobs of the terrified. The silence of the dead. Tandar pressed close, warm and heavy against her legs, putting his head under her hand. She hardly felt him.

She prayed, the words coming all in an instant, and even as she did, she wondered whether the god would hear this time, or whether he was too far away, too tangled in his own battles.

A woman lay dead upon the ground near a burned hut, in her arms a wailing infant. A nearly grown boy, covered in blood, staggered among the ruins of his home, trembling, eyes wide, seeing horrors. From behind the well on the common, a howling cry lifted, then fell suddenly silent as a painted barbarian died of his wounds.

Tandar left his lady's side, prowling a tight circle around her, tail switching, ears back, growling. The screaming and the stink of blood and smoke ran like knives along his nerves, pulling him one way and another.

Go and fight! Stay and protect!

Villagers tried desperately to pull down the burning huts before they could set fire to others, to the plains and all the tinder-dry grass waving in the hot winds. An old man lay dead in the dirt, his blood soaking into the thirsty ground. A woman fought a scaled, fanged draconian, meeting the creature's sword with a pitchfork. She fell under a barbarian's axe, killed from behind.

Tandar roared, but he kept his place.

Crysania put her hand on his shoulder. The connection between them, that deep bond of the mind, flickered and vanished. Too much else roiled his senses now.

"It's all right," she said, stroking his head. "Take me to the wounded."

Her voice and the cool determination of her thoughts steadied him. He hesitated. They were nearly all wounded. The man lying only a few feet away was probably already gone. Another man sprawled just on the other side of him. Beyond lay a woman, a sword cut in the belly pulsing thick, red blood.

Tandar, take me to help them.

Her thought touched him like peace, with sweet understanding. He jerked into motion and led her across the road to the bleeding woman. The man beside her moved with enough life left in him to moan. The woman lay too still. Whispering prayers, her voice thin and trembling, Crysania knelt beside her. She put out her hands, feeling blindly across the still body until she found the deep wound, the wellspring of blood. She lay one hand on the wound and gripped her medallion with the other.

The purest light surrounded her, the light of hope, prayer light.

"Paladine, grant this woman your healing strength—"

A roar of anger drowned her prayer. A draconian came at her in a rush of cursing. Winged, it leaped and glided on the smoky air. Laughing, shouting obscenities, the creature swooped low, bellowing, "This one is mine!"

Tandar tensed to attack, but Firegold beat him to it. One blow of a powerful wing, and the dragon swiped the draconian from the air. It flew backward, hit the ground with a crunch, and did not move. Tandar growled. A villager came out from behind a hut, running for the body.

With the same wing she'd used to strike the creature from the sky, Firegold held the human back. None too gently, his voice tinged with disgust, the dragon said, "Don't go near it. The bodies are treacherous, even in death."

Tandar snarled, watching the body melt and smoke, oozing noxious liquid to burn the grass with a hiss and acrid stench.

Crysania coughed, her throat burning. The prayer light surrounding her dimmed, but she kept her thoughts focused, touching the place where a sword had pierced the woman's side. The woman sighed and stirred. The flow of her blood slowed, then stopped.

Crysania touched the woman's forehead briefly, then was up, reaching for Tandar to guide her to the next person.

Kela is near.

She stopped, then turned to the sound of the mage's footsteps. "Kela, find the worst of the wounded. Have them brought to me if they can be moved, or mark them if they cannot."

Unhesitating, Kela ran to obey.

Fire crackled, then roared. Smoke belched up into the sky as some nearby village men dragged a hut's burning thatch to the bare ground. The walls fell inward, collapsing to the ground, sending up sparks to fly, hungry, to the next thatched roof. Wind off the plains fanned the fire. Flames leapt up from the thatch.

Choking on smoke, Crysania bent to lay her hands on another man. He moaned as she prayed, reaching up to grasp her hand, trying to touch the soft light surrounded her, the gentle prayer light. He tried to add his racked and torn voice to hers in a plea to the god for his life.

Tandar wheeled, trying to keep Crysania in his sight and to make sure no enemy approached. The scent of fire clawed along his nerves. Sparks, like tiny, glinting daemons, leapt from the burning hut, riding the wind outward.

Lady! More wounded come!

He tried to lend her sight. He hadn't the strength.

"I hear" she said aloud.

They came staggering, some clinging to Kela's hands, the rest leaning on each other, on sticks, on hoes and tools. Mothers carried their babes. The sobbing rose like a haunting. They came to the light. They came to the Revered Daughter as though called.

How not? That prayer light surrounded her, a beacon of purity and hope in this terrible place of grief. They came to her, starving for her aid, for the strength they must feel pouring out from her with the light.

One side of the burning hut collapsed outward. The villagers ran to it, stamping the licking flames and beating the burning grass.

Tandar! Where are Jeril and Lagan? Do you see them?

He looked upward, unable to share his sight. He could not see very far into the sky. They will be well, lady. The dragons won't let them come to harm.

Crysania added the names of her friends to the litany of her prayers. Across the way, the roof of another hut collapsed. The man inside it disappeared, screaming. Dust and sparks shot skyward.

Kela, a sobbing child in one hand, a wailing infant in her arm, stared, helpless, horrified. Tandar wheeled frantically, looking for help, someone to go to the man's aid. In his mind, Crysania said, Go! No one will harm me while Firegold stands guard!

The tiger ran. The smoke was worse near the hut. It filled his lungs, thick and gray, and coated his eyes. He leapt through a hole in the flaming wall. Smoke blinded him; fire singed his skin. He roared in rage, in fear. Outside, someone sobbed, a child cried out, "Da! Save our Da!"

Tandar found the man crumpled near a burning wall. He grabbed a mouthful of tunic and backed away, dragging him. His muscles bunched, knotted. He pulled until he came up against something hard and unyielding. The wall. In the smoke, he'd lost his sense of direction. Pain ran searing along his leg up to his hip.

Fire!

He roared in agony. He grabbed the man once more, backed away again, toward where the smoke was light gray instead of dark. Hoping he'd found the break in the wall, he pulled, he dragged, growling around the mouthful of tunic. The muscles in his shoulders and legs screamed for oxygen and got none. Then bright light stung his eyes. Suddenly air swirled into his lungs, and he fell to his knees, wracked with coughing.

Someone took the burden from beneath his chin. Someone else nudged him farther back, away from the hut. In the clearer air, he smelled his own burnt flesh, the stench of burnt fur.

Then he smelled Crysania, dusty and covered in sweat, in the blood of others, yet inexplicably still retaining the faint scent of the temple. Incense, flowers, herbs, the cool, crisp scent of linen.

Tandar shook off the hands that were trying to help him. Snarling in pain, he dragged himself to his lady. His own breath wheezed in and out. Crysania touched him. He groaned.

Something seeped into him, into his heart, his bones, into his very soul. Tiger soul, man soul. It wasn't really warmth. It was tingling, a coolness, a healing, an energy flowing inward, flowering into health.

The pain clawing at his lungs eased. His eyes cleared.

The man he'd dragged from the flames lay still beside him. Tandar backed way from Crysania's hand.

Go to him. She hesitated. Again he roared into her mind, I pulled him out of fire! Heal him!

Crysania tightened her grip on the tiger, held him for a moment with her head against his shoulder. She felt his exhaustion, his sorrow. He felt her tears on him, wet and warm.

"I couldn't." she said softly. "I'm sorry. He's dead."

Tandar groaned.

She turned, reaching for the next wounded person. Tandar moved slowly to her side. He couldn't hear her thoughts anymore. He was too tired for that. All around them the village continued to burn.

In the sky, the full watch of dragons circled overhead, one gold and a phalanx of silvers. Firegold trumpeted; the watch bugled back.

Victory!

And a child died, choking, while his mother wailed out her grief.