Page 204 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

The Ironriders sent horsemen to investigate. They walked their mounts forward, archers just behind the scouts with spears, men on foot behind them walking their mounts with swords out. Wistala’s eyes picked out the frightened pack-train leaders talking and pointing to dead animals.

Ayafeeia carefully crept across the rock face to her reserve.

“I want them in doubt as to what they face as long as possible, Verkeera,” Ayafeeia said to the greatest of the Firemaids, a massive, mature dragonelle with a bluish tinge to her deep green. “Let some of those rocks on the mountainside do your talking.”

“Yes, maidmother,” Verkeera said. She launched herself and glided over to the other side of the pass.

A mist passed through the mountains, obscuring what came next. Perhaps Verkeera, lower down, could see. In any case, Wistala heard a krrack! followed by a series of descending booms matched with screams of alarm and pain from horse and rider.

“Now that they know we’re here, we might as well get some work done. Crack rock, Firemaids. Let’s claw ourselves a shelf or two.”

The dragons cleared fallen rock, carved falls of ice, or even wedged boulders into chimneys and chutes in the cliffside to make themselves perches so they might rest more easily.>“Between us we should be able to burn the boats they use to cross the Ba-drink.”

“Yes, but there’s another road around the water, it seems. We can only make things more difficult for them at the lake. No, we must fight in the pass.”

Wistala’s knowledge of warfare was limited to observing men and dwarves in battle, and the dragon attack on the blighters in Old Uldam.

“Horsemen,” Ayafeeia said. “They may be masters of warfare on four legs, but we will fight so that their charges and lances avail them not.”

Wistala saw what she meant. Or thought she did.

“Where the pass narrows there, by the rock-slides.”

“If only the dwarves would fight alongside us, yes, that would be the place,” Ayafeeia said. “With such a wall there, we could hold many.”

Wistala saw only a steep cliff on one side and a mountain broken and sharp in three places like one of her rear teeth. The road traveled around the three turns like a snake’s body.

“What kind of wall?” Wistala asked, befuddled. Would the drakka drag rocks, or push snow?

“The same sort that keeps rocks from rolling uphill, my dear. Yes. Yes. This will do very well. Perfect ground for the drakka.”

Wistala flew back to Mossbell. Ragwrist had left his estate to see to the muster of his huntsmen and militia levies.

“There were four new babies born over the winter, still alive after the winter’s sickness,” Lada said. “I cut and washed each one myself. What will happen to them, I wonder.”

“They’ll be eating mash mixed with their milk by the fall, if I have a part in the matter,” Wistala said. “But I would hide them somewhere in the hills. Perhaps a shepherd’s shelter.”

“I’d rather they died of cold than crushed under the hooves of the Ironriders. I’ve heard terrible stories.”

“What does Ragwrist intend?” Wistala asked.

“He’s mounted a small company. But they’re hunters of deer and foxes, not warriors. For the rest, he says he will hide as much as he can in the old mines on the twin hills. The entrances are blocked up, but the old airshaft has a new ladder. Though it’s been a dirty business cleaning out the bats.”

“Don’t speak to me about bats. We’ve a few of these great toothy ones with us, to lick clean our wounds and trim ragged flesh. Rodents who ride in bags. Our Tyr’s idea.”

Dragons, flying all this way with vermin snug and warm against hot wing-muscle in their bags. She shuddered at the memory.

“There’s wisdom in your Tyr’s notion, if they’re the sort of bats I’m thinking of, cattle-feeders. Their saliva numbs and it cleans.”

Back at the dragon encampment at Tumbledown, Ayafeeia put the Firemaids to work sharpening their claws.

The thane had installed some of his retainers in a corner of the ruin, and the men pounded together a new roof for three empty walls. Wistala sent for him through the warriors.

“Remember your oaths,” Ayafeeia said, walking up and down the line to inspect the leather straps and wooden pins the drakka used to hang on to the dragonelles. “Remember the years of comradeship. In this next battle they will be tested. It will take true hearts to face the coming danger and death and pass the highest test asked of our sisterhood.”

Hesturr rode in.

“What news, green allies? I have none good. There’s rumor of burned villages east of here. I believe they make for the road here.”

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