Page 209 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

That gave him pause. Nilrasha didn’t much like LaDibar. To see her supporting him in a debate made him wonder if she was really speaking her mind or playing some political game to win support of the Anklenes.

“I fear all of these are feints,” the Copper said. “The Red Queen doesn’t care where we react, as long as we do. As soon as the Aerial Host is committed, she will launch her counterstrike. Their roc-riders worry me. They can beat our dragons to any fight.”

“You are too cautious!” HeBellereth said. “Let them come. We have been practicing flying in a new, tighter formation so that our riders may better cover each other with bows.”

The Copper stared at the map. The little statues representing the type and kind of Ghioz forces scattered up and down the eastern Upholds seemed to be mocking, willing the arrangement to reveal the Red Queen’s mind. “I fear I’m not being cautious enough. I’ll choose when to commit the host, and where. I won’t have the Red Queen make that decision for me. We’ve lost too many skirmishing over Bant already. Curse the eggs that hatched those featherbrains.”

He was just in a foul mood because Wistala had made a mess of things in Hypatia. According to Ayafeeia’s courier, the Hypatian “Voice,” or whatever they called the king, had rejected his offer of an alliance. They were fighting in the Red Mountains to help some Hypatian provinces north of the Falnges River.

Practically the other side of the world.

Well, Ayafeeia knew her business. Perhaps she would occupy the Ironriders so they wouldn’t come rampaging through Bant. But he ordered Ayafeeia to return with as many of her Firemaids as she could.

His mood didn’t improve until he received a bat with his evening meal. Paskinix had been found, hiding close to the river ring where he could keep in contact with the demen settled there to keep in contact with the “Tyr’s demen,” as they were beginning to be called.

“Tell the Drakwatch,” the Copper ordered. “I want him captured. Alive. Don’t bring me a charred corpse and say he committed suicide, or I’ll yank every scale out of the capture-party leader myself.”

Angalia returned from the Tyr with a complaint about shooting pains in her joints caused by the altitude and a message that war had broken out all through Bant and the southern provinces. As Hypatia had rejected his appeal for an alliance, he had other uses for the Firemaids. He ordered Ayafeeia’s return with her forces.

That night it snowed—probably a heavy spring rain on the woods west of the mountains but at their altitude it made fighting impossible and even movement dangerous. They talked it out over a meal of dragonflame-warmed horse.

“I won’t withdraw from this pass, with battle begun. We’re teaching them to fear the smell of dragons.”

“You can plague them here at your leisure, Wistala. I leave you in charge. You’ve learned enough about this sort of fighting to handle the rest.”

Ayafeeia departed with those who’d suffered small injuries that limited their ability to climb or run but could still fly, or hang on. She left Wistala with the most experienced and battle-tested of the Firemaids and a handful of drakka, including Takea.

On the third day after Ayafeeia left, the roc-riders attacked.

They came screaming out of the sky as the dragons were occupied dropping fire on stone-throwing machines that they later decided had been built solely to provide them with targets for their fire. The rocs raked two dragonelles across the back, tearing wing and ligament and sending them tumbling through the air into the Ironriders.

If the fall didn’t kill them, they were soon speared by the Ironriders.

Now it was the Ironriders’ turn to jeer.

The roc-riders stole the food they’d kept on ice on a high glacier. One lucky rider plucked a drakka and lifted off with her, carried screaming higher and higher as two dragonelles tried to pursue in vain. The roc dropped her, just to hear her scream as she fell, and Wistala cursed the eggs that had sheltered them.

They managed to avenge themselves on two roc-riders when Wistala suggested a tactic that had very nearly worked on her when a troll plunged out of the sky upon her. They buried two dragonelles in snow so they wouldn’t be seen, and then they fell on the riders as they rode through the pass. The dragons did better than trolls, though—they could use their wings to control their dives. When they struck the riders, rider and mount disappeared in a burst of blood, flesh, and feathers.

Takea returned that night with the top half of a beak, wearing it as a human would a helmet.

Now the sky and the heights belonged to the Ironriders. Wistala and what was left of the Firemaids had to keep clear of swooping roc-riders and their arrows.

“We could sneak away. Why do we hold this pass alone? Where are the men who would fight at our side?”

“They have troubles enough with the riders who are making it across the pass.”

“How long do we stay here?”

Wistala bristled. “Until they stop coming or we breathe our last.”

The Firemaids needed more than that, she decided. Each would lay down her life gladly if they guarded the mouth of a tunnel that had hatchlings at the other end. But the reasons for fighting here—how could she put them into words?

“I believe humans will never trust us unless we prove our loyalty to our word and their law by dying for it.”

“What’s human law to us?” a Firemaid asked, both nostrils and lips caked with blood and the marks of the desperate dagger-strokes of some Ironrider she’d finished off. “I say withdraw!”

A Firemaid muttered that they would be climbing out if they withdrew. There were no longer enough healthy dragonelles to carry the drakka.

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