“What are your orders, Lord?” Skie asked impatiently.
The dragon was hoping she would think better of this folly and tell him to recall the blues who had gone winging after the griffons. Fast beasts, griffons. They were already nearly out of sight. The blues would be hard-pressed to catch them. He hoped she would tell him they were all going to go back to Solamnia, to forests teeming with deer and glorious battles to be fought and cities to be conquered.
What she told him was not what he had hoped for or expected. Her order confounded him utterly.
“Set me down on the street.”
Skie twisted his head around to stare at her. “Are you mad?”
“I know what I am about,” she said. “That cleric of Paladine, Elistan, was not among those you mentioned, yet he was staying at the inn. I must find out what has become of him.”
“You said the cleric was of no importance! He wasn’t the one you were after. Those you were after are disappearing over the horizon.”
“I’ve changed my mind. Set me down!” Kitiara repeated angrily. “You go with the other blues. Continue your pursuit of those on griffon-back, and when you catch them, bring them back to camp. Alive!” she emphasized. “I want them alive.”
“Highlord,” said Skie earnestly, doing as he was told but not liking it, “you are taking a great risk! This city is going up in flames, and it’s filled with draconians thirsting for trouble. They’ll kill you first and find out you are a Highlord after!”
“I can take care of myself,” Kit told him.
“The one you seek has escaped Tarsis! Why go back? Don’t tell me that you’re chasing after some foul cleric!”
Kit glared at him as she hoisted herself out of the saddle, but she did not answer. The dragon had no idea what she was scheming. But he knew full well it had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with her current obsession.
“Kitiara,” Skie pleaded, “let this go. You risk not only your command, you risk your life!”
“You have your orders,” Kitiara told him, and Skie saw by the look in her eye that he continued this argument at his peril.
Skie landed on the only patch of open ground he could find—the marketplace. The area was littered with bodies, the smoldering ruins of stalls and trampled vegetables, terrified dogs howling, and roving draconians, their swords red with blood. Kitiara climbed out of the saddle.
“Remember!” she said to Skie, as he was about to take to the air, “I want them alive!”
Skie grunted that he’d only heard that about six hundred times. He flew up through the smoke that had smelled so good to him at the start, but which he now found annoying, for it clogged his lungs and stung his eyes.
He would obey Kitiara’s orders, though the last thing Kit needed was to be caught by Ariakas romping in the bed of a half-elf who had killed Verminaard.
Skie would chase after this half-elf, but he’d be damned if he was going to catch him!
Iolanthe watched Kitiara make her way through the ravaged city. The smell of burning was in the air here as well, but the smell did not come from smoldering wooden beams or charred flesh. The smell came from the burnt black curls—a few wisps of hair withering in the fire of Iolanthe’s spell.
Iolanthe was in her chambers in Neraka, watching Kitiara with intense interest, noting those details she might decide to share with Ariakas when she made her report to him. He no longer sat in on the spellcasting when Iolanthe spied on Kit. He was too busy, he told her curtly.
Iolanthe knew the truth. He would never admit it, but he was deeply hurt by Kitiara’s betrayal. It was the winternorn, Feal-Thas, who had placed the last rock on Kitiara’s funeral pyre. He had sent Ariakas a detailed report on Kitiara, claiming to have probed the depths of Kitiara’s soul to discover she was infatuated with a half-elf who was implicated in the slaying of Verminaard. Iolanthe had been there when he’d read the report, and Ariakas had flown into such a blind, furious rage that for a few moments Iolanthe had trembled for her own life.
Ariakas had eventually calmed down, but though his fury no longer blazed, it continued to smolder. He was convinced that Kitiara was responsible for the death of Verminaard. Ariakas sent his guards to Solamnia in search of Kit, only to be told by her sub commander, Bakaris, that she was not around. She had gone off on some mysterious errand with Skie and had taken a flight of blues with her.
Ariakas had no doubt she was going to meet her half-breed lover, and he began to believe she was in some sort of conspiracy with the half-elf, against him. The fact that she’d taken the blues with her confirmed his suspicions. She was going to establish herself in opposition to him, challenge him for the Crown of Power.
Ariakas had ordered Iolanthe to use her magic to locate Kitiara and report back what she discovered.
So now Iolanthe watched as Kitiara commandeered a squad of draconians roaming through the marketplace. She divested herself of her Highlord helm and armor, wrapped them in her cloak, and stashed them beneath a pile of rubble. Kit snatched a cloak off a corpse and wrapped herself in it. She tied a scarf over her nose and mouth, to protect her from smoke and the stench of death, and also to conceal her identity, for she stuffed her black curly hair into a hat stolen from the same corpse.
This done, Kitiara set off down the street, accompanied by the draconians, heading in the direction of the inn in which Iolanthe had heard her tell the dragon the half-elf had been staying. Meanwhile, the half-elf was escaping on griffon-back. Iolanthe couldn’t understand what was going on. Why hadn’t Kit gone after him? Iolanthe began to think she’d been mistaken about Kit. Perhaps she had decided to apprehend this cleric of Paladine, in which case, she would return a hero, for half of Ansalon was searching for this cleric, while the other half were looking for the elusive Green Gemstone man.
Iolanthe was intrigued. After watching what Kitiara had been doing so far, witnessing all the foolish mistakes she’d made, Iolanthe had been about to place her money on the emperor, but now she wasn’t so sure. This horse was performing much better than anticipated.
2
The wrath of the God. Rivals
Kit walked the bloody, burnt streets of Tarsis. She had with her a squad of draconians, who had been amazed and not terribly pleased to see this Blue Dragon Highlord appear out of the smoke and flame of the dying city and order them to accompany her. Kitiara’s untimely arrival had spoiled the draconians’ plans for looting, raping, and butchering. Now they had to protect this blasted Highlord, which meant they were missing out on the fun. The baaz did as they were ordered, but they were sullen and inclined to grumble.
Kitiara’s own plans for what she intended to do were vague, half-formed, something unusual for the woman who never went into battle without a well-thought-out plan of attack. Her first impulse had been to fly off in pursuit of Tanis and her half-brothers, but it had occurred to her that Skie could chase them down on his own. Kitiara needed to find out what had happened to her rival. Was Laurana dead? Had she and Tanis quarreled, separated, or chosen deliberately to take different paths?
Above all else, Kitiara wanted to see Laurana, to talk to her. One of Kit’s father’s dictums: know your enemy!
The red dragons continued to fly overhead, though now their enjoyment was dampened; they could not attack anymore, for their own troops had marched into the city. The red dragons dove down now and then to breathe a gout of flame on a building or chase after those who had fled the city and were trying to escape across the plains. The wind rose, fanning the fires that yet burned, picking up sparks and cinders and flinging them about, starting additional blazes.
Draconians and goblins roamed the streets in packs. Some of them were drunk by this time and were engaged in looting or looking to satiate other, more dreadful appetites. They had ceased fighting the few brave or desperate men and women who continued to battle. A lone human, Kitiara might have been menaced, but for her draconian troops. Seeing a commanding-looking man (for such she appeared) striding purposefully down the street, accompanied by a squad of baaz, even the most drunken draconian knew her for an officer, and since officers were to be avoided at all costs, they left her alone.