Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [152]
“Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz! Turn back! I command you on this ring and your true name!”
She moaned again in a grief that tore his heart, then dipped one wing and turned, flying slowly as the whistle sounded again and again, louder, frantic, imploring.
“Vengeance!” the dragon screamed. “They killed him, then profaned him!”
“Back to the battle! You can get revenge there!”
She hesitated, fluttering her wings to hold her place.
“Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz!”
With a roar, she flew, leaping forward, it seemed, as her enormous wings thwacked against the air. The whistle played in vain, repeating its ugly call, growing fainter and fainter until they left the sound behind at last and swept down over the battlefield. She roared, and the Horsekin cavalry broke once more, their mounts rearing then plunging free of their riders’ control to race away from the huge beast chasing them. In her rage, Arzosah flew low, snapping at the enemy horses, growling and swinging her head back and forth. In a futile jab, the spearmen tried to hurl their spears—far too long for such an attack—and bring her down.
“The archer!” Rhodry yelled. “Climb!”
With one last roar, she did, angling her wings and flying hard. An arrow sped past below them, then another, falling back harmlessly as they swept over the east ridge.
“Another dive?” she called back.
“One more, truly.”
Since she’d overshot the encampment and the battle both, she circled in a lazy turn, resting in a glide for a moment, then flapped and flew. All at once, she screamed, and Rhodry looked up to swear and yell.
“Turn!”
She was trying, dipping and flapping in a panic as bad as the one she’d caused below, but the white mist billowed up all round them and closed over them like a hand grasping a jewel. Whimpering and trembling, Arzosah slowed her flight, gliding more than flapping, while Rhodry could only swear helplessly. He fumbled at his belt and pulled the bronze knife, glowing golden and sending long darts and glints of light from its point every time he moved his hand. Ahead, the day had turned silvery blue as the fog thinned out. With one last flap, Arzosah burst free and turned, circling over what seemed to be Cengarn but in a world gone mad.
Under the blue light, all the world glowed but the town itself, its houses dead black lumps behind a rise of dead black stone. All round the walls, though, ovoids of bright-colored light ran and scurried, while the battle raged as a war of lights, red and yellow and white, but mostly red, shot here and there with a living black, pulsing and surging all over the field. The circling hills glowed dull red and brown under the silvery, blue-shot sky where the sun hung as an enormous hole of light. Arzosah moaned and circled, gliding on currents of air made visible as long crystalline threads.
“Oh, ye gods,” Rhodry whispered. “I think me we’re in for it good and proper.”
Floating over the town, just above the dun, in fact, hung Alshandra, with her golden hair streaming loose over her shoulders. She towered huge, fully as tall as the dragon was long, and she was carrying a bow. She smiled as she reached to her quiver and drew an arrow, smiled as she turned, keeping Rhodry and the dragon always in her sight.
“Evandar!” Rhodry didn’t even know why he was calling. “Evandar!”
Alshandra laughed with a toss of her head and nocked the arrow to her bow, raised it slowly as she turned.
“Dodge!” Rhodry yelled.
Arzosah flapped and leapt up in an eddy of crystals, shimmering behind her in the bluish air. The enormous arrow sped a few bare feet below them. Alshandra howled in rage and drew another as the dragon’s wings beat slower again.
“I’m tired,” Arzosah moaned. “So tired, Dragonmaster.”
“You’ll be dead if you don’t start flying. Get away from the town! Head south!”
With a shriek, Arzosah dipped low beneath another arrow’s path, then took off, flying steadily, if slowly, toward the south. Howling in rage, Alshandra followed, running through the empty air. When Rhodry glanced back, he saw that she’d dropped