What any ears down in the valley made of the strikes, rattles, and steady fall of small rocks and ice chips Wistala could only imagine. Perhaps they thought trolls were at work.

Wistala heard crashes and screams and the sound of galloping hooves headed back toward the Ba-drink or riding for the eastern gap.

The dragonelles flew down and collected dead horses, mules, and donkeys, then took them high into the mountains and laid them out “on ice” so they might be eaten fresh later. Then they dined, heartily, on corpses. The drakka ran down an injured horse.

“Dragonelles are suited for this kind of fighting,” Ayafeeia told Wistala. “With the Aerial Host, they get blood in their nostrils and they refuse to relent until there’s blood and flame everywhere. This isn’t the kind of fight that can be settled in one stroke.”

Nor was it.

The next day the Ironriders came through the pass in force.

The dragonelles and drakka taunted the Ironriders to come up in the hills and get them.

Of course they tried, riding as steep a rocky slope as they could, with many horses slipping down to injury thanks to the snow and ice that still lurked in crevices and shadows.

When the Ironriders dismounted, chasing after the dragons in groups with spears, archers behind, the drakka hid until the men had passed and then leaped onto the backs of the archers, gutting them and then running under showers of arrows, leaving the Ironriders the depressing task of bringing down the dead or wounded. Otherwise their much-chewed bones would be neatly arranged in the road by dawn the next day. When they charged through the pass as fast as they could trying to simply run by the dragons, one or more would drop from cover in the cliff and loose fire onto the screaming men and horses, or they would drop sii and saa full of rocks from great heights so that gravity did the killing work.

They couldn’t pass at night, either. After a successful test run of a small troop, they tried to walk a larger contingent through. The dragons first panicked the horsemen and then batted the crowd back and forth along the mountain road, attacking first the east end and then the west.

An overzealous drakka died during that, speared after she knocked a wounded rider out of his saddle.

Another dragonelle was wounded when an arrow hit a soft spot and shot straight through her lung, at such an angle and doing so much damage that she could no longer fly. She had to be content standing watch at night and trumpeting warnings when the Ironriders tried to force the pass.

Wistala could feel the despair and frustration of the tormented riders below. While the others counted bodies or, worse, brought back heads, she could only fight the cold queasy feeling in her stomach.

Was she to blame for the bloodshed in this pass? She’d humbled the Wheel of Fire, and the dwarves were taking revenge on those west of the mountains by leaving their pass open.

But the knowledge of the depredations of the riders who had already passed through to the west steeled her. Warriors and their mounts must die so that Hypatian villages would go unburned.

Of course they burned the boats the Ironriders used to cross the Ba-drink, and they downed the bridge where Wistala had once made peace with the Dragonblade, bashing at the keystone with their tails and once that gave way, widening the breach by jumping up and down on the edges.

Their greatest difficulty was coping with the cold. Though spring had come to the lower altitudes, the mountains were thick with snow. Dragons like the cool of a deep underground cave, but being caught out in the open with icy mountain winds and snow gathering in their scales leaves them ill-spirited. They slept tightly, side by side, alternating front to back, with the drakka tucked under the protection of motherly wings.

The cold made them torpid and slow until the activity of battle heated their blood.

It was glorious fun. “Better than tunnel fighting, and horsemeat twice a day,” Takea said.

As the days of sporadic fighting wore on, the dragonelles noticed a slight change. Traffic began to flow the other way over the pass. Ironriders, in ones and twos, with horses laden with loot or bringing sore-footed captives behind with necks bound in rope-line.

The Firemaids were only too happy to spread havoc among exhausted men and worn-out horses. They were easier to chase down and devour. Ayafeeia gave them the contents of various captured saddlebags and their pick of whatever they wanted from the corpses now littering the pass.

The Firemaids had never enjoyed such a variety of rich, refined metals. While their enemies grew weaker, they became thick-scaled and stouthearted on devoured steppe ponies and their riders.

Then there was the freeing of the Ironriders’ captives. Wistala had the most gentle-winged dragonelle fly them to a sheep-trail down the western slope of the mountains, heavily laden with smoked meat, skins, and traveling clothing thickened by stolen furs.

Hopefully, the liberated captives would return to their villages and hearths with a tale of outrage—and the kindness of dragons.

Chapter 20

The Copper received news of the opening of Ghioz’s war in the map room.

None of it was good. All his Upholders to the east and south reported fighting, all begging for the immediate aid of the Aerial Host or the land was sure to be lost.

“Four cries of disaster,” the Copper said. “One Aerial Host. What should we do?”

“Start at the south,” HeBellereth said. “The Yellowsand reports only a roc-rider or two, and bandit attacks on our caravans. The Ghioz will be weakest there, and easiest to locate. Then sweep north. Move slowly and surely so the rumor of our coming travels faster than the dragons themselves. Terror will do half our work for us.”

“Should we let our enemies choose the ground of the fight?” NoSohoth asked. “They are plundering our Upholds. We could send the Aerial Host to burn out a few of their lands.”

“I would think Chushmereamae is the base of their attacks on us,” LaDibar said, tapping his tail on the depiction of the islands on the map in thought. “Destroy that base. Then we may restore order in the Upholds.”

“Fine idea,” Nilrasha said. “We must commit the Aerial Host, my Tyr. With their boats burned, the threat in the south will be ended.”

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.