brush area. A further dozen were strung out at the base of the cliff. A mile to the north, a huge cargo Dragonship drifted above a low hill. In half an hour it would lose control and come sweeping down upon the Palace … right. Flicker’s duty was to signal the attack. He made one aerial loop. A second. As the third came to its completion, the monks surged silently from the bushes. Arrows whispered into the semidarkness. Lia struck her target atop the bluff cleanly beneath the chin, the arrow spearing through his brain. Fourteen Royal Guards collapsed within a heartbeat of each other, struck down simultaneously. All was accomplished in complete silence.
Monks rushed toward the secret entrance. Just a crack in the rocks marked by a damp stain, it was a sewage outlet for the dungeons. A Human pyramid formed against the cliff as if by magic. Sprinting toward the pyramid, his Lia–the lightest by far–stepped nimbly into the linked hands of a pair of monks. They launched her to the top of the pyramid, where a second pair of monks repeated the manoeuvre. Up she soared, a further fifteen feet to the crack. With the accomplished wriggle of a dragonet disappearing into its warren, Hualiama slipped into the darkness.
Rope flew up. It drew taut. Inside, Lia would be tying it to the metal grating which prevented ingress.
A low birdcall sounded.
Thirty monks heaved on the rope in perfect concert. The old, rusty grating popped loose on the third attempt. Flicker caught his breath–and where was Lia? There, swinging aside on a one-handed hold to allow the grating past her body. Two monks on the pyramid caught it so that there would be no clash of metal against rock.
A stream of dark-clad monks began to swarm up their pyramid, leaping for the crack like a flurry of Human-sized bats, so rapidly that they almost landed on each other’s backs. Flicker chirruped his approbation. Respectable, for mere Humans. A pair of ropes snaked down. The last of the monks–Rallon and Hallon, the giants at the pyramid’s base, swarmed up to join their fellows.
Flicker scanned the clifftops. When he observed no sign that their intrusion had been detected, the dragonet flipped his wings to enter the narrow tunnel with far more grace than the monks had managed. Obviously, he refused to sully his paws in the sewage. He landed on Lia’s shoulder.
Perfect, said the dragonet.
“Flicker says we’re in,” said Lia. “No Dragons so far.”
Their intelligence suggested that the majority of the Dragons slept atop the sprawling royal abode, with two or three of the Dragonkind guarding the chamber off the Great Hall which Ra’aba had made his own. Flicker reminded himself that this was only the first prong of a four-pronged attack.
Lia said, “Right, brother Ja’al. Time to foment a little long-overdue regime change.” His teeth gleamed briefly at the royal ward. “Flicker, check the dungeon entrance and report back. Hallon and first squad, secure the downstairs. Jammizon, second squad, this level. Ja’al and the rest, follow me. Keep the noise down to less than a Dragon’s battle-roar, alright?”
Garbed all in black, their hands, faces and heads blackened, the unarmoured but heavily armed monks filed up the stinking tunnel toward the dungeons proper. Flicker nipped ahead.
* * * *
Hualiama wished that adrenalin would wipe out the toxic cocktail of dread and dreams seething in her belly. So many qualms. Would her Nuyallith skills prove the ultimate weapon against Ra’aba? What kind of reception would Grandion receive at Gi’ishior? When she faced her father, would she feel wounded or vindicated? Could she hope to live up to the task with which an Ancient Dragon and the Nameless Man had entrusted her?
She issued orders. Led a team of monks. Even if her service was not acceptable to the King, she would serve her kingdom.
She secretly hoped that her friend Inniora would be held in the dungeons. Unlike most dungeons, she supposed, these were clean, dry and well ventilated, but also overrun by rats and hardly comfortable accommodation. The standard sleeping arrangement was a block of stone set along the left side of each cell, which were ten feet deep and just six feet wide. Tiny. Open metal gratings faced onto a substantial grid of long, torch-lit corridors, and while there were few guard patrols downstairs, a heavily fortified guardroom was located above the third level of the dungeons, which they would have to pass through in order to gain entrance to the lower