Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,238

the birds from gaining a flying advantage. Esad had his doubts about his ability to perform his task, but his fear of his father prevented him from doing anything about it.

He looked up and barely saw the winged silhouette in the thin sliver of the pale moon.

“Dragon’s blood!” The Tezerenee abandoned his mount and went rushing to the keep. He kept silent, hoping that he could spread the word through contact and give the clan some slight advantage of surprise yet. Esad knew that if he died before he was able to alert someone, the blame for the deaths that followed would fall to him.

An armored figure, female, nearly collided with him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and whispered, “The birds attack any moment! Spread the word, but do it quietly!”

She nodded her understanding and started to move away.

A bolt of blue lightning caught her in midstep… and left only a thin trail of smoke to mark her passing.

The time for silence, Esad realized in horror, was over.

“Defend yourselves! We are attacked from above!”

The air was swarming with black shapes that fluttered into and out of the dim light of the two moons.

THEY HAD LET him watch. Watch as they began what would, it seemed, be the end of the Vraad race. He was treated well, since it was his knowledge of the tactics of the Tezerenee that the avians had used and might still need, yet he was still a prisoner, not the ally they pretended he was. Bereft of his powers and watched over by fierce companions, it was a wonder the avians even made the pretense of calling him an ally.

Despite all that, Rendel was quite satisfied, though he knew better than to show it. It was not the destruction of his kind that pleased the sorcerer, but rather that his own plans still moved on unimpeded. The cavern was virtually empty of its inhabitants, Rendel’s practiced words—images?—impressing upon the aerie’s overlord that nearly every able fighter was needed. It was a lie not that far from truth. Even with the advantages of first strike and dominance in the night sky, the birds would take hard losses. The Tezerenee would not die without a fight… and would not even die, if things went as planned.

After all, he preferred human subjects to feathered monsters like his captors.

The young who had been deemed too untrained to fight and those responsible for their care had retreated to lower caverns on the off chance that some danger might threaten the aerie. That fear had been planted, albeit surreptitiously, by the Vraad during his communications with what he still liked to term the council of elders for lack of a more defined description. To the avians, it seemed a reasonable precaution. As with now, he had barely been unable to suppress his pleasure. Rendel had succeeded in assuring that he would be left with only a few guards to watch over him.

In fact, there were three. A few others were scattered about the mountain and the mouth of the cavern, but the arrogant creatures actually believed that they had tricked their captive. Glancing at those standing around him, Rendel marveled that this race had become the dominant one in the Dragonrealm. Two were tall, muscular warriors, one of whom the Tezerenee believed was the leader of the patrol that had taken him prisoner. His remaining watchdog was the balding elder who had spoken out during the offer of alliance. The overlord was not here, having chosen to lead the attack, something that would have earned Barakas’s respect, but received only silent amusement from Rendel. It had never made sense to him to dangle such a prize as a leader before an enemy. Let the lessers take the damage. There were always more of them.

The male he believed was his original captor squawked something. Rendel turned completely from the glittering crystal that acted as his eyes in the attack and allowed the avian to touch him, establishing the link between the two of them.

The vision of two birds falling prey to a dragon rider’s mount was followed by a wave of anger. Rendel surmised that the image he had been shown was only one example of how the clan was fighting back. His erstwhile allies could evidently see in the dark better than he could, either that or the mind link was even stronger than he supposed, for the Vraad could not recall any such image in the viewing crystal. That did