Margaret Weis - Dragons of the Highlord Skies

“No,” he said decisively. “We will strengthen our hold on the south and the east and then we will march on the High Clerist’s Tower.” He emphasized the word. “As to the Solamnic knights, I have my own plan for their destruction.”

Kitiara was disappointed. “My lord, if I could just explain the details, I’m sure you would come to see—”

Ariakas slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk. “Do not push your luck, Blue Lady,” he said grimly.

Kitiara knew when to quit. She knew him and understood him. She knew he distrusted dragons. She knew he distrusted her and that his distrust was part of his decision, though he would never admit it. It would be dangerous to continue to press him.

Kitiara also knew, with a certainty bordering on the uncanny, that he had just made a serious mistake. Men would pay for that mistake with their lives.

Kitiara thought all this and then she let it go with a shake of her black curls and a shrug. Hers was a practical nature that looked always ahead, never behind. She did not waste time in regret.

“As you will, my lord. What is your lordship’s plan?”

“This is the reason I summoned you.” Ariakas rose from the desk and walked to the door. Leaning out, he shouted, “Send for Iolanthe!”

“Who is Iolanthe?” Kit asked.

“The idea is hers,” said Ariakas. “She is my new witch.”

From the glistening of lust in his eye, Kitiara guessed immediately that this new witch was also his new lover.

She leaned her hip on the desk again, resigned to hearing whatever lame-brained scheme Ariakas’s latest paramour had whispered to him during the throes of their love-making. And she was a witch, a user of magic. That made this even worse.

Kitiara was more comfortable around magic-users than most warriors. Her mother, Rosamun, had been born with magic in her blood, given to strange visions and trances that had eventually driven her insane. The same magic flowed strongly in the veins of her younger half-brother, Raistlin. It had been Kitiara who, seeing this talent in him, understood that he could someday earn his bread with his art—provided it didn’t kill him first.

Like most warriors, Kitiara did not like nor trust magic-users. They did not fight fair. Give her a foe who came lunging at her with a sword, not one who pranced about chanting sing-song words and tossing bat dung.

The witch arrived, ushered in by one of the ogre guards who couldn’t quit ogling her. Iolanthe had responded to the summons with such alacrity that Kitiara suspected the witch had been ensconced in a nearby chamber. From the glance she and Ariakas exchanged, Kitiara guessed the woman had been invited to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Iolanthe was what Kitiara would have expected in one of Ariakas’s lovers. She was human, young (late twenties, perhaps), and Kitiara supposed men might consider her beautiful, if you happened to like a nubile, sensuous, voluptuous sort of beauty.

There had been a time when Ariakas had liked Kitiara’s lean and muscular sort of beauty, but that time was long gone. Kit was quite content to let it remain in the past. She’d slept with Ariakas for one reason and that was to gain an advantage over the hundreds of other aspiring and ambitious commanders clamoring for Ariakas’s favor.

Kit greeted Iolanthe with a cool nod and a quirk of her lips, which let the witch understand immediately that Kit knew why and how Iolanthe came to be here.

Iolanthe returned the woman’s crooked smile with a charming smile of her own. Iolanthe had heard a great deal about Kitiara uth Matar from Ariakas and the witch had been intensely curious to meet her. Iolanthe was not jealous of Kitiara. Jealousy of an individual means that one suffers from feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, and Iolanthe was supremely confident of her powers—both physical and magical. She did not see the need to be jealous of anyone.

Kitiara did have one thing Iolanthe wanted. Kit was a Dragon Highlord. She commanded men and dragons; she had wealth and status. She was an equal in the eyes of Ariakas, while Iolanthe was only his witch and his mistress—one in a long line of mistresses. The ogres standing guard outside treated Kitiara with marked respect. They leered at Iolanthe.

The witch wanted what Kitiara had—power—and she meant to get it, though Iolanthe had not yet decided how. She was from Khur, a land of fierce nomadic warriors who fought blood feuds dating back centuries. Iolanthe might make a friend of Kitiara. She might become her most deadly foe. Much depended on Kitiara.

“Explain your idea to the Blue Lady,” said Ariakas, as Iolanthe entered.

Iolanthe made a graceful bow of acquiescence. Her eyes were violet, and she lined them with black kohl to enhance their unusual color. Those eyes met Kitiara’s, their gaze one of cool appraisal.

Kitiara had little use for most men she met and no use at all for women, who, in her mind, tended to be soft creatures given to babies and hysterics. Kit could see why Ariakas had brought this woman to his bed. Iolanthe was one of the most striking, exotic females Kitiara had ever seen.

“You are of Solamnic descent, I believe, Kitiara—” Iolanthe began.

“I am properly addressed as Highlord,” Kitiara stated.

Iolanthe’s black lashes flickered. “I beg your pardon, Highlord. Forgive me.”

Kitiara gave an abrupt nod. “Proceed. My time is short.”

Iolanthe cast a covert glance at Ariakas. As she expected, he was enjoying this. He generally found it expedient to keep his subordinates at each other’s throats, encouraging the survival of the fittest. Iolanthe had the idea that perhaps she could use them both, play one off the other in her own rise to power. A dangerous game, but Iolanthe was born with the blood of warrior-kings in her veins, and she had not come to Neraka merely to feel Ariakas’s calloused hands groping her.

“Your father was a knight,” Iolanthe added, refraining from adding that Kitiara’s father had been a disgraced knight, “and therefore you are familiar with the politics of the Solamnic knighthood—”

“I know that I get a blinding headache whenever politics are discussed,” said Kitiara disdainfully.

“I heard you were a woman of action.” Iolanthe favored Kit with a pretty smile. “Do you know a knight named Derek Crownguard?”

“I know of him. I’ve never met him. He is a Lord of the Rose from a wealthy family, who is vying with Gunthar uth Wistan for the leadership of the knighthood.”

Politics might give Kitiara a headache, but she took care to keep herself informed as to what was happening in the nation she was about to conquer. “Crownguard is ambitious. A glory-seeker. He is a strict follower of the Oath and the Measure. He will not take a crap but that he first consults the Measure to make sure he’s doing it right.”

“Crudely put, but accurate,” said Iolanthe.

“This Crownguard is the key to the destruction of the knighthood,” said Ariakas.

“You want me to have him killed?” Kitiara asked.

She was speaking to Ariakas, but it was Iolanthe who responded with a shake of her head. She wore her long black hair shoulder-length with straight-cut bangs adorned by a slender gold band. Her thick hair swung when she moved her head, giving forth a hint of fragrant perfume. Her robes were made of black silk trimmed in gold, sewn together in layers so that the diaphanous, filmy fabric clung to her here and floated away from her there, providing a fleeting and tantalizing glimpse of brown flesh beneath. She wore golden bracelets on her arms and golden rings on her hands and around her ankles. Her feet were bare.

Kitiara, by contrast, was clad in dragon armor with tall boots, and she smelled of sweat and of leather.