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Wistala pulled back—hard—and heard a high, metallic ting! as a link parted. Now with the fighting blood running hot in her veins, she lunged and snapped at one of the fliers. She caught it across the back and shook it like a dog killing a rat, flinging it into a corner and going after another.
Leathery flaps covered her eyes. She whipped her neck up hard and heard a satisfying splat as she crushed it against the wet ceiling.
Blinking the sting of the creature’s blood from her eyes, she saw her brother still fighting the chains around his throat.
For the first time Wistala had a clear look at their tormentors. They were batlike creatures, furless with thick, spiny skin. Evilly smiling jaws bristled with teeth and wide red eyes shone under cavernous ears. A thick mat of hair remained on the head, trailing down between the eyes to an upturned nose.
The legs, short but powerful, ended in quadruple claws. Long arms trailed veined webbing; the wings extended down the sides of their bodies to the knee joint.
“Pah!” one screamed at her brother, spitting a green globule at his good eye. He lifted his chin and managed to catch it on the griff, where it sizzled briefly.
Wistala spat back. Her fire ran across the ceiling of the bath, dropped to a pool, and spread atop it like a flaming leaf, adding to the steam. The creature vanished in the fire, its flaming body plummeted.
Striking with her wing, she brought down another. It tried to right itself on the slippery floor but she stomped down hard with a sii.
Just as suddenly as they’d come, they were gone, leaving hooked chains behind. And the bodies of their comrades.
She helped her brother out of the choking chain.
“We’ll need someone to extract these fishhook things,” Wistala said.
“Thank you,” the Copper managed.
Once the alarmed Griffaran Guard, Shadowcatch, and some servant thralls had attended to them, they ordered a thorough search of Imperial Rock for the rest of the assassins.
Their wounds were frightful—the hooks had left holes under the scale. They easily could have lost one or both neck-hearts in the struggle.
“How did they get into the Imperial Rock ?”
“Flew—they’re dark, we don’t have a permanent guard circling in the air. The Drakwatch and Firemaids guard the entrances and lower passages. I expect they just flew in quietly and entered through someone’s balcony.”
“They must know their way around well.”
“Perhaps they explored,” Wistala said. “Late, when all are asleep.”
“I suppose they could have been mistaken for one of my bats. But not up close. These are out of the ordinary.”
“They must have been hidden by someone in the Imperial Rock. Fed, watered, washed out—until we were together and alone.”
“Perhaps they just attacked me to keep me from defending you,” Wistala said.
“Then why aren’t there three chains—or four? No, they brought two sets of hooked chains. Enough for two dragons. Someone must have seen us go off to the baths together and called them in.”
“I see being Queen is not all feasts and viewing hatchlings,” Wistala said.
“We’d better see about these wounds,” the Copper said. “Some of my own bats can take care of them.”
Wistala didn’t care for her brother’s method of treating wounds—washed out with bat spit, ragged flesh snipped away by sharp little teeth, all to the tune of cooing and animal slurping sounds in between “’ere, under tha’ scale” and “oh, this bit’s good, wha’s next?” But she had to admire the pleasant numbness and the clean scars.
At last, she had evidence of a conspiracy. But nothing on who might have sent the extraordinarily malformed bat creatures to kill them in the first place.
Chapter 9
NiVom was up to something. The Copper could smell it on him.
His Protector of Ghioz had invited him to enjoy a few days of sunlight in the Upper World “observing a show of Grand Alliance strength designed to enhance our prestige and intimidate possible rivals on our eastern borders,” or so the Firemaiden messenger told him.
After the usual courtly pleasantries and cheers welcoming him—and a small contingent of the Griffaran Guard and of course Shadowcatch 00 welcomed him to the only Protectorate that could begin to rival Hypatia—NiVom had some thralls pull away a canvas covering to show him a map worthy of the Lavadome map room itself.
