Read Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies for Free Online

surrender, and he needed her wealth and her fleet of white-winged ships. The trade in slaves alone would send steel coins flooding into his coffers.
    Ariakas was about to agree and then he looked into Kitiara’s eyes. He saw what he wanted to see in the eyes of one of his commanders: the lust for battle. But he saw something else there, too—something that gave him pause. He saw smug certainty. He saw ambition.
    She would be lauded and celebrated: Kitiara, the Blue Lady, the conqueror of Solamnia.
    He could see her hand reaching for the Crown of Power. She had already, perhaps, removed one of her rivals …
    Ariakas did not fear Kit. He feared nothing and no one. If he had thought her daring plan was his only chance for victory, he would have ordered her to proceed and he would have dealt with her when she challenged him. But the more he considered her plan, the more he saw the potential for disaster.
    Ariakas mistrusted Kit’s reliance on dragons. Before the Dark Queen’s return, Ariakas had never brought dragons into battle, and while he admitted they had their uses for destruction and intimidation, he did not think it wise to rely on them to take the lead in a fight, as Kitiara was proposing. Dragons were arrogant beasts. Powerful and intelligent, they considered themselves as far above humans as humans considered themselves above fleas. Ariakas could not, for example, give a dragon a direct order. The dragons were obedient only to Queen Takhisis, and even the goddess had to be diplomatic in her approach.
    Kitiara’s reckless and unorthodox plan went against all Ariakas’s notions of the proper way to conduct a war, and it wouldn’t hurt her to get smacked down for once—remind her who was in charge.
    “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.