Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies (34 page)

Feal-Thas, who had written the letter betraying Kitiara, was able to guess what was about to happen. He waited with anticipation. He had never forgiven her for killing his guardian.

Booted footsteps rang in the hallway, then Kitiara’s raised voice, calling jocular greeting to the guards. Ariakas’s dark, baleful gaze was fixed on the entrance. The bozaks flanking the door tensed.

Kitiara strolled inside, her sword clattering at her hip, her blue cape flowing after her. She carried her helm beneath her arm.

“My lord, Ariakas—” she began, about to raise her hand in salute.

The bent-wing bozak seized hold of her, pinning her by the arms. A second bozak grabbed her sword and yanked it from its sheath.

“Kitiara uth Matar,” said Ariakas in sonorous tones, rising ponderously to his feet, “you are under arrest on a charge of high treason. If you are found guilty, the penalty for your crime is death.”

Kitiara stood frozen, staring, open-mouthed and confounded, so astonished she made no attempt to resist. Her first thought was this was some sort of jest; Ariakas was noted for his perverted sense of humor. She saw in his eyes, however, that he was serious—deadly serious.

Kitiara looked swiftly around the room. She saw the other Highlords—three of them as astonished as herself—and she realized they had not been brought here for a meeting. This was a trial. These men were her judges, each one of whom coveted her position as Highlord of the Blue Dragon Army. Even as she realized this, she saw each man’s shock give way to pleasure, saw each cast dark glances at his compatriots, plotting and scheming how best to attain her position. In their minds, she was already dead.

Kitiara’s impulse then was to fight, but that came a little too late. Her sword was gone. She was in the firm and painful grasp of an enormous bozak, who was armed with both a sword and powerful magicks. The thought crossed Kit’s mind that it would be better to fight a hopeless battle to the death now than face whatever torment Ariakas had in mind for her. She restrained herself, however. The Solamnics have “My honor is my life” as their credo. Kit’s was “Never say die.”

She recovered her composure. She had not always obeyed Ariakas’s orders. She had gone off on raiding parties when she should have been laying boring siege to some castle. She had appropriated for the use of her troops certain tax revenues meant to go to the emperor. None of these offences could be termed crimes of high treason, however, though of course the emperor could call stealing a meat pie from his table high treason if he chose. Kit had no idea what all this was about. Then she saw the faint smile upon the lips of Feal-Thas, and Kit immediately recognized her enemy.

She stood tall and straight, fearless and dignified in the grasp of her captors, and faced Ariakas.

“What is the meaning of this, my lord?” Kitiara demanded with an air of injured innocence. “What act of high treason have I committed? I have served you faithfully. Tell me, my lord. I do not understand.”

“You are charged with plotting the murder of Dragon Highlord Verminaard and hiring assassins to carry it out,” said Ariakas.

Kitiara’s jaw dropped. The irony was chilling. She was being charged with the one crime of which she was innocent. She glanced at Feal-Thas, saw the faint smile broaden, and she snapped her jaw shut with a click of her teeth.

Her voice trembling with rage, Kitiara stated, “I utterly refute and deny that charge, my lord!”

“Lord Toede,” said Ariakas, “did Highlord Kitiara ask you in a most suspicious manner for information regarding the felons who assassinated Verminaard?”

Toede managed to worm his way through the forest of his bodyguards and said with a gasp and many mop-pings of his brow, “She did, my lord.” “I did not!” Kitiara retorted.

“Did she talk to a man called Eben Shatterstone, also seeking information about these people?”

“She did, my lord,” Toede said, proud of being the center of attention. “The wretch told me so himself.”

Kitiara would have liked to choke the hobgoblin until his beady little eyes popped out of his yellow head. But the bent-wing bozak had a grip of steel on her and she could not break free. She contented herself with shooting Toede a look so threatening and malevolent that Toede shriveled up and shrank back, terrified, among his bodyguards.

“She should be in manacles, my lord!” the hob quavered. “Put her in leg irons!”

Kitiara turned to Ariakas. “If you have no other evidence besides the word of this quivering mound of goo—”

“The emperor has my evidence,” said Feal-Thas. Gathering his robes about him, he rose gracefully to his feet, his motion slow and unhurried. “As many of you know,” he said, speaking to the group at large, “I am a winternorn. I will not go into detail explaining this magical skill to the uninitiated. Suffice it to say, a winternorn has the power to delve deep into the heart of another.

“I looked into your heart, Highlord Kitiara, when you were gracious enough to visit me in my icebound solitude, and I saw the truth. You sent these assassins to kill Lord Verminaard, hoping to succeed him as Highlord of the Red Dragonarmy.”

“Lies! Liar!” Kitiara lunged at Feal-Thas in such fury that the bozak holding her was nearly dragged off his clawed feet. “I should have killed you at Icereach!”

Feal-Thas glanced at Ariakas as much as to say, “Do you require any more proof, my lord?” and sat down, undisturbed by Kit’s ravings.

Realizing she had only made matters worse, Kitiara managed to regain some semblance of calm. “Do you believe him, my lord, a shit-eating elf, or will you believe me? I had nothing to do with the death of Verminaard! He died through his own folly!”

Ariakas removed his sword and tossed it on the table.

“Highlords, you have heard the evidence. What is your verdict? Is Kitiara uth Matar guilty of the murder of Highlord Verminaard or do you find her innocent?”

“Guilty,” said Lucien, with an orgish grin.

“Guilty,” said Salah Kahn, his dark eyes glinting.

“Guilty, guilty!” cried Toede, then added nervously, “Therefore she should most definitely be in leg irons!”

“I am sorry, Kitiara,” said Feal-Thas gravely. “I enjoyed our meeting at Icereach, but my duty is to my emperor. I must find you guilty.”

Ariakas shifted the sword around. The point faced Kitiara. “Kitiara uth Matar, you have been found guilty of the death of a Dragon Highlord. The punishment for that crime is death. At dawn tomorrow, you will be taken to the Arena of Death where you will be hanged, drawn and quartered. The remains of your body will be placed upon pikes at the Temple gates to serve as a warning to others.”

Kitiara stood still. She no longer struggled. Her ravings ceased.

“You are making a terrible mistake, my lord,” she said calmly. “I have been loyal to you when all these others have been false. But no longer, my lord. No more. It is you who have betrayed me.”

Ariakas made a gesture to the bent-wing bozak as if tossing out garbage. “Take her away.”

“Where to, my lord?” the bozak asked. “Does she go to the Pen or to the dungeons in the Temple?”

Ariakas considered. The Pen was the local prison house and it was always overcrowded, verging on chaos half the time. Escapes were not common, but they did occur, and if anyone could manage to escape confinement, it would be Kitiara. She would be put into a cell with other prisoners—male prisoners. He could picture her seducing the jailer, her guards, her fellow inmates, rousing them all to revolt.

The dungeons in the Temple were more secure and less crowded. Most political prisoners were jailed there, yet Ariakas hesitated to send Kitiara to the Temple. The dark priests and the Nightlord had no love for Kitiara, who had stated openly she considered them lazy toadies who did nothing except eat and sleep while the military undertook the hard and thankless work of winning the war. Still, the Nightlord was jealous of Ariakas and Kit might find a way to win him to her side.

No matter where she was incarcerated, so long as she lived, Kitiara was a danger. Ariakas began to wish he’d scheduled her execution immediately, not waited for the public spectacle. Too late to change his mind. The other Highlords would scent weakness. He could think of only one place where she would be safe and completely inaccessible to anyone.

“Lock her up in the storeroom in my private chambers in the Temple,” Ariakas said. “Post guards at the door. No one is to enter my chambers. No one is to speak to her. Any who fail me in this will suffer a fate identical to hers.”

The bent-wing bozak saluted and started to lead Kitiara out the door. She had one last bold and desperate plan in mind. She had only to decide where and when to strike.

As if reading her mind, Ariakas remarked casually, “Oh, and by the way, Targ, be careful. She has a knife concealed in her dragon scale armor.”

“The knife!” the draconian demanded, holding out his clawed hand.

Kitiara glared at him defiantly and made no move to comply.

“You can either show Targ where it is, Kitiara,” said Ariakas dryly, “or he will strip you naked here and now.”

Kitiara showed Targ where to find the knife. The bozak removed the weapon and then took off all her armor, leaving her in her gambeson. He searched her again from head to toe, just in case, and then placed her in the custody of two baaz draconians.

Kit endured these indignities with her head held high, her fists clenched. She’d be damned if she would give her enemies the satisfaction of seeing her sweat.

“Take her out,” ordered Ariakas.

As the baaz were about to haul her away, Kitiara turned to Feal-Thas.

“You have the gift to look into hearts,” she said. “Look into mine, now.”

Feal-Thas was startled. He was about to refuse, but he saw Ariakas watching him and the thought came to him that this was some sort of test. Perhaps she meant to prove him a liar. Shrugging, he did as she requested. He cast the spell of the winternorn and gazed into her heart. He saw three Solamnic knights and a powerful cleric of Paladine leaving Tarsis, traveling the road to Icereach, intent upon stealing his dragon orb.

Feal-Thas shivered in rage, as though he’d been nipped by his own chill winds. He stood up from the table.

“I beg your pardon, my lord, but I must leave at once.” The elf cast a pale, cold glance at Kitiara. “Events require my immediate return to Icereach.”

The other Highlords stared at him. Kitiara’s lip curled. Turning on her heel, she allowed her captors to lead her away.

The emperor looked out his window where he had once stood with Kit, watching traitors hang. Kit walked down the street in the midst of her guards, her head high, shoulders thrown back. She was laughing.

“What a woman,” Ariakas muttered. “What a woman!”

On their way to the Temple, Kitiara attempted to bribe her baaz guards. The bent-wing bozak heard her talking to them and he ordered the two to leave, replacing them with two more.

Next Kit tried to bribe the bozak. Targ didn’t even deign to reply to her generous offer. Kitiara sighed inwardly. She had guessed the attempt would fail, for the draconian guards were known to be extremely loyal to Ariakas. Still, it had been worth the attempt. The bozak would report back to Ariakas that she’d tried to bribe them, but what did that matter? What would he do to punish her? He couldn’t kill her twice.

Ariakas’s servant had run ahead of them to alert the Temple authorities. When informed that he was to house a Highlord on charges of treason, the Nightlord was confounded, did not know how to react. He was angered at first; he felt he should have been informed of Kitiara’s treachery and consulted in the decision to execute her. He most certainly should have been told in advance that Ariakas planned to imprison her inside the Temple.

That being said, the Nightlord was not sorry to see the arrogant Blue Lady humbled and humiliated, nor would he fail to enjoy watching her execution.

The Nightlord sent a terse reply back to Ariakas, but that was the extent of his protest. He dispatched several acolytes to the Arena of Death to insure that his private box was supplied with food in case Kitiara’s demise was prolonged. People had been known to survive an amazingly long time in screaming agony after having been disemboweled.

The Temple of Neraka was located in the center of the city, which had grown up around it. The Temple existed simultaneously on two planes—the material and the spiritual—and was a strange and eerie place. One felt as if one were walking in a building that existed in a dream, rather than reality. Organic in nature, having sprouted from the seed of the foundation stone, the Temple’s walls were twisted and misshapen, its hallways twisting and tortured. As in a dream, corridors that appeared to be short and straight were actually long and winding. Those who attempted to walk through the Temple alone, without the guidance of the dark priests, would either end up lost or insane.

Kitiara, like the other Highlords, had her own furnished quarters in the Temple. Each Highlord had his own entrance, guarded by his own soldiers. The Highlords used these only on ceremonial occasions, all of them preferring the warm and homely comforts of an inn or even their own barracks to the unnerving atmosphere of the Temple.