Branches whipped his face, and he left his blood on the leaves. Roots reached to trip him, felling him as though he were an axed tree. The third time he fell, the breath blasted out of his lungs, leaving him lying face in the dirt, gasping. He clawed at the ground, shuddering, and when at last he could breathe again, he climbed to his feet.

Behind him the forest was on fire.

Tellin saw no flames. He heard no crackling or even the hushed roar of trees being consumed. He smelled the smoke, that's how he knew.

"Dear gods," he groaned, his voice a harsh croaking. "O E'li who has so long watched over us, shield us now!"

And then, sorry for the breath wasted, Tellin stumbled on.

The ground dropped down now, and the paths looked familiar, recognizable as the ones he'd take from the glen. Then they'd been rising. Now they fell, and he regretted that, for a lowering path is harder to run than a climbing one. No matter. He must run.

He didn't see the dragon, the red scar against the sky like a smear of blood on an iron shield, until he came within sight of the first Wildrunners standing guard at the head of the trail. The four must have heard him running, for they stood with strung bows, waiting. Tellin flung up his arms, and he saw the sword in his fist too late to remember to drop it.

Four arrows knocked to bowstrings. Four Wildrunners pulled back to let loose the shafts. Breathless, he could not cry out his name or even shout Friend!

No need. No arrow flew. No Wildrunner challenged him. A voice shouted from far down in the glen. "Dragon! Dragon!"

The beast dropped down from the sky, darting like a lance in the clear sky-path over the glen. As one, the four Wildrunners loosed their shafts, sending their arrows buzzing into the sky. The steely points bounced harmlessly from the dragon's scaled hide. Upon the beast's back, a red-armored warrior, helmed and bearing a sword in his gloved fist, howled such a scream that the dragon itself must echo.

Chapter 8

The dragon came roaring fire over the treetops, turned, and rose higher. On the turn it dropped again, shooting down the length of the glen like a spear loosed by a furious god. Upon its back the red-armored rider howled, a sentence of death in the ears of each mage, Wildrunner, and in the heart of one cleric. Yet, even as smoke rolled down from the north, great roiling billows black against the sky, upon the edge of the glen the Wildrunners stood their ground, never looking north, never fretting the fire as they swiftly nocked a second flight of arrows and loosed them against the dragon. Bolt after bolt, they bounded from the dragon's hide, and only one came close to the mark, the dragon's only vulnerable place-the eye.

On the floor of the glen Dalamar watched, the dregs of magic like a poison of lethargy in his blood, his muscles trembling with exhaustion, and tried to track the flight of each arrow, knowing that each shaft would fail its target. All around him the voices of mages swirled, weary voices, ragged with strain, shredding under the weight of panic and exhaustion. They sounded like children, querulous and frightened, helpless to affect what must happen, the slaughter sure to come.

And at the top of the glen, there beside the tree where he'd earlier sat to meditate, Lord Tellin Windglimmer stood, a long sword clasped in his two hands.

In the name of all gods, Dalamar thought, where did he come from-and what is he going to do with that sword?

Dalamar could not guess, and yet the sight of the cleric, long sword in hand, jolted him from his lethargy. The dragon came nearer. Dalamar grabbed one mage by the arm, then another, shoving them ahead of him, south along the floor of the ravine.

"Get up into the forest!" he shouted, yanking a woman up from the ground where she'd fallen after the unweaving of the magic. "Get up to the high ground and into the forest!"

She went, scrambling on hands and knees, panting, sobbing, and maybe praying. She left little prints of blood behind, the marks of her hands where the stone scraped them raw. Others followed, the stronger helping those who had not yet recovered their strength. One after another, they found the path and dared the way up. The wind of the dragon's passing buffeted them, rocking Dalamar back on his heels. The beast turned again, and the tip of its wing swept two mages from the perilous path, sending them screaming to the floor of the glen.

Tellin's voice came echoing from above, suddenly sharp and loud as that of any commander on the battle ground. He swung his sword once over his head to get the attention of the mages still on the path, then pointed the blade into the forest.

"Get to the trees! The dragon can't follow there! Hurry!"

They ran. They scrambled and fell and crawled to their feet again, one by one clawing their way up the path to the woods. The dragon made another pass, another long roaring shot through the narrow glen. The red-armored rider leaned out and low, cutting the legs out from another mage, roaring with laughter as the elf fell, bleeding, screaming, and rolling into the glen. Unstoppable, the dragon soared high again, climbing.

Tellin shouted, "Dalamar! Come on! Up here!"

But Dalamar didn't move. He stood in the glen with the two mages who had died in the magic, Ylle Savath with her thick white hair spilled all around her and Benen Summergrace whose face had once reflected such wild joy as to make her look like a woman in grip of passion. Deep in Dalamar a fire burned, and it was a fire of rage.

"Dalamar!" Tellin stood inches from the edge of the drop into the glen. Behind him a Wildrunner whipped another arrow from her quiver. She fit it swiftly to the string. "Come out of there!"

High in the sky, away north over the trees, the dragon banked and dropped, ready to make the last pass.

Dalamar put his back to the path. He stood braced, legs wide, and reached deep down into himself to see what strength he had left for magic. Some, some.

"Dalamar!" Tellin shouted. "Come out!"

He didn't heed. He refused to let himself hear anything now but the sound of the sky, the sound of the dragon coming for him. He counted his strength and thought it enough. He searched within for all the spells he knew-and counted them worthless, for they were only the small simple spells he'd been grudgingly allowed. There were others, dark, secret spells learned in the summer, but he had been a long time away from those tutors, the books hidden in his cave outside of Silvanost. He hadn't read the words of those spells in too long, and he dared not try to cast them from memory. To mis-speak even a word… the spells could fall useless or kill him. And they were small spells, too, no matter if he'd read them only an hour ago and could cast them with perfect accuracy. Against a dragon they would do as much good as spitting.

Yet, perhaps there was one spell, one every mage knew no matter the color of his robe, no matter which of the three gods of magic heard his prayers.

"Dalamar!"

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Tellin on the top of the glen, his robes stained with mud and blood and sweat. The cleric stood braced and ready, the thick, heavy broadsword in his two hands awkwardly gripped. Idiot! Dalamar thought. He'll swing himself off the path if he tries to use it.

Like thunder, the dragon roared. In his ears, in his heart, Dalamar heard the mage's laughter echoing between the walls of the glen like the bellow of a wind-wild sea. "I see you, mageling. You are mine!"

"No!" Tellin shouted, and the voice of the cleric, used to soft prayers and gentle chanting, ripped through the glen, bounding off the walls like curses. "Dalamar! Get out!"

Dalamar held his ground. He need shout only one word, two little syllables, and shout them with all the force in his lungs and all the strength of magic left in him after this long day's work. How much was that? How much?