Whatever strength he had, whatever meager power exhaustion didn't claim… it would have to be enough.

Larger and larger the dragon grew as it came closer, trimming its wide wings for speed. It seemed to Dalamar that he saw nothing now but the maw of the beast and the red-gloved hand of the mage reaching for him. With all the breath in his lungs, with all the strength in his heart, Dalamar shouted, "Shirak!" and a great ball of light burst overhead, flaring in the air between him and the dragon.

The beast roared, then screamed high in pain.

On the high side of the glen a Wildrunner cursed, blinded by the light. In the same moment, another cheered, his voice rising up in bloodthirsty caroling. "Again! Let fly those arrows again! Archers!"

Blinded by his own light, Dalamar stumbled and turned, reaching out to find the wall of the glen and tripping over the hem of his robe after the first step. Screaming, the dragon rose up high to the treetops, then shrieked in the sky, blinded not by light but by the green and gold arrows of the Wildrunners. Sightless, it staggered in flight, then fell, dropping hard, and the sound of it hitting the trees was the sound of storm coming down, crashing and cracking and the slow aching scream of trees being split apart and torn up by the roots. One wing broke close to the dragon's shoulder, and the other was pierced through by raw splintered trees, pinning it.

"The dragon's down!" shouted one of the archers. Above the dragon's screams that voice sounded like no more than insect buzzing. Still, Dalamar heard it, and he knew what words the Wildrunner shouted. "It's down! Swords! Swords! Go! Go! Go!"

Howling, they went, Wildrunners tearing into the ruined forest. The sound of them at the killing filled up the forest, echoing to the sky-the shouts of savage glee, and the thunderous roaring of the dragon, the blind beast thrashing and crippled.

Dalamar, sightless as the dragon, stumbled forward, staggering over the stiffening body of Ylle Savath. He was saved from falling when a hand grabbed his arm hard.

Tellin! Tellin, of course.

"You!" Dalamar cried, laughing, his knees gone weak with relief. "You, my lord cleric with your sword! You should run take your part in the kill."

The dazzle still on his eyes, he heard a soft hissing, a sound like snakes.

"That's why I'm here," said a low, heavy voice right beside his ear. "A dark mage come to rid the world of elf-mages."

All the sounds of the dying dragon and the cheering Wildrunners faded, no more distinct now than if a thick wet fog had come to dampen them. A chill slithered down Dalamar's spine. Mind racing, Dalamar tried to remember if he'd heard the sound of the cleric's death-cry in all the fighting. Sight slowly clearing, he saw that the hand on his arm was red-gloved and much larger than Tellin's.

Dalamar's ears rang with the din of the dragon's death. Someone cried out, a long rending shriek that ended in a bubbling sob. One of the Wildrunners had come too close to his prey Then the cries changed, so suddenly that the elf fighters couldn't have had time to know their luckless companion was dead.

Fire! Fire! Fire in the woods!

All this Dalamar heard as he looked up into the black eye-slits of a dragon helm, and looking in there was like looking into the swirl of a maelstrom-or into the eyes of a madman. A dagger sang from its sheath, shining dully in the sunless day. "Don't move, my mageling."

Dalamar stood still as stone. The tip of the dagger pressed against his throat pricked sharply to assure the mage's meaning. Move, then die. He barely breathed, but he noted that his captor's voice was slurred now, as though he were a drunkard speaking, or a man who'd taken a terrible blow to the head. The dragon's screams shook the air, even so far down as the floor of the glen. Dalamar felt ground beneath his booted feet vibrating to the thrashing of the beast. The red-armored warrior moaned, a soft sobbing.

Dalamar's stomach tightened with sudden understanding. This mage had been riding the dragon, and some who did that liked to forge a link with the dragon, mind to mind. The slurred speech, the dull, lightless eyes-these told Dalamar the mage had not managed to break the link before the beast went down. He was still somewhere in the mind of the dying dragon, feeling its death, perhaps soon to die with it. Hope sprang in Dalamar, with the adrenaline and blood running hot in his veins. But no matter what ran in him, still the mage stood with the tip of a dagger pressed cold against his throat, and whatever strength he was losing as the dragon died, his hand was still steady on the dagger's grip.

Softly, a step. Dalamar heard and never lifted his eyes. Still, he smelled the sweat of the one who stood there behind the mage and above him on the path. Mingled with the stink of sweat and blood was another, softer scent-temple incense of the kind that drifts always through the trees in Silvanost, the heady fragrance sailing out from the white temples erected to white gods and smelling in all seasons like the forest in autumn. Lord Tellin Windglimmer stood upon the path at the narrow part where earlier that day Dalamar had plucked him back from a fall. He had his sword in hand, gripped tightly, lifted high. In his eyes shone a terror to speak of the choice he must make, that choice and chance taken all in an instant-kill the mage or see Dalamar die.

The red-armored rider straightened suddenly, as though he knew someone was behind him. He turned, his hand still on Dalamar, and he screamed, a high and terrible sound winding up to the sky. His rage and the dragon's in whose mind he yet partly dwelt, his pain and the dragon's, all those unwound in his scream.

"Fire!" they shouted up there in the forest. More voices than those of the few Wildrunners shouted, many more. Soldiers were coming down through the forest, retreating before the dragonarmy. "Clear out! Fire!"

The mage lifted his hand, and Dalamar knew the gestures of magic. No matter which path a mage follows, the dance of hands is always the same. The moaning voice issuing from within the helm sounded hollow, and the words it spoke twined one 'round another in a complex pattern of sound growing darker and darker. As did the sound, so did the glen, for the air purpled as though a thousand dusks came to fill the space between the stony walls. It crept up from the ground, hiding the bodies of Ylle Savath and Benen Summergrace.

Tellin's face shone white in the gathering gloom. His sword came up, the blade so long and heavy that it nearly overbalanced him. Paladine's cleric, E'li's acolyte promised to the temple from his birth, swung down that blade with all the strength in his young arms, striking to kill. And if E'li lived in that cleric's heart, it was Kiri-Jolith himself who sharpened his eye and made heavy his hand. The blade hit the armor and rang as it must not have done since it felt the last stroke of the forgeman's hammer. It bounded back on Tellin, who swung again, wildly, staggering at the edge of the path. This time the blade found softer resistance, cutting flesh at the elbow joint of the armor.

The red warrior whirled away screaming, high and piercing. He flung back his head, cursing while blood poured from the wound, darker than the crimson armor.

"You are dead!" he shouted to the sky, to the cleric whose sword had cut him. The link with the dragon was gone, severed by pain. His eyes shone bright and blue as blades. "You are dead!"

Out of the dusk a hand reached, ghostly, curse-born, and made of red mist like blood. Cold to his bones, Dalamar saw the hand grow with each moment, until it seemed to blot out the sky above the glen. Behind, Tellin choked and gagged. Dalamar turned swiftly on his heel in time to see the cleric fall to his knees. The sword tumbled from his hand, clattered on the stone, and went end over end into the glen.