As for me I wielded Verity's sword with a grace and a skill I had never before known with such a weapon. Hod's lessons and Hod's work finally came together for me, and if such a thing were possible, I would say that the spirit of the swordmaster was in the weapon and that she sang to me as I wielded it. I could not break out of the circle they pinned me in, but neither could they get past my guard to do more than minor damage.

In that first flurry of battle, we fought well and did well, but the odds were impossible. I could force men back from my sword and step toward them, but in the next moment I must turn to fight those who had closed behind me. I could move the circle of battle, but not escape it. Still, I blessed the greater reach of Verity's sword that kept me alive. Other men were coming at a run to the din and shouts of fighting. Those who came drove a wedge between Nighteyes and me, forcing him ever farther away.

Get clear of them all and run. Run. Live, my brother.

For answer he raced away from them all, then suddenly came looping back, charging right through their midst. Regal's men hacked at each other in a futile effort to stop him. They were not used to an opponent less than half the height of a man and with twice the speed of one. Most aimed chopping blows at him that did no more than cleave the earth in his wake. In an instant, he was past them and had vanished once more into the lush forest. Men glared about wildly, wondering where next he would come from.

But even at the hottest of the fight, I knew the hopelessness of what we did. Regal would win. Even were I to kill every man here, Will included, Regal would win. Had already won for all that matter. And had I not known he always would? Had not I known, from the very beginning, that Regal was destined to rule?

I took a sudden step forward, took off a man's arm at the elbow, and used the momentum of that blow to call the sword's blade back in an arc that took the tip across the face of another man. As the two fell, tangling together, there was a tiny opening in the circle. I took a step into the brief space; focused my Skill and seized Will's insidious grip upon my mind. I felt a blade lick against my left shoulder as I did so. I spun to engage my attacker's sword, then bade my body think for itself for a moment and made good my grip on Will. Wound through Will's consciousness I found Regal, twisted into him like a drill-worm in a deer's heart. Will could not have broken free of him even if he had been able to think of doing it. And it seemed to me that there was not enough left of Will to even form a thought for himself. Will was a body, a vessel of meat and blood, holding Skill for Regal to wield. Bereft of the coterie that had strengthened him, he was not all that formidable a weapon anymore. Less valuable. One that might be used and cast aside with little remorse.

I could not fight in both directions at once. I kept my grip on Will's mind, forced his thoughts away from mine, and strove to direct my body as well. In the next instant, I took two cuts, one to my left calf and one to my right forearm. I knew I could not sustain it. I could not see Nighteyes. He at least had a chance. Get clear of this, Nighteyes. It's all over.

It but begins! he contradicted me. He surged through me like a flash of heat. From some other part of the camp, I heard a cry in Will's voice. Somewhere, a Wit-wolf ravaged his body. I could sense Regal trying to unwind his mind from Will's. I clamped my hold tighter on them both. Stay and face it, Regal!

The point of a sword found my hip. I jerked away from it and stumbled against stone, leaving a bloody handprint as I pushed myself upright again. It was Realder's dragon; I had dragged the battle that far. I put my back to him thankfully and turned to face my attackers. Nighteyes and Will still fought; plainly Regal had learned something from his tortures of Witted ones. He was not as vulnerable to the wolf as he once would have been. He could not hurt the wolf with Skill, but he could wrap him with layer upon layer of fear. Nighteyes' heart was suddenly thundering in my ears. I opened myself once more to the Skill, filled myself and did that I had never attempted before. I fed Skill strength as Wit to Nighteyes. For you, my brother. I felt Nighteyes repel at Will, breaking free of him for an instant. Will used that instant to flee us both. I longed to give chase, but behind me, I felt an answering stir of the Wit in Realder's dragon. In a brief stench, my bloody handprint on his hide smoked away. He stirred. He was awakening. And he was hungry.

There was a sudden crackling of branches and a storm of torn leaves as a great wind broke into the still heart of the forest. Girl-on-a-Dragon landed abruptly in the small cleared space by the pillar. Her lashing tail cleared the area around her of men. "Over there!" the Fool shouted to her, and in a moment her head snaked out, to seize one of my attackers in her fearsome jaws. He vanished in a puff of smoke, and I felt her Skill swell with the life she had consumed.

Behind me, a wedge-shaped reptilian head lifted suddenly. For a moment all was blackness as that shadow passed over me. Then the head darted out, swifter than a striking snake, to seize the man nearest us. He vanished, the steam of what he had been stinking briefly past me. The roar the dragon gave near deafened me.

My brother?

I live, Nighteyes.

As do I, brother.

AS DO I, BROTHER. AND I HUNGER!

The Wit-voice of a very large carnivore. Old Blood indeed.

The strength of it shivered through my bones. Nighteyes had the wit to reply.

Feed, then, large brother. Make our kill yours, and welcome. That is pack.

Realder's dragon did not have to be invited twice. Whoever Realder had been, he had put a healthy appetite into his dragon. Great clawed feet tore clear of the moss and earth; a tail lashed free, felling a small tree as it passed. I was barely able to scramble out of his path as he lunged to engulf another Farrowman in his jaws.

Blood and the Wit! That is what it takes. Blood and the Wit. We can wake the dragons.

Blood and the Wit? At the moment, we are drenched in both.

He understood me instantly.

In the midst of slaughter, Nighteyes, and I played an insane child's game. It was almost a contest to see who could wake the most, a contest the wolf easily won. He would dart to a dragon, shake blood from his coat onto it, then bid it, Wake, brother, and feed. We have brought you meat. And as each great body smoked with wolf-blood and then stirred, he would remind it, We are pack!

I found King Wisdom. His was the antlered dragon, and he roused from his sleep shouting, Buck! For Buckkeep! Eda and El, but I am hungry!

There are Red-Ships aplenty off the coast of Buck, my lord. They but await your jaws, I told him. For all his words, there was little human left about him. Stone and souls had merged, to become dragons in truth. We understood one another as carnivores do. They had hunted as a pack before, and that they recalled well. Most of the other dragons had nothing at all human about them. They had been shaped by Elderlings, not men, and we understood little more of one another than that we were brothers and had brought them meat. Those who had been formed by coteries had dim recollections of Buck and Farseer kings. It was not those memories that bound them to me, but my promise of food. I counted it as the greatest blessing that I could imprint that much on those strange minds.

There came a time when I could find no more dragons in the underbrush. Behind me, where Regal's soldiers had camped, I heard the cries of hunted men and the roaring of dragons as they competed for not meat, but life. Trees gave way before their charges and their lashing tails sliced brush as a scythe cuts grain stalks. I had paused to breathe, one hand braced on my knee, the other still gripping Verity's sword. Breath came harsh and dry to me. Pain was beginning to break through the Skill I had imposed on my body. Blood was dripping from my fingers. Lacking a dragon to give it to, I wiped my hand down my jerkin.