374 AC

"Wait!" The familiar voice jolted Danyal, giving the lad barely enough time to check the deadly blow he had intended to land.

"Emilo?" Danyal sagged backward, allowing the dagger to fall away from the shadowy figure. "I-I almost didn't recognize you! You could have-I could have…"

"Don't worry. It's me, and I'm all right. I see you heard my diversion. Oh, and hi, Mirabeth!" declared the kender. "I'm really glad to see you!"

"Thanks-thanks to all of you-for coming after me," she replied. But then she looked around, seeking someone else in their hiding place, which was the shadowy alcove behind a small barn. "Where's Foryth?"

"Still in there, I guess." Danyal shook his head in despair. "I told him to stay with me, to be careful, but he wandered off before we'd been inside for ten minutes!"

"I don't know if we can afford to wait for him," Emilo said ruefully. "It kind of puts the whole plan in trouble."

"What choice do we have, besides waiting here?" argued the youth. "Did you see how many men were gathered at the base of the bridge?" He gestured into the torchlight at the end of the little lane, where a small knot of bandits milled about.

"Yes." Emilo didn't sound concerned. "Actually, I don't think they'll be there long."

"Why?" asked Danyal incredulously.

The kender made no answer. Instead, he cocked an ear to the side, clearly expectant of some noise.

Within seconds, a great boom resounded through the night, echoing back from the neighboring mountain as a cascade of orange flame leapt into the air from the far side of the manor's walls. A heavy thud rumbled through the ground under their feet, and debris clattered around them while the fire flared into a brightness like false daylight.

"You did that?" Danyal asked, amazed and impressed.

"That used to be a shed just outside the stronghold," Emilo said smugly. "See if they'll ever store all their kegs of lamp oil in one place again!"

The band of men who had been guarding the end of the bridge now raced in a mob toward the scene of the explosioii. Flaming oil had been cast in a great arc around thfe blast, and several neighboring cottages and a haystack'were all crackling into a lively conflagration. The guardsmen were joined by others from the manor as everyone within sight labored to fight the flames, shoveling dirt onto the fire or, more rarely, casting a bucket of precious water on some particularly vulnerable outpost of the blaze.

"D'you think that will hold their attention?" asked the kender nonchalantly, leaning against the wall of the barn and trying to observe the gates of the manor. Flames soared into the sky, glowing like a beacon in the night.

"Let's get to the bridge!" Mirabeth urged, pointing to the route that had opened before them.

Ducking low, staying to the shadows as much as possible, the trio scuttled past the outbuildings of the small village. Finally they reached the last hut, still twenty paces from the end of the bridge. The whole surface of the span was visible from the manor, though the illumination naturally was brightest at this end.

"No point in hanging around and waiting for someone to find us," Danyal said, after checking to see that Kelryn's bandits were still busy with the fire.

The three of them raced onto the bridge, not daring to look back as they willed their feet to fly, and sprinted with all possible speed onto the surface of flagstones. In moments the deep chasm, black with night shadow, yawned to either side of them and the chilly air breezily washed away any trace of warmth that might have lingered from the fire in the village.

The first shout of alarm didn't come until they were halfway across, but even that was disastrously early, Danyal knew. Knowing their flight had been observed, he urged his companions to redouble their efforts, intending to fall back and try to gain them time, holding off the pursuing bandits with his dagger. But Mirabeth apparently sensed his intention, for she seized his wrist and pulled him sharply along at her side.

Finally the far end of the bridge was there, and they raced off the span and onto the dirt roadway. But now they heard the sounds of an angry mob, shouts and cries and hoarse, communal cheers as the bandits left the dying fire at the stronghold to give pursuit. Danyal sensed the bloodlust of the band and knew the three of them wouldn't live for a minute if they were caught.

"It won't work. We can't all make it!" he gasped. "Run!"

Again he tried to hesitate, to turn and buy more time, but Mirabeth pulled him hard. "You're coming, too!"

And so he followed, the kender and the two young humans dashing into the shadows of the mountainside while dozens of murderous bandits charged onto the bridge.

The crushing wave of awe that swept over Danyal was no less sickening for its familiarity.

"Dragon!" he gasped in horror, all but lurching forward. His knees turned to rubber, and he stumbled, staggering, then falling onto his face as Mirabeth collapsed and buried her face in her hands beside him.

Emilo skidded to a halt beside them, his face turned skyward. "Would you look at that?" he declared, his tone full of wonder. "A dragon!"

Danyal didn't want to look, but he needed to know. He raised his eyes and saw the serpent soaring overhead, blotting out the stars across a great swath of sky. Crimson scales reflected like rubies in the flaring light of the fire across the chasm, and then two massive wings pulsed downward, a blast of wind raising dust from the road.

"Take cover!" shouted the youth, reaching up from the muddy ditch on the uphill side of the road to seize Emilo by the wrist. He pulled the kender in beside Mirabeth and himself, hoping that they had been far enough from the lights around Loreloch to escape the serpent's notice.

The three of them lay in chilly water and sticky mud, staring in horror at the winged shape that had soared over them and now plummeted, intent upon the edifice of Loreloch.

Many of the pursuing bandits had come as far as the middle of the bridge. Now, confronted by flying death, they turned en masse and tried to flee back to the manor.

But the dragon was far too fast. The serpent closed the distance with another deceptively leisurely stroke of those great wings. The massive head lowered, and then the night became bright with a hellish assault of flame. The dragon flew onward in a rush, leaving behind a cacophony of crackling fire, screaming men, and rushing wind as the inferno sucked in the cool night air.

Next Flayze glided past the manor, ripping away one of the great walls with his mighty forepaws. Another gout of flame spewed from those cruel jaws, this time turning everything within the manor walls into blazing destruction. A billowing cloud of fire arose, swelling into a mushroom of oily flames as the stables were incinerated next.

Coming around the great edifice, the red dragon crushed the cottages and barns of the village with blows of its claws or the whiplike lash of its monstrous tail. Again it breathed, and a dozen small houses crackled into fire.

Finally it came to rest on the ground beside the stronghold. With a few rending blows of its powerful fore-claws, it pulled down the rest of the walls. It smashed into the sturdy tower once or twice, but then apparently decided that solid structure wasn't worth the effort to destroy it. Instead, the wyrm concentrated on crushing any buildings still standing, burning everything flammable, and killing anything that moved within the ruin that had, minutes before, been Loreloch.

Only when the destruction was absolute did the serpent once again spread those vast wings. Catching a rising updraft, air heated by fires kindled by the dragon's own breath, Flayze launched himself into the sky and soon vanished into the dark of the night.