Strangely, the result reminded her of the action of water, specifically of the explosion of life that came when rainfall ended a drought. Glowing like a hot coal but without heat-every bit of that was turning into muscle-the dragon’s form swelled, and new scales closed old sores. Head thrown back at the end of his long neck, he gasped and groaned. Perhaps his transformation hurt, but if so it was clearly a pain he welcomed.

It looked to Jhesrhi like he was nearly restored. Then nausea and vertigo stabbed through her, and her control over her magic wavered. The fire from beyond clutched at her, trying to claim her, and her treacherous staff rejoiced.

She couldn’t bend the element to her will again. She could only break the flow. The roaring, twisting jet of flame went out, and Tchazzar roared as it suddenly stopped playing over his body.

His progress more like a manta ray swimming than a bat flying, shrouded in a cloud of dust, Sseelrigoth twisted and rippled down from the sky. Newly dead leaves whispered as they dropped from the trees adjacent to the hillside.

“By the Lady of Loss,” said the blight dragon, “are all my slaves killed?” He sounded amused rather than upset. “We’ll have to find a way for you to pay for that, wizard. Right after I eat this wonderful meal you provided.”

“I was weak when you bound me to the earth,” Tchazzar growled. “You kept me weak for all the years since. But I’m not weak anymore.” He heaved, and the staples securing his limbs tore out of the ground.

Sseelrigoth’s black eyes widened in shock, but he reacted quickly. A flick of the writhing membranes on his flanks backed him farther away from the red dragon. He opened his jaws and spewed a jet of grit.

Sick and spent as she was, Jhesrhi managed to lift her staff and ask the wind for help. It howled, swirled around her, and kept any of the dragon’s breath from reaching her.

But it reached Tchazzar. Some of the particles scoured his hide like a sandstorm. Others stuck to him and burned.

Then Sseelrigoth snarled, and dust devils sprang up around Tchazzar’s head, no doubt to blind and confuse him. The red wyrm whipped his head back and forth, but the whirling clouds moved with it. Meanwhile, Sseelrigoth sucked in air.

Jhesrhi focused past her grinding sickness and whispered words of command. The wind screamed and tore the dust devils apart.

Vision restored, Tchazzar lashed his gigantic wings and sprang into the air. The tip of his tail whirled in Jhesrhi’s direction and she threw herself flat so it wouldn’t hit her.

Tchazzar slammed into Sseelrigoth and assailed him with his jaws and the talons on all four feet. He whipped his tail around him like a python. The blight wyrm responded in kind.

So entangled, they couldn’t fly. They crashed to earth and rolled toward Jhesrhi. She scrambled clear just in time to keep them from crushing her.

She scurried until she was well clear and, panting and trembling, simply leaned on her staff and watched thereafter. She was too ill and tired for more and doubted she could help Tchazzar any further even if she weren’t. As long as the wyrms were entwined together, it would be difficult to cast elemental magic at one without hitting the other as well.

The struggle shook the ground, and the bits of the warren that her earthquake hadn’t collapsed now caved in on themselves. Chunks of ripped flesh arced through the air. Flame leaped around the dragons’ fangs as they snapped and bit. Tchazzar’s fire was blue and bright gold. Sseelrigoth’s was a murky red, the poisonous grit he’d spat before superheated by his rage.

For a time it looked like Tchazzar was gradually tearing his adversary apart. Then Sseelrigoth’s eyes grew even blacker, and his shroud of dust darkened. Tchazzar bellowed and his wounds widened, rotting at the edges while the blight dragon’s hurts began to close.

Finish it! Jhesrhi thought. Before he leeches away everything I gave you!

As if he’d heard her, Tchazzar strained with every limb to loosen Sseelrigoth’s coils. Unequal to the pressure, a bone in his left wing snapped and a jagged end stabbed through the membrane. But then he broke free of his adversary’s grip.

At once he opened his jaws wider than Jhesrhi would have imagined possible. Taking advantage of his regained mobility, he launched himself at Sseelrigoth fast as an arrow leaping from a bow. And she perceived for the first time just how much bigger he was than the other wyrm. Big enough for his fangs to crash shut on Sseelrigoth’s head from the snout to just behind the eyes.

Tchazzar’s jaw muscles bunched as he bit down with all his might and wrenched his head from side to side. Flexible as a serpent, Sseelrigoth whipped his coils around his foe and clawed. In some places, his talons sliced to the bone. Meanwhile, his tail whipped up and down, battering a section of Tchazzar’s neck.

Jhesrhi held her breath. She couldn’t imagine the battle lasting much longer. No one, not even a dragon, could endure such punishment for long. One of them was going to succumb.

It turned out be Sseelrigoth. A splintering crunch sounded from inside Tchazzar’s jaws, and then the blight wyrm’s neck lashed back and forth. Nothing was restraining it anymore. Blood sprayed from the jagged bowl that was all that remained of Sseelrigoth’s head.

His decapitated body raked and bashed Tchazzar another time or two. Then, the spurts of gore abating, his neck flopped to the ground and his limbs went limp as well.

Tchazzar spat out several pieces of Sseelrigoth’s head. Jhesrhi took note of the short horns that encrusted them, realized the inside of the red dragon’s mouth must now be a mass of sores, and winced. Still employing every bit of his strength and speed, Tchazzar kept clawing his foe’s corpse.

Jhesrhi frowned. Surely Tchazzar realized Sseelrigoth was dead. But he looked like he didn’t mean to stop until he’d reduced the blight dragon to tiny specks of flesh and bone.

And that wouldn’t do. Gaedynn needed them now.

She stepped forward. “My lord!” she called.

Eyes blazing, flame leaping from between his fangs, Tchazzar whirled in her direction. A shock of terror jolted her as she sensed he had no idea who she was. He crouched to spring-

And then he evidently remembered her. She was no expert at reading the features of dragons, but even so she saw some of the radiant fury go out of his eyes.

He straightened up into a less threatening posture. He started to speak, grimaced, spat out a mix of blood and flame, and then tried again. “My daughter.”

“My comrade Gaedynn,” she said. “The shadar-kai are hunting him.”

“Yes. I saw the chase begin.”

“If we don’t help him soon, it will be too late.”

Tchazzar turned and dipped a wing to touch the ground.

She realized she was supposed to climb it like a ramp. Thinking of the broken bone and all his other wounds, she asked, “Can you still fly?”

He laughed. “I could fly to the stars for a chance to burn those maggots.”

So Jhesrhi scrambled up the wing into a smell compounded of combustion, blood, decay, and a sort of dry reptilian musk. The act of climbing didn’t repulse her. Though intelligent, Tchazzar was so different in form from a giant or a man that she could touch him as easily as a griffon.

She seated herself between two of the dorsal frills at the base of his neck. At once he lunged forward, lashed his wings, and carried her into the sky.

As they hurtled along, she studied the hills below. All she saw was earth and trees. She asked the wind for news of the pursuit, but this was one of those occasions when it hadn’t taken any notice of the doings of creatures of flesh and blood.

Then Tchazzar dived lower, and she spotted the living flame she’d conjured shining in a depression among the hills. Shadar-kai flickered down the slopes toward the lure at the bottom. One of them fell. She couldn’t actually see the arrow that had pierced him, but she was sure it was there, and she smiled.