“In this situation?” she replied. “I don’t know.”

But suddenly Aoth thought he might. “I once traveled all the way to the Lake of Steam,” he said, speaking quickly. “Heard of it?”

Mardiz-sul shrugged. “Vaguely.”

“They have hot springs there… and geysers. Boiling water that shoots up out of the ground. And with a few of them, it happens at very regular intervals.” Aoth turned back to Cera. “Could you sense something like that?”

She frowned. “I’ve never seen a ‘geyser,’ but perhaps.”

“I don’t see the relevance,” said Mardiz-sul, waving his lance at their surroundings. “This creek is cold.”

“True,” said Aoth, “but there’s still spellplague festering in the ground. Mostly it’s too weak to cause any trouble. But over time, the power builds up until there’s too much. And then some of it sprays out like a geyser. I think that’s about to happen now.”

“How could you possibly know that?” asked Mardiz-sul.

“You’re a brother to fire,” Aoth said. “And I’ve got a little spellplague burning inside of me.” He pointed to his eyes.

“What will happen?” asked Son-liin.

Aoth shook his head. “There’s no way to predict.”

“Then what we do? Run?”

“No. It’s too late to get clear. We just have to be ready for anything.” Aoth raised his voice: “Everyone, ready your weapons! If you know any protective charms, cast them!”

Cera started praying and swinging her mace over her head. The sunlight grew warmer. After a moment’s hesitation, some of the genasi muttered their own incantations. Ruddy hands flicked up and down in a manner that suggested leaping flame and sketched trails of fire in the air. Breezes gusted and the stream gurgled louder than before.

Then everybody waited while blue light flickered through the creek and the granite walls, the pulses coming faster and faster. The sight of them made Aoth’s mouth go dry and his guts queasy. He’d been caught in a storm of blue fire on the day the Spellplague began and watched his fellow legionnaires die by the score. And though he’d faced a thousand foes in the century since, he’d always avoided a second encounter with that particular danger. Until now.

“Well?” asked Mardiz-sul, still blind to the power flaring all around him. “Is anything happening?”

Aoth opened his mouth to say yes, then saw he wouldn’t have to. Blue mist swirled into existence all along the canyon, or at least for as far as he could see. The genasi cried out and the drakes shrieked at its dank and somehow filthy touch. Aoth felt Jet’s spasm of revulsion and the way he had to clench himself not to take flight immediately and climb above the nasty stuff.

The touch of chaos made some of the stones in the creek bed catch fire. Others rattled together with a sound like chattering teeth. Water heaved itself high and crashed down like waves rolling in from a stormy sea.

Cera continued to pray. The air grew warmer again. The blue fog thinned as if the sun overhead were burning it away.

When the vapor was nearly gone, Mardiz-sul sighed and slumped forward. “Thank Kossuth. And Amaunator too.”

But as the last of the vapor dissipated, a kind of glare shot through it, and blue light flared in the eyes of the drakes. For an instant, Aoth had the crazy feeling that he was looking at his own deformed face in a cracked mirror, as though some mage had disfigured him with a curse and he hadn’t even known.

Some reptiles screeched, reared, or tried to bolt. Two others fell, convulsing. One of the riders, a windsoul, floated up out of the saddle, but the other, a watersoul, couldn’t slip his feet out of the stirrups and jump clear in time. As his thrashing steed rolled back and forth, it ground him beneath its bulk.

Meanwhile, Mardiz-sul’s drake bucked and flipped him into the stream. Then it reared onto its hind legs and grew until cinches snapped, and its saddle, halter, and reins fell away. Its forelegs appeared to wither, although perhaps they simply weren’t expanding like the rest of it. It held them tucked against its chest while a second head and neck wriggled up out of its shoulders like a worm squirming out of an apple.

Another reptile lost its earthsoul master when it, too, grew, and its back bulged upward like a hill. Triangular plates sprouted down the length of its spine and tore its saddle to pieces, dumping the firestormer on the ground. A spike grew from the beast’s snout, and long horns jutted from over the eyes. A bony ruff or collar swelled into being behind the head, and spikes erupted from the tip of the tail.

The two transformed saurians roared and snarled, seemingly communicating with one another. Then they attacked the creatures around them. The reptile standing on two legs leaped at Aoth and Jet like a cat. Its comrade’s charge was a ponderous waddle by comparison. But the spiked tail lashed back and forth in a frenzied blur and actually drew first blood, smashing the head of Son-liin’s mount to gory scraps and spatters.

Aoth leveled his spear and hurled a blaze of force from the point. It stabbed into the onrushing saurian’s torso but didn’t stop it. At the same time, Jet leaped upward and lashed his wings. It seemed impossible that the griffon could rise high enough quickly enough. The reptile was just too tall and too close. But then they were soaring over the creature’s upturned heads, just beyond the reach of the snapping fangs.

Don’t wet yourself, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. One of us knows what he’s doing.

And who gave you that strength? Aoth replied. Stay low and close. I want to keep the beast’s attention on us.

That takes away every advantage we have, said Jet. Nice tactics! Still, he wheeled as quickly as he could.

Then they danced with the saurian, teasing it with their proximity, dodging when it struck, and blasting it with flares of lightning and frost. It wasn’t easy. Since Jet had never fought such a creature before, he didn’t know how fast it could lunge and pivot or how high it could leap, and he was having to guess in adverse circumstances, with the narrow gorge limiting his mobility. A single misjudgment would either land him in the reptile’s jaws or slam him into a cliff.

But as Aoth had intended, the dance kept the two-headed drake from attacking anyone on the ground, and a few firestormers took advantage of its distraction by shooting it with their arbalests or jabbing it with their lances, albeit to little apparent effect. But most of them were too busy trying to contend with the beast that was attacking them, the massive thing with the horned head and flailing tail.

Intent on his own half of the battle, Aoth registered only an occasional glimpse of that other struggle. Gaedynn flew above the reptile, loosing one shaft after another. Eider screeched repeatedly, maybe in an effort to distract the creature as Aoth and Jet were diverting its fellow. Son-liin circled the beast until she could aim a bowshot at its ribs. His sword, hand, and forearm wreathed in flame, Mardiz-sul slashed at the reptile’s snout then blocked with his shield when the brute tried to spear him with one of its horns. Cera swung her mace in a horizontal arc, and brightness leaped from the head. It burned a black streak across the creature’s belly.

Aoth’s comrades were fighting well. But so far the horned saurian wasn’t slowing down either.

Curse it! He had to end the battle while he still had a company to command. He stuck his spear in the sheath attached to his saddle, tore open the pouch on his belt, and grabbed the noxious-looking green berries he’d picked on the way through the foothills of the mountains. Get me close, he said.

What do you think I’ve been doing? Jet replied. Discerning his master’s intent, he swooped straight at their foe’s two heads. Which both opened their jaws wide to catch him.

Aoth rattled off an incantation. Power tingled in the palm of his hand as it suffused the berries. He swung his arm back and threw them.