Inwardly Gaedynn spit the foulest obscenity in his considerable repertoire because Yemere was obviously talking about playing xorvintaal. That meant he was a dragon wearing human form, like Tchazzar, and a challenging foe for Gaedynn to tackle alone, to say the least.

But he had to. If he slipped away to get help, Yemere might be gone by the time he came back.

He switched his arrow for one of the few remaining enchanted ones, stepped into the open, aimed, and loosed.

Evidently glimpsing his attacker from the corner of his eye, Yemere started to pivot. Then the shaft plunged into his chest. Gaedynn wasn’t sure he’d hit the heart, but if not, he’d at least pierced a lung.

Yemere fell back against the curved stone wall. At the same instant, black spikes that looked like thorns stabbed up through his skin. The effect started around the arrow and moved outward, down the wyrm’s limbs and up into his head. It was as if brambles were growing and snaking their way through his flesh.

He thrashed for a moment, then sprawled motionless. Gaedynn stayed put and shot several more arrows into what he hoped was a corpse. Son-liin simply stood and looked down at Yemere as though awaiting further instructions.

Then Yemere began to grow.

In fact, it was a flailing explosion of growth, as hammering wings and a lashing tail burst into being and everything else thickened and lengthened. Gaedynn reached for another enchanted arrow, then registered how Son-liin was still standing motionless right next to the transformation. Yemere’s convulsions were likely to smash her flat or swat her off the cliff without the wyrm’s even intending it.

Gaedynn ran to the stormsoul, grabbed her, and dragged her backward. “Wake up!” he shouted. He didn’t really expect it to do any good, and it didn’t seem to.

As he hauled her to safety, Yemere completed his metamorphosis. In his natural form, the dragon had phosphorescent blue eyes and gray scales that glinted in the moonlight. The spines that grew under the lower jaw and behind the head somewhat resembled a beard and hair. Gaedynn was relieved to see that at least the creature hadn’t shed his wounds by altering his shape. The arrows still hung from his body, and the thorns still jabbed out of his skin, although they looked considerably smaller since Yemere was so much bigger.

“Kill him,” the dragon snarled.

Son-liin wrenched herself out of Gaedynn’s grip, snatched her knife from its sheath, and stabbed at his belly. Caught by surprise, he still managed to twist. He didn’t avoid the thrust entirely, but since it didn’t catch him squarely, the blade skated along the reinforced leather of his brigandine.

He drove a punch into Son-liin’s jaw. As she staggered and fell, Yemere opened his jaws.

Gaedynn leaped aside. The dragon’s breath weapon pounded the spot his target had just vacated like a huge, invisible club, denting the hard-packed earth.

Then Yemere seemed to surge forward. Gaedynn knew-or a part of him did-that the wyrm hadn’t actually changed position. But suddenly his long face-specifically, the slanted, glowing eyes-appeared so close that they were all he could really see, or at least, all that he could focus on. The world seemed to tilt and turn as vertigo assailed him.

“Corellon!” he gasped.

He was no mystic, and no downpour of divine power answered his call. But perhaps the name of the Great Protector helped him focus his will. In any case, the ground settled beneath his feet, and he wrenched his eyes away from the dragon’s stare.

Yemere roared and rushed forward. He came fast but hobbled nonetheless, his wounds clearly paining him. And scurrying backward, Gaedynn managed to keep ahead of him.

Perhaps deciding that, in his current condition, he was no quicker or more agile than his foe, Yemere stopped where Son-liin still lay stunned. He poised a clawed forefoot over her body. “Surrender,” he said, “or I’ll crush her.”

Gaedynn laughed. “I was game to try to help her. I’m not going to commit suicide for her.” With a flourish, drawing attention to the motion, he reached to pull another enchanted arrow from his quiver.

Possibly fearing what that shaft might do, Yemere didn’t bother following through on his threat. He simply charged again, and if he trampled Son-liin in the process-Gaedynn couldn’t tell-it wasn’t deliberate.

Gaedynn saw that he wouldn’t have time to nock, draw, and loose. As the dragon struck at him like a serpent, he sidestepped and thrust the arrow like a dagger at the side of his adversary’s head. But his arm couldn’t match the lethal power of a bow, and the shaft snapped on the reptile’s scales. The magic inside discharged itself in a crackling flash that stung his fingers.

Recognizing that he had no hope of regaining the distance that archery required, he dropped his bow and snatched out his short swords. They didn’t do him a lot of good. Yemere pressed him so relentlessly that it was all he could manage just to dodge and duck the creature’s gnashing fangs, snatching talons, battering wings, and whipping tail. Striking back was rarely possible, and when he could, his blades didn’t bite deep enough for it to matter.

And though the space, like a small arena with one wall missing, had appeared roomy enough when he arrived, it now seemed completely full of dragon. He repeatedly found himself nearly pinned against the stone or about to be shoved off the drop. Then it took an even riskier, more desperate evasion to stave off death for another heartbeat or two.

He struggled to think of a stratagem that could save him. Nothing sprang to mind.

But then two beams of dazzling light stabbed down from the sky. They burned into Yemere’s back, and he roared and convulsed. The roar cut off abruptly when Eider dived out of the dark, thumped down on the dragon’s neck just behind the head, and ripped out a big chunk of flesh with her beak. She spit it out immediately, possibly because it had thorns in it.

Yemere collapsed, and Eider sprang clear before the huge, spasmodic body hit the ground. Jet swooped down with Aoth and Cera on his back.

Gaedynn watched Yemere for another moment, satisfying himself that, jerks and twitches notwithstanding, the wyrm really was finished. Then he hurried over to Son-liin.

Somewhat miraculously, considering all of Yemere’s lunging and whirling around, she remained uncrushed. In fact, she shakily sat up as he approached, animation and bewilderment in her face. “What happened?” she groaned.

Gaedynn started to answer, realized he was so winded he was probably going to wheeze, and took a moment to catch his breath. “That’s Yemere,” he said, nodding in the direction of the carcass. “As you may notice, he was actually a dragon and using his talents to control you and make you do things to endanger the rest of us. But you’ll be all right now.”

Eider padded over to Gaedynn with a griffon’s uneven gait. He ruffled the feathers on her neck. “Good girl,” he said, “good girl.”

“That she is,” said Aoth, dismounting. “And you’re lucky. Taking on a dragon all by yourself was cocky even by your standards.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Actually that aspect of the situation caught me by surprise. It would have been helpful if the fellow with the spellscarred eyes had noticed what the whoreson really was.”

Aoth shrugged. “They don’t ordinarily catch shapeshifters because shapeshifting’s not an illusion. Be glad we heard Yemere roar.”

“Oh, I am,” Gaedynn said, “although if necessary, I would have finished him off somehow.”

“I’m sure,” said Cera dryly.

Aoth took another look at Yemere’s body, whose final shudders were subsiding. “The hide looks just the same as the hide of the dragonspawn that attacked us in the Eagle’s Idyll.”

Cera murmured a word that set the head of her golden mace glowing, so she, too, could see the body clearly. “In other words, it gleams like steel,” she said in a somber tone.