Then she heard the first faint sounds of the battle she had come to find and, shouting into the wind, she urged the dragon to go faster.
SQUINTING INTO THE BLAZE of sunlight west from out of the blackness of the shadowed corridors of Aphalion Pass, Xac Wen stared in disbelief. He had seen what was flying toward him, and he still couldn’t believe it. He knew it was the dragon—that it had to be the dragon —yet he still kept waiting for it to be something else.
Then it screamed, and right then and there Xac Wen quit trying to find reasons not to believe. That was a dragon, all right! He began yelling wildly for Tasha and Tenerife.
He didn’t know where they were or even where he was at this point. Around him, the
battle had come to a standstill while the participants stared at the phenomenon overhead.
Then, abruptly, impossibly, Xac Wen saw something else.
“Shades!” he whispered to himself.
He looked again, harder this time, making certain of what he was seeing.
“Tasha!” he cried out anew, repeating the name over and over until all at once the larger of the Orullian brothers was yanking him about by the front of his tunic.
“Quiet down, you little banshee!” The big man was streaked with dirt and blood and his face was a mask of rage. He shook the boy for good measure. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Look!” He pointed skyward. “Do you see it?”
“I see it. It’s that dragon again. As if we needed something else to deal with.”
“No, not the dragon! Look closer. Up by its head!”
Tasha squinted into the glare of the sunset, his hand slowly loosening its grip on the boy’s tunic.
“Phryne,” he breathed softly. “That’s Phryne!”
THE ELVEN PRINCESS WAS PLASTERED against the dragon’s neck, one hand gripping the leather belt, the other using the Elfstones to guide the beast. But now that she had reached her destination, she wasn’t sure what she should do. The near end of the pass was clogged with Trolls marching forward in tight ranks and rolling up Elven defensive lines that were already shredded. Farther into the pass, all the way back to the wide place where she had first seen the dragon, the Elves were forming up anew. Why they were doing that and not making for the safety of the defensive wall at the far end of the pass where they would find some measure of protection was a mystery. She watched other Elven Hunters rush forward to reinforce those already engaged and realized they meant to make a stand. It was a futile, hopeless effort against what was coming at them. They would all be massacred.
Then someone below saw the dragon and everyone stopped and stared at it. Arms lifted, fingers pointed, and shouts and cries rose in confusion and wonder. This was her chance. If she could separate Drouj and Elves, if she could force their armies to back away from each other, the battle might be broken off and the attack halted.
She directed the dragon downward, seeking Tasha and Tenerife, and found them. She flew toward them, and as she did so the dragon screamed. She couldn’t tell at first why he did that after being silent all this time, her concentration on controlling the dragon’s dive and holding on to her perch. Then arrows began whizzing past, and she realized they were being fired on.
Momentarily frightened for her mount, she shifted the blue light skyward once more, and the dragon wheeled back toward the outland end of the pass. She could see Troll bowmen and slingers firing their missiles at her, trying to bring the dragon down. She almost laughed, it was such a futile effort.
Ignoring them, she flew the dragon back the way she had come and out over the open foothills beyond, then swung him around, her decision about what to do made. When she had the beast flying in the right direction, she quit using the Elfstones for guidance and summoned the magic for an attack.
It was a new experience. She had not tried this before, although Mistral had said it was possible. But she imagined the effort required would be the same. So she gathered her thoughts, set her mind to accomplishing what was needed, and conjured the Elfstone magic. Prepared, she waited until she was almost on top of the front ranks of the Drouj army and then commanded the Elfstone fire to strike.
Except that the result was not what she had hoped. She had thought she’d mastered the magic and could command it now. But while the Drouj ranks split apart and scattered at the dragon’s approach, the Elfstone fire failed to materialize. She tried summoning it again and again, keeping up her efforts for as long as she could manage.
But after only a few minutes she could feel her strength failing.
Seconds later, the few shards of Elven fire she had managed to conjure died out completely.
She experienced a rush of dismay and anger. She was too weak! She was too unpracticed! She hadn’t used the Elfstones enough to learn how to master their power, and so now she had nothing left to call upon to use against the Drouj.