Knights of the Crown

Chapter 21

Hipparan toas not one of those dragons with the inborn gift of sensing magic worked in a cave deep under a mountain halfway across the world. Nor had he, in his few decades in the world before entering dragonsleep, found time to learn that art-if it could be learned, as some elder dragons doubted.

But the magic he sensed now blazed like fires in dry grass. Or at least one source did-neutral he thought, but with an aura about it of danger. Evil flickered, like a campfire in yesterday’s downpour, close to the neutral source.

And far away but drawing closer was the black dragon, a familiar sensation and at any other time not an unwelcome one. He had never heard of a dragon turning from evil to good, or even neutral, but it seemed likely that the black would not do anything evil unless Fustiar compelled him.

As he took wing, Hipparan hoped Fustiar had no spells to compel any dragon except the aged black. But a mage who could break dragonsleep, even with the aid of the Dark Queen, was too potent for the comfort of anyone except his sinister mistress.

Hipparan was of one mind with Pirvan and Haimya. He would not sorrow if Fustiar fell into a wine barrel and drowned. For now, he could only hope that at least the mage’s ability to work spells was drowned in the wine he’d drunk, and would stay that way until Pirvan and Haimya were safely out of his reach.

Hipparan slanted down to just about the treetops, gaining speed as he did so. The wind of his passage blew birds’ nests out of the trees, and nesting mothers squalled protest as their fledglings toppled into space.

Hipparan felt the mothers’ sorrow but could do nothing about it. He owed them nothing; he owed Haimya and Pirvan (and all their friends, might Paladine protect them) a great deal.

His wings quickened their beat until he was flying faster than he ever had, even in the high skies.

* * * * *

Pirvan’s arm was throbbing as if it had been held over a fire, by the time he and Haimya reached the roof of the tower. They met no one on the stairs, either friendly or hostile, though the crumbling steps, cobwebs, and reek of mold and still more unwholesome life were menaces enough to the two battered questers. Several times Haimya had to stop-for breath, she said-but Pirvan saw blood soaking through her breeches and even the rough dressing she’d torn from the clothing of a dead pirate.

When they reached the roof, they were still alone, and Pirvan quickly saw why. The roof was more holes than either stone or timber. A misstep could send them plummeting to death in the shadows.

At least it would be a quicker death than the pirates now surrounding the tower would mete out to them. Pirvan hoped he and his companion could at least force the pirates to kill them, but with his arm and her leg and fever, he was making no large wagers. The last strength she’d gained from the healing potion had gone into wielding the Frostreaver with a skill that an ice barbarian warrior would have envied-and what had it brought her?

Gerik Ginfrayson’s death, and that had taken from her something that she might never gain back, not if she survived tonight and another fifty years as well. He had thrown away his oath to Synsaga to save her, and she had repaid him with death.

Pirvan could see in Haimya’s eyes that in her mind she would look upon Gerik’s dying face a thousand times over, until either her mind could endure it no more or she could make her peace with what was not her fault and in any case past all altering.

He had firmly put the thought out of his mind that she was now free. She would welcome no man’s approach for years, if ever. Now all he could do for her was be silent and if it came to that, keep her from dying alone.

More torches were coming across the courtyard toward the foot of the tower. Pirvan looked down, and an arrow whistled up toward him, striking the stone a good ten feet below him. Chips of stone and large chunks of mortar showered from where it had struck, however. This whole tower had to be on the verge of coming down of its own weight; how it had survived Fustiar’s residence, let alone his magic, was something to marvel at.

Haimya was sitting slumped against the remnants of the battlement, her eyes as blank as if she were senseless. Only the slow rise and fall of her shoulders and the slow trickle of blood from her wound told Pirvan that she was still alive.

With every step and every movement, his arm now flung pain up and down until every part of his body seemed to hurt. It would be easy to sit down beside Haimya, take her hand, and wait until Fustiar awoke or the men below gathered their courage and came up with steel in hand.

It would also shame the brothers and sisters of the night work. Thieves either escaped or died on their feet, like badgers defending their burrows.

The torches wavered. Several arrows flew, but none of them anywhere near the castle. They seemed loosed straight up into the sky. Pirvan’s ears seemed stuffed with wool, but he heard cries of alarm.

The black dragon was returning, of course. The men would retreat, but that made no difference. Between them, the black dragon and his mage master would finish the night’s work-

It was not the black dragon that swooped out of the night, but Hipparan. He seemed to have grown to twice his previous size since they last had seen him, his wings blotting out the sky and his body longer than the tower’s width.

Magic, natural growth, or illusion? Illusion, Pirvan realized, as Hipparan flung out his wings to stop himself in midair, then settled cautiously onto the roof. Not all the stones under him could bear even his carefully placed weight; some gave way and rattled and crashed down into blackness.

“Come and ride,” Hipparan whispered. “This roof may fall or Fustiar awake, and the black dragon is coming.”

Haimya stared in silence for a moment, until Pirvan thought he would have to slap or drag her. He wondered which god he should pray to, to avert this.

Then speculation ended as Haimya pulled herself painfully upright. “I must tie Pirvan in place,” she said. Her voice might have been that of a swathed corpse in a tomb a thousand years old. “He has broken his arm.”

“Then be quick about it,” Hipparan said.

Haimya’s first movements were corpselike as well, but her hands were no less deft than before. In moments, Pirvan was as snugly bound as a barbarian’s infant on a woman’s backboard. He did not see Haimya tie herself into her harness, but he did feel the lurch and stomach-dropping effect as Hipparan took wing.

The last thing he saw was the tower, now encircled by torches, dropping away beneath them.

* * * * *

Hipparan knew less than he wished to about human injuries and sickness. He knew even less than that about healing them, though he had once commanded some healing spells and also read more than a trifle in Tarothin’s least secret spellbook.

This modest knowledge was sufficient to tell him one thing: Pirvan and Haimya would not survive their present hurts without healing. They might not need more than rest and good food brought by helpful hands every day for a few weeks, if they were aboard Golden Cup or guests at some castle such as this one had been long ago.

Alone in a wilderness, barely able to tend each other, though, they were doomed. Even if he remained with them and guarded them from enemies, he could not attend them as they needed.

Nor could he be sure of remaining with them. The black dragon was closer yet, and asking querulously what was amiss. So far Hipparan had not heard Fustiar reply.

May this continue, he prayed.

Hipparan had flown as high as he could without chilling his passengers, to see far and wide and be out of arrowshot or even siege engine range from the ground. Seeing no immediate danger from human weapons, dragon’s claws, or mage’s magic, he descended in wide circles to a landing place on a hill opposite the ancient volcano.

He had thought of landing on that weathered summit, for the lake would offer unlimited fresh water and the forests rose high and were rich with game and fruit. But the rock was crumbling and treacherous, and above the forest line there was little cover for two humans who could not move swiftly and would surely be hunted on the ground and perhaps from the air.

Hipparan had also sensed a trace of ancient magic deep within the mountain. He could not recognize anything about it, but it seemed to him that his friends would best be well clear of the mountain when Fustiar awoke in fury, like the ancient volcano in eruption.

The clouds were low and the mist rising as Hipparan descended. He had to slow his flight until he was almost hanging in the air, at a height at which a small boy with a slingshot could strike easily. He reached out with all his awareness, searching the land about for any signs of life.

He found nothing except the life of the jungle, sleeping if it was day-living, awake and feeding if it was night-walking. None of it was human, magical, or evil, and none of it seemed in any way concerned with the odd dragon or the odd pair of humans.

That was as Hipparan wished it. He landed, then twisted his neck to examine his riders. Haimya was asleep or senseless. Pirvan was awake but flushed with the beginning of a fever and biting his lip with the pain of his arm.

Gently, Hipparan sliced through the thief’s harness with two claws, wielded as delicately as embroidery needles for all that they were larger than Pirvan’s daggers. Pirvan gripped the base of Hipparan’s wing with his good hand and gently lowered himself to the ground.

It was not gently enough to keep him from gasping with pain. He sat down, holding his broken arm and staring up at Hipparan.

“Thank you. I wish I had the wits to say more, but you have repaid all debts-”

“Now, now, let us not argue about that,” Hipparan chided. “If we survive, time enough to dispute it. If we do not, the dead owe nothing, or at least nothing that they can pay the living.”

“Cheerful, aren’t you?”

“I can count claws held up in front of my face,” Hipparan said with dignity. “Being young does not make me foolish.”

“I never-echi Can you help me bind this arm?”

“I can do better than that,” Hipparan said with more confidence than he felt. That drew Pirvan’s undivided attention, and Hipparan did not lose it while he explained his intention of healing the humans.

“At least enough to let you find your own food and make your own shelter,” he added. “I am not Tarothin, and I suspect that even he is not a finished healer.”

“That,” Pirvan said, “is the shark calling the walrus a glutton.”

“No doubt,” Hipparan said. “Now, if you will stretch out your arm as best you can-”

“No,” Pirvan said. “You heal-the lady-first. She had both wounds and sickness, and no healing potion remains.”

Hipparan shook his head. “My friend, I said I was not Tarothin. This means I could make a mistake. If you seek Haimya’s safety, should you not offer yourself as my first patient?”

“As a healer, you have a wonderful way of inspiring confidence,” Pirvan said. “Very well, do your worst.”

Hipparan tried to drag up from his memory and hold in front of his eyes the words of Tarothin’s most elementary healing spell. It might have no power to cure more than blisters and dandruff, but a modest start should avoid killing even if it could not cure.

The black dragon knew that his master was awake when he returned to his lair at the far end of the castle courtyard. He carried in his claws a small deer, and his arrival, followed by his devouring the unfortunate creature, kept the humans at their distance. Even the ones without speech seemed more uneasy than usual, and none of them would approach closely enough to tell him what might have happened in his absence.

He had to finish his meal, fly over the tower, and see that Fustiar’s living creation lay dead and the axe that it had carried was gone. The dragon could sense vaguely where the Frostreaver had been, but it now seemed shattered, even melted.

So it is, Fustiar’s thought came.

Mage, how did this happen?

The black dragon listened in growing amazement and unease as Fustiar told the tale of how badly the night had gone so far.

Is that all? he asked, finally.

The mage’s fury burned into the black dragon’s thoughts. Is that not enough?

Are you sure they told you the truth?

Fustiar made no reply to that. In the innermost parts of his mind, where the mage could not reach, the black dragon wondered if the mage’s fury had not finished the work of making the guards witless with fear. They had failed, but turning them into simpletons would not mend matters.

It does not matter, Fustiar said, more calmly. Their failure cannot be endured. They must be punished.

Is it Synsaga’s right-

“Synsaga has no rights against me!” Fustiar screamed. The black dragon heard that both in his mind and with what remained of his bodily hearing. He hoped none of the humans heard those words, foreseeing much trouble coming of them if they reached Synsaga. He had slain prisoners and slaves, at Fustiar’s command or from hunger. He had yet to shed the blood of a free man sworn to the pirate chief.

What is your wish, then? the dragon asked.

Kill them, you overgrown lizard! was the not unexpected reply.

All of them?

Yes. Either they die now, or you die alone and without purpose! Is that your wish?

The black dragon threw back his head and howled his anguish at the night sky. The sky swallowed the cry and gave back no answers to his problem.

Not quite. He saw that he’d started every man around the tower into movement. Some of them were running, and some of the runners were on their way toward the gate or the climbable portions of the ruins.

The dragon picked one of the deer’s ribs out from between his teeth, reared up, and took wing. If the men ran fast enough, he would have every excuse for not chasing them down. Fustiar could hardly wish open war with Synsaga through a public slaughter of pirates. If those mutes did not run, the dragon would have no qualms about strewing them all about the castle; he had never liked them anyway.

The black dragon soared over the walls and circled back past the tower, glancing at the roof to see if anyone was still up there. It was empty and even more ruined than before.

He banked, feeling stronger than he had most of the time since Fustiar had awakened him. Life was precious; he would not give it up easily, even if the price was the lives of a few humans.

But the next time you are too drunk to do your own killing, do not ask me to do it! he snarled at his master.

Haimya awoke so free from pain that she knew she had to be dead. Either that, or a prisoner, and Fustiar had healed her for the purpose of meting out a fate far more lingering and dreadful than dying of fever and loss of blood.

Then she realized that she was not only free from pain but that she was hungry. Hungry, nearly without clothing, but wrapped in a blanket and lying on a bed of leaves and branches.

This was a possible condition for a captive, particularly the hunger. However, she seemed to be outdoors, from the smell of the forest all around her and the sky above. Someone was moving about, close to her, and she turned her head to see.

As she did, the someone knelt beside her. She recognized Pirvan, holding out to her a bowl that was half of a gigantic nut, roughly split.

She was so surprised that she gagged and nearly choked on the first mouthful of water. Pirvan pounded her on the back-with his left hand, she could not help noticing-and held the bowl out.

This time she finished it without mishap, though without really paying attention to what she was doing. She could not take her eyes off Pirvan’s using both hands as if he had never been wounded.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He was still favoring his left arm, using his right arm even more than a right-handed person did normally. Once she saw him rub his left arm lightly, and heard him sigh.

But he had two arms again. She sat up, holding the blanket around her, and shook her head. She felt as if she’d awakened from a long, deep sleep after a banquet of fine food and excellent wine in the best of company. No, that also was not quite right. Her stomach was rumbling too loudly for it to have been filled any time in the last-how long? She felt as if she had not eaten for a month.

But the muzzy-headedness and aches from the fever were gone. Her leg was still stiff, but when she felt it, there was no blood, little pain, and, instead of a gaping wound, only a ridged, puckered scar.

It would not be her first, and in any case she no longer needed to worry much about her appearance. As long as it did not slow her, she could return to the field, perhaps not with her old rank among the sellswords, but with every prospect of living well enough until her luck ran out.

“Pirvan, I thought you had no magic except the one spell and no strength left to cast that-” she began.

Pirvan laughed. So, in the darkness behind her, did someone much larger.

“Hipparan?”

“If I put you and Pirvan in danger, I am sorry. But it seems that the healing has been good enough that the danger was-”

Haimya sat up, not caring about the blanket, and stared at Hipparan. All she could make out were his eyes, but at her gaze he seemed to lower them.

“You healed us?” She felt her wits had shrunk to those of a child, likewise her command of Common.

“It seemed the least dangerous course,” Pirvan began, but Hipparan interrupted.

“Let me tell this story myself, if you please. We do not have much time, and I may not be with you much longer.”

What those last words meant, Haimya badly wanted to know. She took Hipparan’s advice and listened in silence. At some point in the story, Pirvan sat down beside her and she put her head on his shoulder, where it felt quite natural.

“Now I must fly,” Hipparan concluded. “The black dragon has gone to work among the guards at his tower.”

Haimya stiffened. “Killing them?”

“That is what I sense,” Hipparan said. “Perhaps he only seeks to frighten them, but I must go see for myself.”

Pirvan asked the question Haimya could not shape her tongue to utter. “And fight him?”

“If there is killing, and no other way to stop it …” Hipparan said.

Haimya did not reply in words. She leaped up, felt her leg hold up as if it had never been hurt, and ran to embrace Hipparan. She knew it was ridiculous to cry into a dragon’s scales when a decent man was there with a shoulder, but she could not help herself.

Also, she realized as her sobs diminished, it was just. Pirvan was here, would be here. Hipparan was going to battle-for good, for his friends and what he owed them, for perhaps no more than being able to sleep soundly at night.

“Paladine, Kiri-Jolith-may they keep you, friend,” she said at last.

Pirvan looked as if she’d stolen the words he wanted to say, then smiled. He put an arm around her, she did not resist, and they stood that way as Hipparan spread his wings, stepped into the open, and sprang into the night sky.

Hipparan climbed as high as he could without flying into the clouds. He wanted to be clear of the mountaintops, able to use all his senses, with the advantage of height if matters came to a fight.

He hoped they would not. The pleasure he had found in healing Pirvan and Haimya made him realize that he was not a warrior in his soul. He could fight, and would, with the strength of his youth, which should give him the edge even though little experience seasoned that strength.

But if the black dragon continued to give him no cause for battle, there would be none.

Hipparan stationed himself high over the tower, where he could see the black dragon climbing up to him before the elder dragon’s vision could reach him. This put him in reach of Fustiar’s spells, but he thought he had the strength to deal with the mage.

It would be spells against the tower. The healing had been a venture into the unknown, but not physically demanding; work on humans without magical defenses did not take much strength for a full-grown dragon.

Spells. Perhaps turning the tower solid, so that Fustiar was entombed within it. Perhaps softening stones at the base, so the tower’s own weight brought the rest of it tumbling down on its master.

Perhaps-

Even at Hipparan’s altitude, the screams of dying men reached his ears.

The black dragon dived at a man clinging desperately to the steep side of a tumbled block. Instead of using breath weapon or spell, he merely flicked his tail at the man in passing.

The tail came down across the man’s spine like a falling roof beam. He convulsed, bending practically double backward, his eyes wide, his mouth open but no sound coming. Then, as boneless as porridge, he slid down off the rock and lay still.

The black dragon soared and made a tight circle around the tower, his wings almost vertical. Ancient battle joy flowed through him for the first time since waking, giving him strength he could not remember since his youth. So it had been when he had flown in the dragonarmies of the Dark Queen. So it could be again, if he served Fustiar.

He had a stray thought or two, that this state of mind was too useful to the mage to be natural. But the thoughts departed as quickly as they had come. The black dragon gave his war cry as he saw the ruined bodies strewn across the courtyard. Hardly one of the mutes had escaped, and when the battle joy had entered him he had killed even the pirates with less reluctance than before.

He circled twice for the sheer joy of being able to fly to battle again. On the third circle, he saw a man standing at the head of the stairs to the tower. He broke out of his circle and made ready to use his breath weapon against a man standing where none ought to.

Just in time, he recognized Fustiar.

With great care, one step at a time, the mage came down the stairs. Over his shoulder he carried a second Frostreaver. The dragon tried to remember if there were more, but thought Fustiar had said once (as usual, while drunk and not speaking too clearly) that he had made only two of full power, with all the magic he had used bound into them.

One of those now seemed to lie shattered in a tower that might soon fall and bury the fragments in the stones. Fustiar must be seeking to flee the Crater Gulf coast for another refuge where he could find a new ally and resources to perfect the making of Frostreavers.

If he was not doing that, the black dragon intended to persuade the mage otherwise. If Fustiar did not flee, either the dragon must remain and face Synsaga’s wrath with him, or flee and leave a sworn master behind. The Dragon Queen did not look kindly on the second course of action.

Or perhaps Fustiar could be persuaded to turn his dragon loose on Synsaga’s entire company. That was a pleasant thought, and the black dragon felt his blood rush and his eyes bulge with excitement. His battle fury was not yet spent, and if the battle was only begun …

The dragon landed at the foot of the stairs just as Fustiar reached them. Then he held out a foreclaw to keep his master from falling under the weight of years, wine, weariness, and the Frostreaver. With the other foreclaw he picked up the dead guard creature by one foot and flung it like a dead rat far into the shadows.

“Welcome, friend,” Fustiar said, aloud and in Common. He had never inquired the black dragon’s name. The black dragon had enough dignity that he would not offer such knowledge, even to a sworn mage master.

“Do we voyage tonight?” the dragon asked. “The castle is yours, and all who betrayed their trust are slain or fled beyond my reach. Should I pursue them?”

“Unnnnh,” Fustiar said, which was not a word the dragon recognized and which he had long suspected was not a word at all. “We go south. The Frostreaver, my books, and I.”

For the first time, the black dragon saw that Fustiar had a leather sack slung across his back. From the way it bulged, it must be filled, and if it held books, it must be heavy.

“I have no saddle or harness,” the dragon said. “Perhaps I should drive our enemies back still farther, even raid the camp itself. Then you can make a proper harness to be ready upon my return.”

It was a polite but foredoomed suggestion; the dragon knew it at once. Fustiar fell to his hands and knees and spewed up a great deal of matter that smelled worse than the corpses. It would be a gift from Takhisis if he could as much as lace up a pair of sandals.

“Very well,” the dragon said. “Stand still. I will carry the Frostreaver in one claw, you and your sack in the other. But we shall not go far to the-”

“South,” Fustiar said. “S-South.”

That made as much sense as anything that the black dragon had heard tonight. It would also make sense to halt as soon as they were clear of Crater Gulf, to make that harness and allowed Fustiar to clear the rest of the wine from his body.

He would, however, say nothing about that plan to Fustiar.

The last thunder of dragon wings had long faded into the night. The night sounds of the jungle were returning. Pirvan slapped at an insect whining in his ear, taking pleasure all over again in being able to slap with his left hand.

Then he began going through their packs to see what was left, with their quest so nearly at an end. Not the danger-the black dragon or Synsaga’s men might yet make an end of them-but any need to do more than stay alive had passed. Gerik Ginfrayson was beyond ransoming, they knew as much about Fustiar as they were likely to learn, and life suddenly seemed considerably simpler.

Pirvan knew that was more seeming than otherwise. What Haimya saw when she looked within herself, he did not wish even to try guessing, lest he guess wrongly and give mortal offense.

Also, healing would not be enough to keep them alive even if unpursued. They would have to make a secret camp, or even better, several, set snares for small game and lines for fish in the hill streams, find edible fruits and roots, and otherwise prepare to wait out the arrival of friends, who might then take a good long while finding them in this wilderness forsaken by all gods anyone ever cared to pray to.

“Pirvan,” Haimya said. “Are you as healed as you seem?”

“I could ask you the same.”

She stood on one foot-the foot of her wounded leg. Pirvan reached out and took the free foot with his left hand. Then Haimya twisted, throwing them both off balance. They fell beside each other on the muddy ground, then burst into laughter.

“I did not-I had not thought to laugh again,” she said. “Not this soon. Gerik, forgive me.”

Asking for his forgiveness every time you sneeze will not heal you, was what Pirvan wished to say. Instead, he shaped on his lips, “Haimya, I will stand far off or close by as you wish. But you need fear nothing from me if you allow me to stand close.”

Haimya blinked tears out of her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which left her as black-snouted as any pig. “What you have not said is that we had best stand close together until we leave the Crater Gulf. This is true. Likewise it is true that I am the soldier, who should know better how to live here than a city-born thief.”

“I was not city-born, but as for the rest-”

Haimya rose, with much of her old grace and assurance. “Then the first thing we do is gather up all loose gear, and the second is hide ourselves.”

Hipparan saw the black dragon climbing away from the tower long before he saw that the dragon was burdened. He saw that the other was encumbered long before he saw that his teeth and claws were bloody. And he saw the blood long before he recognized the scent of human gore, and realized that the burden was Fustiar in one claw and a Frostreaver in the other.

“Do we have a quarrel?” the black dragon called. If it was a challenge, it was phrased so politely that Hipparan knew he had the freedom to refuse it.

If he did so, the only two dragons awake in all the world would not fight each other.

Not now, at least. But what about later? The black dragon was sworn to an evil mage, and the mage was not going to abandon his perverted work. Filling the world with Frostreavers might be only the first of his works.

“I have a quarrel with Fustiar the Mage,” Hipparan said. “I owe that much to my friends, who have suffered at Fustiar’s hands.”

“Argggh!” Fustiar snarled. His words were barely coherent, but the venom in them made Hipparan want to flinch away. “It was good work, freeing the woman of that lout! She wrought better than she knew, even if she ruined my Frostreaver. “Now she can seek a proper mate. Show me where she is, little copper dragon, and I will offer for her. She can stand beside me-”

Hipparan screamed. The black dragon flinched. So did Fustiar.

“Only one man has any claim on Haimya now, and you can never be he!” Hipparan roared. It seemed that his fury echoed from the clouds to the mountains and back again.

He lunged at Fustiar, before the black dragon could lower his head to use either his fangs or his breath weapon-not that a stream of acid was all that useful, this high in the air. Fustiar not only flinched, he writhed, screamed-and tore himself loose from the black dragon’s claws.

Both dragons dived after the falling man. Hipparan was lower, and the black dragon had to stoop before he could see his master vanishing into the darkness.

Hipparan was the first to reach Fustiar, and after that it no longer mattered what the black dragon might do. The copper dragon’s jaws closed on Fustiar’s skull, and his teeth pierced to the man’s brain. Hipparan opened his mouth, and a corpse weighted with spellbooks tumbled away out of sight.

Then Hipparan had to swerve sharply to avoid colliding with the plummeting black dragon. He opened the distance and called, “Remember, my quarrel is with one who is about to make a hole in the mud, not with you, flying strong and free.”

The black dragon replied with his breath weapon. The acid sprayed wide on the wind, but even the few drops that struck Hipparan’s right wing burned as though he had thrust the wing into a fire. He changed from a right turn to a left turn, as the other would most likely expect him to turn into the damaged wing.

Such ruses kept the fight between the two dragons going so long that Hipparan lost all sense of time or place. He had to look down once, to find that they were almost directly over the lake in the summit crater of the extinct volcano.

That look reassured him, and also nearly ended the fight with the black dragon’s victory. The elder dragon lunged, teeth scraping across Hipparan’s neck, nearly piercing scales into flesh. Hipparan folded his wings, and his dead weight tore him free; he kept them folded until he had dived clear.

That gave the other the advantage of altitude, which Hipparan realized might not have been the safest gift. The black dragon was remarkably fit for his age, skilled in battle, and actually seemed to be enjoying the fight. Perhaps he had some thought of avenging his master, but even more of simply proving himself against a younger dragon.

Hipparan had nothing to prove, and no wish to kill the other if he had any choice-which it seemed he did not. That and fear of leading the other dragon to Pirvan and Haimya was all that kept Hipparan in the fight.

He tried twice to use his breath weapon, but the slowness gas blew away even more thoroughly than the acid stream. The black dragon did not miss a single beat of his vast wings, or strike less surely with teeth and claws.

Which of them would overreach himself first, only the gods could know. Hipparan dimly remembered the dangerous art of the wing-bite, which would cripple but not kill. The black dragon remembered that he had another weapon, a legacy from his dead master. Hipparan would display his skill; the black dragon his loyalty.

So Hipparan dived upon the black dragon, striking at a wing, and the other rolled on his back and swung the Frostreaver in both foreclaws. Hipparan’s teeth sank into the black dragon’s left wing as the Frostreaver’s edge sank into Hipparan’s skull.

Hipparan died without knowing that he was in danger, the Frostreaver’s embodied spells pierced all his own magic as easily as its physical being pierced his skull. The black dragon lived a trifle longer-long enough to realize that his dead foe’s teeth were locked in his wing, and that both of them were falling out of the sky into the lake.

The black dragon’s last sensation was of striking what had to be water but felt like stone-cold stone, as repulsive as it was painful to a creature of wet, warm forests.

Pirvan and Haimya had used most of their strength finding a hiding place. They had not realized that it gave them a good view across the river toward the extinct volcano. At least not until the aerial duel of dragons began, when they saw it clearly, then hurried out of cover to where they could watch.

Pirvan would have given an empire for Hipparan’s victory, a kingdom to be able to help their friend, and a respectable barony to spare Haimya the sight of the dragon’s death. The one person he loved ought to be spared more pain tonight.

The one person I love.

He repeated that in his mind so often that he began to fear he would say it out loud, which would break his promise to stand just where Haimya wished him. He had just clamped his lips shut when the battle reached its grisly climax.

Both dragons glowed in their death fall, so the watchers saw them plunge all the way down from the sky into the lake. Then they saw a glow from the lake that made the last light from the dragons seem as pitiful as a firefly’s. An eye-searing blue glare poured over the rim of the crater, and blue mist rose from it as if the crater were boiling. Then Pirvan felt a chill breeze that had not been there a heartbeat earlier, and he knew what was happening.

The lake was not boiling, but freezing. One of the dragons must have been carrying a Frostreaver, or perhaps Fustiar had cast a spell, and the crater lake was turning to ice.

Ice expanded. Expanding, the lake would push the crater walls outward. Pushed far enough-

Haimya threw back her head and hurled a death keen at the sky, the mountain, the jungle, perhaps the gods. A goddess mourning the death of a mortal lover might have uttered such a cry.

Pirvan stood silently and still. He could no more have touched or spoken to her now than he could have molested that goddess.

She nocked an arrow to her bow and shot it at the stars. To Pirvan’s eyes it seemed to rise out of sight before it began to fall-if it fell.

Haimya keened again-and this time she went on keening, until her last breath wheezed out of her throat and he finally had to hold her upright.

They were turning away from the volcano when they heard the mad god’s thunder of a mountain splitting apart and falling.