High in the sky, away north over the trees, the dragon banked and dropped, ready to make the last pass.
Dalamar put his back to the path. He stood braced, legs wide, and reached deep down into himself to see what strength he had left for magic. Some, some.
"Dalamar!" Tellin shouted. "Come out!"
He didn't heed. He refused to let himself hear anything now but the sound of the sky, the sound of the dragon coming for him. He counted his strength and thought it enough. He searched within for all the spells he knew-and counted them worthless, for they were only the small simple spells he'd been grudgingly allowed. There were others, dark, secret spells learned in the summer, but he had been a long time away from those tutors, the books hidden in his cave outside of Silvanost. He hadn't read the words of those spells in too long, and he dared not try to cast them from memory. To mis-speak even a word… the spells could fall useless or kill him. And they were small spells, too, no matter if he'd read them only an hour ago and could cast them with perfect accuracy. Against a dragon they would do as much good as spitting.
Yet, perhaps there was one spell, one every mage knew no matter the color of his robe, no matter which of the three gods of magic heard his prayers.
"Dalamar!"
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Tellin on the top of the glen, his robes stained with mud and blood and sweat. The cleric stood braced and ready, the thick, heavy broadsword in his two hands awkwardly gripped. Idiot! Dalamar thought. He'll swing himself off the path if he tries to use it.
Like thunder, the dragon roared. In his ears, in his heart, Dalamar heard the mage's laughter echoing between the walls of the glen like the bellow of a wind-wild sea. "I see you, mageling. You are mine!"
"No!" Tellin shouted, and the voice of the cleric, used to soft prayers and gentle chanting, ripped through the glen, bounding off the walls like curses. "Dalamar! Get out!"
Dalamar held his ground. He need shout only one word, two little syllables, and shout them with all the force in his lungs and all the strength of magic left in him after this long day's work. How much was that? How much?
Whatever strength he had, whatever meager power exhaustion didn't claim… it would have to be enough.
Larger and larger the dragon grew as it came closer, trimming its wide wings for speed. It seemed to Dalamar that he saw nothing now but the maw of the beast and the red-gloved hand of the mage reaching for him. With all the breath in his lungs, with all the strength in his heart, Dalamar shouted, "Shirak!" and a great ball of light burst overhead, flaring in the air between him and the dragon.
The beast roared, then screamed high in pain.
On the high side of the glen a Wildrunner cursed, blinded by the light. In the same moment, another cheered, his voice rising up in bloodthirsty caroling. "Again! Let fly those arrows again! Archers!"
Blinded by his own light, Dalamar stumbled and turned, reaching out to find the wall of the glen and tripping over the hem of his robe after the first step. Screaming, the dragon rose up high to the treetops, then shrieked in the sky, blinded not by light but by the green and gold arrows of the Wildrunners. Sightless, it staggered in flight, then fell, dropping hard, and the sound of it hitting the trees was the sound of storm coming down, crashing and cracking and the slow aching scream of trees being split apart and torn up by the roots. One wing broke close to the dragon's shoulder, and the other was pierced through by raw splintered trees, pinning it.
"The dragon's down!" shouted one of the archers. Above the dragon's screams that voice sounded like no more than insect buzzing. Still, Dalamar heard it, and he knew what words the Wildrunner shouted. "It's down! Swords! Swords! Go! Go! Go!"
Howling, they went, Wildrunners tearing into the ruined forest. The sound of them at the killing filled up the forest, echoing to the sky-the shouts of savage glee, and the thunderous roaring of the dragon, the blind beast thrashing and crippled.
Dalamar, sightless as the dragon, stumbled forward, staggering over the stiffening body of Ylle Savath. He was saved from falling when a hand grabbed his arm hard.
Tellin! Tellin, of course.
"You!" Dalamar cried, laughing, his knees gone weak with relief. "You, my lord cleric with your sword! You should run take your part in the kill."
The dazzle still on his eyes, he heard a soft hissing, a sound like snakes.
"That's why I'm here," said a low, heavy voice right beside his ear. "A dark mage come to rid the world of elf-mages."
All the sounds of the dying dragon and the cheering Wildrunners faded, no more distinct now than if a thick wet fog had come to dampen them. A chill slithered down Dalamar's spine. Mind racing, Dalamar tried to remember if he'd heard the sound of the cleric's death-cry in all the fighting. Sight slowly clearing, he saw that the hand on his arm was red-gloved and much larger than Tellin's.
Dalamar's ears rang with the din of the dragon's death. Someone cried out, a long rending shriek that ended in a bubbling sob. One of the Wildrunners had come too close to his prey Then the cries changed, so suddenly that the elf fighters couldn't have had time to know their luckless companion was dead.
Fire! Fire! Fire in the woods!
All this Dalamar heard as he looked up into the black eye-slits of a dragon helm, and looking in there was like looking into the swirl of a maelstrom-or into the eyes of a madman. A dagger sang from its sheath, shining dully in the sunless day. "Don't move, my mageling."
Dalamar stood still as stone. The tip of the dagger pressed against his throat pricked sharply to assure the mage's meaning. Move, then die. He barely breathed, but he noted that his captor's voice was slurred now, as though he were a drunkard speaking, or a man who'd taken a terrible blow to the head. The dragon's screams shook the air, even so far down as the floor of the glen. Dalamar felt ground beneath his booted feet vibrating to the thrashing of the beast. The red-armored warrior moaned, a soft sobbing.
Dalamar's stomach tightened with sudden understanding. This mage had been riding the dragon, and some who did that liked to forge a link with the dragon, mind to mind. The slurred speech, the dull, lightless eyes-these told Dalamar the mage had not managed to break the link before the beast went down. He was still somewhere in the mind of the dying dragon, feeling its death, perhaps soon to die with it. Hope sprang in Dalamar, with the adrenaline and blood running hot in his veins. But no matter what ran in him, still the mage stood with the tip of a dagger pressed cold against his throat, and whatever strength he was losing as the dragon died, his hand was still steady on the dagger's grip.
Softly, a step. Dalamar heard and never lifted his eyes. Still, he smelled the sweat of the one who stood there behind the mage and above him on the path. Mingled with the stink of sweat and blood was another, softer scent-temple incense of the kind that drifts always through the trees in Silvanost, the heady fragrance sailing out from the white temples erected to white gods and smelling in all seasons like the forest in autumn. Lord Tellin Windglimmer stood upon the path at the narrow part where earlier that day Dalamar had plucked him back from a fall. He had his sword in hand, gripped tightly, lifted high. In his eyes shone a terror to speak of the choice he must make, that choice and chance taken all in an instant-kill the mage or see Dalamar die.
The red-armored rider straightened suddenly, as though he knew someone was behind him. He turned, his hand still on Dalamar, and he screamed, a high and terrible sound winding up to the sky. His rage and the dragon's in whose mind he yet partly dwelt, his pain and the dragon's, all those unwound in his scream.
"Fire!" they shouted up there in the forest. More voices than those of the few Wildrunners shouted, many more. Soldiers were coming down through the forest, retreating before the dragonarmy. "Clear out! Fire!"