"Yes. I'll be ready to assume command of our main forces when you leave."
Jherdar bowed again before he left, returning quickly to the dragons scattered in the sky east of the river. He called the nearest dragons to join him, landing in the fields east of the river so that he could divide them into companies and give them their orders. Thelvyn watched them from a distance. He had decided that he should stay close to the metal warrior in case it tried to pull itself from the river before the Radiance could be used to overcome the will of the Masters. So far, he had yet to see any sign of movement from the place where it had disappeared into the dark water.
A moment later Thelvyn was caught by surprise when the dragon sorcerers engaged the full power of the Radiance. He had never experienced such a wash of latent magic, moving rapidly outward from its source like a sudden blast of wind. If dragons had hair, his would have been standing on end. Across the river, Jherdar immediately launched the dragons into the sky and led them quickly to the north, rising steeply with long, powerful strokes of their wings. They turned as a group to fly swiftly toward the north, rushing to attack the invaders during the first minutes of confusion after the will of the Masters was broken.
Thelvyn waited as long as he dared, knowing that he needed to be with the rest of dragons in Jherdar's absence. Suddenly he saw Kharendaen flying swiftly from the city to join him. She didn't bother to land but circled him tightly, and he understood that he was to join her in flight. A few moments later, they were flying side by side only a few miles behind the ranks of the fighting dragons.
"Marthaen promises that the dragon sorcerers can maintain the Radiance at this intensity for as long as you need them to," she reported. "If fact, they will have to use nearly this much power for the foreseeable future to keep the Highlands secure.
But he says we will have to determine how much the influence of the Masters has been broken."
"As long as the Flaem are protected from their control and that metal beast remains in the river, we'll be fine," Thelvyn said. "If we can count on that much, we can chase the gemstone dragons right out of the Highlands."
Thelvyn was still concerned that the Masters might have some deadly defenses or traps at their strongholds in Braastar or near the old worldgate. This was the main reason he had been reluctant to face them on their own ground from the start. He couldn't count on the power of the Radiance to counteract any such traps. He was determined to be the first to enter their strongholds, so that he might be able to detect and disable any nasty surprises left by the Masters before his dragons got into trouble.
Jherdar had planned his counterattack well. Leading his force of dragons swiftly northward, he sent a quarter of his dragons to deal with the invading army while the rest continued on toward Braastar. With the collapse of the power that commanded their will, the many strange races of slave warriors were turning on their former Masters, forcing the gemstone dragons to retreat from their own armies. Those that had remained on the ground rose into the air just in time to flee desperately before the fury of the army of dragons. Some were trapped as they tried to climb into the sky, forced down under the weight of an overwhelming number of attackers and slain on the ground. Still other gemstone dragons found themselves overtaken in flight by the swifter gold and red dragons, finally giving up their hopeless flight to turn on the pursuing dragons for a last desperate fight.
Once the gemstone dragons had fled, many of the former slaves of their invading army were now either too interested in fighting each other or escaping into the wilderness to care about the attacking dragons. Still others welcomed the Dragonking and his warriors as their rescuers. The dragons Jherdar had left behind to deal with the invaders were mostly concerned with breaking up fights between different factions of the invading army, hunting down those who had fled into the forest.
The main body of the army of the dragons flew as swiftly as they could toward Braastar, only to find that the Masters had already been forced to abandon the city and the enslaved Flaem had turned against them. Leaving behind a small force to help secure the city, Jherdar led his remaining fighting dragons into the east, toward the stronghold near the worldgate, where he expected the Masters to stand and fight. Thelvyn had been thinking the same thing, which was why he hurried to arrive ahead of the dragons and probe the defenses of the invaders. But his concern proved to be needless.
When he came to the wild lands east of Braastar, he was surprised to find a seared, smoking area of blasted ground where the old worldgate had been. The stronghold of the Masters was shattered and burning. Marthaen had directed the full power of the Radiance against the worldgates, blocking the retreat of the Masters. Apparently the power used to destroy the gates had been far greater than anyone had expected, and the destruction of the gates had been devastatingly violent. The Masters themselves, more than a score in all, were circling warily, but they turned to flee to the west when Thelvyn and Kharendaen approached.
The gemstone dragons were not as swift as the true dragons, and many were overtaken and slain as they tried desperately to flee. Only a couple of dozen that had accompanied their army had escaped to join the score or so that had survived the annihilation of the stronghold. These were all that remained of at least two hundred gemstone dragons that had invaded the Highlands. Cut off by the destruction of the nearest gates, the Masters turned and fled swiftly to the northwest, just as Thelvyn had expected. Jherdar followed, leading a couple hundred of his own dragons in pursuit.
Once again Thelvyn had waited until he seemed to have a clear advantage, and once again the Masters had been forced to flee after a brief battle. But Thelvyn's problems were far from over. While the Masters had left behind an army in their haste, this time their army was not being forced to fight to its inevitable destruction. Suddenly he had to deal with a main army north of Braejr and a secondary force at Braastar, well over sixty thousand beings of numerous races, some not even remotely human, who were now eager to join the fight against their former masters. The only problem was that, like the Flaem, they did not dare leave the Highlands and the protection of the Radiance.
For now, at least, the Flaem were happy to have a well-sup-plied army on hand to help protect their homelands, and Solveig was already arranging for them to be given land to settle in the eastern and far northern portions of the realm. Of course, Thelvyn hadn't forgotten the natural Flaemish suspicion of foreigners, which he had endured often himself. He suspected they would be less willing to have people from various off-world races sharing their land once the threat of war was past. His only comfort was knowing that the problem would be left for someone else to resolve, probably Solveig White-Gold.
There was considerable celebration in Braejr that evening when Thelvyn and Kharendaen returned to the city with news that the Masters had either been destroyed or had fled into the wilderness. He could appreciate the relief of the Flaem, who had been living in fear not only of conquest but also of enslavement. Those who had already been evacuated to the south would be returning the next day, and the people who had fled Braastar were eager to go home again. Thelvyn regretted how much the city of Braastar had suffered in the invasion, for there had been much damage by fire and the Masters had looted the city.
Of course, few people even knew about the existence of the Radiance. The general assumption was that the powers employed by the dragon sorcerers had been their own. It seemed best that the Radiance should remain a secret, so that people of other lands would not someday be tempted to try to invade the Highlands to capture it for themselves. The only way to protect that secret was to continue to allow most people to believe that the dragon sorcerers alone, under the guidance of the Dragonking, had been responsible for vanquishing the will of the Masters. Alessa Vyledaar was somewhat annoyed at having to allow the dragons to take the full credit, but she had to admit that it was better than revealing the secrets of the Radiance.