Thelvyn almost lost the battle as quickly as he had seized the initial advantage. Having little experience fighting in his dragon form, he was unaware that he should have seized his opponent's neck with his jaws and left his hands free to pin the arms of the other dragon, preventing him from thrashing and pulling free. The alien dragon was about to twist away when Kharendaen rushed forward and hauled back on his tail, pulling him off balance so that Thelvyn could get a better hold. Sir George jumped down from his saddle so that Kharendaen could help subdue their enemy without worrying about his safety.
The alien dragon acted surprised to face two intruders, and he suddenly relented, lying passively on his back and panting heavily. Thelvyn kept his entire weight on his foe's chest to prevent him from using his breath weapon. While the first of the strange dragons they had fought had possessed armor like plates of ruby, this one appeared to be made of amber. He was also larger, fully as big as Thelvyn, who was rather large for a young gold. Nor did he seem to be a creature constructed and animated by magic; they could see that he was definitely a male, and a golem would not have had a sex.
"Talk to us," Thelvyn insisted in a firm voice. "You've obviously had dealings with my world, so I suspect that you must know the language of either the dragons or the Flaem."
"I know your speech," the alien dragon said, speaking the language of the dragons with an odd accent. "I know thee as [he Dragonlord who was and the Dragonking who will never be. But I may say nothing to thee."
"That's a very ancient form of the dragon language," Kharendaen said quietly, looking perplexed.
"The gemstone dragons have held no propinquity with thy coarse breed for a long age of my world or thine," their prisoner continued.
"Gemstone Dragons?" Thelvyn repeated. "Are you the masters of this place and not the servants of the Flaem?"
"In truth, are we known as the Masters," the gemstone dragon declared fiercely, seemingly offended by the suggestion that it was a servant of the Flaem. "We serve none but the Overlord. All others here are slaves."
"He's trying to delay us," Kharendaen warned. "He has summoned others to his aid. We dare not waste time on words, as important as it may be to know the answers to these mysteries."
"Nor shall I reveal to thee what thou desires most to know," the alien dragon added, glaring angrily at them. "Although such knowledge will serve thee not, for thou and thy companions will never depart from this place."
Indeed, they had already delayed too long. Thelvyn was taken by complete surprise when a fireball suddenly exploded against his shoulder and the back of his wide neck. His armor spared him any real damage, but it hurt enough to distract him, and the force of the impact knocked him off balance. In the confusion, his captive was able to struggle free. The amber dragon jumped clear and then turned back quickly to attack, leaping forward with its jaws spread wide to gain a fatal hold on Thelvyn's exposed neck. Kharendaen hurtled herself to his defense, darting her head and neck beneath the amber dragon's own neck and then thrusting herself upward with her powerful hind legs to toss her larger opponent heavily onto its back.
Kharendaen pressed her attack before Thelvyn could react, driven by a dragon's boundless fury at seeing her mate harmed. She leapt on the fallen amber dragon while it was still struggling to its feet, striking it so hard in the chest that it was hurled backward. A second fireball exploded against the stone floor where she had stood only a moment before, but she seemed not to notice as she flung herself forward to the attack once more. The amber dragon struck the floor hard, and Kharendaen was on it in an instant, landing on its chest with her entire weight, stunning it. Taking advantage of the amber's momentary helplessness, she lunged forward with her muzzle to gain a death hold on its neck.
Thelvyn had finally recovered from his fall and was rushing to his mate's side, fearful for her safety. Her full attention was focused on the amber dragon, but Thelvyn spotted another alien, a second ruby dragon, entering the chamber through a doorway on the far side of the room, followed by five human figures, who immediately took cover. Even as Thelvyn leapt across the floor, the ruby dragon arched its neck, thrust out its head sharply, and unleashed another fireball that exploded across Kharendaen's left shoulder at its juncture with the wing. Kharendaen immediately released her grip on the amber dragon and roared out in pain. The blow to her wing was a painful one, so that she lifted her head and roared.
This time it was Thelvyn who experienced the dark fury at seeing his mate come to harm. He saw the ruby dragon's companions emerge from hiding to prepare their own attack. From their distinctive, high-collared robes, he guessed they must be Fire Wizards. Desperate to protect his mate, he rushed to Kharendaen's side and turned the heavy armor of his shoulders and back to the attackers. A brief hail of magical missiles caromed harmlessly off his armor, although a couple tore through the delicate sails of his folded wings. Hardly noticing the burning pain in his battle rage, he turned his head away to protect his eyes from the missiles.
The last of the unseen bolts rebounded from his armor, and he immediately lifted his head, anticipating the next attack.
The ruby dragon had drawn back its head and was inhaling air to use its flaming breath. Roaring in fury, Thelvyn leapt up and rushed at the gemstone dragon as fast as he could move, closing his eyes and ducking his head at the last moment as a sustained blast of dragonfire washed over him. A hastily summoned spell to repel flame protected him from the worst of the fiery blast.
He ran headlong into his enemy, using his weight and speed to knock the ruby dragon back toward the stone wall behind him, even though the fierce impact stunned his neck painfully. Keeping his head lowered, he drove his horns deep into the ruby dragon's chest, finally catching between the dragon's ribs. Thelvyn was thrown off balance and crashed hard against the wall, his long neck twisted awkwardly. He righted himself with considerable effort, finally pulling his horns free so that he could press his attack, but the ruby dragon was already dead.
Indeed, the battle was over. Sir George, who always seemed to be forgotten during a fight, had quietly slipped around through the side corridors until he was able to enter the hall behind the traitorous Fire Wizards. While Thelvyn was occupied with the last of the alien dragons, Sir George suddenly appeared and slew a pair of the wizards before they even knew what was happening. The remaining three wizards had found themselves between the flames and Kharendaen's wrath. She was sitting up one her haunches with a wizard clasped tightly in each hand. The third was lying on the ground with her tail firmly over his back.
"I wish I had seen more of that fight," Sir George said. "I'm glad to be in the company of such gentle, peace-loving clerics."
"Dragon clerics," Kharendaen amended coldly, although her words were meant more for her captive wizards. The pair she held looked properly impressed and intimidated; the one under her tail seemed to have fainted. The youngest was a tall man in his middle years with white streaks in the deep red of his hair and beard. The other two wizards were considerably older and rather frail-looking.
"Now, listen carefully, Fire Wizards," Thelvyn said in the Flaemish language. "I will offer you two choices. If you tell me what I want to know, I'll let you run back to your Masters. Otherwise I'll wring your precious necks. Choose now."
"No. . no, Dragonlord," the youngest of the wizards gasped. All three appeared to have been stricken with the greatest terror. Even the one on the ground had revived and began to cry out. "The Masters will never let us speak. They'll force us to die first, an unspeakably horrible death."
"But your Masters are not here, are they?" Thelvyn asked. "And unfortunately for you, I am. Tell me now, do all Fire Wizards serve their bidding?"
"No!" the youngest wizard shrieked, holding his head as if it were suddenly filled with searing pain. The other two seemed to be stricken as well. "The Masters see and hear all we see and hear, and they punish as swiftly. I can say no more!"
Thelvyn frowned, moved to a reluctant pity. "Let them go."
> Kharendaen quickly set the two wizards on the ground, but they were already filled with such intense pain that they sank heavily to their knees, gasping for each labored breath. They could no longer suppress their cries of agony. Their faces began to turn blue, and they started to bleed from their ears, noses, and mouths.
"You. . you must free our people," the youngest wizard cried out, then screamed as if he had been caught in a blast of dragonfire. With that, all three collapsed in lifeless heaps. The Masters had decided to silence them with a swift death.
"I think I've seen enough of this place," Kharendaen said softly, moving close to her mate's side to rub her cheek against his neck.
"Yes, we've delayed here long enough," Thelvyn agreed as he stepped over to the stand that held the Collar of the Dragons. "Since it seems that the Masters do indeed know what their servants see, then it follows that they must know where we are."
"One moment," Kharendaen interrupted when he sat up on his haunches to reach for the collar. "This hardly seems the proper time and place for the Dragonking to receive the token of his authority. But in such ceremony as we are allowed, permit me as a senior cleric of the Great One to place the Collar of the Dragons upon your neck, so that you will receive that which your father set aside for you in the half-forgotten past."
Moving quickly but deliberately, she released the clasps that held the collar closed and lifted it from its stand. Then, while Thelvyn stood motionless with his long neck extended, she fitted the crest plates of the collar over the ridges of his crest and closed the clasps. The weight felt strange to him, but the plates of the collar adjusted perfectly to follow every movement of his neck. The collar seemed to have been made to fit him. Kharendaen lowered her head to rub her cheek affectionately against the front of his deep chest.
Standing unnoticed to one side, and much to his mortification, Sir George was moved to tears. He alone, a humble mandrake, had been wimess to the Dragonking receiving the Collar of the Dragons. It meant more to him than he had expected.
"Ceremony aside, we must be gone," Thelvyn said. "My hope is that the Masters are already on their way here to protect their fortress, leaving the worldgate unguarded. They will most likely return through the main gate, and that means that we must find some other way out of this place. If we must fight again, remember that I cannot change form to become the Dragonlord while I'm wearing the collar."
"From what I've seen, you don't need the Dragonlord anymore," Sir George said as he pulled himself up into Kharen-daen's saddle.
"If we become separated again, you go on to the worldgate," Thelvyn told him firmly. "Any attack will most likely be directed at us, and we are better able to deal with it."
Thelvyn led the way through the doorway in the back of the hall. The small, dark back passages where they found themselves did not provide as direct a path as the corridor that had brought them into the heart of the fortress. He had no clear idea where to go at first, except to head outward until they came to a door or other large opening where they could escape from this place. The problem was that the fortress was very large, and he recalled seeing only a few windows and one main gate from the outside. But when he suddenly came upon a wide stairway leading upward, he had an idea of how he could find the quickest and possibly the most unexpected way out. He only had to trust that he would be able to discover a way out of the fortress somewhere above, or they might become
trapped in the worst of all places.
They had climbed seven floors when they came upon a wide, dark chamber with windows and a doorway that stood open on the far side to an enclosed balcony. At first Thelvyn didn't recognize the significance of such a place, like a deep pocket cut in the side of the fortress more than a hundred feet above the ground. There was no rail or parapet to offer protection from attack. Kharendaen knew it at once as a ledge where dragons could land or leap out into flight. As such, it wasn't the safest place for them to be.
The two dragons moved cautiously to the front of the ledge and looked out across the desolate lands surrounding the fortress. The ledge faced toward the south, and their sharp eyes were able to locate the stone arch of the worldgate among the boulders and ravines along the top of the cliff above the sea of sand to the east. They could also see several gemstone dragons flying toward the fortress, responding to the invasion of their stronghold. Fortunately they were headed toward the main gate, just as Thelvyn had anticipated, although he noted there were more of the strange dragons than the four that had pursued them earlier.
"As soon as they're within the fortress, we'll have our best chance to escape unseen," Thelvyn said. "We'll need to fly very low and fast. Can you handle that?"
"I am unharmed," Kharendaen insisted. "But I am concerned about you. If all that flame did not burn you, it certainly left you in need of a bath."
"No, I'm not burned," he said, bending his neck to examine himself. The portions of his armor that had endured the blasts of dragonfire did indeed look singed, although it was apparently only soot and dust. "I have a few small holes in the sails of my wings from those magic darts. Is that likely to interfere with my ability to fly?"
"It shouldn't, as long as it's not too painful."
Thelvyn had been too distracted with the business at hand to notice his pain, although the small tears in his wings did sting somewhat. Cautiously he extended his head well out from the opening of the ledge, but he could no longer see any of the gemstone dragons outside the fortress. "We must go,
and quickly. Stay close behind me."
His wings half spread, Thelvyn leapt out from the ledge, then nosed over so that he was descending almost straight down, allowing his fall to build speed. Although his experience and trust in flight was growing quickly, he still couldn't do something like this without feeling a rush of fear. At the last possible moment, he spread his wings and came out of his steep dive, hurtling just over the tops of the dunes in the shadow of the cliff. Glancing back briefly, he could see that Kharendaen was following about two lengths beyond the end of his tail, while Sir George was holding on for his very life with the hook on his left wrist caught over the front edge of his saddle.
Thelvyn had forgotten about the fierce winds that constantly howled across the dunes, and the two dragons had to fight the sudden, fitful gusts that threatened to smash them against the face of the cliff. Fortunately their flight was a short one, at least at such a speed. Following his instinctive sense of direction, Thelvyn lifted his wings to catch the wind beneath the sails, lifting him sharply up over the edge of the cliff, where he looked down upon the stone arch below.
He had been hoping that his speed would give his attack the element of complete surprise, since he had guessed that the gemstone dragons wouldn't leave the worldgate completely unguarded. His instinct had proven true; he hurtled up over the cliff almost as close to the stone arch as he could come, rising steeply to give himself room for an attack run before descending sharply toward the pair of alien dragons left to guard the gate. The nearest of the two, a gemstone dragon with armor like jade, saw Thelvyn only at the last moment as he plunged from the sky like an eagle swooping toward its prey, all four of his legs braced stiffly for the impact. The weight of the gold dragon crashed squarely into the middle of the jade dragon's long back, snapping his spine and crushing his ribs. Thelvyn pressed his attack just the same, learning from his recent mistakes, and he lunged forward to take the jade dragon's neck in a death grip.
Kharendaen followed through Thelvyn's attack as best she could, although she could not descend upon the second of the alien dragons as Thelvyn had while she still had Sir George in her saddle. Instead, she passed swiftly just over his head, snapping him in the face with the whip of her tail. The blow was enough to cause the crystal-plated dragon to stagger back on his haunches, holding his face in his claws during that first moment of blinding pain. That gave Kharendaen the time she needed to circle back and land a short distance away, folding her wings tightly while Sir George leapt down from his sa
ddle and ran for the protection of the nearby boulders.
The crystal dragon blinked, finding it hard for a moment to focus on her. She stood facing him a few yards away, crouching low on all fours with her head held low, a deep growl rumbling in her throat. Responding to the threat, the crystal dragon dropped down from his haunches to stand on all fours, but he was still dazed and unsteady. The gold dragon seized the moment to dart in, driving her head beneath his chest and heaving him up across her shoulders, then using the power of her hind legs to toss him backward, a tactic that she had used with success only a short time earlier. Dragons were vulnerable for a moment just after being thrown onto their backs, and that held true for this alien race of dragons as well. The crystal dragon struggled to roll away, but Kharendaen threw her own weight across his chest to pin him down. Unseen and forgotten during the last desperate moments, Thelvyn darted in from behind to crush his neck.
"Ah, thank you," Kharendaen said as she gingerly climbed off the body of the crystal dragon and stepped away. She looked very tired.
"Sir George! It's time to go home," Thelvyn called, then turned his head when the old knight stepped out from behind a boulder. "How can I close this gate so that they can't use it again?"
"You can't," Sir George explained. "You can destroy this particular worldgate, of course. But they can always open another one to take its place."
"I suspect they already have many gates into our world," Thelvyn said. "But it will make me feel better to close this one behind us, even if only for a short time."
"Can you destroy it from the other side?" Kharendaen asked.
"I can try," he said. "Go on through. I'll be just behind you,
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