“Here he comes. He’s diving upon the northern battlements.”

  Kindred ballistae, devices like giant crossbows mounted upon a rotating base, swiveled and when the dragon came in range they snapped. One of the barbed javelins struck the left wing, punching a hole through it. Fafnir swerved, but was not dissuaded from his dive. The second missed entirely. They worked furiously to reload, aided by the mechanisms the Kindred had cunningly designed for just this purpose. It was all to no avail. Such was the speed of the dragon’s attack that there was no time for a second shot. But it was to the credit of the ballista teams that not a single weaponeer left their post. They worked their winches and aimed their weapons until the flames spouted and slammed over them, destroying the Kindred, their ballistae and even the tower itself. The stone crenulated top of the tower slagged and slid off into the great dry moat of spikes that surrounded the citadel.

  The dragon flapped away again, screaming victory. His shadow darkened Hallr and the rest of his officers as it passed overhead, jaws dripping liquid flame as hot at molten iron. Only Hallr didn’t duck as the monster sailed close overhead.

  More ballistae snapped and they ducked low as the javelins flew overhead. Only Hallr stood, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

  “There, look!” he shouted eagerly, shaking his fist after Fafnir. One of the trailing javelins had stuck in the beast’s tail.

  “Two hits, tail and wing!” he cried. “Nothing critical, but it will slow him. He can’t turn so fast nor pull out of a dive as cleanly now.”

  Fafnir seemed to divine the same thing. There had been fourteen ballistae, and twelve were still operating. One direct hit in the lung or in the bone of a wing would cripple him.

  He wheeled, a great distance out, and swung around again to come from the same direction, the north. That tower was already burnt and useless, making the citadel weaker from that flank. He flew low, so low his belly and dangling claws scraped roof tops in the town outside the citadel. Screaming Kindred fled, but the dragon did not burn them. He held his fire for the citadel.

  “Vile wurm!” roared Hallr, beating his fists upon the merlons with abandon. His beard was sprayed with froth. “Everyone but for the weaponeers are to head below, call out the guardsmen, form ranks at the north wall!”

  The rest of them hastened to obey, none sure what the wurm or Hallr intended.

  Fafnir soon enlightened them. As he wove his way through a storm of ballista fire that pelted the town more than it did him, he did not sail over the citadel and bomb it from above. Instead, he alighted at the base of the northern tower he had previously burned. There, he did blow his superheated flame, melting his way into the citadel, tunneling right into the stone of the tower itself.

  The basalt stone, inured to heat and formed from the very belching lava of the earth, held only for moments before giving way like butter tossed into flame. It sizzled and sagged, then ran and bubbled. Fafnir stepped into the insane heat of it, uncaring.

  Hallr and a company of poleaxe-armed guardsmen formed ranks in the hallways inside. The walls glowed a dark red, like aged wine, and showed clearly to all where the dragon stalked.

  They had no heavy weapons like the ballistae on the inside of the citadel, which was the beauty of Fafnir’s plan. Why fight against siege weaponry, when all that was needed was to melt the foundations of the very towers the ballistae were mounted upon? Hallr had realized this the moment he saw the angle and direction of the dragon’s second pass.

  The clanmaster was no fool, and neither were his guardsmen. They had little chance to defeat the monster they faced. Hallr didn’t bother to lie to them. They needed a plan by which to die well, not a pretty speech to cheer them up.

  “Warriors,” he began, “we die this day. Be sure of that, in your very hearts. But we can possibly cripple this monster so as to allow our Kindred to slay it, or at least drive it away. We shall strike not for the breast, as the scales are too hard and thick. Likewise, the head is almost hopelessly armored. If you get a shot at the eyes, take it. The main target, however, will be the wings. We must make sure Fafnir can’t fly from here. If he is left crawling, he will not be able to take any of our other towers without being slain by ballistae. He will be hunted down by those that survive us, or at least be forced to retreat. Your orders, for all of you, is to fight until your limbs no longer function. I will lead you with honor. And with honor will we die together in this place.”

  A roaring shout went up from the assembled Kindred. They gripped their weapons with fanatical, gleaming eyes. When the internal walls gave way and slid down, they charged into the flame, not bothering to wait for the dragon to step further inside. That would only give the beast more time to draw its next killing breath.

  The battle was brief, wild and sad.

  A hundred screaming Kindred fought as their feet melted away beneath them, then their legs. The single surviving witness, who lived by happenstance, later described the scene. Hallr and his warriors had swarmed the thrashing Fafnir as ants might swarm a normal worm of the earth, hacking blindly at the wings and face. When the struggled ended, and the last of the Kindred was melted to slag and smoldering boots, the dragon had been grimly wounded. His left wing hung useless and broken, while his right had been hacked cleanly off at the bone. Both eyes still worked, but they were slitted and bleeding.

  Angry now beyond sensation, the dragon worked his flame to burn down the citadel entirely. No chamber was spared, no gallery was left whole. The walls and towers slipped as their bases turned molten and crashed down.

  * * *

  Brand ran the horse until it came up lame a half-mile from the citadel. Uncaring, he leapt from the saddle and drew the axe. He began to run. Telyn tied the horse to a post, hoping it would survive the day if any of them did and loped behind him.

  The north tower collapsed before he could reach the drawbridge that he had crossed only hours before. He should have felt fantastic grief and shame that he had helped bring this disaster to the Kindred. He had borne Modi’s body home and brought with it a disaster a thousand times worse.

  But the effects of Ambros helped greatly to relieve this feeling, or any feelings at all, save for those of eagerness. He ran to the battle and smiled widely as he did so. The grip the axe had was greater now, as always seemed to happen when he faced a wielder of another of the Jewels. There was nothing Ambros loved more than to fight a desperate battle with one of its siblings. The Amber Jewel wanted nothing more than to struggle with the others at every opportunity.

  And so it was that he charged across the drawbridge with great zeal. Not even the Kindred themselves, who had so recently given up their lives to wreak what wounds they could upon the beast, had been more eager.

  He met Fafnir in the council chambers themselves. The northern wall grew red hot, then went to a shade of white and fell away. Fafnir stepped inside, wary of another Kindred charge. He dragged his useless wings behind him, feeling more hurt than he’d ever felt in his long life.

  Brand did not hesitate, but charged underneath the dragon. Fafnir tried to back away and rear up, but his head hit upon the ceiling. Brand stood upon the one of the great carven chairs of polished stone and slashed at the scaled belly thrice. Few weapons can cut dragon scales, but Ambros is among them. The creature’s belly opened and its vitals spilled out.

  The dragon shuddered in shock, but managed to loose a sputtering breath at him, Brand raised the shield he’d found deep in the Everdark. The flame curled around the shield and struck his armor. His mail heated up to a burning network of smoldering ringlets. He still wore beneath it the heat-resistant mechnician’s leathers, which kept him from being burnt alive.

  His face, however, was another matter. He had neglected to fasten his mask in his charge to challenge the dragon. A searing pain overwhelmed him, and unlike the Kindred, he was able to lose consciousness.

  Fafnir, belly gouting blood, slumped down over him, his great green eyes dimming.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Kindred Have No King

  When Brand awakened, it was to the worried ministrations of Gudrin and Telyn. They fussed over him and bathed his face. Even the touch of water and damp bandages were as dragonfire all over again to him. He saw their rags came at him clean and white and lifted away from his face soaked with blood and what looked like burnt skin.

  His first thought, of course, was of the axe. His eyes hunted for it, casting right and left for any sign of it.

  “Don’t worry, it is back in your pack which is at your side,” said Telyn, gently patting his hand.

  He looked at her and saw tears in her eyes.

  “Is Fafnir dead?” he managed to ask, although his jaws seemed to barely work.

  “Yes Brand, you slayed the beast. We took you from that place, however, and you are now in the Inn at the base of the road.”

  “How did I live?”

  “I puzzled about that for some time,” said Gudrin, “until I found Pyros, the Orange Jewel, on the floor of the council chambers. You must have cut it out of the beast’s belly. When it breathed its last, you were struck by normal dragonfire, and survived.”

  Brand nodded, and the movement caused him to wince in pain.

  “Brand,” said Telyn suddenly, there were tears in her eyes.

  Gudrin touched her hand in a gesture of warning, but Brand saw the movement and it was too late. He knew something was wrong.

  “What? What is it, just tell me. Who else has died?”

  “No one in particular. But your face, Brand.”

  Brand reached up a hand to his face and touched the bandages they had stacked there. He noticed there were quite a lot of them.

  “Just tell me,” he repeated.

  “The dragonfire. You didn’t have your mask on.”

  Then Brand understood.

  “The pain will fade in time,” said Gudrin, trying to be comforting, “most of it, anyway. And you will be able to eat without aid. Both eyes and ears still operate,” she said, shrugging. “Overall I would count you as lucky. A veteran has to expect some kind of scarring, after all. How many dragons did you expect you could slay without being burnt?”

  Brand nodded slightly and tried to smile, but the pain was too great.

  * * *

  After the great battle of the wurm, Fafnir, it was decided that the Kindred required focus and purpose again. In short, they needed a new monarch. They would have to repair the Great Vents so they might know day and night again in their cavern. The sweltering heat of it now was almost intolerable, with none of the vents capable of moving. Almost as bad was the destruction of their ancestral seat of government, the citadel. A new one must be carven, and the head of Fafnir would be stuffed and placed to loom over future clanmasters and remind them of this event and the proper handling of wurms.

  Part of the need for a new monarch would be an expansion of their greatest document, the Teret. Only when a monarch lived could new passages be added to the Teret, as at that time their culture was no longer stagnant.

  The only surprise was the choice of the clanmaster who would ascend to the throne. They chose Gudrin of the Talespinners. She alone among them was able to garner enough respect and support to win the vote. Hallr would have been chosen, of course, had he survived the battle. Partly, it was his death that had shocked the Kindred into calling for a monarch.

  So it was, in the second week of the second month of the year, the Kindred crowned Gudrin their queen. Brand and Telyn were there for the ceremony, as was Tomkin, who had been noticeably absent during the dragon attack, but who was very clearly in evidence now.

  As her first act, Queen Gudrin of the Kindred took possession of the Orange Jewel Pyros, for her own and for her people. Brand thought it a good choice, as manipulation of flame would be a great benefit for a people who lived so close to it.

  After the coronation, Brand and Telyn decided to leave the Earthlight. But before they did, Brand had one of the rubies he’d brought back from the Everdark, the largest and most deeply blood-red, set into a ring. The ring was of solid gold and more finely wrought than any a man could find in Riverton.

  He made a gift of it to Telyn, and asked for her hand. She gave him her hand and her heart, tearful for a new and happy reason.

  “I thought you would never ask,” she said.

  “I had to have the ring first.”

  “That’s not the reason!”

  “No,” he said.

  They were both quiet and happy for a moment. She put his head upon his chest.

  “The Kindred really are the best at fashioning jewelry, aren’t they?” she asked, admiring the stone on her finger.

  “Every knave in Riverton will wish to slip it off your finger.”

  “They will have nine of their own left with which to reconsider afterward,” she laughed, brandishing her knife.

  Brand smiled at her, ignoring the pain it caused him.

  “Let’s go back to the Haven,” he told her.

  “Yes, please,” she said. “I’ve got a wedding plan.”

  Epilogue

  It was a cold day when the troll and the changeling caught up with Mari. She had taken a room at the Inn in Riverton and bought herself some fine clothes. She finally had that beautiful calico dress she’d wanted for so long. But at night, alone in her room, she cried when she ran her hands over it, remembering her old life.

  Piskin introduced himself by hopping into the windowsill and leaning against it with his one good hand.

  “Good evening, madam,” he said.

  She sucked in her breath and startled badly, dropping her fine dress.

  “Oh now, don’t be fearing the likes of Piskin. Don’t you know our folk and yours are allies now?”

  “Yes,” she said, picking up her dress from the floor. She had never dealt with one of his kind before, but she knew them to be tricksy and dangerous. What did this manling want? “You just startled me, appearing in my window like that.”

  She walked over to her dresser and opened it, making as if to fold and put her dress away.

  Piskin watched as if bemused. “What are you about, missy?”

  She pulled out her ash leaf ward, triumphantly. She put the thong around her neck.

  “You’ll not harm me now.”

  “I’ll not harm you in any case, rest assured.” As he spoke, he came to stand on her bed. He eyed her ward closely.

  “I think you had better leave now,” she told him.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Get out or I’ll scream.”

  “If you do, I’ll tell them what you did to that poor old gram in the Haven woods.”

  At this, her mouth hung open. She was dumbfounded.

  “Did the crone send you?”

  He laughed. “Hardly, she’s stone dead.”

  “How?”

  “You should know. You released the thing in the chimney. You did the very thing she begged you not to do.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you the thing from the chimney?”

  He laughed again. “No! Don’t they teach Haven children how to tell a troll from a gentleman of the Wee Folk?”

  “They will take my word over yours. You have to get out.”

  Piskin sniffed. “What about your recent, ah, good fortune? Where did all that money come from?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Quite right. It is the business of the Riverton Constabulary. They will get to the bottom of all this. Let me see, what clues do we have? A mysterious, violent death of a rich, elderly woman… followed closely by the disappearance of her maid. And lastly, the reappearance of said maid on a buying spree in Riverton….”

  Mari sat down heavily upon the bed. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Why, to be your friend, of course!” he said.

  Mari nodded, finally understanding. “You want part of the money.”

  Piskin shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Never! What I want is your welfare, miss. Let me just plainly tell you, as I see you have not guessed yet.”

  “What?” asked Mari, perplexed.

  “Puck sent me,” he whispered, “to look after you.”

  “Puck?” she asked, and her heart swelled. She almost burst into tears at the mere mention of his name. She had heard nothing from the elf for so long. “But why did he not come himself? What is he doing?”

  She had a thousand questions which Piskin waved away.

  “My dear, you must understand. What he did was forbidden, even to a lord of the elves.”

  “Puck is a lord?”

  “Why yes, didn’t you know? I had thought that’s why you consented to…. Well, never mind. What’s done is done. But I’m here to help guide you and look after you.”

  And so Mari confided in Piskin, and told him everything she knew.

  * * *

  Later that night, after the maid had gone to sleep, a heated conversation took place out upon the window ledge.

  The troll reached for Piskin, who naturally danced away. “I’ll not have you lay a hand upon her, she who released me from years of torment in the hag’s chimney.”

  Piskin sputtered in exasperation. “Why else did you help me hunt her down?”

  The troll shrugged. “For this very purpose. You sought her, and I sought to prevent you from harming her with that single, pale hand of yours.”

  Piskin grew thoughtful. “I don’t truly wish any harm to your maid.”

  Dark eyes drew into distrustful slits. “Why else would you hunt her with such single-minded zeal?”

  “Would it ease your mind if I only wanted what the maid carries in her belly? Not even all of that, mind you. Just a drop or two of its blood.”

  “She and her child are all of one piece. How could you bleed one and not harm the other?”

  “I am a patient person.”

  The troll snorted. “Then you would be the first of your kind to boast such a virtue.”

  Piskin appeared to ignore the insult, although it did sting. He made a promise to himself that this tricksy troll would be the first to dissolve into a puddle of squirming flesh once he had full control over the Red Jewel.