“I’ll take the red one,” Taegan whispered. “You take the gray.”

  “There are just the pair,” Jivex replied. His hushed, reedy voice and tickling breath came right into the avariel’s ear. Taegan was so startled, he nearly jumped and revealed his presence to the hobgoblins. “If you’re going to deal with the red, then of course I have the gray.”

  “It’s gratifying to discover you can at least count as high as two.”

  Jivex gave an affronted sniff and Taegan skulked forward. Presumably Jivex was doing the same. The fencing teacher maneuvered around behind the hobgoblins then sprang to the ground, spreading his wings just enough to insure a safe landing.

  He was still trying to be quiet, but the hulking goblinkin with the rust-colored hair sensed him anyway. As it pivoted, it poised its round wooden shield in a middle guard and lifted its spear for a thrust.

  Its defensive posture wasn’t enough to save it. Taegan had used bladesong to heighten his strength and agility and sharpen his sword to a supernatural keenness, and it was simplicity itself to stab over the top of the targe and drive his blade completely through the creature’s skull. The hobgoblin collapsed.

  As he jerked his weapon free, Taegan looked around to see if Jivex needed help. Evidently not. His invisibility forfeited in the act of attacking, scales rippling with rainbows, the faerie dragon clung between the gray hobgoblin’s shoulder blades, biting and tearing. Blood spurted from the torn arteries in the warrior’s neck. The goblinkin tried to scream, yet only managed a soft gurgling before it fell.

  Taegan smiled wryly. Jivex’s small size and impish, almost childlike demeanor had initially led him to assume that faerie dragons were peaceful creatures dependent solely on trickery for self-protection. It had been mildly disconcerting to find out they could fight as savagely as panthers when necessary.

  Jivex spat out a mouthful of gore and said, “That tastes disgusting. I ought to get a sword. Should we look for more guards?”

  “No. We’re only a stone’s throw away from the stronghold itself. I doubt they have pickets posted any closer in.”

  Taegan dragged the corpses into a patch of brush and kicked old rotten leaves over the blood they’d shed. With luck, it would keep any casual passerby from discovering them. Then he and Jivex skulked back to the place where many of their comrades waited. Once they reported their success, they had nothing to do but wait for the others performing the same chore to do likewise.

  Taegan drifted over to Vorasaegha, who was turning her huge bronze head this way and that like a traveler in an exotic land.

  “The world seems so strange,” she rumbled, “like a dream. I dwelled here for more than a thousand years, but still, I’ve been gone so long…”

  Taegan mistrusted the fey, abstracted note in the bronze’s voice.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Her emerald eyes blinked and she said, “What? Yes,fine.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it, because Sune knows, we need you.”

  “Perhaps,” Vorasaegha said. “But in the old days, the elves were mighty fighters in their own ri-“

  Uthred scurried up to them. The mage’s long, yellow-brown beard was matted and tangled after his days of living rough, bereft, apparently, of a comb.

  “Everyone’s back,” he reported, “and we killed all the sentries. Are you ready, Lady?”

  “Yes,” Vorasaegha said.

  She, Jivex, Uthred, and the others who commanded the proper magic assembled to collaborate on the ritual that would conceal the entire company.

  Meanwhile, the men-at-arms gave their weapons and armor a final check, and priests prayed for the blessing of Ilmater, Selune, and the rest of Impiltur’s beneficent gods. A subtle shimmer spread through the air. When it passed, Taegan could still see his comrades perfectly well, as was necessary if they were to advance in an orderly fashion. But supposedly no hostile eye could glimpse them.

  Their officers formed them up then led them forward through the trees. Their progress made a certain amount of noise. The wizards and clerics had deemed it best not to wrap the company in magical silence, lest it hamper further spellcasting once combat began, and Taegan winced at every creak of leather, clink of mail, or rattling branch. Still, he felt they were advancing about as quietly as a sizable force could, and they reached their destination without incident, spreading out to assault it on three sides.

  The stronghold stood in a bare wound in the midst of the wood, where either wizardry or the strength of dragons had torn the trees from the earth to make a space for it. Some of the uprooted giants still littered the ground, perhaps to hinder the advance of an attacking force. Others had likely gone to feed the cultists’ fires, or make them furniture.

  At the center of the clearing rose a citadel so rough and irregular in form that one could almost mistake it for a natural rock formation. Sammaster had evidently conjured masses of ruddy sandstone up out of the ground then crudely sculpted them into walls and keeps. The result lacked any semblance of grace but looked dauntingly defensible.

  Taegan and his companions halted at the edge of the trees that were still standing. Archers nocked arrows. Uthred and another magician floated up into the air, achieving the height necessary to hurl attack spells over the top of the ramparts at targets inside. Vorasaegha stared at the stronghold and whispered under her breath, while Taegan shrouded his body in blur.

  A paladin raised his sword then swept it toward the ground. The arrows flew, and hobgoblins on the battlements fell. An instant later, shafts hurtled from the east and west as well. Thunder cracked, and streaks of lightning burned through the air. Blasts of fire exploded inside the citadel, tongues of yellow flame leaping so high they showed above the top of the wall.

  It seemed a promising beginning. Taegan reflected that in its essentials, war truly did have a fair amount in common with a duel between single opponents. If one army surprised the other, the former enjoyed a considerable advantage.

  Still, not everything was proceeding as the queen’s men had hoped. Responding to Vorasaegha’s incantation, a section of castle wall wavered and became semitransparent, revealing the murky shape of a wyrm on the other side. A hobgoblin on the battlements sank into the stone walkway beneath his feet as if it was quicksand. Then, however, the wall became opaque and solid again, trapping and crushing the shrieking creature’s legs. Sammaster’s magic was evidently stronger than the guardian bronze’s, and she couldn’t unmake an object he’d conjured into being.

  Vorasaegha roared and charged into the open, toward the high gates that were likewise slabs of sandstone, apparently intent on battering them down by brute force. Knights and men-at-arms charged in her wake, some carrying crudely fashioned siege ladders. Taegan and Jivex raced along with them. The avariel wasn’t yet willing to fly. He feared it would make him too conspicuous a target. But by beating his wings, he covered the ground in long leaps that kept him at the forefront of the charge. Meanwhile, arcanists and archers shot over the heads of their comrades at their foes within the fortress.

  Roaring, batlike wings rattling and eclipsing broad swaths of sky, black and green dragons soared up from within the castle, and even paladins faltered at the terror of it. Vorasaegha reared, spat lightning, and engulfed in the dazzling flare, a skull wyrm burned and crashed to the ground. A wizard-Taegan didn’t see who-attacked a green with cold, encrusting its flank in frost. It wasn’t enough to kill the reptile, but it hissed in pain and wobbled crazily in flight. Heartened, the Warswords drove on.

  Into the Abyss, or a fair approximation of it. In the mad confusion of the moment, Taegan couldn’t even tell how many dragons the cult had left-at least half a dozen, he thought-but several opted to defend the approach to the gate, clawing, biting, squashing men with their sheer bulk, spewing poison and casting spells. Individually, none of the chromatic drakes was a match for Vorasaegha, but no matter how furiously she fought, she couldn’t aid all her allies at the same time. Some of them simply had to fend for themselves.

  A green wyrm swooped and spat corrosive fumes. Taegan dived out of the way, and the gas only stung his eyes and skin and made him cough. Jivex also made it clear. Several men were less fortunate. They collapsed, skins blistered, lungs rotting in their chests.

  With a ground-shaking thump, the dragon set down to finish off anyone who still lived. A paladin of Ilmater lurched up from the earth and the charred, dead horse he’d been riding, rasped out the name of his god, and hacked at the green’s mask with his greatsword.

  The blade bit deep. Though still coughing painfully and uncontrollably, clumsy with it, Taegan rushed forward to help the knight. The dragon clawed, tore away part of the paladin’s plate armor, and ripped bloody furrows in the flesh beneath. The knight riposted with another stroke that cut deeply and split the wyrm’s left eye. The dragon roared and spewed greenish-yellow vapor. Unable to weather a second such assault, the human collapsed.

  Hating the green, and himself for reaching it a heartbeat too late to aid the paladin, Taegan thrust his sword into its chest. It started to whirl in his direction, and he took a chance and stabbed again before leaping back.

  The gamble paid off. The paladin had already sorely wounded the wyrm, and Taegan’s second thrust either killed it or at least stole the strength from its limbs. It fell on its side, and he gave it three more stabs, trying to make sure it was really was out of action. Jivex lit on its snout and clawed away its remaining eye.

  Taegan cast about, trying to determine what to do next. It was hard to tell. Dragons and humans were still fighting almost within sword’s reach. But maybe, just maybe, Vorasaegha and his other comrades were holding their own, and their struggle was only one part of the battle. To win, the Warswords needed to penetrate the castle, and so far, it didn’t look as if that was happening. Though the queen’s men had hit hard at the start of the fight, the cult had plenty of minions and had succeeded in positioning many of them atop the walls. There, with the advantage of the high ground and the crudely shaped battlements to shield them, they’d thus far succeeded in keeping any of Sambryl’s troops from climbing up to their level and surviving for any length of time.

  Scrambling back from a black drake’s lashing tail that might otherwise have broken his legs, Taegan wheezed-his lungs were still sore, curse it-“Conjure more protection if you can!”

  He used bladesong to sheathe his limbs in invisible armor-weightless, imperceptible to a casual touch, yet resistant to cuts and blows-and to make himself so unnaturally fast that the rest of the world seemed to slow to a crawl.

  Jivex faded from view.

  Taegan made sure no drake was hovering directly overhead, ready to rip him to bits of bloody meat and loose feathers, then he spread his pinions and flew at the top of the battlements. Presumably Jivex was speeding at his side. Arrows and javelins hurtled at the avariel, but they either missed or glanced off his shell of enchantment.

  Two hobgoblins and a werewolf in beast-man form poised themselves to repel him. He knocked a pair of stabbing spear points aside with a sweeping parry, then dispatched one of the goblinoids with a chest cut. Snarling, the shapechanger lunged and raked at him with its claws. Dodging the stroke, he grabbed the lycanthrope by the wrist, flew backward with abeat of his wings, dragged it forward over the ramparts, and let go. The plummet to the ground might not kill a werewolf, but at least it got the brute out of Taegan’s way.

  The remaining hobgoblin aimed his lance for a second thrust, and Jivex appeared right in front of him and puffed sparkling vapor into his face. The brutish warrior smiled blissfully, stupidly, and was still smiling when Taegan shoved him off the wall walk to crash down in the castle courtyard.

  The fencing master lit on the elevated path and pivoted to confront the foes already driving in from the right. Jivex hovered at his back to meet the ones on the left.

  Taegan’s adversaries pressed him hard. Still, occasionally, after he killed one, it took the next a fraction of a second to scramble forward to engage him. With his accelerated reactions, that gave him enough time to glance over his shoulder and see how Jivex was faring. Thus, he glimpsed the second plume of euphoria-inducing breath that neutralized several foes at once, the mind-altering charm that persuaded a werewolf to change sides until its own packmates ripped it apart, and the gigantic eagle that flew down from the sky to harry the cultists.

  Both Taegan and the faerie dragon were staying alive and holding their position. The avariel doubted they could do it for long, but luckily that wasn’t necessary. Some of the Warswords had spotted them. The humans planted their scaling ladders below the length of wall walk their allies had cleared of the enemy, then scrambled upward.

  Once he thought that enough men had reached the battlements, Taegan shouted, “The gates!”

  Without even glancing to see who besides Jivex was ready to follow, or if folk without wings yet had a clear path on which to descend, he leaped down into the courtyard. Perhaps it was mad to charge on in advance of his comrades yet again, but his blood was up, and it felt right.

  When he reached ground level, a werewolf in its four-legged guise pounced at him, and he spitted it on his sword. His blade was still stuck in it when a tawny-haired hobgoblin bellowed and charged him with a spear. He sidestepped the attack and tripped the brutish warrior as it blundered by. It recovered its balance and whirled around just in time to receive a slash to the belly. Clutching the wound to keep its guts from spilling out, it crumpled to its knees. Meanwhile, Jivex dazed a few of its fellows with another puff of sparkling breath.

  The attackers scrambled onward toward the massive, asymmetrical stone leaves, the gigantic timber that barred them, and the contrivance of windlasses, chains, pulleys, and counterweights evidently needed to swing them on their hinges. Then, somehow, Taegan abruptly sensed a presence so vile, so overwhelming, that it stopped him in his tracks then dragged him around to face it. Silver-white wings flickering, Jivex also wheeled, prey to the same compulsion.

  Trembling, heart pounding, Taegan belatedly recalled how the cultists in Lyrabar had liked their underground crypts. Evidently their counterparts in the forest had dug out their own burrows, where, perhaps, they wove their foulest magic in the perpetual dark. In any case, a ramp leading down into the earth descended into shadow in the middle of the courtyard-maybe it had been there all along, veiled in illusion, or maybe a charm had just then opened it-permitting the dracolich to slither forth into the light of day.

  It stank like carrion, and its withered green hide bore patches of black, wet rot. It was plainly a dead thing, like the zombies Taegan had fought in Lyrabar, but infinitely more terrible. Where they had lurched and shambled awkwardly, it, for all its hugeness, prowled like a hunting cat. The zombies’ ashen faces had been slack and mindless, but the dracolich’s sunken yellow eyes burned with an intelligence as keen as it was cruel.

  Taegan had known since the previous battle that the cult had already created a dracolich, but he’d dared to hope that some of his allies had already engaged and destroyed the thing. No such luck. It had sat out the first minutes of the fight, but evidently it meant to purge the fortress of intruders. Some of the humans on the ramparts moaned or wailed at the sight of it. The hobgoblins and werewolves raised a savage cheer and hurled themselves at the queen’s men with renewed ferocity.

  The undead green took a stride toward Taegan. Shouting, he broke through the dread that had unmanned him, not banishing it utterly-for how could anyone look at the dracolich and not know fear?-but at least compressing it into something that didn’t reach into and strangle the part of him that knew how to fight. He came on guard and only then recalled Rangrim’s warning: Don’t meet its gaze, and you’ll be all right.

  The memory came back to him too late. He already had looked into its luminous eyes, and he froze once more-but not out of fear. Some supernatural power made his muscles clench and lock. At his side, something thumped on the ground. He couldn’t turn his head to see what, but after a moment, realized it must have been Jivex. The faerie dragon was paralyzed too, and unable to beat his wings, he had fallen from the air.

  Taking its time, the dracolich stalked closer.

  “Did you actually think you were winning?” it asked. “Nothing you and your humans have done means anything. You could kill every one of my slaves, and it wouldn’t matter. I’m strong enough to wipe out the lot of you, all by myself. I’ll show you just how easily small folk die.”

  It reared, evidently preparing to breathe. Werewolves and hobgoblins scrambled, distancing themselves from Taegan and Jivex. Then a shadow swept across the courtyard.

  The dracolich looked up and spat its acidic fumes into the air. An instant later, a beam of scarlet light spat down and burned through the creature’s torso. It roared, and Vorasaegha dived out of the sky and plunged her talons into its body.

  The two colossal wyrms grappled, and intertwined, rolled back and forth across the courtyard, tearing at one another with fang and claw. Some of the werewolves, hobgoblins, and cultists failed to scurry out of the way in time, and the dragons crushed them to jelly, perhaps without even noticing they were there. Sometimes the reptiles slammed into one of the walls, and the jolt knocked other folk toppling off the battlements. Taegan wondered how long it would be before the dragons smashed down on top of Jivex and him.

  The struggle between the two drakes so pounded at the senses that it took the avariel a few seconds to notice the flying orb, a thing like a disembodied eye, flitting around the periphery of the battle. It seemed to be something Vorasaegha had conjured into existence, for it assaulted the dracolich with one magical effect after another, just as, apparently, it had first discharged the crimson lance of heat. An orange beam spattered the undead green’s flesh with steaming, smoking acid. A yellow one became jagged, crackling lightning, which seemed to do it no harm. A blue beam made it falter for a second-which allowed Vorasaegha to score with a couple deep claw slashes-and sent a grayness rippling through its scales. Then its natural color and agility returned.