again.
Elenor screamed, and kept screaming, a high, thin, terror-filled wail; Ilea didn't make a sound, but her hands clutched Lan's upper arms so tightly it hurt. Lan's stomach flipped, but it was the only part of him that could move. He couldn't even breathe—
The man had a knife, a black-bladed knife that didn't reflect light at all; it drew Lan's eyes and filled his gaze as the man brandished it.
He'd wrapped his legs around Pol's body, trapping Pol's arms so the Herald couldn't get to his weapons. He shouted something as he and Pol struggled on the ground—it was Karsite, something about demons—
The attacker grabbed Pol's hair, pulling his head back. Satiran, still shrieking a battle cry, whirled. His hooves pounded the ground a hair away from Pol, but he couldn't trample the man and not get Pol, too.
Tuck fought with Elenor to keep her from leaping into the fray. Ilea frozen and rigid, only whimpered.
The dragon within Lan flamed into life with a roar, ready to kill.
The dragon uncoiled in a rush, craving death, fire, destruction. It lunged at the restraints that held it, raged against the bindings, filling Lan's mind and soul with a dreadful lust.
This was all happening too fast, he couldn't think!
Only fire would save his friend. He had to let the dragon kill!
As the man struck at Pol's throat, Pol wrenched his head down and to the side and his hands grabbed the man's feet, twisting in a move Lan had seen Odo demonstrate a dozen times. Lan's heart pounded, his head felt full to bursting—
Blood fountained, as the man slashed his knife across Pol's eyes instead of his throat, blood gushing everywhere, staining the snow, dyeing the Whites a terrible crimson.
And something inside Lan parted with a
Pol screamed. Ilea and Tuck screamed. Elenor was still screaming.
Lan's throat closed, his hands clenched on the reins, and his vision tunneled—but the Karsite exploded into flame.
Ilea scrambled down from the pillion running for Pol. Lan barely noticed. He was bathed in fire, tiny flamelets dancing from the tips of his fingers, floating in the air around him. This was what he had been born for—
The dragon within him exulted in its freedom, and ravaged the Karsite within and without. Bound to the dragon, one with the dragon, he was the dragon now, and the dragon was rage and flame and hunger. The Karsite died instantly, but death was not enough, not nearly enough! He spun in a circle of fire and danced a
*
THE knife fell, as Pol tried to squirm out of the way, and the blackened steel sliced across his face.
A streak of agony, darkness, the hot gush of his own blood over his cheeks.
He screamed, the sound tearing from his throat, but kept fighting. The next stroke could be the final one—
He held to consciousness and twisted the Karsite's ankles until the man himself shouted in pain, then wrenched himself free of the Karsite somehow, still screaming in agony.
He scrambled away over the snow on hands and knees, horrible pain making him want to curl himself into a ball and just lie there screaming. He heard a strange sound behind him, as if something very large and soft had plummeted out of the sky to land in the snow as he scrambled, blind and still howling with agony, toward the place where he thought the rest of them were—
Teeth grabbed his collar and hauled him unceremoniously out of harm's way, dropping him literally in Ilea's lap.
Only then did he fall into blessed unconsciousness.
*
Lan ignored the mind-voice—until it resorted to a sort of mind-
Shaken out of his entrancement, this time the mind-voice penetrated the wash of fire and the terrible joy.
