Elvenborn

tell them where their goal was.

A scrabbling noise behind him made the hair on the back of

his neck stand straight up, and somewhere deep inside him he found another burst of speed—

It was inside the tunnel.

It was closing the gap between them!

It was right on top of him!

Something grabbed him, closing around his waist and spin­ning him over on his side as it carried him forward! Air rushed past him as his captor picked up speed. He flailed at it with fists and heels—

'Shto thai' said a muffled and indignant voice at the back of his neck. 'Ish ee!'

Keman ?

Teeth shrank away from him even as he realized they were sticking into him, and as Keman ran, his jaws formed them­selves around Kyrtian's body.

Keman made greater speed than any smaller, two-legged creature possibly could; from his inverted position in the dark­ness, Kyrtian couldn't see much, but when he twisted his head, the dim, round light that represented the place where the last set of small caves met the entrance cave was getting bigger. And it was doing so a lot faster than it had when he was run­ning.

He couldn't tell where Shana was, but Keman wouldn't have left her behind, so she must be with them. Probably she'd been able to catch hold of his neck on the run and vault herself into place like a trick-rider.

Behind—

A metallic crash that deafened him for a moment and shook small rocks loose to rain down onto their heads proved that the monster wasn't blind—and was still coming for them. From behind came the scrape and groan of protesting metal, and more crashes as the monster forced itself into the opening.

Keman found more speed somewhere; hot, metallic breath panted in and out over Kyrtian's body, and Kyrtian pulled in his arms and legs and tucked his head in to keep as much of him­self inside Keman's mouth as he could.

'Anks,' Keman said shortly.

The noise from behind wasn't falling away. Either the thing was still trying to follow them, or it had succeeded in getting in and was on their heels.

A violent impact—a dust-storm—Keman burst through what was left of the barrier of tangled carts and bones and relics, and out into the main cave—

And suddenly tossed his head up in a slewing, sideways mo­tion, letting go of Kyrtian as he did so.

'Aiiiiiiiii!'

Kyrtian screamed as he flew through the air, and screamed again as something snatched him out of it as easily as a child catches a ball, then slammed him down on a bony, scaly surface that inexplicably had a saddle on it.

He clutched the leather, dazed, and even as his eyes took in the improbable sight of a dragon neck and head stretching away in front of him, strange and skeletal in the dim light, the dragon lurched into a run.

Ancestors! More of them?

Ahead of him—Keman, with Shana clinging to his neck; he must not have paused for a single stride as he tossed his burden of Elvenlord to the other. Keman scrabbled up the rock-pile at the entrance first, with no regard for niceties, dislodging any­thing that was loose in his haste to get out. As they followed, lurching and slipping while rocks went tumbling beneath and around them, Kyrtian ducked as more rocks showered down on them, and the dragon he rode cupped its wings forward to de­flect some of the falling debris from him. His heart pounded, and his fingers were clamped so tightly to the saddle that they hurt, and all the while he heard the screech of protesting metal echoing behind them, coming, coming—

Then they were at the top, miraculously widened—then out—

Kyrtian gasped instead of screamed, as the dragon threw it­self into empty space.

It glided heavily down the slope, wings wide-spread around him, and skidded into an abrupt landing at the bottom.

Kyrtian wasn't ready for that. He lost his grip, and tumbled

awkwardly over the dragon's shoulder and down to the ground. The dragon spun around on its hind legs, nimble as a goat, and raced back up the slope to join the others, three of them, who were all clustered around the opening.

Kyrtian looked for Shana—and found her in the embrace of another wizard, shaking like a leaf, and whispering what sounded like a name. The wizard, who looked vaguely famil­iar, stroked her hair comfortingly, but spoke straight to Kyrt­ian.

'I hope you don't want to get back in there. Ever. The drag­ons are sealing the entrance.'

Shana relaxed against the support of Lorryn's shoulder and cra­dled the wineskin in both hands; she didn't usually drink much wine but after today—

If anyone deserves a drink, I do.

She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life as Lor-ryn—in fact, she hadn't realized that the other dragons were there until they were all out of the caves.

Keman, Alara, Dora, and Kalamadea had sealed the en­trance past anything other than another dragon getting through. They'd brought down half the mountain, it seemed, then fused the rocks together until they were exhausted and limp, their bright colors gone pale, their scales dull. The work had been urgent enough; they'd only just brought the rocks down when something began attacking the pile from inside the mountain, audible even down below. That was when they'd begun fusing the rocks together, and the moment that the monster contrivance encountered the fused section, the blockage was obvious even to an idiot—or a construct —for it began bashing something—itself? its claws?—against the rock-fall. But if it intended to loosen those rocks, it was going to meet with failure.

The dragons worked the pile from the top down, creating a plug of rock that was not going to move. The only way to get out now was to blow out the top of the mountain, or tunnel out at another place.

There was no way—they hoped—that the construct was go­ing to get at them now.

The sound of battering still came from within the pile, but it was weaker now, and slower. Maybe— hopefully—it was run­ning out of magical energy, and would relapse into its quiescent state.

Whatever; we're not going to wait around here to find out.

She took another pull on the wineskin, and closed her eyes. Lorryn. Oh, thank you, Lorryn. Thank you for thinking, for be­ing here. It was perhaps at that moment that she really, truly re­alized how much she cared for him.

Lorryn had just finished explaining the situation with Cael-lach Gwain to Lord Kyrtian—who, at this point, was stunned and battered enough to accept just about anything. He just nodded—at all the salient points, so at least he was listening— and took it all in as if the affairs of Wizards were everyday things to him.

Huh. Then again, after the politics of the Great Lords, our little quarrels probably seem small beans.

Kyrtian's men had bandaged their scrapes and bruises, ap­plied remedies inside and out, and supplied all of them with food and drink. Including the dragons. Bless them, they'd gone out and dragged back three dead deer—a small meal by dra-conic standards, after all that exertion, but enough to help re­vive them. The fire they'd built was immensely comforting, and for once, it wasn't raining.

'... so after we made sure he couldn 't come straight back to the Citadel, we waited. When he didn't come back at all, I fi­nally decided that he'd either followed you, or he'd finally let his