it to her breast, only vaguely aware that she had picked up another gully dwarf with it. That one clung to her glittering scales and climbed, agile as a tree lizard, up her shoulder and along her neck, toward the clinging, burbling Highbulp.
Verden Leafglow pressed the iron shield to her breast, and it clung there, seeming to bond itself to her scales. It rested between massive emerald shoulders like a rust-red iron medallion on a field of green.
I asked for the help of a god, she thought. Reorx, I welcome your presence.
Verden Leafglow didn’t wait for Flame Searclaw to come to her. With a mighty beat of spread wings, she rose and went to meet him.
A gaggle of fleeing, babbling gully dwarves, their shirttails smoldering, issued from the main corridor just as she reached it. With a chorus of shrieks, they hit the floor and skidded aside as the green dragon passed over them, inches above, and arrowed into the tunnel winding upward and away.
Stone surfaces shot past as Verden threw herself into the winding corridor, her swept-back wings whispering against the dark walls at each side, arms folded close and legs trailing alongside her whipping tail.
Atop her head, just at the rise of her great crest, two Aghar clung in wild-eyed desperation, bouncing this way and that as their fingers clenched her crest for dear life. Just past the first turn, the Highbulp almost lost his grasp until Lidda bit him on the ear to make him pay attention.
Another bend, and Flame Searclaw was there, huge and ruby red in the dimness, flames trickling from between his swordlike fangs. Nearly twice the size of the green dragon, he seemed to fill the tunnel. At sight of Verden he opened his mouth wider, readying another blast of fire when she slowed to meet him.
But Verden didn’t slow. Instead she lashed her tail, put on a new burst of speed and, at the last instant, did a barrel roll in the tunnel to shoot directly under the surprised red, upside-down, raking him viciously with razor talons. Deep gashes appeared on his soft underbelly as she passed beneath him. The red roared and spat flames, but they had no target. Smaller, faster and more agile than the great red dragon, Verden Leafglow was now behind him, righting herself and coming around to attack.
Chapter 8
Verden’s thunderous departure from This Place had created a havoc of noise and confusion. Little vortices of wind howled and danced about the great chamber, flinging things here and there, flattening stew fires and raising a thick haze of dust. Clout, Blip and the others who had just entered, their backsides blistered and clothing charred, raised themselves and looked around in confusion. Something very large had passed above them, and now they couldn’t see a thing for all of the dust.
Around them, querulous voices blended: “Wha’ happen?” “Where dragon go?” “Where th’ Highbulp?” “Who ate my stew?”
“Ever’body hush!” Clout shouted. “Big, red dragon chase us in tunnel. Make fire on us! Where Highbulp?”
“Who?”
“What’s-’is-name … th’ Highbulp. Glitch! Where Glitch?”
“Who cares?” a voice whined. “Where my stew?”
A dim figure appeared in the haze, leaning on a mop handle. “Where Clout?”
“Right here. What Gandy want?”
“Clout say ‘red’ dragon. Where?”
“In big tunnel,” Clout repeated. “Big, red dragon. Fire dragon.”
“Gettin’ be way too many dragons roun’ here,” Blip added firmly. “Highbulp oughtta do somethin’.”
The roars of battle came then, echoing down the main corridor to shake the walls of This Place.
With no Highbulp in sight, Gandy took it upon himself to issue the emergency order. “Run like crazy!” he shouted.
Blinded by dust, gully dwarves ran everywhere-mostly into one another-and as the dust began to settle there were piles and tumbles of Aghar all over This Place.
Flame Searclaw was huge, far more massive than Verden Leafglow, and a ruthless and cunning fighter. The instant he realized that the green was behind him, he spread his wings, braked himself and lashed out with his great tail. Verden was just turning to attack, and the tail caught her off-balance. It thudded into her left shoulder below the wing, and her arm went numb. The second blow missed, but she had lost the advantage. She righted herself and saw Flame turning, clawing his way around in the corridor to face her.
Something tugged at her crest, and small feet kicked wildly in front of her right eye. “Get out of my way!” she shouted, shaking her head. High on her neck, Lidda clung and reached to pull the Highbulp up, away from the dragon’s face. “Glitch get outta way!” she ordered. “Dragon busy!”
Almost blind with fright, Glitch accepted the tug and climbed up beside her. “Yes, dear,” he panted.
Verden tried to press her attack on Flame, but now he was facing her, and the mockery in his voice was brutal. “You are soft, green snake,” he chided. “And you have riders! Appropriate masters for one like you-gully dwarves!” With an evil chuckle, he opened his mouth and blinding fire shot out. On impulse, and out of spite, he aimed it high, directly at Verden’s crest and the pair of Aghar clinging there.
Verden saw it coming, and her geas prodded her: they must not be hurt. She must protect them. At the last instant she stretched upward, drawing back her head, exposing her breast to the driving, killing flame. Reorx, she thought, I denounce evil. The dark ways are no longer my allegiance.
The fire struck, a roaring mass of white-hot blaze that crescendoed and mushroomed, filling the corridor. Verden was flung backward by the force of it, stunned and disoriented. She crashed against a wall, staggered for a moment, then straightened herself. Somehow, it seemed that she was unhurt. She looked down and realized that the iron shield on her breast had deflected the fire, turned it aside and thrown it back. The oval felt as cool as it had before, but now its surface was no longer rusted and stained. As though the ages had been burned away, it gleamed now, a mighty shield of polished iron.
Atop her, clinging to the dragoncrest, Lidda chirped, “What Highbulp say?”
“Wh-what?” Glitch stammered.
“Glitch say, ‘yes. dear,’ ” Lidda reminded him.
“Did not.”
“Did, too! Glitch wanna get marry?”
“Nope.”
“Don’ argue, Glitch!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Reorx,” Verden whispered, new understandings flooding her mind. In that instant of fire, she had rejected the Dark Queen who had punished her. More, she had accepted another god, a god of an entirely different color. Yards away, Flame Searclaw was shaking his head, trying to clear his vision. His reflected fire had nearly blinded him. Verden’s long neck swayed, timing his movements, mimicking him, and her great haunches gathered beneath her, rippling with power. Flame swayed, searching blindly, then raised his head higher, and Verden launched herself at him. Low and fast, she went in for the kill. Even as the red’s head rose, she plunged in under it, fangs and talons seeking his throat.
It was over in a moment. Great jaws closed on the underside of Flame’s neck, the vulnerable area just above his shoulders, and a taloned claw closed a foot above. Fangs pierced scales, talons buried themselves in flesh, and the green dragon wrenched at the writhing neck, tearing it open. Dark blood sprayed and pulsed, and Flame Searclaw choked on his own scream. Bucking and thrashing, he tried to pull away, but Verden clung grimly, shaking him as a dog shakes a snake, ripping his throat wider and wider.
Thrashing red wings created raging storms in the confines of the corridor, then subsided to erratic twitching and went still. Verden drew back and studied the huge corpse sprawled in the dimness of ancient stone arches.
