Eight living minds responded to her touch with such a clamor of fear and confusion that she gasped and clutched her head in her hands. They were so desperate! She felt their need tear at her. It was easy to talk to one dragon like this, but eight was more than she could bear. The connection with their minds began to slip away.
“Hold on to them!” Danian reassured her. “They will listen to you.”
From the oldest memories Linsha had of her mother, she summoned feelings of comfort, caring, and assurance. Warmth suffused her from the ends of her hair to her toes, giving her strength and confidence. She stretched out her arms again and gathered the eight frantic streams of emotion to her.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, and she sensed her magic spread out from her heart to her hands. It enveloped the eggs and settled like a gentle touch over each one.
The frightened struggles slowly eased within the eggs. An aura of nervousness and tension still surrounded them, but Linsha eased their fears with soothing thoughts. They reached out to her and felt her confidence in them and her love.
Danian pulled a small knife from his healer’s kit and handed it to Tancred. “Carefully, lad, make a small slit in one of the eggs and see what is there.”
His redheaded apprentice obeyed, gently making a cut through the tough, leathery egg shell. “The membrane is really thick,” he murmured as he made another slice with the knife.
“You may have to pull them apart,” Danian suggested.
Ever so carefully, Tancred grasped the edges of the slice he had made in the egg and pulled it apart, dumping the wet, struggling dragonlet into Linsha’s lap. She did not move as the creature keened and tried to flap its crinkled wings.
“Do the rest,” she hissed. “Hurry!”
Firmly gripped in the center of her magic, Linsha did not hear Varia’s furious shriek or see her dive at something behind her. Her attention remained fixed until Tancred looked up and yelled, “Lady! Behind you!”
She dragged her thoughts away from the eggs and turned her head just as Danian’s body slammed into her back and shoulders. She heard the crunch of steel against bone.
Tancred screamed in grief and rage. Varia shrieked like a striking eagle.
Out of the corner of her eye, Linsha caught a glimpse of Lanther, blood streaming down his face, his expression twisted into a feral grimace of hate. Behind her, Danian lay limp against her body, his weight pressing into her back. The dragonlet in her lap hissed and struggled in her arms as Tancred scrambled over the sand after the Akkad-Dar.
In the sudden crush of distractions happening around her, Linsha felt her link with the baby dragons begin to fade. Frantically she shut her mind to everything but the eggs for fear that if she lost the connection now, the dragonlets would panic and die in their shells before someone could help them. She heard, as if from a distant place, the struggle happening behind her between Tancred and Lanther and Varia, but she could not help them yet. She had to get the babies out of their eggs. She gathered the magic from her heart in one last desperate surge and poured it into the minds of the remaining seven.
She moved quickly. Using the utmost care she broke open the eggs and helped the awkward creatures out. In a matter of moments, Linsha found herself surrounded by keening, wet baby brasses, each about three feet long from head to tail. Her magic spell ended, leaving her drained, but the dragonlets’ joy filled her mind until she flung out her hands and burst into laughter. Their little lungs filled with their first breaths, and the warm air of the cave and the residue of Linsha’s magic lent them a sudden, fierce strength.
“Linsha!” Varia screeched.
Her head whipped around and she saw Lanther had pinned Tancred to the sand. The Akkad-Dar’s eyes were wild with madness, and in his hand was the dagger he had used to kill Danian. Hatred, thick and dark as tar, filled her mind, and she struggled to climb out of the pile of dragonlets.
But the baby dragons lifted their heads and hissed. Their small eyes gleamed with sudden fire, and their untried muscles bunched under their scales. In one unified movement, they leaped out of the remains of their eggs and pounced on Lanther.
Lanther screamed a Tarmak warcry. He stood, the newborn dragons swarming him, twisting their tails round his limbs, clawing, biting, rending, tearing…
Screaming in rage, Lanther tumbled backward over the side of the mound. Once more he shouted in fury, but it broke in his throat, and his cries turned to panic and agony. Linsha could not see him, but she heard his shrieks, each more desperate and frantic than the last, and in between she heard tiny claws shredding skin and flesh, small jaws biting.
Linsha closed her eyes. She made no move to stop the little dragons. Surely they were hungry, and after all that Lanther had done to their siblings, they deserved their revenge. She paid no attention to the scream cut short or the sounds of eight tiny mouths feeding that came from the base of the nest.
She stared down at the body of Danian, lying in a muddy puddle formed by his own blood. His chest did not move, and all light had gone from his eyes. She prayed to the gods to watch over the old man’s soul.
Tancred crawled over and cradled the healer’s head in his hands. Tears streamed down his face. He stared at Linsha with frightened eyes. His hands were stained with blood from a slash on his arm and the mortal wound on Danian’s back.
“I don’t know what to do without him,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, you do. In here-” Linsha tapped his forehead-“and here-” she tapped his heart. “The magic has returned, Tancred. Use it.”
They heard a soft flap of wings and Danian’s kestrel sailed into the cave, circled once, and dropped gently to the sand beside the dead man. The bird cried a question.
Varia crooned softly, her voice aching with sadness.
The small raptor tilted his head, his bright eyes as sharp as obsidian chips, then he stepped gently up Danian’s arm and perched on the man’s shoulder. He chirped a brief message to Varia.
The owl’s head swiveled toward the entrance. “The kestrel says Crucible needs you now.”
Linsha grabbed Tancred’s hand and hauled him to his feet. “Come on, healer. I need your help.” She pulled him down the mound, and without looking back at the corpse of her enemy, her husband, her nemesis, she strode out of the cave.
Down the slope in the valley at the foot of the volcano the battle thundered beneath a calm sky. Smoke towered above the burning woods and flames had begun to lick out across the grass of the meadow.
Linsha ignored it all. The whole of her attention focused on the form of the bronze dragon. She could see the black lance, in obedience to its evil spells, had penetrated deeper into the dragon’s haunch. While it would not kill him immediately, if they didn’t remove it soon, the barb would eventually work its way through into his lower body and kill him. She ran down the hill to his head and caught his nose in both hands.
“Crucible, I’m sorry. Lie still now, and we’ll get the barb out.”
“You’re back,” he moaned, barely able to speak.
“Of course,” she reassured him.
“Lanther?”
“Dead.”
“The eggs?”
“Eight hatched. The gods have returned, Crucible. They have restored their magic to our world. Takhisis is defeated.”
“Good.” There was no mistaking the sound of triumph in that one word. He twisted his head around and looked at her with one golden eye. “We have come so far.”
“We will go the rest of the way,” she replied. “Together.”
Strengthened by her resolve, Linsha nodded to Tancred and indicated the lance that dangled from the dragon’s leg. “Take the dagger and cut out the barb. I will keep him still.” His eyes grew huge and she added, “Danian taught you well, Tancred. Remember his faith in you.”
