Linsha watched the young man study the length of the big bronze and the leg that trembled under the weight and agony of the Abyssal Lance, and she knew she need say no more.
Still holding Crucible’s head, she knelt in the rocks and pushed his head down. She knew Tancred had begun work removing the barb when Crucible’s body stiffened and the breath rushed through the dragon’s throat. He held still, motionless as a statue beneath her touch. While she waited, she gathered the reserves of her magic-the magic to heal, the magic to unite her feelings, thoughts, and empathies with a dragon-and as soon as she heard Tancred yell, “Lady Linsha, it’s out!” she released the power through her fingers into Crucible’s mind and body and filled him with the strength to heal. She sensed lingering shreds of dark magic in his leg and realized this second wound from the Abyssal Lance would not be so easy to heal.
She felt Crucible stir under her hands. His horned head lifted, his body rolled around to his belly. He leaped to his feet, and his scarred wings spread overhead to cast the two humans in shadow.
Linsha saw the wound on his leg was only partially closed and the scales around it were blackened. But the lance was out and there were no splinters. For that she gave thanks.
Crucible dipped his head to Tancred and nudged the young man. “Thank you,” he said. But to Linsha he send a silent message that held no words, only the glorious intensity of his feelings for her.
Then he sprang into the sky and spread his wings on the wind.
The Tarmaks had mounted a fearsome defense and almost overwhelmed the slightly larger Duntollik army when Crucible joined the fray. Healed by Danian and Linsha together, the bronze still ached from the half-healed wound caused by the lance, but his wings could carry him and his fury bore him swiftly over the field of battle. He smashed into the Tarmak lines, seared the mounted warriors on their horses, and sent the Tarmaks fleeing across the Plains. The few that were left were harried unmercifully by the Plainsmen and centaurs. Only a few determined Tarmaks returned to the Missing City to report their defeat and the death of the Akkad-Dar.
The field was left a smoking ruin. The Plainsmen helped their wounded, stripped the Tarmak dead of the weapons that had not melted under the dragon’s breath, rounded up the surviving horses, and lit a bonfire to celebrate a victory that had been long in coming.
Linsha returned to the satiated dragonlets in the cave and waited while they settled down. After a quick glance, she avoided looking at the mangled mess of shredded clothes, armor, and gore that had been the Akkad- Dar. When the last dragonlet had found a place in the sand and fallen asleep, she left them under Varia’s watchful eye and went to find Callista and Sir Hugh.
The members of her party had been freed by some of Falaius’s men, so she and Callista went to help Tancred. The young healer needed all the willing hands he could get to help. Linsha worked late into the night before she said goodnight to Tancred and trekked up the hill to the cave entrance. She found the brasses still asleep, but this time they were crowded around the recumbent form of Crucible. Varia perched on one of his horns, her eyes closed, her brown body almost invisible in the dark cave. The remains of Lanther’s corpse were gone.
The big bronze didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid when the Lady Knight came in. Grinning to herself, Linsha crawled over a baby dragon and found a comfortable spot by Crucible’s front leg. Happier than she had been in many years, Linsha joined the dragons in sleep.
A voice spoke quietly in the darkness, a soft but powerful voice that woke Linsha with a start. She blinked, still groggy with sleep, and saw a large form in the darkness. A pale light like silver moonlight emanated from its shape, outlining its edges just enough to reveal a dragon.
“Iyesta?” Linsha said sleepily.
Linsha sat up against Crucible’s leg and looked down at the sleeping dragonlets. “I didn’t do very well. The Tarmaks killed many of them.”
“Thank you for trusting us.”
Iyesta lowered her head.
“Iyesta,” Linsha said. It was important to her to let Iyesta know. “I know who Crucible is now.”
The dragon’s pale eyes glimmered.
“What won’t?” Linsha asked.
Dragons, Linsha noted.
Iyesta began to fade, her outline blurring into darkness.
“Good-bye,” Linsha called. “And if you see a good-looking man named Ian Durne? Tell him I said good-bye.” And thank you, she added quietly to herself.
Silence returned to the cave.
24
By the next day, the baby brasses could fly well enough to make circles around the volcano while Crucible watched. He reported to Linsha that the dragonlets were healthy, considering everything they had gone through during their interrupted incubation and early hatching but that they would need a little time to grow and gain strength before they could move anywhere. He could only wait to see if the magic used by the Tarmaks to speed up their embryonic development would have any affect on their growth.
That same day Wanderer and Falaius gathered in the wounded and the scattered units and began making plans to return to Duntollik before winter set in. They knew there was little they could do to take the Missing City back. They had broken the back of the Tarmak army, with Crucible’s help, but the Brutes still held the city, and the winter was too miserable to allow for fighting. They had to regroup and plan a campaign for spring before the Tarmaks rebuilt their ships and came back in increasing numbers.
Linsha spent her day caring for the wounded, playing with the dragonlets, and trying not to think about the future. The truth of the matter was she was exhausted in mind and body. She couldn’t think clearly, and she didn’t know what to do. Falaius, once he finished his effusive welcome to her, encouraged her to return to Duntollik with them. However, she and Sir Hugh were the only Knights of Solamnia in the area. By their orders, they should be in the Missing City, perhaps working undercover against the Tarmaks. Linsha personally felt that if she never saw another Brute again, it would be too soon.
Then there were the dragons to consider. Linsha knew she should talk to Crucible about his plans, but she dreaded what she thought he would say. She put off talking to him for several days until at last the Plains army was ready to march back to Duntollik. Falaius asked her again to join them, and Linsha knew she had to make a decision.
She waited until the brasses were asleep in their cave before she asked Crucible to join her outside. For a long while she leaned back against him and stared silently at the two moons that hung like pearls in the sky, one silver and one red. Their new presence in the night sky still amazed her. For all of her thirty-four years there had only been one pallid moon, but now that the gods were back, the moons of Lunitari and Solinari had returned to grace the darkness. And, she knew from a dozen childhood tales, somewhere in the darkness between the stars, black Nuitari looked down on Ansalon.
Finally, she told Crucible of the Legionnaire commander’s offer.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.
The dragon did not hesitate. “Whatever you decide, I will come with you. I cannot bear to lose you
