'Your powers do not come from the Great One,' she explained. 'They are your own. Of course, as a dragon, I also command the magic of a sorceress, and to a fairly high degree. Just the same, I fear that you alone might be able to defend us from hostile magic.'
'Can we be done with this?' Sir George asked impatiently. 'You armor-plated lizards might not mind this sand and cold wind, but I'm not having a very good time. Let's rout those wizards so that we can be back in Braejr in time for dinner.'
Routing the Fire Wizards did indeed seem like a very good idea, although Thelvyn lacked his old friend's confidence that things would be so easy. The defenders of the dark fortress probably would have been alerted to anyone coming through their worldgate, especially since Sir George had sprung their trap. The two dragons could have simply flown to the fortress in a direct assault, but they agreed that it was best not to take for granted Alessa Vyledaar's assumption that the stronghold was probably poorly defended. They preferred that any battle be as much as possible on their own terms.
Rather than fly to the distant fortress, they elected to walk, keeping themselves hidden as much as possible in the deep shadows of the ravines and large boulders.
While it was obvious that Sir George cared nothing for the local climate, the wind-driven sand got in the large eyes and ears of the dragons, and they wanted to be done with their quest and leave this place. The land was barren and lifeless, and Thelvyn could hardly imagine the Flaem living in such a desolate place. He wondered if this fierce sandstorm was a rare event or an everyday occurrence.
Suddenly a crushing blow caught Thelvyn in the chest just below his neck, hurtling him over backward into the sand with tremendous force. He had barely caught a glimpse of his attacker, a dark shape that had suddenly leapt out at him from the shadows of a large boulder. Powerful claws caught his own wrists and forced apart his arms while the weight of his adversary held him to the ground. Jaws closed with crushing force on his neck, preventing him from recovering the breath that had been knocked out of him. He had been caught by the only enemy he had not expected to face in this place, for he had seen just enough to know that his attacker was a dragon.
Thelvyn was desperate, yet he was unable to defend himself. He would have surely been dead in a moment, but his opponent had apparently assumed he was alone. Having overcome her own brief moment of surprise, Kharendaen spun around quickly, and the whipping end of her tail caught the strange dragon hard in the side of the face. Alarmed and half stunned by the blow, the dragon released its hold on Thelvyn's neck and drew back, bracing its legs and arching its back as it snarled in rage. But Kharendaen was ready, having spun completely around so that she once again faced the enemy dragon. She caught it with a tremendous blast of flames.
Although he was still panting for breath, Thelvyn seized the opportunity to struggle to his feet. He turned to face their attacker. Although the strange dragon did not seem to have been harmed by Kharendaen's fiery breath, it was still shaken from the blow with her tail and decided that it had had enough. Obviously it had never expected to face two dragons. It turned and ran, leaping across the windswept stones toward the fortress. When it was sure that they were not following, it paused at the top of a hill and turned back, watching them.
'A dragon,' Thelvyn panted at last. 'Has someone gotten to the collar before us?'
'That is no dragon of our world,' Kharendaen said firmly.
She paused and stared as three more dragons suddenly leapt over the top of the hill, and now all four stood in a line, their forms dimly outlined against the dark sky. Then they charged forward, rushing across the stony ground and scattering great clouds of sand from the drifts that had gathered in the lee of the boulders. Thelvyn and Kharendaen turned and ran as fast as they could back toward the worldgate.
'Stay in our tracks,' Thelvyn warned as they ran, careful that he did not speak loud enough to be overheard by their pursuers. 'If we can lose sight of them, they might follow our tracks the other way and lose us.'
They ran as fast as they could, though running was far less natural to a dragon than flight. Within a minute, they came to a ravine that Thelvyn recalled passing through earlier. He stopped suddenly when he saw a deep recess in the wall of dull gray stone to his left, and Kharendaen nearly ran into him from behind. He pushed her desperately in the direction of the dark opening, although she acted confused.
'We can't hide in there,' she protested. 'We're too large. They're certain to see us.'
'Not if we change form,' he said quickly. 'Hurry before they see us.'
Kharendaen shifted form abruptly, so that the straps of her saddle collapsed about her, then hurried into the deep crevice. Thelvyn waited only long enough to toss the saddle in behind her before he changed to his Eldar form, the straps of his harness falling away. He returned to his dragon form just long enough to pass the straps of the harness into the shadows of the recess before changing form yet again.
The crevice was deeper than he had expected, almost forming a small cave in the wall of the ravine. A thick bed of sand had been blown inside the crevice, becoming steadily deeper farther back in the narrow confines of the recess. Thelvyn tele-ported into the armor of the Dragonlord, which had remained safe and nearly forgotten in its magical place of safekeeping in the months since Thelvyn had become a dragon. At the moment, it was a far better protection than his own powers or his natural weapons as a dragon. He drew the massive enchanted sword and turned to face the opening of the crevice. The enemy dragons rushed past only a moment later, so intent upon the chase that they did not even pause in their leaping stride.
Thelvyn moved cautiously to the opening to look out into the ravine just in time to see the last of the dragons disappear over a distant pile of large, rounded boulders. He stepped outside the opening, teleported out of the enchanted armor, and returned immediately to dragon form, reaching inside the recess to draw out the discarded saddle and harness.
'Quickly now,' he told his mate. 'They think that we're on our way back to the worldgate. If we hurry, we can continue on to the fortress and retrieve the Collar of the Dragons while they're still waiting for us at the gate.'
'But they are sure to be guarding the gate,' Kharendaen said as she slipped into the straps of the saddle as quickly as she could. 'They know we have to go back that way eventually.'
'That's a problem we'll have to face up to later,' Thelvyn said quickly. 'The power of the Dragonlord should be enough to deal with them. With any luck, they might realize that we've gone to collect the collar and abandon the gate just when we need to use it.'
'If there aren't any more dragons at the fortress waiting for us,' she commented sourly.
Thelvyn looked up. 'What are dragons doing here, anyway? Could renegades have found this place before us?'
Kharendaen shook her head firmly. 'No. Those are not dragons of our own world. The one that attacked you seemed at first to be large red, but I saw that the plates of his armor were unnatural, as if they were carved from actual ruby. And his features were different from those of any breed of dragon I know. Perhaps you were never able to see him clearly. I believe that he was not from our own world. Indeed, his appearance was so remarkable that I am not even certain that he is indeed a living dragon, but perhaps some strange creature animated by magic.'
'Perhaps so,' Thelvyn agreed, then glanced about. 'Where's Sir George?'
Kharendaen rolled her eyes. 'I must have thrown him off at the place where you were attacked, and then I forgot about him in the confusion. At least these alien dragons seem to have missed him as well.'
'We can collect him on the way to the fortress,' Thelvyn said. 'I only hope he came to no harm during the fight.'
CHAPTER FIVE
Thelvyn knew he would have only a brief time to reach the fortress and find the Collar of the Dragons. Sooner or later the four strange dragons would figure out that he and Kharendaen had circled back. He couldn't predict whether they would return at once to the fortress or stay at the gate, knowing that Thelvyn and his companions would have to return there eventually, since it was their only way home.
At least Thelvyn had not been taken completely by surprise. He had suspected that their mission would not be as easy as it had seemed, but he never expected to have to fight dragons in this world. He no longer had any idea who their true enemy was, the Fire Wizards or the alien dragons. Nor could he guess whether all the enemy
