than he had expected.
'Ceremony aside, we must be gone,' Thelvyn said. 'My hope is that the Masters are already on their way here to protect their fortress, leaving the worldgate unguarded. They will most likely return through the main gate, and that means that we must find some other way out of this place. If we must fight again, remember that I cannot change form to become the Dragonlord while I'm wearing the collar.'
'From what I've seen, you don't need the Dragonlord anymore,' Sir George said as he pulled himself up into Kharen-daen's saddle.
'If we become separated again, you go on to the worldgate,' Thelvyn told him firmly. 'Any attack will most likely be directed at us, and we are better able to deal with it.'
Thelvyn led the way through the doorway in the back of the hall. The small, dark back passages where they found themselves did not provide as direct a path as the corridor that had brought them into the heart of the fortress. He had no clear idea where to go at first, except to head outward until they came to a door or other large opening where they could escape from this place. The problem was that the fortress was very large, and he recalled seeing only a few windows and one main gate from the outside. But when he suddenly came upon a wide stairway leading upward, he had an idea of how he could find the quickest and possibly the most unexpected way out. He only had to trust that he would be able to discover a way out of the fortress somewhere above, or they might become
trapped in the worst of all places.
They had climbed seven floors when they came upon a wide, dark chamber with windows and a doorway that stood open on the far side to an enclosed balcony. At first Thelvyn didn't recognize the significance of such a place, like a deep pocket cut in the side of the fortress more than a hundred feet above the ground. There was no rail or parapet to offer protection from attack. Kharendaen knew it at once as a ledge where dragons could land or leap out into flight. As such, it wasn't the safest place for them to be.
The two dragons moved cautiously to the front of the ledge and looked out across the desolate lands surrounding the fortress. The ledge faced toward the south, and their sharp eyes were able to locate the stone arch of the worldgate among the boulders and ravines along the top of the cliff above the sea of sand to the east. They could also see several gemstone dragons flying toward the fortress, responding to the invasion of their stronghold. Fortunately they were headed toward the main gate, just as Thelvyn had anticipated, although he noted there were more of the strange dragons than the four that had pursued them earlier.
'As soon as they're within the fortress, we'll have our best chance to escape unseen,' Thelvyn said. 'We'll need to fly very low and fast. Can you handle that?'
'I am unharmed,' Kharendaen insisted. 'But I am concerned about you. If all that flame did not burn you, it certainly left you in need of a bath.'
'No, I'm not burned,' he said, bending his neck to examine himself. The portions of his armor that had endured the blasts of dragonfire did indeed look singed, although it was apparently only soot and dust. 'I have a few small holes in the sails of my wings from those magic darts. Is that likely to interfere with my ability to fly?'
'It shouldn't, as long as it's not too painful.'
Thelvyn had been too distracted with the business at hand to notice his pain, although the small tears in his wings did sting somewhat. Cautiously he extended his head well out from the opening of the ledge, but he could no longer see any of the gemstone dragons outside the fortress. 'We must go,
and quickly. Stay close behind me.'
His wings half spread, Thelvyn leapt out from the ledge, then nosed over so that he was descending almost straight down, allowing his fall to build speed. Although his experience and trust in flight was growing quickly, he still couldn't do something like this without feeling a rush of fear. At the last possible moment, he spread his wings and came out of his steep dive, hurtling just over the tops of the dunes in the shadow of the cliff. Glancing back briefly, he could see that Kharendaen was following about two lengths beyond the end of his tail, while Sir George was holding on for his very life with the hook on his left wrist caught over the front edge of his saddle.
Thelvyn had forgotten about the fierce winds that constantly howled across the dunes, and the two dragons had to fight the sudden, fitful gusts that threatened to smash them against the face of the cliff. Fortunately their flight was a short one, at least at such a speed. Following his instinctive sense of direction, Thelvyn lifted his wings to catch the wind beneath the sails, lifting him sharply up over the edge of the cliff, where he looked down upon the stone arch below.
He had been hoping that his speed would give his attack the element of complete surprise, since he had guessed that the gemstone dragons wouldn't leave the worldgate completely unguarded. His instinct had proven true; he hurtled up over the cliff almost as close to the stone arch as he could come, rising steeply to give himself room for an attack run before descending sharply toward the pair of alien dragons left to guard the gate. The nearest of the two, a gemstone dragon with armor like jade, saw Thelvyn only at the last moment as he plunged from the sky like an eagle swooping toward its prey, all four of his legs braced stiffly for the impact. The weight of the gold dragon crashed squarely into the middle of the jade dragon's long back, snapping his spine and crushing his ribs. Thelvyn pressed his attack just the same, learning from his recent mistakes, and he lunged forward to take the jade dragon's neck in a death grip.
Kharendaen followed through Thelvyn's attack as best she could, although she could not descend upon the second of the alien dragons as Thelvyn had while she still had Sir George in her saddle. Instead, she passed swiftly just over his head, snapping him in the face with the whip of her tail. The blow was enough to cause the crystal-plated dragon to stagger back on his haunches, holding his face in his claws during that first moment of blinding pain. That gave Kharendaen the time she needed to circle back and land a short distance away, folding her wings tightly while Sir George leapt down from his saddle and ran for the protection of the nearby boulders.
The crystal dragon blinked, finding it hard for a moment to focus on her. She stood facing him a few yards away, crouching low on all fours with her head held low, a deep growl rumbling in her throat. Responding to the threat, the crystal dragon dropped down from his haunches to stand on all fours, but he was still dazed and unsteady. The gold dragon seized the moment to dart in, driving her head beneath his chest and heaving him up across her shoulders, then using the power of her hind legs to toss him backward, a tactic that she had used with success only a short time earlier. Dragons were vulnerable for a moment just after being thrown onto their backs, and that held true for this alien race of dragons as well. The crystal dragon struggled to roll away, but Kharendaen threw her own weight across his chest to pin him down. Unseen and forgotten during the last desperate moments, Thelvyn darted in from behind to crush his neck.
'Ah, thank you,' Kharendaen said as she gingerly climbed off the body of the crystal dragon and stepped away. She looked very tired.
'Sir George! It's time to go home,' Thelvyn called, then turned his head when the old knight stepped out from behind a boulder. 'How can I close this gate so that they can't use it again?'
'You can't,' Sir George explained. 'You can destroy this particular worldgate, of course. But they can always open another one to take its place.'
'I suspect they already have many gates into our world,' Thelvyn said. 'But it will make me feel better to close this one behind us, even if only for a short time.'
'Can you destroy it from the other side?' Kharendaen asked.
'I can try,' he said. 'Go on through. I'll be just behind you,
I promise you.'
He glanced toward the stone arch, and the gate responded at once to his will, a pit of black opening swiftly in the center of that great oval of carved gray stone, showing them a remote view of spring sunlight dancing on grass beneath trees. Kharendaen stepped into the darkness and was drawn away, suddenly emerging as a distant image beneath the trees. She glanced back only briefly, then quickly stepped out of the way.
Alerted by some vague sense of danger, Thelvyn glanced over his shoulder to see at least half a dozen gemstone dragons approaching, driving themselves swiftly over the stony, windswept land with long, powerful thrusts of their wings. They would be upon him in moments, which meant that he would be given only one chance to close the worldgate and escape pursuit. He impressed his will even more firmly upon the gateway, until he felt that the innate magic which cause it to function had become his own. Then he stepped into the gate.
