§
“Kierion, run into that clearing and I’ll help you,” Riona called in his head. “I can’t see through the foliage. I might burn you instead of those monsters.”
Kierion couldn’t see a clearing, let alone think. The tharuks were practically breathing down his neck. One snagged his archer’s cloak, but he ripped free. His feet churned up snow as he twisted and turned through the trees, trying to dodge the tharuks. “Help Adelina.”
“My duty is to you, Kierion. You’re my rider,” Rona replied.
“Forget your sharding duty.” A tharuk swiped at him, and he spurted ahead, heart pounding. Dragon’s claws, that was close.
“Linaia is with Adelina.” There was a pause.
“What is it? Is she all right?” Kierion faltered.
“Get the human,” a tharuk bellowed.
Another tharuk leapt on him. They crashed to the ground.
Riona’s roars ricocheted through the forest. Flame blasted from above, but it couldn’t penetrate the foliage, only singeing the treetops.
Kierion palmed a dagger from his sleeve and thrust it at the tharuk’s chest. It slid off the beast’s leather breastplate. The tharuk’s claws gashed Kierion’s side. He struggled to free his dagger, but it was trapped beneath his enemy’s body. The beast grabbed his neck, digging its claws into his flesh. Warm blood ran down his throat as the beast squeezed.
Kierion gurgled, his airways tightening. The tharuk’s weight pressing down on his chest didn’t help much either. Desperate, he yanked the dagger out from between their bodies and whacked the tharuk on the skull with the handle.
The beast growled and squeezed harder. Kierion thrashed, hitting the brute again.
The rest of the tharuks formed a ring around them. Guffaws rang out. “Go, 1777. Get the runt.”
“Throttle the human.”
“Choke harder.”
“Riona,” Kierion called.
Above the tharuks’ heads, wings swooped. Riona’s mighty talons grasped a young tree, wrenching it from the earth. The tharuks stopped laughing and spun. Riona swung the tree through the air, clods flying from the roots, smacking a tharuk with the trunk. Others scattered. 1777 loosened its grip on Kierion’s neck. Kierion jammed his dagger into the soft tissue under the beast’s chin. The tharuk slumped, blood gushing over Kierion’s jerkin.
He rolled, thrusting the hulking beast off him, and ran, gasping. Snarls echoed through the forest. His side throbbing and bruised throat aching, he slipped in the churned-up snow.
Behind him, Riona swung the tree trunk. “We must get back to Adelina,” she melded.
“Is she all right?”
Once again, she was peculiarly silent. Something was up. Being a prankster, he recognized the complicit silence of his dragon—better to say nothing than reveal what was going on. Kierion rounded a grove of trees.
A group of tharuks jumped out from behind the bushes.
Shards, they’d sneaked up from another angle. He darted away. The Egg knew what direction Adelina was in.
The tharuks were gaining on him. Not again. His legs were tiring. There was no way he could outrun them. Climb a tree? Trick them somehow. Shards, his throat hurt. Every gasp of air was agony. The stench of the beasts enveloped him. Their breath rasped in his ears. Dragon’s claws.
A tharuk with a twisted tusk hurled itself at Kierion. A blinding flash of green light zipped between the trees. The beast twitched on the ground, engulfed in emerald wizard flame. A cloaked, hooded figure ran through the snow, flinging a second fireball at another tharuk. Its face caught fire. The beast shrieked with pain.
A few ran off, but two stubborn tharuks remained—a beast with only one ear and another with missing fingers.
The mage threw Kierion his sword. “You dropped this.”
“Thanks.” Kierion snatched it out of the air and lunged, parrying One Ear’s claws. He hit its arm.
The mage shot more flame at Fingerless. Then he aimed his fire at Kierion’s sword. Green flames ran along his blade until it blazed red-hot.
With one look at the glowing sword, One Ear snarled, “Retreat.”
As the beasts ran off, the wizard shot two last fireballs at their backs, felling them to the snow. Mage flame consumed the writhing beasts until they were burned carcasses.
The forest was suddenly quiet, except for crackling fire and Kierion and the mage’s harsh breathing. The stench of tharuk and mage fire hung in the air.
“Kierion?”
This strange mage knew him?
The mage pushed his hood off his face to reveal blond hair and startling green eyes. “Is that you, Kierion?”
It couldn’t be. Not here, in the middle of nowhere, so far north. “Fenni?”
His friend clapped him on the back. “Hey, long time, no see.”
“By the Egg, am I glad to see you.”
Fenni grinned. “My turn to save your sorry carcass.”
Kierion kicked at the snow. “Did your ma ever forgive me for stringing up her chickens?”
Fenni laughed, shaking his head. “You had to have the last word before we left, didn’t you?”
“I am so glad that wizard was here to help you,” Riona mind-melded. “How do you know him?”
“I helped him out of a few scrapes in Montanara.”
“No doubt, after you helped him into them first.” Riona, circling above them, snorted. “Follow me, I’ll take you to Adelina.” She flew over the treetops.
“My friend, Adelina, is back there. We have to help her.”
Kierion and Fenni followed Riona, jogging through the dirty snow. Acrid smoke from mage flame hung in wisps among the trees.
Fenni gazed up at Riona wistfully. “Must be amazing, riding a dragon.”
“It is, but it’s the bond that’s the best. Mind-melding. Nothing quite like it. What are you doing all the way up here? I thought you were staying in Master Giddi’s cabin.”
“We’re up at Mage Gate for the wizard trials.”
A long
