“That theywon’tgo away,” Fel said, “and they’ll prefer fresh prey over the dead.”
The wyvern crouched and sprang, arrowing straight for the doorway. For them.
5
“Stay back,”Fel barked as he leaped into the doorway to meet the wyvern.
Syla’s earlier belief that the scaled creature wouldn’t fit through proved wrong. It simply tucked its wings against its body. But the pedestal Fel had pushed into the doorway impeded it.
When he swung his mace toward its snout, the wyvern accepted the powerful blow as though a mosquito had stung it and nothing more. Long fangs leering, it snapped its jaws at Fel.
Syla gasped, certain the wyvern would wrap its deadly maw around his shoulder—or his neck. But Fel was more agile than his age suggested. He leaped lightly back, and the jaws snapped at empty air inches from his face.
Again, he swung his mace, smashing the metal head between the creature’s yellow eyes. That was enough to make the wyvern jerk back, but it didn’t retreat. Muscles bunching, it lunged for the doorway again. The pedestal skidded back and toppled to the tile floor with a thunderousthunk.
Feeling foolish for having grabbed tchotchkes instead of aweapon, Syla looked around for something she could use to help Fel. Or… in case he went down… she needed to defend herself.
“Not that I keptweaponsin my room,” she muttered, spotting nothing useful in the wreckage.
Mace met fangs with a loud clink. Again, the wyvern backed away, but, again, it didn’t retreat. It screeched, the piercing sound supernaturally loud, and another winged predator landed beside it. Damn it.
“I’m a healer, not a warrior,” Syla snarled in frustration.
She lifted her pack, thinking she might throwit. If Fel had complained about the heft of the book, maybe a wyvern would too—if she could smack it in an eye.
“Back up.” Fel kept his mace raised to defend their retreat. “We’re going to have to go another way.”
Though she doubted therewasanother way clear, Syla nodded and crept backward. If that mace scarcely bothered the wyverns, her book would do even less.
As the two creatures advanced through the doorway, a massive splitting of stone came from behind Syla and Fel.
Debris rained down, and Syla halted, gaping as a huge chunk of the ceiling over the hall was torn free, revealing the night sky above—and another great scaled beast.
At first, she believed it a third wyvern, but it was too large. A huge green dragon flexed its neck and flung the section of roof aside.
Fel swore, pushing Syla against the wall as he tried to keep his mace up toward the wyvernsandthe new threat.
The dragon roared, the sound thunderous in the night. The wyverns paused, peering at the larger creature, and didn’t charge into the hallway. That was no reprieve, however, when the dragon’s huge horned head swept down through the hole it had made.
Fel sprang past Syla to meet it with his mace.
“Watch out for fire!” she yelled, terrified that her only ally would be incinerated.
When Fel swung his mace toward the dragon’s scaled snout, the weapon struck, thuddingagainst the armor-like scales, but it did even less than it had against the wyvern. Almost casually, the dragon head-butted Fel, sending the forty-year veteran tumbling away. As he rolled cursing down the hallway, he clipped Syla.
Knocked off balance, she couldn’t spring away when the dragon’s maw stretched toward her, more chunks of the ceiling clattering down as it encroached. Terrified, she swung her pack at their enemy. Impervious, the dragon clasped its jaws around her.
Syla screamed, expecting excruciating pain. The fanged maw did wrap around her with alarming pressure, but the beast didn’t tear her to pieces or fling her away as it had done the roof.
No, it pulled her out of the hallway—out of the keep entirely—and lifted her into the air. She screamed again and clamped her hand to her face to make sure her spectacles didn’t fall off.
As ifthatwould matter if the dragon intended to eat her.
After flying into the air twenty or thirty feet above the keep, the dragon twisted its neck and tossed her. More terror rushed into her, and she flailed with her free hand, imagining flying all the way over the courtyard wall and off the bluff to land in the rocky sea far below.
Instead, she came down on the dragon’s back with a startling thump. Someone grabbed her to keep her from bouncing off. Powerful arms manipulated her, maneuvering her into a position astride the dragon, as if she were mounted on a horse. A horse with averybroad back.
A rider, came the observation from the tiny part of her mind that remained capable of rational thinking. This dragon had a rider.
