The Spectral Blaze

Inwardly Gaedy

But he had to. If he slipped away to get help, Yemere might be gone by the time he came back.

He switched his arrow for one of the few remaining enchanted ones, stepped into the open, aimed, and loosed.

Evidently glimpsing his attacker from the corner of his eye, Yemere started to pivot. Then the shaft plunged into his chest. Gaedy

Yemere fell back against the curved stone wall. At the same instant, black spikes that looked like thorns stabbed up through his skin. The effect started around the arrow and moved outward, down the wyrm’s limbs and up into his head. It was as if brambles were growing and snaking their way through his flesh.

He thrashed for a moment, then sprawled motionless. Gaedy

Then Yemere began to grow.

In fact, it was a flailing explosion of growth, as hammering wings and a lashing tail burst into being and everything else thickened and lengthened. Gaedy

Gaedy

As he hauled her to safety, Yemere completed his metamorphosis. In his natural form, the dragon had phosphorescent blue eyes and gray scales that glinted in the moonlight. The spines that grew under the lower jaw and behind the head somewhat resembled a beard and hair. Gaedy

“Kill him,” the dragon snarled.

Son-liin wrenched herself out of Gaedy

He drove a punch into Son-liin’s jaw. As she staggered and fell, Yemere opened his jaws.

Gaedy

Then Yemere seemed to surge forward. Gaedy

“Corellon!” he gasped.

He was no mystic, and no downpour of divine power answered his call. But perhaps the name of the Great Protector helped him focus his will. In any case, the ground settled beneath his feet, and he wrenched his eyes away from the dragon’s stare.

Yemere roared and rushed forward. He came fast but hobbled nonetheless, his wounds clearly paining him. And scurrying backward, Gaedy

Perhaps deciding that, in his current condition, he was no quicker or more agile than his foe, Yemere stopped where Son-liin still lay stu

Gaedy

Possibly fearing what that shaft might do, Yemere didn’t bother following through on his threat. He simply charged again, and if he trampled Son-liin in the process-Gaedy

Gaedy

Recognizing that he had no hope of regaining the distance that archery required, he dropped his bow and snatched out his short swords. They didn’t do him a lot of good. Yemere pressed him so relentlessly that it was all he could manage just to dodge and duck the creature’s gnashing fangs, snatching talons, battering wings, and whipping tail. Striking back was rarely possible, and when he could, his blades didn’t bite deep enough for it to matter.

And though the space, like a small arena with one wall missing, had appeared roomy enough when he arrived, it now seemed completely full of dragon. He repeatedly found himself nearly pi

He struggled to think of a stratagem that could save him. Nothing sprang to mind.

But then two beams of dazzling light stabbed down from the sky. They burned into Yemere’s back, and he roared and convulsed. The roar cut off abruptly when Eider dived out of the dark, thumped down on the dragon’s neck just behind the head, and ripped out a big chunk of flesh with her beak. She spit it out immediately, possibly because it had thorns in it.

Yemere collapsed, and Eider sprang clear before the huge, spasmodic body hit the ground. Jet swooped down with Aoth and Cera on his back.

Gaedy

Somewhat miraculously, considering all of Yemere’s lunging and whirling around, she remained uncrushed. In fact, she shakily sat up as he approached, animation and bewilderment in her face. “What happened?” she groaned.

Gaedy

Eider padded over to Gaedy

“That she is,” said Aoth, dismounting. “And you’re lucky. Taking on a dragon all by yourself was cocky even by your standards.”

Gaedy

Aoth shrugged. “They don’t ordinarily catch shapeshifters because shapeshifting’s not an illusion. Be glad we heard Yemere roar.”

“Oh, I am,” Gaedy

“I’m sure,” said Cera dryly.

Aoth took another look at Yemere’s body, whose final shudders were subsiding. “The hide looks just the same as the hide of the dragonspawn that attacked us in the Eagle’s Idyll.”

Cera murmured a word that set the head of her golden mace glowing, so she, too, could see the body clearly. “In other words, it gleams like steel,” she said in a somber tone.