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Two! One she could handle She knew Uldas and where she had to tuck, where there were deep shadows and where the sun would fall She would have the advantage But two!
First one, then three, then a little less than a score of Fireblades rushed forward to the aid of their coh the cave She saw the s--or spawn, children, was that the word?--of the Fireblades fleeing froe in caves and wells Older Fireblades lurched out of their dwellings, supporting themselves on the shoulders of youths still with downy tufts about the head and shoulders rather than a true blighter’sbows and crude imitations of dwarven crossbows and spear-throwers
"Why you wait?" a warrior called to her as he hurried forward, a spear in each hand and the unlatched buckles on his helhting Only the crows benefit
"The rest of you, stay here," she told the gathering Fireblades in their own language "Block up the tunnel here as best as you can Your friends may need somewhere to retreat I want to be able to just squeeze over the top"
One of the grizzle-hairs nodded and barked at the others There were big casks handy, full of fat for the boiling cauldrons andthose forward
Maybe she could drive the herself It would be a bold pair ould dare attack a fes to defend, and ain wait to attack froainst her?
She launched herself into the air, cold-hearted and wingtips a-shiver Where was that dragonelle who faced giant trolls on Rainfall’s bridge or challenged war rew over the horizon to the south Soon the sun would be shining down the cave- and bracing herself with her tail at the upper root of one of the pillars of es and crevices offered her claws purchase Shestrea the oats and sickly cattle near at those roofless hovels She hter, Wistala decided, or at least inexperienced She’d loosed her flato burn a field of crops and teach sohters with plenty of time to see the firefall and doorways and alcoves to shelter in wouldn’t be bothered by such a display And a dragon had only so much flaout still in burning puddles along the entry-road, it ood deal more effective than his uessed he was afro his body to keep scale to enetips and strikes of his tail, screahters back froreat road
White knew hoerous threat with his first flame, the watchtower at the cavern roof Now he could terrorize the Fireblades without having to worry about stones or javelins being flung down upon him
Silly Green and Canny White If she could surprise Canny White, down him before he knew she’d joined battle, she’d be able to handle Silly Green
A coiling serpent, dark as a pit viper and mindlessly purposeful as a stream of ants, could be seen on the road outside the cave-mouth Men on horseback, with banners at intervals, red leading silver followed by a purple, the third higher than the rest, with a rather dispirited green bringing up the rear It must be a vast nuth of road She could hear the steady thunder of their hoofbeats on the old grass-stitched stones
The sun clier for a better view of the contest
It would take too long to crawl She went forward, glide-rest, glide-rest, in a series of barrel rolls, keeping to the darkness in the shade of Krag’s great roof The attacking dragons harried the disorganized blighters, their quarry rallying only to be dispersed by one of White’s dives and then running again
They on lurked in the area, but neither seemed very watchful Perhaps they were carried away by the excitehters, or assumed that since she hadn’t yet shown herself, she never would Did they think she was so male, ould announce his presence half a horizon fro back toward the rear of his cave He ht the out of neck and arons; while they s out of mountain-lion sinew, their heads and shafts weren’t as sharp and true as elvish arrows or dwarvish bolts, and they lost velocity quickly when fired upward Despite the arrows, Canny White swept behind them, and flapped briefly atop a broken old three-level hohters in the lane below
Wistala saw her chance She dove, wings folded like a hawk, gaining deadly velocity with every length in the vast cave