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"Humans and powries did battle in here?" Cazzira asked
"Why would they leave only one set of human bones, then?" Brynn asked ?A traitor, perhaps, who betrayed his clan to the dwarves?"
"You assu was cut short by a cry of surprise froinning of the tunnel beyond He e as his arm What is it?" asked Cazzira
Darkfern," Brynn answered as she inspected the piece, to see the silverel lines encircling it ?That was part of a bow, a Touel&039;alfar bow! ?
She turnedt over to reveal a tiny signature near the tapered end
the mark of Joycenevial, er - of that ranger," he said, pointing to the human remains He isidered the piece of the bow and the mark and searched his distant memories
-mhem Dal," he decided a few moments later ?Bow your head, Brynn what does it mean?"
1 means that he never made it home," said Cazzira
"And that his sword, Flamedancer, was lost here," Juraviel added He looked at Brynn, his golden eyes narroith deterer sword, Brynn Dharielle?"
The worimly
"If the dread wuret it back," Cazzira was quick to put in ?Behold the devastation of the beast" She swung her arm about at the piles of charred and crushed bones as she spoke ?Behold the fate of the last ranger who stood before the dragon!"
"That was hundreds of years ago," Brynn put in ?Can the dragon still be alive?"
"We shall see," was all that Belli&039;rier than Brynn had ever heard it before Clearly, the sight of the re-ested that they should return to the city to search for more clues, but Juraviel pushed on down the tunnel, his pace strong
They followed their instincts, they followed the heat they could feel puls-ing beneath their feet, then they followed the sh cracks in the floor on hot updrafts
After three long e and broken chae that had once crossed a deep gorge Far below, they saw the orange glow of fire, the heat radiating up to flush their faces
"If the dragon remains, it is down there," Juraviel said ?If Flamedancer remains, it is down there"
"You cannot know that," said Cazzira
"I feel it," was all the answer she was going to get
Juraviel stood up straight, peering across the way ?We can work our way to the entrance of the tunnel"
"Or we can go down there," said Brynn She spent a long tie, then looked up at Juraviel, whose gaze led her to Cazzira
The Doc&039;alfar chuckled under the intensity of those two looks ?What is life without adventure?"
she asked at length
And so they descended even farther, so far that they had to set their hun-dred foot rope several ti Brynn&039;s brown eyes as she hand-walked down rope and stone, finally co out on what seemed to be the floor of the place
On they went, the air sh so that they did not need their torches, and rounding a bend in the corridor, they happened upon the source of the light and the heat, a wide and winding chamber full of what see at various points
"There is oil leeching onto the water," Juraviel reasoned
-But what ignited it?" came Cazzira&039;s response
learn," said Brynn, and she stepped out from the bank onto a �� then hopped to another She paused there and bent low, and gradu- &039;?lowered her hand to the water, dipping it below the surface ?Warm, "Take that as coht before the dread wur the only trail open to the-stones that wound through the fires and across the waters
"Do we even believe that the dragon is still alive?" Brynn asked ?Three hundred years is a long time"
"Only in the measurement of humans, said JuravieL Not m the memory of the Tylwyn Tou or Tylwyn Doc, and certainly not in thecreatures of Corona"
"What do you know of dragons?" Cazzira asked
"Only what you do, I presuends on the matter should be similar"
Brynn started to join in, but she stopped abruptly - so abruptly that the other two turned to regard her
She stood there on a stepping-stone, looking down at the orange-gloater, and when her conized the potential proble had disturbed its stillness
"Move along, and be quick," Cazzira instructed ?I have little desire to meet a dread wurm out here"
"I have little desire to meet a dread wurm anywhere," Juraviel added
Brynn pushed on with all speed, hopping fro stalactites when they dipped low to block her way, and choosing left or right without bothering to ask whenever they came to a tork in the way They had to double backout toward theh they never discerned the source
Finally, they found an opening in the sidewall, another dark tunnel be-yond, and though they had to leap and even swilad to be away from the fiery lake
ihe tunnel only went on for a short distance, opening up into a wide ualowed froh for Juraviel with is wings, and he went up without question, then sat there on the ledge >ove his two co open
What is it?" Cazzira called up to him softly
"Juraviel?" Brynn chirped in when the elf didn&039;t make any move to answer "It orth the trouble," he finally said,for them to clih, but it was of broken stone Cazzira verily ran up it, and agile Brynn wasn&039;t far behind, and as each crested the larger room&039;s floor, each assumed an expression as dumbfounded as that worn by Belli&039;mar Juraviel
There, spread before thelittering gemstones, pieces of armor and furniture, sculptures and dozens of metallic weapons
"So we knohat happened to the powries," Brynn remarked dryly
"But more importantly, what happened to the one who assembled this hoard?" asked Cazzira
Juraviel old and silver, to a single curving white rib bone A gigantic bone, that even a tall hu
"And so the wurm is dead," Cazzira said as they approached ?And its treasure lies unguarded"
"And so one of the wurms is dead," came a correction, in a voice that was neither huold and silver shifted and broke apart, and froon, its scales all red and gold, its horns taller than a talleyes slitted, like those of a cat, and isps of sreat nostrils Three sets of eyes ith surprise and horror, three nificent beast
"Welco and stuttering through each word But he stopped his sentence and started his legs, leaping aside as a great foreleg cae the very stone of the floor!
Cazzira leaped in near to that foreleg and whipped her wooden club about hard, sht as well have sainst the side of a rocky mountain
"Run away!" Belli&039; about the treasure on thrashed its tail, sending a fountain of coins, ge poor Brynn, ent tu down over a smaller pile of spears and other weapons
She hit hard and turned about, fearing that the as upon her
But the dragon had gone the other way, in pursuit of Cazzira The Doc&039;alfar cut around one pile of coins; the dragon lowered its head and plowed right through
Apparently anticipating theanother nearby pile and rolling right over the top, the other side
&039; t\&039;? bellowed the dragon, and its voice boomed off the rock and?s if it W0uld sunder the very stones that supported the chaht enjoy it all the ined anything as rful and on It seemed as if it could kill her with done, and every time it spouted a word, a bit of flame ca away, diving back downpit and rushing back across the fiery lake Despite the plight of her two coer actually started on that very course - until soht her eye A specter hovered by the pile of weapons over which she had just tripped, the ghost of a h she had no idea of how she knew the ghost&039;s identity
The specter lifted a translucent ar to the side, and Brynn felt a co away the continuing thunder of the dread wuron claws on stone, Brynn rushed out to the side, toward athe specter&039;s co no idea of what sheto find, for she had not taken the , tossing aside goblets and jewelry, strangely shaped coins stamped with a dwarven face, and even a helm and short sword And then another sword
Brynn almost threw that second one, until she felt a wave of coolden hilt, beautiful in design It was for, her ar the crosspiece, and her head, fashioned of a light red ruby, serving as the joint between the slender blade and the ponificent, razor thin and with delicate carvings tinning the length of the flat sides It wobbled as Brynn flicked her wrist, it despite that, the wo the truth of the sword, a ranger sword, Brynn looked back to the ghostbut the specter was gone
: ca Juraviel flying over ?a series of arrows back at the pur-ring dragon
sucked in her breath as Juraviel approached another treasure > thinking that it would stop him and that serpentine neck would catch up to hiot there, and the lunging dragon snapped over hi a shower of coins and geain ?To each your own, and find a way out!"
"No escape!" the dragon promised
"Not for me, perhaps," Brynn said under her breath, and with a howl she charged forward, rushing past the surprised Juraviel as he continued his flight, rushing right toward the dread wur of Fla head, cos She chose her mark carefully, the hollow of the breast, and threw all of her er sword for the dragon&039;s heart with all of her strength and passion
To the sword&039;s credit, it did not break
And to Brynn&039;s credit, she did eted scale a little bit
"Brynn!" Juraviel cried
The young ranger considered thethat if she had the tiet through that outer arh, she looked up, to see the wur down at her
Up went a foreleg
Brynn dove aside
The dragon hit the floor with enough force to split the stone, the shudder knocking Brynn froh the floor, and the overbalanced wurainst yet another pile of treasure, disturbing it so that it began to flow out of the chah of a flow to topple the dragon, but theon a river of geold, to spill out of the cha a rocky decline, s
She didn&039;t kno far she had fallen, for she lost consciousness long before she settled far, far below the chaainst the great dragon As soon as the beast made its presence known, the elf turned and fled, and she alreat tail sta the way even as she reached it
She stuained her balance immediately, and started off to the side, but a sudden swish of the great tail caught her and sent her flying away
She hit the side of a treasure mound, and the unstable nature of that pile alone saved her froave beneath her, then Kl d about her, and she went down in a heap, coins and ge her as she lay there unconscious
> dragon wasn&039;t even paying attention to her The human woman had down the hole, and so the beast had started into the hole in pursuit, head snaking down after the tu treasure
t the descent narrowed too quickly for the dragon to continue the pur- to catch up, and the great head cae focused alure, Belli&039;e claw sla the or seeetting hi And then he dropped, like a stone, into the opening
But this ti speed, the quickness of a striking serpent, the great head snapped down
And when it cas stuck out between the beast&039;s huge fangs
Brynn Dharielle opened her eyes, or rather, one eye, for the other was caked closed by dried blood She was not in darkness, for her glow torch had fallen beside her, but she knew at once that the globe had been cracked, for unlike the sharp edge of light it had previously shown, it was now dulled, surrounded by a glohite mist
She remembered Cazzira&039;s explanation of the torches and feared that she would soon be in total blackness
Spurred by that, Brynn rolled to her side and forced herself into a sitting position At first, her thoughts went right back to the cavern above, to the huge beast and her fall, to her friends and the grih, Brynn noted all the glittering iteer sword
Brynn picked it up reverently, then nearly threw it aside in anger, feeling that it had betrayed her with its inability even to pierce the great h, but held it up before her eyes ?Fla the na of the long and very slender blade, her eyes and her free hand roa down to feel the cool metal and the sculpted hilt, the female elven form with the ruby head
Brynn stood up and with a nod, slid the sword into her belt She consid-ered the tunnel far above her and realized that she could hardly retrace her steps back to the dragon&039;s lair
Nor did she want to The woman closed her eyes in a silent salute to Belli&039;-mar Juraviel, and to Cazzira, who had beco the Path of Starless night But they were dead, she told herself - or else they, too, had escaped, and would likely do better than she in these dark tunnels
Either way, Brynn understood that she had to be strong, had to put Juraviel and Cazzira behind her, had to find her way out of those black tunnels and to her hoai-ru to freedom and do honor to Belli&039;mar Juraviel and to all the elves who had trained her for the task
She searched all about the fallen treasure then, ignoring the ge else thatof note that she happened upon was a beret, shining red even in the diht She picked it up and put it on, more to keep her bloody and sticky hair out of her face than out of any fashion sense
Al a little better, but it was a sub-tle thing and she didn&039;t e at her left wrist, which had been cut and bruised in the fall, she took it and tightly strapped it in place She co her torn shirt with a fine-looking sur-coat, lined with sown s and tied with a red sash that held her sword perfectly
And then she picked up her broken glow torch and started off along the hot and dark tunnels, detered off the pain as the hours passed, and searched out soht her
She made her ca to repair her broken la her lost friends in terrible dreaed herself up and moved on, step after step, day after day
The fourth day out, with rew di her in total darkness Overwhel she had ever known, the ranger fell into a crouch and drew out her sword, praying for light, soical blade erupted in flames, and Brynn shrieked in surprise and dropped it to the stone It lay there, burning, for just a moment, then the fire went away
After she had recovered fro all about and finally gathering up the fallen blade Then she stood again and presented the sword before her, and willed it to ignite once again
It did so, as bright as any torch Since she had no idea of how long the fire ht last, Brynn started away immediately, and with renewed hope
Days slipped past Brynn walked a the shadows, cliround river, the waters freez- _ cold She went on at times with the sounds of other creatures, predators rkely off m tle shadows about her, and at other tioal, wherever it ht lie and tried not to think f Cazzira&039;s reht did so of old age
On and on she went, through the hours and the days, and though her torch did not seem to be based upon any finite fuel, for it did not dim, the battered woman nearly surrendered on er, elven-trained, and Brynn was To-gai-ru Her people needed her; she could not fail It was as si, Brynn squeezed through a nar-row opening into a wider, ascending cha one, and so she paused in the larger area to catch her breath
And felt a current of air
Not the rising hot air of lava, but a true breeze
Invigorated by the thought that her ordealthe tunnel But as the minutes became an hour, she slowed; and when another hour passed, and then another, the woain after a short nap, and the feeling of the air becahter about her, and the breeze seemed to intensify, just a bit
And then she saw it, far ahead: a dot of light, real light, daylight!
Brynn extinguished her fiery sword and stood there staring nus would carry her
She exited the tunnel on the side of a h up Down below her, spread wide, were the blowing, brown-green grasses of her ho last, Brynn Dharielle had come home