Page 32 (1/2)

He has a great aronel reinning to relin-?L - L quish their grip upon the land, and there near the Moun-tains of Fire, the day was almost uncomfortably warm ?Yatol Bardoh boasts because he believes himself to be safe"

Brynn looked around at her arer, she knew, hungry to be back on the roads that would lead them to the next Behrenese city that would fall before the over the winter, she too longed for a great battle, ainst ar Bardoh will coonel shrugged noncoht lure hiain, and looked at Brynn hard ?Even if you do, going against that arreat a force as is now in To-gai And Yatol Bardoh"

He paused as Brynn spat upon the ground

"He is reputed to be a finedog, and nothing more," said Brynn ?And before this is ended, I will have his head"

Pagonel&039;s expression becaainst him?"

Brynn&039;s hard look didn&039;t answer the question in the least, and for a mo-ment, the mystic honestly feared that Brynn would do just that

"I will get him out of Avrou Eesa and into Behren," Brynn declared ?Not too far over the plateau rim I want him to see the sonel had never seen her so grim and so determined

Brynn said no h a pass, to where Agradeleous waited

She and the dragon hadthe winter months, but this one uj(j be the shortest stay, for that very night, after only a few hours aai was back in the air, flying fast for the north

They stayed along the plateau ri care-ful note of the terrain, a plan already beginning to form

Yes, she would lure Yatol Tohen Bardoh from his home, and let him sit up on the plateau helplessly while his hoht where she had left the the south and east, and the rest, accohtaway to the southland

"Noith the weather at last breaking, you will get your fight," Brynn told the force that would travel with her, and that brought as ai-ru understood the power of the Behrenese forces asseainst them, after all

"We will strike, and ill run," Brynn explained ?Leading our ene-e of the plateau rim"

"And into Behren?" one man asked

"We will take them to a point where there seems no route into Behren," Brynn answered ?Where they will believe us trapped by the plateau riainst us"

Morean, with the newest To-gai-ru ar an outposter settlely close to the frustrated Behre-nese army A week later, a second settlement fell, far to the south and east of the previous While flying about on Agradeleous that night after the second battle, Brynn noted that the Behrenese army had turned more to the south, and she also noted a line of couriers riding out straight to the east Yes, her enemies knehere they were, and kneell the terrain

She was counting on that radeleous in check, tightly reined She was not willing to reveal him further to her enemies, for all of this, in the end, would come down to his ability to serve her army well She did fly out to the south, to the Mountains of Fire, to instruct Pagonel to begin the march toward Avrou Eesa

Two days later, a Behrenese supply caravan was flattened, and the chase continued, and the word continued to spread into Behren that the Dragon of To-gai had indeed returned to the steppes, but was fighting her way back toward Behrenese soil

Right in the region immediately west of Yatol Bardoh and Avrou Eesa

Thefor a pass that would bring the glory-hungry Yatol and his fifteen thousand onto the To-gai plateau to the north of Brynn&039;s position, with the second ar fast to the south At that particular juri ture of the two kingdoms, there weren&039;t many easy routes up or down tf plateau, and it seeon of To-had erred, for Yatol Bardoh would beat her to the north pass, arrivi within a week, and Shauntil had the west and the south already cut off Brynn&039;s To-gai based ar into the jaws between the hty Behrenese forces

And then, a few days later, they were out of roo their way to the east, and with south, west, and north blocked by the two pursuing arht," Brynn instructed her warriors

"For toht and die!" one man called out, and neither he, nor any of the others, seeriin our ride across the sands of Behren ? Brynn corrected, and she pointed out over the cliff ?Down there" She fin-ished with a whistle, and the great dragon Agradeleous rose up over the edge of the cliff, higher and higher, and bearing under hie platform, secured to his talons by thick ropes

They rode like the sandstorreat storai and her followers Before Yatol Bardoh and Chezhou-Lei Shauntil had even charged their way out of the steppes and back onto Behren&039;s light brown sands, Brynn and her two thousand had the city of Avrou Eesa in sight

The woht&039;s dragon flight that Pagonel and her main force was still several days away If she waited for theht before Yatol Bardoh returned, and then they would have to flee wildly, with the Behrenese in hot pursuit

But Avrou Eesa was a prize that Brynn would not let get away, for she keenly reriht, she went in with Agradeleous, swooping about the city, set-ting buildings ablaze and toppling defensive positions and great catapults, blasting down the ainst theh, Brynn yelled down to them, told them to flee Avrou Eesa or be destroyed ?Run down the eastern road!" she cried, claione!"

The response ca tight to Agradeleous&039; back and had the dragon roaring in protest at the pestering stings

"Destroy that group," Brynn ordered, and the outraged Agradeleous wasinto a stoop that shot hiht past the archer battery as he leveled out

By the tiradeleous flew out past the Behrenese line, , and he clutched two screah over the city, back to their original position, where Brynn repeated her warning that any who did not flee the city would die in it the next day

To accentuate her warnings, Agradeleous then dropped the two men, one after the other

At dawn the next day, Brynn and her two thousand charged Avrou Eesa&039;s western gate, with the dragon co in to support them from the north

There was little resistance, and when Brynn walked into the conquered citv soon after, h tower that anchored the eastern wall, she noted the lines of Behrenese who had fled at the onset of the attack, run-ning wildly to the east

Late that sa that Yatol Bardoh and his forces were co down from the plateau in the north, and Chezhou-Lei Shauntil and his were co the route to the south