WITH NO SIGN OF immediate pursuit beyond the Gates of Saradoom, Yaarah eased the panting, gasping lizards into a fast trot. Allory sang over Harzune and then over Xiximay. Best semi-panicked efforts. She touched her throat, willing the feeling of constriction to pass. They were safe – right? So, one half-frozen patient, the other unconscious and running a fever that should have killed any sensible creature instantly – but not a girlfae who not only played with fire, she was fire. Only a small issue with her Phoenix magic. One small, potentially fatal issue.

Putting one and one together, Allory ordered the pair to snuggle up.

“I can’t do that,” Harzune protested.

“Look, you can help each other this way,” she said brightly. “It’s the best way.”

“She’ll kill me.”

“Ooh, I’ll help with that,” Varzune offered, not entirely joking. Not all was sweet nectar between the two brofae.

“Entirely possible, but your pretty chilled state might also bring down her flaming temperature,” the Scintillant replied. Guess she was missing some cultural interplay here, because neither Fae seemed happy to help the other. Glancing over Harzune’s shoulder, she caught a flash of anger twisting Zzuriel’s naturally ice-calm expression. Aye. Deep breath. “Look, I can’t use Zzuriel. Despite her awesome gate-smashing properties, I suspect she’d kill Xiximay for certain.”

“I’m not touching anyone,” called the frosty Fae.

“You were fantastic,” Ashueli said. “Actually, that was an incredible team effort.”

Sabline made a rude noise in her throat and disappeared skyward to fly cover as they rattled and rolled away into the darkness. Allory checked the sky pensively. Pursuit? Not yet. This area was called the Battle Plains, a four-mile open stretch leading to the pass proper. Not a scrap of cover out here. To her relief, the conflagration receded with gratifying speed. Yaarah handled the cart with surprising facility. When would a scholar have picked up the skill of cart driving?

Whereupon he promptly slammed the cart through a large pothole and Allory rushed back under the tarpaulin to check on the injured.

About ten minutes later, Sabline returned in a flustered rush. “Trouble incoming.”

Oof. That would be payback incoming.

Everyone crowded out from beneath the tarpaulin to gaze back the way they had come. Eleven burly Dragons, readily visible against the very dark azure backlighting of a Spheris sky, plus the angry-bonfire glow of their throats, winged in rapid pursuit of the runaway cart.

Ash measured their speed with her eyes. “We need time.”

“Aye,” Harzune agreed.

“You! Get back there and heal up,” Allory screeched.

“I’m fine.”

“And I’m a Ripper Baboon’s aunt! You’re about to faint from the pain.”

“I never faint.”

“Neither do you own a bone of good sense in your body,” Allory pointed out politely. “You could lose the arm, Harzune. Please?” Stubborn Chameleon! Offering her sweetest pout and batting her long sapphire eyelashes at him, she cooed, “Pwetty pleasy could my big gwuffy hewo-boyfae, oh pleasy do-ee what he’s told for once? Ewen the biggiwist, toughest hewoes need hewwoic healing.”

Frustrated chuckle from Harzune. He threw up one hand in disgust. The other did not work. Allory folded her arms across her chest and tried her best titchy glare.

Varzune hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get lost, brofae. We’ll hear your orders well enough from there and we all know you aren’t going to be quiet for a second.”

“Sabline, come back!” Yaarah miaowed.

More trouble!

“We need a diversion!” floated back on the slight breeze.

“Sabline! Mrrr-prrrt, do females ever listen?” he howled. “What the – Sabline!”

Ashueli leaped to his side. “Give me the reins. Go help her.”

Growl of protest.

“Go!”

The scholar shot off in pursuit of his black muse, but the Sable Sabrefang had a long lead on him as she screamed up into the path of the incoming Dragons. Perhaps they did not expect an out-and-out assault. Maybe they did not even see her against the dark background. Whatever the case, as Allory looked on anxiously, the flight of Dragons suddenly imploded, with one beast slewing sidelong into another. The rest scattered, clearly searching for an enemy that to the untrained eye, lurked right beneath one crimson behemoth’s belly. Sabline flickered aside.

Even from a quarter mile or more, they heard the Dragon’s bellow hit a pitch of agony that made everyone aboard the cart wince.

Varzune spluttered, “I think she just stabbed him in the –”

“Male jewels,” Harzune put in.

Allory was about to turn a glare upon him that promised to do much the same if he tried to get involved in any way, when at least a dozen of the Chameleons aboard gasped, “What’s that sound?” or words to this effect.

She knew it. That whistle of wind … it was … oh aye! She squeaked, “Hyperdragons!”

“What and how much?” Varzune demanded.

“Cover your ears, everyone!”

These Hyperdragons were shifting wing like nothing she had ever seen. A flight of sleek, light mauve silhouettes hurtled over the Gates of Saradoom at a tremendous velocity. A rising sound like the utmost violence of a storm washed ahead of the neat seven-strong formation; indeed, their tails trailed odd conical clouds that she had to assume must be a phenomenon generated by their extreme speed. Could that mean they were breaking the sound barrier?

Four … three …

Sabline dropped away from the Dragons she had attacked without ceremony or grace, her wings blurring as she put on a burst of speed. Yaarah dipped onto an intercept course with her.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Suggids! Allory bit her lip. Her friends were too close, surely?

Two … one … WHEEE-KABOOM!!

Thunder rolled over the plains as the Hyperdragons cut narrowly across the top of the rival Dragons’ formation. Allory did not see exactly what happened, but four beasts dropped immediately, whilst the others shuddered in the air, perhaps dazed by the sonic attack. Mauve hurtled into her view from directly above! More brutal strikes ensued as a second flight of Hyperdragons no one had spotted or anticipated, hammered into the necks and spines of their enemies in a vertical attack. Outrageous timing. Devastating power. Her excellent Faerie night vision served up several broken spines, other Dragons knocked clean out with a flurry of almighty hind-paw blows. As the first Hyperdragon flight veered sharply, coming about, the second flight surrounded the remaining Dragons – a pair of yellows and three greens – and set about harrying them with paw and talon.

Orange fire billowed belatedly as those five remaining Dragons fought for their lives.

Playing with their victims, just as Inixipi the Healer Sage had claimed.

She averted her gaze. No! Sabline and – phew. Yaarah had his muse in paw. She flew in a laughably drunken fashion back toward the cart.

Another patient.

Out there on the Battle Plains, the rival tribes of Dragons fought and died. The Scintillant Fae immediately wished she had not looked, because what one of those male Hyperdragons was doing to a partially paralysed light green Dragoness …

She touched the soul locket. Heavier again.

A memory stirred …

* * * *

“So, the rumour is true, Commander. The Dragons have turned just as she predicted.”

“Correct, my King. They now serve Wraêthu of the Faroon, the one whom our Seers identified as a necromancer of unprecedented power.”

“This report disturbs my soul’s sap, Ula-Sali’karm Ashorinya.”

“Indeed. Not to mention the balance of power.”

“Aye. Ill news.”

Two Elves stood upon the living wooden battlements of a city that stood tall and proud upon the lip of a great canyon that wound away into the distance. Over two miles wide and a mile deep, the spectacular forested canyon was engraved throughout its length by a winding silver ribbon of river like a pretty ribbon wound through an Elf girl’s long, curly hair. On the sunup side all was of autumnal glory, all yellows and golds, burnt orange and light brown, where the Suylas Deepwoods began and washed up and over its mighty ramparts to the highlands above, surrounding the Elven fortress city of Ahm-Ulira in a sea of gently waving sylvan beauty. On the far side of the river, the sundown side, lay a lush grassy meadow that soon would be crushed by the boot of the invader, by the mighty army whose watchfires now burned not far over the horizon, their smoke rising to blight an otherwise cloudless Centresky.

The Dark Elf called Ashorinya was a giantess who stood no less than seven and a half feet tall, with a thick silver hair braid that reached her waist. She wore full Elven scale armour and stood lithe and ready, her hands even at rest appearing ready to whip out her blades in a frenzy of destruction. Her face was strong and fearfully handsome, sculpted planes of sepia crystal burnished by the radiance of dawn.

Beside her even the King of Elves, the undisputed ruler of Ahm-Shira and all Elfdom, himself no stripling at six and three, shifted slightly as if feeling uneasy at being overshadowed by this huge warrior. His simple forest-green robe swung about his spare frame as he paced up to the breastworks and placed his hands upon the living wood to join his senses with the great circle of protection that encompassed this city, two hundred feet tall and fifty thick, a tree-battlement full of sap so it could not be easily burned by Dragon fire. It was armed with vicious poisonous thorns that it could spit distances of up to two hundred feet.

His eyes narrowed, marking the specks of Dragons rising ahead of the smoke. Aye. That new alliance, swelling that already enormous army, grew strong to the point of becoming overwhelming. Yet the Elves had received timeous warning via this female … entity. Preparations had been made in secret against this day despite a lack of belief in many.

Right she was. Again.

White-knuckled, he considered the forces arrayed against the Kingdom of Elves. Wraêthu had already carved almost unopposed through eight kingdoms. His magic was said to rob Middlesun itself of power, his foul magic to demand the souls of the slain – and aye, those slain were many. Those who stood against had been slaughtered to the last child. Genocide.

“Ashorinya, should we welcome the Fae into our alliance?”

“My King, I believe we have no other choice.”

His top Commander’s assessment was true-sap, strong and undeviating; he knew the detail since she had laid it all out for their Elven Council two weeks ago and they had spoken privately on a number of occasions since, most especially during their journey from the capital city of Ahm-Shira to this remote fortress.

“You don’t like this?” he pressed. More a statement than a question.

The Dark Elf nodded curtly. “I don’t like what I don’t understand, o King Zammional. That includes both the identity and nature of our alleged ally, and the fickle nature of the Fae.”

“I propose to sap-bind them.”

The hidden watcher almost gasped aloud.

“My King, with respect, that measure is too extreme.” The Commander’s protest communicated regret, yet her negation was adamantine. “Trust cannot be fostered under the ancient geas binding – indeed, a binding which some regard as necromantic in origin. You know how it was used against the Ahlumviar in the past. Furthermore, the traitors of the Tiome-Shira uprising were identified and executed –”

“So they claim.”

“Indeed, my King.” Moving to his side, the warrior joined him in staring out at the horizon, which grew darker, a brassy green colour not dissimilar to a violent storm. Only, this was no natural storm. “What value is an oath taken under duress? Of my sense of this Wraêthu, he is an enemy an order of magnitude more dangerous than any Elfdom has faced in many a generation. His hatred of the Elves is legendary; of the Faerie, it reaches an unfathomable depth of xenophobia. May I speak plainly?”

“Always, Ula-Sali’karm.”

“Except in the Elven Council?”

“Only when I want you to scare them,” said he, giving her a comradely slap upon the arm. It sounded as if he had slapped a boulder. “Speak as clear crystal.”

The watcher smiled at their interaction. Not all looked favourably upon this warmth of friendship between Forest Elf and Dark Elf, but she esteemed what she sensed between them. Elves of integrity, these. True-sap and wise. The same could not be said for all Elves – nor for all her kind, to be sure. Even if an alliance were formed, it would be fragile.

None so fickle as the Fae, was the Elven saying.

“Extend the full bough of peace,” she stated, with a flat, cutting motion of her right hand.

His eyebrows shot upward. “Unconditional peace?”

Rather the unroyal yelp from His Majesty there. Snicker. That was a Dark Elf ambush if ever she had heard one.

Still keeping her eyes fixed upon that smoke in the distance, the Commander said, “That is no mythical fog of war which darkens our horizons, Zammional. I know you sense what I do. We will need all our wits about us to lead our peoples safely though this ruinous time that has fallen upon us. I – I only wish …”

“What do you wish, Ashorinya?”

In an uncharacteristic whisper, the Dark Elf said, “It is a foolish whim, my liege, but the crystal of my heart wishes that all of our allies would reveal themselves.”

Indeed, one ally did watch from hiding.

How had the Dark Elf sensed her presence?

Was it time, she wondered? The Commander had no idea how evil an hour approached, yet somehow through her Ahlumviar magic or some enigmatic intuition, she sensed the truth. Expectation burned in her Elven sap. Such were the ways of fate, when for reason no mortal creature understood, one soul touched another.

Unspoken, a word formed upon the Dark Elf’s lips. A plea.

She must, while the light yet remained.

A single sunbeam strengthened, falling upon the battlement three feet from the Dark Elf’s right hand. Almost at the same instant, the Commander drew her blade, moving like improbably fluid lightning to threaten the phenomenon – but she was far from quick enough. The tiny one rolled aerially over the ancient Elven blade, inscribed with many runes of power, and landed upon the point, feather-light, where she gathered her magical manifestation and bowed deeply to the pair of nonplussed Elves.

“My King, Commander, we should speak.”

“Who are you?” King Zammional said. She saw the azure radiance of her wings reflected in his wide eyes.

“What are you?” Ashorinya grated. “You dance upon a sacred blade?”

She replied, “My element is the whimsical play of light, so just as you cannot touch me, I cannot in the ordinary physical sense touch your blade. I am a Scinntarinae, or as you might better know my kind, I am of the Scintillant Fae. My name is Allory.”

Even in her dream, some impossibly remote part of her gasped and snorted, “Suggids! Me again?”

This realisation hooked her back out of the dream and slammed her back into reality with a lurch and a thump. Ouch. Definitely still a real person – with a pert behind clearly shaped for a regular kicking by fate.