“Blasted wizards!” Koli choked out as he crouched over the crumpled, savaged body. “Even their blood tastes foul!” He wiped his dripping muzzle against the dead mage’s soggy tunic, rolling his tongue to get the taste of the man’s throat out of it.

Joblar was at the pool already, leaning heavily on his horse for support, wet fur plastered to his body. The plain to the east was chaos, and the tortured screams of the king’s soldiers burning to death was music to his ears. You could almost tell which patches of fire had been started by the dragon and which by the unnatural lightning if you wanted to. it didn’t change the result though. The entire plain was aflame, the pouring rain doing little to quell the conflagration, but only adding searing clouds of steam to the soldiers’ torments. There would be no passage eastward for a long time, and the man children wouldn’t be coming back to the spring even then. He turned to the complaining wolf. “What do we do now? He shouted over the roar.”

Koli didn’t even think about the answer. “We find a way around and try to locate The Tairn.”

Joblar blinked and shook his head, scattering droplets. “Will we wander the burning plain poking sticks into piles of steaming dragon dung?”

Koli was pawing through the contents of the supply cart, looking for something more valuable than threadbare blanket rolls and wormy flour, but he raised his head to utter a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ve called him many things in the short time I’ve known him, but never dragon dung. In any case, I’ll grant he’s been taken when I see proof of it.”

“You were there,” the dall pointed out. “You saw the great flying mountain, and the speed of it. “How could anything mortal escape such a creature?”

“I do not know,” Koli admitted, “but then, I’m only an itinerant trader who dabbles in war. The Tairn has it flowing in his blood. And men fought them once, dragons. I’ve heard the tales. Sometimes whole armies took the fields against them, but occasionally, the lone heros of legend.”

The dall snorted, wiping rain from his eyes and wishing for a hat. “Legends... tales.... you put a great deal of faith in faith, it seems. As like count on the gods to invite you for tea as count on legend to teach you history.”

Koli had to bury his head beneath his paws to keep from laughing out loud at that. “Alright,” he managed at last, voice shaking. “Tales and legends notwithstanding, I know the man. If there was a way to escape or defeat the dragon, I trust him to find it. Will that suffice?

“Meanwhile, I made a deal, and until I prove to myself that it is failed or broken, we proceed on the assumption that it is still in force.”

“What of the camp at Griffin’s Perch?”

Koli stopped his digging and gave his full attention to the dall. He’d made the bargain assuming he’d have the man to do the heavy work, but a deal was a deal. He looked to the horses and down into the cart and the one valuable thing he’d located so far, a vague idea fluttering about the edges of his mind. “We’ll stay here until morning,” he told the dall. “If the fires have died down enough to allow passage, and if they haven’t burned the camp to a cinder, we’ll see what we can do.”

* * *

Sandahl’s flank was badly burned, the blisters already full and weeping, and the pounding rain was painful in the extreme. There was no shelter as far as the eye could see– which wasn’t all that far in such a downpour– so Storm stood beside him holding the singed saddle blanket tentlike over his burned rump. He wouldn’t be carrying anyone for awhile, and wouldn’t be moving with any great speed even then.

The man’s bones felt as though jackals had spent the summer gnawing the marrow from them, and there wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t feel pulled or knotted. His eyes wouldn’t stay open, and he would have liked nothing better than to just collapse in a heap. But Sandahl had carried him through something he still didn’t understand, giving everything he had, and there just wasn’t any way he could allow the exhausted stud to have to live with the rain pelting on his seared flesh on top of everything else. So he stood there with his legs locked and trembling, head resting on an arm, and fought to keep the saddle blanket clear of the blistered flesh.

He awoke with a start, still leaning against the stud, blanket sagging just clear of the blisters, dripping cool water on them. The sound of the rain was gone, though his ankles were still awash. Raising the blanket, he looked around, straining to focus. The world was split into two sections, ground below and clouds above, with nothing between. As far as the eye could see, everything was grey-brown. Here and there a tuft of grain had survived the pounding, offering a hint of faded gold amid the puddles and mud, but the overall impression was of a blasted landscape without recognizable feature. At least to three sides. Far to the north, a dull orange glow still reflected from the clouds. Something bad had happened up there, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. The whole ride had taken on a dreamlike aspect and details were hard to capture.

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Turning from his perusal of his surroundings, he rummaged through a charred and dampened saddlebag, looking for some of the just in case items he’d packed. Ah, there it was, a small skin bag filled with the leftover burn salve. Moving to the stud, he dabbed it gently around the edges of Sandahl’s burns, avoiding the skin of the blisters. He needed a real vet for this, but didn’t hold out much hope of finding one. He wished he could wave a hand as Belius had once suggested, and see it healed, but he still couldn’t figure out how to access the magic at will, or control it if he could, so that wasn’t likely either.

Soggy to the roots of his hair, he was mad for a drink of water, wishing he’d thought to put out a catch pan while the rain had still been falling. Wiping hands on soggy pants, he stepped away from the splay-footed horse and crouched beside one of the legion of puddles. Muddy, it went without saying, and tasting of ionized metal, but he drank deep nonetheless. Another two puddles filled his canteen with the metallic tasting liquid. another long drink and his stomach started wondering about solid food.

Munching on a chunk of salt jerky from the saddlebag, he reached over and untied the map case from the saddle cantle. Thumbing through the tightly rolled parchment, he scowled around a mouthful of iron-tough meat. Standing with the case and partly unfurled maps in hand, he looked long and hard full circle. He shoved the maps back into the case with a muffled curse, tossing the case onto the grounded saddle. Without a single landmark, the maps were so much dead weight. He couldn’t even make a broad guess. There were star charts on the maps, but what good star charts without visible stars?

He was lost.

“What do you think, Knothead,” he crouched beside the drooping head of the stud.

A muffled snort that conveyed hurting, hungry and sleepy answered him.

Fair enough. He’d done what he could for the pain. The sack of grain he’d had tied to the saddle was as wet as everything else, but the grain in the middle was still more or less dry. He dipped some into the nose bag and tied it around the stud’s head.

Sleep sounded very good too, but where? The nearest dry patch of ground might be a couple of days ride away or more. On the other hand, when had he gotten so spoiled? His rump made a small splash as it hit the mud and he was asleep before his head hit his knees.

The heat of the sun awakened him. Stiffer and sorer than ever, Storm raised his head to survey his predicament. His head was splitting, his ass was pruny and his feet felt cracked and raw, but he could move everything if he applied some effort. The burns throbbed and stung, but no more than a really bad sunburn, and he could deal with that.

Sandahl snored beside him, hipshot, head down. His burns looked even more ugly in daylight than they had in the rain. Oddly, there were no flies. Well, it had been a hell of a storm, maybe they’d all drowned. A closer inspection showed the blisters weeping more freely, but not enough to suit him. Moving forward, he nudged the stud’s shoulder, bringing the animal’s head up in momentary alarm.

“You’re a pretty heavy sleeper for a horse,” the man commented as he untied the nose bag. “Feeling any better this morning?”

In answer, the horse snorted mucus all over his shirt sleeve.

The lancing wasn’t pleasant, nor the trimming, and he had to slap the stud’s nose away more than once when the urge to bite overpowered him. But it had to be done, and within half an hour, the raw flesh beneath the blisters had been exposed and slathered with salve, and Storm was searching for some more of the rapidly drying puddles to wash the smelly crud from his hands.

Midmorning and he was once again surveying his surroundings. It was hard to tell for sure but it still seemed too orangey to the north. East and west were as featureless under the light as they had been in the dark. South, though... south revealed something formerly hidden. Far off, indistinct in the hazy distance, the irregular silhouettes of mountains could be made out. No telling how far away they were without more experience with the physics of the second world, but there they were. Mountains was good. But which mountains were they?

You had enough sleep yet?” he asked the horse as he packed his meager supplies.

The saddle blanket was still damp, but he rolled it anyway, tying it to his bedroll with a rawhide string. He hefted the wet grain, contemplating its fate. But it might dry and the horse could probably eat it even if it sprouted, so he’d keep it. Freeing the reins from the headstall, he lashed the blankets, grain, map case, canteen and whatever else he could free from the saddle and slung them over Sandahl’s shoulders, just behind his neck. The weight would hardly be noticeable, and they wouldn’t get anywhere near the burns. After a bit of thought, he added the belt holding his pistol and blades. He took the lance in his hand, holding it loosely at the balance about a third of the way back along the shaft.

With one last look northward where his friends were probably waiting, he turned south toward the misty blue peaks. Sighing heavily, he bent to heft the furled saddle. He grunted at the sting as it smacked against his shoulder and the pommel scraped against his burned neck. The first step felt like a hundred foot jump, but the second was easier, and he began a steady plod southward. After he’d gone a few steps, Sandahl blew through his nose and limped slowly after him.