By midnight, Storm had completely circled the camp, moving in as close as he dared on the downwind side without risking a raised alarm. He could probably have gotten in much closer, he knew, but this whole magic thing had him on edge.

If, as he was beginning to believe, the combat mindset conditioning was what triggered the magic, then most of the techniques they’d taught him for infiltration might well trigger it. If they had one of those spheres in the camp, it’d be like trying to sneak into the female enlisted billets with a fluorescent balloon tied to his ass. He was sitting in the tall grass to the east of the spring trying to come up with a better plan when he heard movement out in the dark.

Koli appeared out of the gloom, Sandahl beside him.

“Okay,” the man told him. “I’ll give you time to get back and get Joblar on a horse. Moonset do you think?”

“As good a time as any, I suppose,” the wolf allowed. “At least it will be harder to shoot you full of musket balls or arrows with no moon.”

“Right,” Storm rolled an eye. “Moonset, and I’ll head toward the camp on foot, cursing and swatting and generally making a whole lotta noise. Once they’ve gotten a good look at me, I’ll yell something stupid, turn tail and run for it. That should get most of them out into the grass to try and get a shot at me. Especially if I make enough noise thrashing around in the dark.

“Soon as the camp is empty or nearly empty, you and Joblar sweep in from the west. Gather up whatever water you can while the animals are drinking and get the hell out. Might as well steal their horses if they leave them. Never can have too many horses. I’ll swing around to join you once I’ve tolled the soldiers far enough away.”

“I’ve no faith they’ll hare off after you,” Koli lamented, “but I’ll do what I can as the opportunity presents itself. I take it I’m to be as quiet as possible in doing this? In the unlikely event that the entire party does chase after you like a house cat chasing moths?”

Storm shrugged. “I’m thinking pistol fire might clue them in on the trick, yeah.”

The wolf laughed. “I never use thunderers in this form, Tairn. The recoil hurts my teeth. But I will try to be quiet.”

The moon was the barest sliver on the horizon when Storm took to his feet, sweeping his eyes across the plain to anchor his position in his mind. Wouldn’t do to lose track of the horse with so many chasing him. Satisfied, or as satisfied as he was likely to get under the circumstances, he moved north to the spot where Koli had stopped him originally. Then he turned straight in for the camp.

They’d changed guards while he’d been circling the camp earlier, and he knew about where each was, so he was able to give the nearest a wide berth without being obvious. He tensed as he came within sensing range of the soldier, ready for the challenge. None came. Closer in, he could discern forms around the fire and further out in the gloom. No smell of food reached him, nor any sound of conversation.

He was starting to get nervous but it was too late to change the plan now. He was about as close as he was going to get.

“Ho the—!”

A searing flash of light lit the entire surrounding countryside, and the mechanical eye went dark as the circuit breaker tripped. “Sonofa—!”

Storm hit the dirt as a volley of lead balls whizzed overhead. Clapping a hand over the mechanical eye, he opened the natural one as wide as it would go, trying to pick out details in the camp. Shit! Shadows were moving everywhere, indistinct in the arc-white glare. That was enough for him. He skittered sideways a good fifty meters before laying tracks for the lands of the rising sun.

Gunshots crackled in the night as he left the glow of whatever had lit the night behind. One or two near misses whined past him, but he’d made it clear of the primary fire zone. Now what? Half blind in his human eye, the mechanical not working at all, he’d completely lost his bearings. He wasn’t even sure he was moving eastward. He was all but sightless. The ground seemed to undulate wildly, sliding away from one foot while racing up to slam hard into the other. He fell to hands and knees, fighting for calm.

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He could hear the voices now, as the soldiers —confident of a short chase— fanned out in his wake. That there had been a mage was pretty much a matter of record now. What a shame he probably wouldn’t live to chalk it up as a learning experience.

The next staggering step he took didn’t land anywhere, and he tumbled over a small cut in the prairie, rolling to a muddled halt in the gravel at its base. He was still trying to claw his way to his feet when something bumped him and a snorting whicker found his ears.

“Sandahl?” he rasped. “At least some-damn-body is paying attention!” He swept his hand around in the gloom and found a stirrup, climbing it to the saddle.

Sandahl was off as soon as the man’s rump hit the leather, and Storm nearly lost his hard won seat. The horse surged up and out of the cut, scattering three or four Turaleeans almost at its lip. Rearing, he fed a forehoof to the nearest and hit all fours running in a wide arc that would take him eastward well clear of the line of soldiers.

The mechanical eye cycled on again and the momentary dizziness had Storm clinging to the saddle like a four year old on his first merry-go-round. But it passed quickly, and his calm was reasserting itself. Glancing back, he could see torches strung out in a sweeping line. Well, it had sort of worked. There looked to be most of twenty-five torches out there, and he was ahorseback. He let out a wild rebel yell just to show them he was still ahead of them and took control of the madly racing horse, turning the stud south to parallel the line of searchers. He wanted them chasing him, not giving up.

A sound broke through the general cacophony of the search. Like far off thunder, or an artillery barrage over the horizon, it split the night with the crack of displaced air. But it wasn’t thunder, and if it was artillery, they had plenty of ammunition and were finding the range. Within seconds, the booming overshadowed all but Sandahl’s pounding hooves, and a gargantuan shadow deepened the gloom of the moonless night. A charnel stench assailed Storm’s nostrils, and some atavistic racial memory caused him to turn Sandahl abruptly even as fire burst to life above his head. A hundred meter stretch of grass exploded into blue-green flame close enough to singe hair.

Storm looked over his shoulder only once, beholding a sight that would haunt him the rest of his life. Seemingly an arm’s length behind and above, an enormous set of jaws, yard long fangs glowing faintly with the aftermath of the flame, gaped for him. Far back along the emerald scales of the jaws, baleful orange-red eyes the size of crawler tires regarded him with alien intelligence. Farther yet, the boom of displaced air hurled the monstrous form closer.

With no transition, Storm was in combat mode. The dragon wasn’t frightening any longer, it was a logistical problem. The horse wasn’t a living, breathing creature between his legs, he was a manipulable asset. Almost calmly, he turned from the gaping jaws and bottomless eyes and leaned hard left, jerking the reins as he did so. The flame gouted star-hot and Sandahl lost half his tail, blisters raising on his rump.

The man lay alongside his withers, reins loose, arms around his neck. “Run, Sandahl,” he whispered. “Run!”

The stud was already running, and poor, dead, Jobi Beltran would have been astonished at the way he was moving. The dragon had overshot and was wheeling low in the sky, shimmering like a far off constellation. Then it was directly before them, but the horse never faltered, ducking his head and dashing beneath the snapping jaws close enough to scrape his rider’s back against the gargantuan chin whiskers.

And then he really stretched out. He wasn’t running for himself, he was running for the man, and the man was still whispering.

“You are the wind, Sandahl,” he crooned. “You are the light. Your muscles are steel and lightning. Your heart is the pulse of the world, your lungs the bellows of the skies.”

The stud’s breath exploded in clouds of steam, trailing in his wake. The tall grass whitened and shattered with each step,. The dragon was behind and wheeling again, wings thundering. The ground was racing past almost too fast to see, but the stud’s hooves fell sure, barely touching the sod before lifting again, and still the man was whispering. “The earth fears your hooves and it flees before them. The air is your mother, and it fills your chest . The cyclone is your lesser brother, and hurricanes envy your power. Run, Sandahl, run!”

The thunder of Sandahl’s breath fought and conquered the sound of the dragon’s wings as the great wyrm began to lose ground.

Storm had moved beyond the cold place and into a realm he’d never seen. The plain was gone, the sky was gone. All of creation consisted of flowing colors and sharp lights. His arms and hands before him he could recognize only dimly as white-orange bands around the deeper orange that must be the horse. He could feel sparks of red-blue flash from the invisible hooves as they struck nothingness. The green-white of the dragon loomed impossibly large —larger even than its physical presence— but falling slowly behind.

A soundless sound of rage and disbelief echoed in his un-ears as the dragon watched horse and rider dwindle despite its best efforts.