„Should I?“ the Chezhou-Lei replied, his voice slurred and barely decipherable, for he could hardly move his torn jaw. „You are no Jhesta Tu, but merely a cowardly dog who shoots from afar!“
„And stabs from in close!“ Brynn corrected, coming forward with a suddenness that surely surprised the warrior. He spun his sword in to intercept, but too late, and fell back a step at the end of Brynn’s vicious blade.
Wan Atenn tried to keep the growl of pain from his throat. He wanted to hurl another insult the diminutive woman’s way, but he didn’t dare to speak, didn’t dare show her how profoundly her stinging thrust had stolen away his breath.
He found his balance, though, and his breath, and came on with sudden ferocity, his sword working marvelous circles side to side, up over his head, even around his back, working from hand to hand, stabbing out and retracting suddenly, only to flash back in at a different angle.
But Brynn, with her forward-and-back balance of the elven sword dance, stayed out of reach, and realized almost immediately that her style was superior, that the Chezhou-Lei, for all his skill, was moving in ways that bi’nelle dasada could surely defeat. He was better than Dee’Dahk, but he fought in the exact same style. And that style, with weapons spinning up high and to the side, had little defense against the snap thrusts of bi’nelle dasada.
The ranger held her countering thrusts, wanting to find the best opportunity to score a single, fatal hit.
„You would be less impressive without an arrow sticking through your jaw,“ she did say, if only to spur the already wild warrior on even more viciously.
Let him make one mistake…
The scene before him was surely one of misery, of men and women writhing in agony or clashing together like rabid animals, but Pagonel was neither surprised nor deterred.
He kept up the chase of the Chezhou-Lei, and when that man crossed past a comrade, who turned to engage the charging mystic, Pagonel simply leaped over the two of them, spinning as he descended to catch his primary opponent in a headlock, landing and snapping his arms down hard.
The crunch of bone in the man’s neck did bring a grimace to Pagonel’s face, but hardly distracted him. He stepped back suddenly, ahead of the other’s thrusting blade, and that second Chezhou-Lei, knowing he was overmatched against this supreme Jhesta Tu master, backed steadily.
Pagonel did not follow. He turned and sprinted to the side, to join Master Cheyes, to anchor the Jhesta Tu line. A score of mystics were down, some obviously dead, but more than fifty were still fighting, against only around half that number of Chezhou-Lei.
The battle seemed in hand, and the Jhesta Tu masters nodded to each other grimly, with satisfaction. the teeyodel horns began to blow, and the charge of soldiers, V jg of soldiers, began - the Jacintha garrison moving hard to encircle
vstics, and to cut off the escape route to the stairs.
p gonel and Cheyes saw it immediately, and called for a retreat to those with each going to a nearby wounded companion, scooping him up, and starting the retreat. But Pagonel looked all about and knew the truth: they wouldn’t make it.
To an onlooker, their movements would seem nothing more than a furi-
s blur of wild energy, with the Chezhou-Lei’s sword spinning like the fans ,f a favored Behrenese toy, rocking back and forth in front of him, warding away the sudden, and ultimately efficient thrusts from the elven-trained varrior.
Brynn kept every strike measured, confident that she could defeat the nan, that he, with his heavier blade and more exaggerated movements, vould have to tire before she did. As soon as that magnificent curving blade
his slowed, she would find her opening, thrusting her fine and slender vord through to a seam in his armor, and into his chest.
But not yet, not until she had him worn down enough that she could be certain he would not, in the last moments of his life when her sword was inside of him, score a wicked hit against her. She thrust in measured strikes id skittered back, always turning, turning, to keep enough of the large and flat boulder behind her for her next retreat.
She scored a stinging hit on Wan Atenn’s forearm, then another into the opposite shoulder, but those strikes only seemed to spur the man on even more ferociously.
Yes, it was moving along exactly as Brynn desired.
And Wan Atenn recognized that, as well, and then he surprised the young warrior woman, for as she retracted her blade after one teasing thrust, beginning yet another short retreat, the Chezhou-Lei performed a brilliant spinning charge, his feet stepping and turning in perfect balance, his sword going around in a complete circuit along with his torso.
Brynn saw an open stab at the man’s back, and knew she could inflict a serious, perhaps even fatal, wound. But she knew, too, that Wan Atenn accepted that inevitability, and that she was out of room to retreat, so suddenly. As hard as she might stick him, that terrible Chezhou-Lei blade, worn from years of battle - and that wearing only making the remaining wrapped metal even sharper - would come around, and hard!
So Brynn stayed her hand, refusing the opening, and brought her blade in front of her vertically instead.
Around and ahead came the warrior, his rushing, horizontal sword meeting Brynn’s weapon at midblade, forcing Brynn’s sword backward, forcing Brynn to bend backward. With the new angle, Wan Atenn’s blade slid up above Brynn’s head, locking both swords.
But Wan Atenn, heavier than Brynn by a hundred pounds, was than willing to force the contest into a close-in battle of strength. He bulled ahead, holding back her sword with his own, his left hand coming up t launch a devastating punch.
But then Brynn’s blade erupted into blazing fire, and the Chezhou-L ‘ warrior halted, even fell back a bit as he threw the punch.
And Brynn came forward and down, lifting her left hand up and around to grab the hilt beside her right, and to get her pulsing powrie shield up to block the punch.
The woman went forward more, pressing hard against the unyielding Chezhou-Lei blade, and then she dipped, just a bit, and her blade tip slipped free, and all the momentum from the hold shot it forward and down, creasing the helm of Wan Atenn, splitting the man’s skull and driving down deeper. She even felt it crack through the shaft of the arrow that was still stuck in the stubborn warrior’s face.
Brynn let the sword’s fires flicker out, and saw the Chezhou-Lei’s hateful eyes staring back at her, from either side of her blade.
The light disappeared from those dark orbs.
Before she could even consider how she might extract her blade from the split skull, Brynn heard movement behind her, and knew she was helpless.
The remaining Chezhou-Lei were more than happy to pull back from the slaughter, stumbling and scrambling to the waiting ranks of the circling Jacintha soldiers.
Pagonel and Master Cheyes worked furiously to organize their remaining fighters in defensive positions about the wounded. There was no way they could hope to get to the stairs, no way they could hope to get out of the tightening ring of spears and swords.
„And so the Chezhou-Lei refuse to do battle fairly,“ Master Cheyes remarked with obvious disgust. „And so I am not surprised! But history is written by the victors,“ he lamented, „and so our fall will be spoken of as a grand Chezhou-Lei victory!
„Brynn will bear witness,“ Pagonel said grimly. „She must.“
Brynn yanked and spun, bringing her sword to bear, but it drooped as her jaw inevitably dropped.
„Juraviel,“ she gasped. „Cazzira.“
And then she nearly fell over altogether as another familiar face, this one of a terrible foe, rose up between the pair. She knew that face, unmistakably, though when last she had looked upon the mighty dragon, that head had been ten times as large.
„Come, and be quick!“ Juraviel cried out to her. „The Behrenese soldiers have your companions trapped!“ He motioned for Brynn to move between him and Cazzira, while the dragon turned about.
Onto his shoulders,“
the Doc’alfar instructed, and Brynn, after a ^credulous look, lifted one leg and then the other over Agradeleous’ boulders, and with pushing from both elves, fell into a seated posi-^top the humanoid creature.
^Almost immediately, Agradeleous began to change, began to grow, and h the dragon fell to all fours, Brynn did not slip lower toward the nd. Cazzira leaped atop the growing beast behind her.
ments, Brynn Dharielle found herself astride a full-sized dragon,
straddling its neck!
„How are we…“ Brynn stammered. „What
„There is a time for chatter, and this is not it!“ Juraviel explained from the ground, and he held Brynn s bow aloft, then leaped up, his small wings bringing him to Cazzira’s side behind the still-stunned ranger. „Many soldiers have come against your friends, and without help they are surely doomed!“
„Die bravely and try to find a Chezhou-Lei to take with you to the afterlife!“ Pagonel told his warriors as the ring of enemies, hundreds of skilled soldiers, closed in.
The Jacintha soldiers lifted their spears and swords and cried out to charge, but even as that communal howl began, it was drowned out by a single voice, as mighty a roar as the world of Corona had ever heard.
Agradeleous the dragon swooped past, a line of his fiery breath immolating the Behrenese line that was blocking the mystics from the stairs to their mountain home.
Brynn sat astride the neck, her own fiery sword held high, while Juraviel fired off his own bow behind her, taking down yet another surprised and horrified Jacintha soldier.
Any in the Behrenese line whose legs did not freeze in sheer terror beneath them, broke ranks and fled. Pagonel and Master Cheyes, not taking the moment to question the unexpected turn, gathered their warriors and collected up their wounded and rushed for the stairs. Pagonel and Master Cheyes fell behind the retreat, ready to do battle with any soldiers or Chezhou-Lei coming in pursuit.
But none were. The Behrenese fled before the wrath of the dragon, before the fiery glory that was mighty Agradeleous.
The dragon banked a steep turn and came in hard again, a second fiery blast melting down more soldiers. He caught yet another man in one powerful claw, lifting him from the ground and crushing the life from him, and swept aside several more with his crushing tail.
And so began the day of horrors for the fleeing Behrenese, pursued from on high by the mighty beast and his three riders.
jorne soldiers got out of the area, but Agradeleous came in pursuit, and when the startled villagers that had been rounded up by the fierce
Chezhou-Lei spotted the confusion and the dragon, they too cried out in terror and began to flee.
„Not the villagers!“ Juraviel and Cazzira, and then Brynn cried out re peatedly to the dragon, and it seemed to Brynn as if it took the mighty beast a long while to turn away from the tempting sight of the fleeing mob.
„Fly over them, but bring no harm!“ Juraviel instructed, and then he yelled to Brynn, „Tell them who you are! Tell them to take heart, for Brynn Dharielle, the Dragon of To-gai, has come to free them!“
Thus was the legend born.
After shouting her message of freedom to the escaping villagers Brynn directed the mighty dragon to settle near a brown-and-white figure she had seen from on high. She slid down and hurried to her pony, whom she had feared mortally wounded. As she inspected Runtly, though, she breathed a profound sigh of relief, for the stings of the Chezhou-Lei arrows were not serious.
„We are not done with our work,“ Belli’mar Juraviel called to her, and she turned to see him and Cazzira standing beside an obviously anxious Agradeleous.
Brynn looked back to her pony. „I will come back to you soon and clean those wounds better,“ she whispered to him. „You just run to the open fields and stay far from danger!“
As if he understood her every word, the pony nickered and galloped away, and it did Brynn’s heart good to see him run.
Much later on, after many, many Behrenese soldiers and Chezhou-Lei had been hunted down and killed, Agradeleous, bearing his three riders, pulled up before the bridge at the Walk of Clouds, hanging there for a moment with his great wings beating, as Brynn slipped down to stand before Masters Cheyes and Pagonel, with many others standing in the background, gawking.
Without any hesitation, and without a word from either of the remaining riders, Agradeleous turned and swooped down into the clouds, disappearing from view.
Pagonel started to say something to Brynn, but he just stopped and stood there helplessly, his arms out to the side. And what might be expected of him, after all, since he had just witnessed the arrival of three of the legendary - and, many would argue, imaginary - races of Corona, including the sheer size and power of a dragon!
„I was trained by the Touel’alfar,“ Brynn stated at once. She held forth her beautiful sword. „And this is elven make, forged in the distant valley of Andur’blough Inninness, north of the great mountains. One of my companions is of the Touel’alfar, another is a cousin, a Doc’alfar, and the third . • • well, you have seen the third.“
„All in the region have seen the third, dear Brynn,“ said Master Cheyes, smile. „Our gratitude is with you this day, for the treachery Giezhou-Lei would have brought even more tragedy to the Walk of rl ‘uds had it not been for you and your… friends.“
«N rlv a score of my brethren are dead,“ Pagonel added. „And many
are wounded, some badly. But all of us who went down to do honor-
„bf^battle would have died this day, had it not been for the arrival of the count the Behrenese losses in the hundreds,“ the woman replied. „In-luding nearly all of the Chezhou-Lei who came against you. It is a great „Victory?“ Master Cheyes echoed skeptically. „We do not view war of any kind as a victory, dear Brynn, but as a loss for all of mankind.“
Brvnn steeled her jaw, not about to agree. „Yet war lies in my path, undoubtedly so,“ she declared. „And I go with my heart full of hope that my homeland will be free once more. The arrival of the dragon, and of my other two friends, gives me the beginning I will need to drive the Behrenese from the steppes.“
„Beware the power of your dragon,“ Master Cheyes gravely warned.
„More important than the companions are the reputation that they have allowed me this day,“ Brynn explained, not wavering in the least. „All of the To-gai-ru who witnessed the flight of the Dragon of To-gai will whisper to their fellows, and so the news shall spread throughout the steppes, and so I shall find many, many warriors willing to rush to my side!“
„Many of whom will die,“ the pacifistic Master Cheyes pointed out.
But again, Brynn was not to be deterred, not in the least. „Then so be it.“
Master Cheyes looked to Pagonel then. The other Jhesta Tu did not return the stare, but kept his eyes locked on the remarkable Brynn.
„My time here has come to an end,“ the woman announced.
„This stay, perhaps,“ said Pagonel. „The future may hold a day when you, and I, might return to the Walk of Clouds, to study together as we try to make sense of this existence.“
His words had Brynn’s jaw dropping open, and had Master Cheyes closing his eyes tightly, as if wanting to deny them.
„You will come with me?“
1 agonel nodded. „This is my course, I do not doubt, though neither do I understand. But if you and your friends will have me, then yes, I will stand sside you.“
„When I walk into Dharyan,“ said Brynn.
PART F O U R
THE DRAGON OF TO-GAI
When first I encountered Agradeleous in his cavern lair, I recognized, or thought I had, the power of the beast. The mere sight of the dragon froze me in my tracks, for a moment at least. I have seen volcanoes and mighty rivers, wild hailstorms on the open steppes, and heard - felt! - the thunder of a buffalo herd charging through the grasses. In all these things I am reminded of the sheer power of the world around us, dwarfing us in our hopes and dreams
.
So it is with Agradeleous. He is a volcano, a flood, an earthquake, a catastrophe of the highest order, and unbelievably, his power has been given to me! Thatjuraviel even managed to make such a friend boggles my sensibilities.
With Agradeleous has come hope, so say the elves. Upon his back, I can fly the length of the steppes in but a day or two, gathering my armies, inspiring them with the knowledge that they will travel into combat against the hated Behrenese behind the power of a dragon. Is any outposter settlement too great a fortress for us now?
Is Dharyan? Isjacintha itself?
But there is another side to the lucky coin that is Agradeleous the dragon. Is his a power truly leashed, truly under my control?
I have sought out my answers in Oracle, but have found nothing more than the reminder of my murdered parents. I feel their anger keenly, more at the loss of our old ways than at the particular injustices they suffered. At Oracle, I am convinced more than ever that the ancient traditions of the To-gai-ru must be returned to the steppes, that we cannot tolerate our subjugation to the Chezru Chieftain and his Yatols.
Still, I cannot dismiss this power I have been given, this awesome and awful responsibility. Agradeleous will heed to my commands, so said Belli’mar Juraviel. But in those terrible minutes after the ranks of Behrenese had broken, when the dragon went in pursuit with the three of us riding, I understood that Agradeleous truly follows only the commands of Agradeleous. How he blasted through the ranks of the fleeing Behrenese, with his fiery breath and his raking claws, his snapping maw and that crushing tail!
I fear what I might see if ever I allow Agradeleous to run loose against a Behrenese city. Will the dragon distinguish between soldier and civilian? Between man and child?
And so I have been given a choice, and it is one that surely tugs at my heart. With Agradeleous, I can take great strides toward my long-desired goal, flying high across the To-gai sky atop the great beast, I can give my people a rallying point, using my own reputation as the
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