Hardcoast came and went, a little cluster of stilt-houses and docks huddled between the shore and the sand hills. The ocean spread out, vast and gray, rippled by white caps driven by the biting wind, beneath a gray sky. There was only one ship in the harbor, rocking at anchor out in the cove. The sails were furled on its two masts. Was that the ship Liddy had arranged for them, the one meant to take them across to the mainland?

  Once, the thought of leaving Tol Morad had been terrifying and thrilling at the same time, back when she still thought this to be some grand adventure. Now, everything was masked by a dull pain in her heart. Everything that had happened in the last two days was a blur. It had all happened so fast, and she had been helpless to do anything.

  The wagon bumped along as the team of draft horses toiled up the steep hill. Hardcoast was receding now, vanishing behind a bend as the road left the coast and climbed back up into the mountains. She had spent the last two days in the back of that wagon, sitting beside Amon in the narrow wagon bed. The wagon had a canvas roof and sides that could be raised and lowered at will to keep the rain and sun off. The roof was up now, but the sides were rolled up, so Nora could see out.

  Nora pulled her eyes away from the dwindling coast and looked over at Amon. He had drawn himself into a sitting position in the corner of the wagon bed. He looked asleep, with his eyes closed, his head resting against the sideboard, but Nora knew that he wasn’t sleeping. The only visible change that Nora could see when he woke was a tightness to his face, his eyes squeezed more tightly closed. His white hair was matted with blood, red now fading to brown. Under the blankets and cloaks, there was more blood.

  A wagon wheel hit an especially hard bump, jolting them. Amon gave a groan of pain and shifted in his corner, drawing the blankets closer. Nora reached over and adjusted the coverlets. There wasn’t anything else she could do. She could bind a cut or pull a splinter, and she knew a recipe or two that her mother had used on bruises and other hurts, but Amon’s wound was beyond her. The crossbow bolt was still in his back, the shaft broken off a finger’s width above his skin. She didn’t know just how bad it was, but she could guess by his pain and by the blood that occasionally trickled from the corner of his mouth. He was so pale.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  No, Nora thought. No, she wasn’t going to think that. He was strong, stronger than his thin frame would suggest. He wasn’t going to die, no matter what he claimed, or what Sir Aren thought.

  The knight still intended to take Amon to Ravenwood, or so he said. Light, Nora hated all these elves, hated how they looked down their fine, narrow noses at her and Amon. Not a one of them cared about Amon or about her, Sir Aren least of all. Few of them were willing to even touch Amon, and those that did wore gloves and burned those gloves afterward.

  She remembered something strange Amon had said to her, ages ago in that cramped ranger’s cabin, after Ferron had bitten him while he was trying to pull porcupine quills out of the wolf’s face. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to touch a demon’s blood?” he had said while Nora bound up his bleeding arm. Apparently, the elves held some superstition about demons and their blood. They refused to risk getting it on their skin and anything that might have come in contact was burned or discarded. Bad luck, indeed. Well, Nora had more than a bit of Amon’s blood on her already. She had been the first to reach him after he’d been shot. They let her ride in the wagon with him, at least.

  Nora reached over and laid her hand on Amon’s forehead. His skin was hot and clammy. Despite that, he shivered. He tried to move away from her hand. “Don’t,” he said weakly, not opening his eyes.

  Nora persisted. “Stop being stubborn,” she said. His lips were dry and parched. He hadn’t been drinking enough water. She lifted the waterskin Sir Aren had given her. “You need to drink,” she said. Amon refused her with the barest shake of his head. His eyes were open now and he watched the trees go by as the wagon climbed up from the coast, back into the mountains, into the gloomy, dark forests. “Amon, listen to me.” He didn’t respond. She reached over and shook him gently, just enough to make him look at her. “Are you listening?’ They’d had this same argument often over the past two days, well, Nora had argued and Amon had listened impassively, or stared off into the distance, or rested his head against the backboard with his eyes closed. Nora uncorked the waterskin and brought it to his lips. He took a swallow, then turned his head away and closed his eyes again. It was better than nothing. He was in pain, that much was clear.

  It had been two days since that horrible evening. Two days ago, Amon had been hale and Ferron had been alive...It had all happened because of the wolf. No, it wasn’t right to blame poor Ferron. He had only been trying to reach his master. Those Celwyn soldiers had overreacted at the sight of the wolf circling and trying to enter the camp, as well they might; a wolf behaving like that might be rabid. The image was blazed in her mind, of Amon running heedlessly, of the bolt striking him in the back, his fall, and rising again, as if he hadn’t realized what had happened, Ferron spinning and snapping at the bolt in his ribs...The wolf’s mind had gone out like a candle in a wind.

  Clouds and fog lay heavy on the mountains as the wagon struggled upward. The mountains were all she could really see. Sir Aren, Galan, and ten soldiers rode along with the wagon, but no one was in view now. She had barely even seen Galan in the last two days. Apparently, Sir Aren had taken him on as a personal squire. What that meant, Nora wasn’t exactly sure, but she had seen Galan only a handful of times, and always at Sir Aren’s side. He hadn’t even come by the wagon to see Amon. Nora knew Galan didn’t trust Amon, not as much as she did, at least, but he could have come by. She couldn’t understand why Galan would want to squire for someone like that Sir Aren. The knight had all but ordered Amon killed.

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  The wagon reached the crest of the hill and finally broke above the fog. The view would have been dazzling, had the circumstances been different. Mount Basal dominated the eastern sky, rising like a white tooth out of the grey clouds hugging its flanks. They had come so far, yet hardly any distance at all, it seemed. Just three days ago, they had spent a miserable night camped on the high pass on the flank of that mountain.

  A tremor shook the ground beneath the wagon. The driver reined up sharply as the draft horses snorted and stamped in the traces. Nora hung her head over the side of the wagon, searching for the cause. Around her, riders struggled with their mounts, the horses spooked by whatever had shaken the ground.

  A second tremor, this one stronger than the first, jolted the wagon. Amon groaned and tried to press himself deeper into the corner of the sideboard and headboard. Nora sat up sharply. She could have sworn that was smoke coming from the pinnacle of Mount Basal.

  The mountain shook violently. Horses reared. Nora saw one elf lose his seat and go sprawling, his bay courser bolting into the trees. The wagon driver struggled with the team. He had set the brake, but the horses were in a near-panic, pulling at the traces.

  Mount Basal belched a plume of white-gray smoke. The column roiled and boiled into the sky, pushing higher and higher. A river of grayish material rolled and swept down the northern slope. Nora could only stare. Still fighting their mounts, the soldiers turned to gawk. Even Amon managed to sit up a bit for a better look.

  The ash plume rose and rose. In it, a winged form twisted and turned. Then it broke free and soared. Nora had seen griffins soaring high, thanks to Amon. This was not a griffin. The winged creature soared toward them, wings beating mighty strokes against the air, fleeing the calamity of the mountain. The snake-like neck and sinuous tail undulated in flight. The sun caught the glimmer of gold in its scales. Nora gasped.

  “A dragon,” Amon said hoarsely. Nora barely heard his ragged breathing over the pounding of her own heart. It had to be a dragon. She had seen drawings of them, and they looked like that creature. It was growing larger with every beat of its wings.

  The shadow of wings passed over the caravan. Horses reared and whinnied in panic. Nora slipped out of the wagon and craned her head upward, getting a glimpse of the dragon’s pale belly as it passed overhead. A half dozen of the elves had abandoned their panicked mounts and were even now winding their crossbows, watching the winged form nervously.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. The dragon swept around. It dipped low. A gout of fire erupted from its jaws, spraying a swath of ground ten feet wide in front of the wagon. Two horses and their riders were caught in it. One, cloak aflame, tried in vain to wheel his mount around. The horse’s mane was afire. The other rider was nowhere to be seen, his horse down and screaming. The dragon swept back around and landed with a crash on top of the fallen horse. It bent its long neck, ripping mightily at the horse, swallowing great chunks of bloody flesh with abandon. The soldiers formed a loose ring, crossbows aimed. Their awe had fled, replaced by duty. The dragon whipped its head around, amber eyes taking in the sight of the soldiers around it. It tugged mightily at the horse carcass, but it was too heavy to lift. Nora huddled behind the wagon, peering around at the spectacle.

  A crossbow clicked, then another and another. The dragon roared. The wind of its wings beat the soldiers back as it took to the air, one horse haunch gripped tightly in its jaws. It climbed higher and higher, out of the range of the crossbows. It vanished over the trees, flying south into the mountains.

  Nora stared at the sky where the dragon had been, stunned. The stink of burned hair and burning meat choked the air. Slowly, she made herself look around. The half-devoured horse was still smoldering. Sir Aren had somehow kept his seat on his tall bay. Sword gleaming in his fist, he spurred to a canter and roused his men. Only eight were left now. One blackened, crumpled form lay beneath the dead horse. Leoris, she thought, a black-haired man-at-arms. The other, Farolin, was missing, as was his horse. They had been caught in the fire, the rider’s cloak and the horse’s mane blazing as the mount bolted away into the trees. Galan emerged cautiously from where he had taken refuge beneath the wagon. He seemed unscathed. He hadn’t had any choice but to hide, Nora knew. Though he still wore Justan’s sword at his belt, he didn’t know how to use it.

  Nora could only return to the wagon with Amon. He had barely moved during the attack, though he had watched it all. He was staring at the sky where the dragon had vanished when Nora reached him, breathlessly repeating the same phrase over and over. “She was right. She was right... She was right.”

  “Who?” Nora asked. “Who was right?” He didn’t answer. His yellow eyes were unfocused, as though he didn’t know where he was. She took his face in her hands and made him look at her. After a moment, recognition returned to his eyes.

  Watching the skies uneasily, Sir Aren gave orders for two men to search for the missing rider, while two others set to digging a grave not far off the road for Leoris. There were some mutters about that. Nora knew enough about elves to know that they preferred to burn their dead, but there wasn’t time to give Leoris the proper rites, no time to build a proper pyre to reduce his bones to ash. The remaining soldiers watched the skies, crossbows at the ready, but the dragon did not return. The ground shook periodically. Smoke still rose from Mount Basal.

  The two scouts returned an hour later. They had found Farolin’s horse, burned and blackened, but no Farolin, and no trace of where he had gone. There was little to be done. Sir Aren ordered two of his men-at-arms, Beril and Faradan, to ride swiftly to Farshire and find the rest of the company. They were to secure the town and fortify it against the dragon, should it attack there.

  The wagon lurched into motion and the remaining soldiers, six of them, fell in alongside. Galan rode beside Sir Aren, looking scared. Nora stayed with Amon. Ravenwood was still two days off. Sir Aren had said that there would be help for Amon there, but Nora feared he wouldn’t make it. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, his face ashen. There was nothing she could do for him but stay beside him.