Mari lowered her short sword. "They're gone," she said hoarsely. "They've given up."

Kellen moved to the wall. He pulled himself up rough stones and peered over the edge. "No, they haven't given up," he said quietly. "They're just… changing."

Drawn by his strange words, the others approached the wall.

"By all the gods of darkness!" Ferret swore.

The shadowhounds had gathered at the base of the hill, milling around in a growling throng. Two hounds brushed against each other, and, as if made of dark clay their separate forms merged into one. More shadowhounds pressed themselves against their brethren merging their bodies into shapeless blobs that oozed fluidly across the ground. Finally, the formless blobs coalesced with the remaining shadowhounds into one gigantic mass, which began to take on a new shape. Wings spread outward like midnight sails, a sinuous neck unfurled like a great serpent. Crimson eyes blinked to life in a huge, wedge-shaped head, and obsidian talons sprang from outstretched claws. The thing tilted its horned head back, its vast roar sundering the night.

"Milil save us," Mari whispered in awe.

It was a dragon. A dragon of shadows.

Seventeen

The shadowdragon spread its vast wings and rose into the sky, blotting out the stars.

Kellen had never seen anything so magnificent—or so terrifying. The shadowdragon soared higher, the surging sound of its pumping wings like that of white-capped waves breaking on a rocky shore. In moments, the gigantic beast circled far above hill and ruined tower, tilting its triangular head back to let out another trumpeting roar. "All right, now what?" Ferret rasped, his pointed nose twitching furiously. The little thief looked at the mage expectantly.

"I'm open to suggestions," Morhion snapped.

"What about Isela's ring?" Mari shouted over the dragon's roar. "It helped protect us against the shadowhounds."

"It is worth a try," the mage agreed. "Well, you might want to try soon," Ferret gulped, pointing upward.

Silhouetted against the starry sky, the shadowdragon folded its wings against its body and dove, stretching out scythelike talons. Morhion crossed his wrists and shouted the guttural words of an incantation. Crackling bolts of blue lightning sprang from his out-turned palms and shot upward. As the bolts sped toward the shadow dragon, the jeweled ring on his left hand blazed brilliantly.

The lightning changed from blue to deep violet. The diving dragon spread its sail-like wings, halting impossibly in midair. The beast cocked its neck, then thrust its head forward, jaws gaping open. Some dragons breathed fire, others emitted clouds of poisonous gas or flesh-searing acid. This was a dragon of shadow. Its breath was darkness.

A bolt of onyx streamed from the dragon's mouth and collided with the crackling purple lightning halfway between mage and beast. Tendrils of darkness coiled around the blazing pillar of lightning and spiraled rapidly downward, like black serpents slithering down a glowing column.

"Morhion, let go of the spell!" Kellen cried out.

His face twisting with effort, the mage uncrossed his wrists at the last possible second. The onyx dragonbreath engulfed the magical lightning, and the spell shattered violently, filling the night with hurtling shards of slick darkness and sizzling purple radiance. The force of the explosion threw Morhion backward against the stone wall. He slumped to the ground and Mari ran to him.

"I'm all right," he gasped hoarsely. "But if the ring has the power to help us now, I do not know the key…"

"Well, we'd better think of an alternate plan, and on the double," Ferret suggested nervously.

The shadowdragon swooped low over the hilltop, then soared into the sky to ready itself for another dive. As it passed overhead. Ferret hurled his dagger in a precise arc. The knife struck the creature's eye—and passed right through the shadowy substance of its body. The thief swore vehemently. "How can we fight something that's made of shadows?" he shouted. Ferret helped Mari pull Morhion to his feet. The three gazed upward, faces pale with fear, as the shadowdragon folded its wings against its sinuous body and once more began to dive. Kellen did not join them. Instead, he scrambled nimbly to the top of the wall and drew out his bone flute. He took a deep breath and began to play. It was a song like no other he had made before. It was wilder, bolder, and far more powerful. It had to be, if there was to be any hope at all. The first notes to rise from the instrument were daring, questioning—almost a challenge. Then Kellen launched into a surging, rhythmic counter-melody. In moments, he felt shadow magic racing through his veins. His left hand itched furiously. It was time. He reached his mind out, calling to the shadows. They came.

Tendrils of dark mist rose from nearby pools of shadow and drifted toward Kellen. More shadows reached out from an inky patch at the base of the hill, and from the dark depths of a chasm a half mile away. Kellen had never summoned shadows from so far a distance. His song grew fiercer yet as more shadows heeded his call. They rose from distant valleys, floated out of deep caves, and drifted down from the vast reaches of the night sky itself. In moments the entire world was alive with shadows.

From all directions they moved swiftly toward Kellen, drawn inexorably by his song.

"By all the gods—" Mari started to swear, but Morhion held up a hand, silencing her. They watched Kellen in wonder.

Kellen concentrated on his music. The shadows above coalesced into a gigantic shape. The dark mist formed stamping hooves and flowing mane, black armor and pointed lance. In seconds the form was complete. What better foe to face a shadowdragon than a shadowknight?

Half man, half horse, the onyx knight of shadows loomed as tall as five men. The dark champion raised tree-length lance in salute, two starlike sparks glowing in the slit of his visor. He let out a trumpeting battle cry and launched into a gallop, angling upward into the sky, his hooves beating against the air as if it were hard ground. The shadowdragon let out a shriek of fury and changed the direction of its descent, diving toward its new foe.

Knight and dragon hurtled on a collision course. For a few chilling heartbeats there was eerie silence as the two titanic forms sped toward each other. Then, with a clap of thunder, they met. The knight's lance plunged through the dragon's body at the same moment as the beast's claws punched through the knight's armor. Dragon roared and knight screamed, the vast sounds shaking the very ground. For a second they spun together in midair, as if whirling in an eerily graceful dance. Then, caught in a mortal embrace, dragon and knight plummeted toward the ground.

As they fell, shreds of shadow ripped away from their writhing forms. Then more tatters of darkness peeled away. Before the two creatures could strike the ground, there was nothing left of them except for a few drifting wisps of dark mist. These settled softly to the moor and in moments melded with the night shadows beneath rocks and in dim hollows. Shadowdragon and shadowknight were no more.

Hands trembling, Kellen lowered his flute. The night was silent once more. Mari, Morhion, and Ferret stared at him in amazement. He smiled wanly at them, then collapsed.

*****

They spent all the following day inside the ruins of the old tower, huddling against the cold wind. To Morhion, the delay was maddening. With each passing second, Caledan drew closer to Ebenfar. Yet they had little choice. After defeating the dragon with his shadow magic, Kellen had fallen into deep unconsciousness, and had not waked since.

Ferret stood atop the ruined wall, keeping watch over the moor. A dreary mist had settled over the landscape once again. Mari knelt beside Kellen, bathing his fore-head with a damp cloth dipped in water steeped with willow bark. Despite the chilly air, sweat slicked Kellen's pallid skin. A fever raged inside him, so fiercely that Morhion could feel waves of heat radiating outward from several paces away. The source of the fever seemed to lie in Kellen's left hand, the one marked with the rune of magic.