The dragon’s voice was hypnotic, her face impassive.

“So you sought to roll from the nursery that egg which housed my mother’s heir. But the queen’s sleep was not so deep as other dragons’. She woke. I hatched to find not nurturing attendants but a predator. I struck, defending my own life until my dam could save me. It was my tiny eggteeth and infant claws which scarred your icy breast.”

The red dragon’s enormous talons upon the ground tightened, crushing the powdery stone.

“You slipped my mother’s traps and escaped the Smoking Hills. She ordered all your kind driven forth, expecting the lot of you to perish in the arid cold aboveground. But you had stolen fire and borne it with you. Thus were your kind able to survive and flee the Smoking Hills.”

She turned. Ruby eyes studied him.

“Thus were you able to make your way across the Salt Waste and the Plain. You came here to trouble these unicorns, to steal their lands from them.”

The firedrake’s jeweled wings tensed, spread, stretching to their full extent.

“My mother, having flown her nuptial flight, had lost her wings and could not follow you. Nor could her earthbound sisters, since among my kind only unwed queens and their mates have wings.”

Wyzásukitán hissed, her breath steaming.

“But I have always known what task I must perform before relinquishing my maidenhead. I have been a long, long time growing my wings, Lynex. Four hundred years have I contemplated this tryst.”

The white wyrm rolled, sprawling, seeking to crawl away from her, toward the far edge of the burning ring.

“No,” he groaned, then half shrieked. “Mercy!…”

“What mercy had you for a new-hatched dragon pup?” the queen of the red dragons inquired, her enormous presence glittering above him in the hot light of the fire. “What mercy did you show these unicorns, and their ancestors? What mercy did you grant any of your own kind who spoke out against your ruthless ways?”

She reached for him.

“Ah!” cried Lynex, shrinking and writhing as her great forepaw entered the ring of fire. “Let me go! Let me go!”

The queen of the red dragons shook her vast head. “Never,” she answered. “My mother made that mistake. I shall not repeat it.”

“What do you intend to do with me?” the white wyrmking shrieked, struggling uselessly against the dragon’s grasp.

Wyzásukitán eyed him, and with a snuff of her strange white breath, doused the fire surrounding him. Flame jetted from her nostrils then, in steady, controlled spurts, illuminating the night.

“My mate-to-be is young yet,” replied the dragon queen. “It will be hundreds of years before he is ready to fly. Till then, he needs a plaything. Something long-lived to amuse him as he grows.” Lifting her head, she shot a great gout of fire across the sky, then bent to examine her prize. “Lynex,” she inquired, “can you sing?”

“No!’ the wyvern screamed. “No! No!”

His howls grew softer as she lifted him high into the air and, turned her attention from him to her other forepaw, the one she cradled to her breast. Carefully, she lowered it to the ground. The enormous talons opened. A unicorn stepped free. Tek felt her own heart kick against her side. Jan! Her mate stood upon the limestone shelves, whole and unscathed. Scanning the battlefield, his eyes found her. Their gazes locked. Bending before him, the dragon laid her head upon the stone.

“Sip again, Firebrand,” she urged. “One last dragonsup to protect you from your own fire.”

Tek’s mate bent his muzzle to the dragon’s brow. The pied mare noticed for the first time the shallow depression, perfectly round, like a little Mirror of the Moon. Dark waters swirled there. She saw Jan drink.

“My thanks to you, Dark Moon,” said Wyzásukitán, her white breath smoking, “for rousing me from my long sleep and guiding me here. Dance fire now through all the stinging wyverns’ dens, that none may ever return to trouble you. Fare well.”

Lifting her whiskered head, she scanned the unicorns. Around her, Tek saw her new-met, shaggy allies all stood with heads bowed. The dragon queen smiled.

“And fare well to you, proud Scouts of Halla, who lately dwelt among my kind. My sisters and I will miss your beautiful singing. We must find us other songs to haunt our dreams.”

Her ruby eyes found Jan again.

“Firebrand, I take my leave. May the light of Her of the Thousand Jeweled Eyes illumine you.”

Pulling herself upright into a crouch, the vast dragon sprang skyward. Her breath flared out in mighty bursts of flame, coruscating in the air, which hung thick and dark, full of particles. She coursed upward, as though to overleap the strange black cloud. Lynex’s wails and cries receded. The darkness swallowed them. The great belling notes of the dragon’s voice shot away to the northeast, back toward the Smoking Hills.

Tek stirred, saw Jan ramping, striking his heels and his horn to the ground. Sparks flew up, showering, setting the bone-dry wisps of grass ablaze. He dashed for the largest entrance to the wyverns’ dens, the one through which Lynex and his bodyguards had emerged. A swarm of burning stars swirled in the wake of Alma’s Firebringer as he disappeared into the cave.

Tek heard a roar, as of some resinous substance kindling all in a flash. Fire spouted from the mouth of the wyverns’ dens, accompanied by roiling smoke. Tek saw smoke and flame begin to pour from other openings. Within moments, every lightwell in the porous limestone blazed with preternatural light. Crashes and rumbles, as of tunnels collapsing or bursting. The battlefield rocked. Tek heard those wyverns who yet remained screaming in fear.

“Let them go! Let them go,” the pied mare shouted as the white wyrms slithered like stormwater toward the Plain. “Let the dogs and grass pards finish them!”

Her own folk milled, but held their ground. The shelves trembled and jarred. Pain in her side bit deep.

“That was Jan!” she heard Dagg beside her exclaim. “Jan, in the hand of the dragon queen.”

“The holy Firebrand,” Oro beside him whispered.

The dappled warrior turned to the shaggy stranger. “He’s gone down into the wyrms’ dens and set them alight.”

Dazed, Dagg took a step in that direction, as though he half meant to go after his friend. The red mare Jah-lila called, “Hold. We cannot follow.”

A dark grey ash began to fall. Tek realized for the first time that the mysterious black cloud was descending, enveloping them. It was made of cinders, tiny particles of soot. The stuff felt warm and gritty, feathery at first; then heavier and heavier it fell. It caked her ears and mane and the lashes of her eyes, coated her pelt and the pelts of her fellows. It covered the earth upon which they stood. Beside her she heard Teki the healer breathe,

“Álm’harat spare us. It is the end of the world.”

Jan’s hooves sparked against the flammable crystal lining the wyverns’ dens. As he galloped deeper through the twisting warrens, everywhere his heels touched was set alight. The fire ran after him through the caves, casting a blinding glare and billowing heat which did not trouble him, any more than had the airless cold above the ashcloud or the fever of the molten firelake. A tireless velocity carried him through all the length and breadth of the wyverns’ dens, always faster than the fires he danced. Its flaring brilliance illumined his course.

He galloped through caverns and chambers, needing no guide. Alma showed him ever and always the way. All the dens through which he passed stood empty. He became aware presently that they were collapsing behind him, the superheated tunnels cracking and shattering, giving way in a series of terrible concussions. This would go on for a long time, he knew. Even after he departed these grottoes, they would burn for days.