One of the stalagmites moved, then another, equidistant. Something scraped along the cavern floor. Vast claws gouged stone, and a bronze-scaled breast hove into view like the keel of a mighty ship. High above; a snort of flame lit the vaulted roof sulfur-yellow. Tanaros took a step backward, reaching unthinking for the hilt of his sword, then held his ground as the dragon bent his sinuous neck downward, scales glinting in the slanting light from the opening.

“Tanaros Caverosss.”

The mighty jaws parted as the dragon spoke, lined with rows of pointed teeth, each one as large as a man’s hand. Forge-breath ruffled the Soldier’s hair, but he stood unflinching though the dragon’s head hovered above his own, incomprehensibly vast. Thin trickles of smoke issued from the dragon’s nostrils and its eyes were green, green and cat-slitted, lit with an inner luminescence.

“Calandor.” Tanaros bowed, unable to conceal the awe in his face. “Eldest, I bear you greetings from my Lord Satoris, whom you once called friend.”

A nictitating membrane covered the dragon’s eyes in a brief blink; a smile, though Tanaros could not have known it. “I am not the Eldessst, Blackssword. Your Masster knows as much. What does he want, the Sssower?”

“He wants our aid, Calandor,” Lilias said aloud what the dragon already knew. “He wants to lay a false trail to our doorstep for the Ellylon to follow.”

Calandor ignored her, dragging himself past them step by slow step to the verge of the cavern, positioning his immense claws with care. His plated underbelly rasped on the stone. The crest of spines along his neck became visible, the massive shoulders. His wings, folded at his sides, the vaned pinions glittering like burnished gold. Outspread in the sky, they would shadow the mountainside. Lilias heard Tanaros stifle a gasp.

The dragon scented the air through nostrils the size of dinner-plates. “Sheep,” he said, sounding satisfied. “In the northeast meadow. Three have lambed this day. I am hungry, Liliasss.”

“Then you shall feed, Calandor.”

“At nightfall,” the dragon said. “I will take wing. Two ewes, and one lamb.”

“It shall be so, Calandor.” Lilias had conferred with her head herdsman, as she did each spring. They knew, to a lamb, what losses the flock could sustain. The dragon knew it, too. She wondered at what game he played.

Calandor’s head swung around, swiveling on that sinuous neck, green eyes fixing on the Soldier. “You were to have been my rightful prey, Man! You whose numbers have overrun the earth.”

Tanaros shuddered and held fast. “I represent my Lord, not my race, Calandor.”

Twin jets of smoke emerged in a laugh. “The Shaper.”

“Yes,” Tanaros said. “The Shaper.”