“No, I’m a Lord Holder,” and Jaxom drew himself up proudly. He couldn’t resist the urge to pat the small egg once more because, while it was all right to be a Lord Holder, he was more than a little jealous of Felessan, and fleetingly wished that he, too, could look forward to being a dragonrider one day. And that egg looked lonely, small and unwanted, so far from the others.

“Your being a Lord Holder wouldn’t matter a grain of sand in Igen if Ramoth came back and caught us here,” Felessan reminded him and jerked Jaxom firmly toward the slit.

A sudden rumble at the far end of the Hatching Ground startled them. One look at the shadow on the sand by the great entrance was enough. Felessan, being more agile and faster, got to the exit first and squeezed through. This time Jaxom did not object at all as Felessan frantically yanked him past the rock. They didn’t even stop to see if it really was Ramoth, returning. They grabbed the glow baskets and ran.

When the light from the slit was lost in the curve of the corridor, Jaxom stopped running. His chest hurt from his exertions as well as from his rough passage through the fissure.

“C’mon,” Felessan urged him, halting several paces further.

“I can’t. My chest…”

“Is it bad?” Felessan held his glow up; blood traced smeared patterns on Jaxom’s pale skin. “That looks bad. We’d better get you to Manora quick.”

“I…got…to…catch…my…breath.”

In rhythm with his labored exhalations, his glow sputtered and darkened completely.

“We’ll have to walk slow then,” Felessan said, his voice now shakier with anxiety than from running.

Jaxom got to his feet, determined not to show the panic he was beginning to feel; a cold pressure gripped his belly, his chest was hot and painful, while sweat was starting to creep down his forehead. The salty drops fell on his chest and he swore one of the wardguard’s favorites.

“Let’s walk fast,” he said and, holding onto the now useless glow basket, suited action to words.

By common consent they kept to the outer edge of the corridor, where the now dimly seen footsteps gave them courage.

“It’s not much further, is it?” Jaxom asked as the second glow flickered ominously.

“Ah—no. It better not be.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Ah—we’ve just run out of footprints.”

They hadn’t retraced their steps very far before they ran out of glow, too.

“Now what do we do, Jaxom?”

“Well, in Ruatha,” Jaxom said, taking a deep breath, a precaution against his voice breaking on him, “when they miss me, they send out search parties.”

“In that case, you’ll be missed as soon as Lytol wants to go home, won’t you? He never stays here long.”