“High Lord!” Questor Thews cried out in warning.

Nightshade whirled just in time to be caught by the full force of a magical gesture from the magician that swept the witch up in a blinding flurry of snowflakes. Nightshade swatted at them angrily, screamed, and threw fire back at him. Shards of flame hissed past Ben as he flung himself down again, smothering the gnomes. The fur on Abernathy’s hind end caught fire, and the scribe disappeared up the slope of the Fire Springs with a yelp.

Then Strabo surfaced once more from the crater into which he had fallen, roaring in fury. Uncoiling his serpentine body with a lunge, he sprayed the whole of the Springs with fire. Nightshade swung back on him, shrieking with equal fury, spraying fire of her own. Ben was on his feet and running for his life. The fire swept over him, a wall of heat and red pain. But Questor was there now, hands gesturing desperately, and a shield of some impenetrable plastic substance appeared out of nowhere to slow the fire down. Ben kept his arms locked about the struggling, whimpering G’home Gnomes and scrambled desperately to escape the pursuing flames. Bunion’s tough arms closed about his waist and helped haul all three toward the lip of the cratered valley. Questor followed, calling out in encouragement.

Moments later, they reached the rim of the Fire Springs and stumbled from the heat and smoke into the cooling scrub. Coughing and gasping, they collapsed in a tangled knot. Abernathy joined them from out of the dark.

Behind them, the witch and the dragon continued their private battle uninterrupted, their shrieks and roars filling the night. They hadn’t even realized yet that the object of their struggle had escaped.

Ben glanced hurriedly at his companions. White eyes blinked back at him through the dark. No sense in resting now, they all seemed to agree. It wouldn’t take long for the witch and the dragon to realize what had happened.

Stumbling to their feet once again, they disappeared swiftly into the night.

SEARCH

It was sometime after midnight when Ben and his companions finally broke off their flight. The skies had gone black with thunderheads that rolled eastward out of the grasslands. Moons and stars disappeared as if blown from the heavens by the sudden winds, thunder rumbled in long booming peals, and lightning laced the skies. The rains came swiftly, hard and chill, sweeping broomlike across the wastelands. There was barely time to find shelter in a thick copse of fir before the whole of the land surrounding had turned invisible in a wash of impenetrable mist and damp.

The company sat beneath the massive boughs of the centermost fir and peered out through the curtain of needles at the downpour. Wind rushed in stinging swipes through the trees and scrub, and water cascaded down. Everything faded away amid the steady sounds, and the stand of trees became an island in the gloom.