That’s where everyone seemed to be coming from. A few of them seemed to be charging at us, ready to fight, but the rest were just running in terror.

I shifted my stance—rolling my shoulder and flipping my sword—and I stepped toward them. I had no idea how to kill a dragon, but I sure as hell knew how to handle a guy in a red cloak running at me with a spear in one hand and a kasteren axe in the other.

He grunted as he raised the stick, but I blocked it easily with my blade, and his spear snapped in two. He tried to come at me with the axe, and I ducked down, dodging out of the way. While crouched down, I grabbed the broken staff and used it to knock his legs out from under him.

He cried out—something in a language I didn’t understand—as he fell back to the ground. I straightened up, and I saw the shadow darken his face—

“Bryn! Look out!” Ulla shrieked at me from the cover of a nearby wall.

I dove back out of the way in time to see the Älvolk I’d been fighting go up in a green burst of flames as the wyrm lit him up. I was still close enough that I could feel the heat singe the bottoms of my feet. The Älvolk’s screams died almost as soon as they started, so at least the death was quick.

I scrambled back from the burning corpse as the wyrm flew on, lighting more of the city on fire. It was enough to darken the sky, the smoke creating a thick gray-green fog that settled over anything.

Coughing, I got to my feet and looked up, watching the wyrm. My eyes were drawn back to the cages on the mountain. I had noticed them when we were first marching up to the plateau. Cages of stone and iron had been carved into the mountain face, making it look as if bird cages had somehow grown into rocky formations.

Each one of them contained a sinewy Ögonen, standing with their long fingers wrapped around the bars, their eyes following the battle below.

Despite the wyrm’s best efforts to burn the First City down to dust, the Älvolk and their warrior daughters kept coming back at us.

But they weren’t the only ones. The smog was destroying the visibility, but I could see the odd, lumbering silhouettes of the other monsters that had followed the dragon here.

I didn’t entirely understand what they were or where they came from. Ulla hadn’t exactly sounded certain when she’d called to ask for my help three days ago. But I had spent my entire life protecting the troll kingdoms, and I wasn’t about to stop now.