The head snapped away with supernatural speed, the vulnerable eyes the size of a man just beyond the griffon’s reaching talons . . .

The huge Wyrm rolled to evade the griffon’s claws.

Another feint.

Ariosto turned on a wingtip, inside the circuit of the neck, away from the head. The head was coming around; Ash was in mid-exhalation and the backflow of his malevolence burned the very air, but Ariosto turned and turned, and the golden wings gave one great beat, the griffon lifted its talons and its hind feet so that it was flying along the great black body, inches above the surface of Ash’s back, down the drake’s right side as it rose, curling, like the hull of a black ship.

And Gabriel leaned out like a boy using a lance to strike pegs on the ground. He had the ghiavarina in both hands; Ariosto knew the game, and it was far too late in the game to worry about a fall. He leaned out; Ash turned, and the great wing of the black dragon reached back, cupping the cold air and exposing the wing root, where the massive bones and muscles that powered a creature that could not possibly exist met and knitted; a wing root that was itself only the height of a man or so, and into that wing root went the ghiavarina; a single stroke, the blade, made for this exact purpose, cutting deeper, and deeper, and deeper . . .

His left hand seemed to immolate, and a huge pulse of power traveled through the ghiavarina . . .

Gabriel smiled, even as his burning gold skin seemed to float away. It was excruciating and joyful. He could hear singing; he could imagine Amicia’s voice, or Miriam’s . . .

. . . and Ash’s head continued to come back, the infinitely flexible neck allowing his head to turn all the way back along the body even as the huge red eyes registered their peril . . .

In the same beat, the wing root burst asunder, and the breath of extinction crossed the man and his mount, and they were gone.

*

Blanche was not supposed to ride into the snowy fields of Alba. She was with Gabriel’s last reserve, and she had the key to the gate.

But she couldn’t stop herself. When she was fully armed by Beatrice, who made it clear that she had never, in all her life as a maid, expected to have to buckle armour, Blanche walked out of the empty pavilion of red silk, past the round table that was clear and clean. By Gabriel’s old folding campaign chair there was a silver cup lying on the tent’s carpeted floor; Anne had missed it in the rush to get armed, and Blanche stooped, her breastplate butting into her swelling stomach, and picked it up.

Pregnant and wearing armour, Blanche thought.