One hundred paces from the vast beast, now on its forelegs and dragging itself along, the entire company and the casa dismounted. Pages came forward and took horses who were as calm as they might have been in a pasture, because the casters had them covered.

The horses were not terrified.

The four ranks closed forward as if they did this every day, because, in fact, they did.

And the old officers clustered in the center, by the banners; Michael in the lead, and Tom and Sauce at his shoulders, and behind them, Atcourt and de Beause and Milus and all the others.

And then they went forward into the dragon’s fire.

Gavin galloped across the wasted land and into the snowstorm. His horse seemed to float beneath him. Once the mighty stallion stumbled, and he never knew why, and then he could see the black shape, the sinuous neck, the claws and the wing dragging across the fields.

Gavin could see the dragon breathe and breathe again, then over its back he saw the very tops of three great shields of puissance and he laughed.

Then he set his shield and put spurs to his borrowed horse.

When the company’s Fell Spears were twenty paces from the black wall of the dragon’s looming, scaly hide, Mortirmir let go. The Patriarch, the Queen of Faery, the Lady of Alba, the choir of Lissen Carak, the will of Looks-at-Clouds, and even the least novice among the choir.

And Morgon did not push it all into a single bolt. Instead, he divided the power among his choir, so that the vise of their combined vengeance closed on Ash from every direction.

The black Drake’s will held.

But in the drgaon’s head, the soul of Harmodius and the revenge of Thorn unleashed a last assault. And then, in that very moment, the spears began to cut through his wards in the real. Only then, at the bitter, bitter end, did Ash begin to see how deeply the insects loathed him; even as he tried to roll and crush them, he knew that his wards were down, and the tide of fire was rising against him, and this was his end . . .

In the end, it was Tom Lachlan, and Sauce, and Michael and Gavin.

They cut through the wards as if exercising in a castle yard; the ghiavarina burned like blue lightning, and the black shield parted, and Michael was facing the wall of scales and dark flesh of the dragon’s neck.

He passed into a back-weighted garde, and struck. Michael’s ghiavarina was the first weapon to bite the flesh of the dragon. His slash went four feet deep into its neck; a neck many times that thick.

Then Sauce’s beautiful sword from Firensi flashed in.

Hartmut’s sword burned in Gavin’s fist.