It dropped out of the sky without a sound and no warning save for the enveloping black shadow of its descent. It was easily the biggest creature Redden had ever seen, and while he had never come face-to-face with a dragon he knew what it was. Studded with horns and ridged with spines, its body was covered in black scales encrusted with patches of moss and lichen. Redden smelled it before he saw it, its fecund scent instantly recalling damp earth and rotting dead-wood. Its wingspan was fully thirty feet, and its tail even longer than that. It was impossible that such a massive creature could manage to get airborne, let alone fly.

“Dragon!” he managed to scream before diving for safety.

Oriantha was already moving, hurtling into her mother, sweeping them both to one side and out of harm’s way.

But the rest had only enough time to glance up before it was on top of them.

The Trolls took the brunt of the attack, clustered together and thus easily the biggest target for the dragon. Garroneck and two others were killed instantly, the dragon’s massive claws crushing their bodies, its teeth tearing at their unprotected heads. One minute they were there and the next they were reduced to body parts scattered about the ground amid splashes of bright red blood. Redden heard Khyber Elessedil cry out as the dragon’s tail whipped about, catching her across the back and sending her flying.

Crace Coram, standing right next to the Ard Rhys, was quicker. Avoiding the tail as it swept past him, he rushed the dragon from behind and scaled its backside. Barely slowing as he reached the spikes that ran the length of its spine, the Dwarf clawed his way forward. The dragon reached back for him, jaws opening wide, but Carrick and Pleysia both attacked it from the front, Druid magic striking at the creature in fiery bursts that slammed into its head and neck and drew its attention away from the Dwarf.

Oriantha was down on the ground on all fours, becoming the beast Redden had seen earlier, all feral and wolfish as she crouched next to her mother. Redden scrambled up and started forward to help, but then stopped in his tracks.

What did he think he was doing?

Frozen with indecision, he hesitated.

Crace Coram was all the way up the dragon’s back and onto its neck by now. The dragon twisted its head in an effort to avoid the Druid Fire being thrown at it by Carrick and Pleysia while at the same time trying to shake loose the man clinging to its neck. The remaining Trolls had joined the battle, darting at the dragon, jabbing at it with swords and spears. One of them got too close, and the dragon snatched him up and ground him into the earth. Oriantha, turning ever more bestial, was circling the creature, looking for an opening.