The Fallen Fortress - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,33

appeared in the air above Fyrentennimar's head.

They will cut!" Cadderly promised, and he willed the blades lower, dangerously close to the dragon's head. He hoped to drive old Fyren down so that the beast would not be in such a position of physical superiority, hoped that his display of power would make the wyrm consider that continuing this fight might not be so wise a choice.

"Let them!" old Fyren bellowed, and his wings beat on, lifting his huge head higher, meeting the spell full force. Sparks flew as the blades chipped off of dragon armor. Tiny pieces of scales flecked away, and, to Cadderly's ultimate dismay, Fyrentennimar's roar seemed one of glee.

The dragon's tail whipped about, slamming Cadderly's magical barrier viciously, the waves of the concussion shaking the chamber and knocking Cadderly from his feet The line of dragonbane held, though Cadderly feared that the chamber's ceiling would not He realized then how vulnerable he truly was, how pitiful he must seem to this wyrm that had lived for centuries and had feasted on the bones of hundreds of men more powernil than he.

He had enacted protection from the fiery breath, had enacted a barrier that the beast could not physically pass through (though neither, he feared, would hold out for long), but what defense could Cadderly offer against Fyrentennimar's no-doubt potent array of spells? He realized then that his defeat could be as simple a thing as Fyrentennimar tearing a hunk of stone from the wall and hurling it into him!

The dragon whipped its armored head to and fro, challenging Cadderly's enchanted blades, mocking Cadderly's spell. Foreclaws dug great ridges into the chamber's stone floor and the great tail whipped about, shattering rock and cracking apart the walls.

Cadderly could not hold out for long, was certain that he had nothing hi all his arsenal that could begin to wound this monster.

He had only one alternative, and he feared it almost as much as he feared Fyrentennimar. The song of Deneir had taught him that the magical energies of the universe could be accessed from many different angles, and the way that one accessed those energies determined the grouping, the magical sphere, of the spells found within. Cadderly, for instance, had approached the universal energies differently for enacting his line of magical dragonbane than he had when entering the sphere of elemental fire to create the protective barrier against Fyrentennimar's flames.

Deneir was a deity of art, of poetry and soaring spirits, praising and accepting of a myriad of thoughtful accomplishments. Deneir's song rang out across the heavens, thrumming with the powers of many such energies, and thus a priest attuned to this god's song could find access, could find many various angles, to bend the universal energies in countless directions.

There was one particular bent of those energies, though, that ran contrary to the harmony of Deneirian thinking, where no notes rang clear and no harmony could be maintained. This was the sphere of chaos, a place of discord and illogic, and this was where young Cadderly had to go.
Chapter Eight
"It's a five-dwarf drop!" Ivan protested, holding fast to Danica's wrist. Danica could not even see the floor beneath the vertical chute and had to trust in the estimate of Ivan's heat-sensing vision. That estimate, "five-dwarf drop," twenty feet, was not so promising. But Danica had heard the thunderstrike of Cadderly's dragon-awakening clap, knew in her heart that her love was in dire need. She pulled free of Ivan's grasp, scrambled the rest of the way down the narrow chute and without hesitation dropped into the darkness.

She prayed that she could react quickly enough when at last she reached the end of the drop, hoped that the dim light of the torch Shayleigh held up in the chute would show her the floor before she slammed against it She saw the gray and turned her ankles to the side as she hit, launching herself into a sidelong roll, half twisting as she went Her roll took her over backward, so that she came squarely back to her feet Never slowing, having not absorbed enough of the fall's energy, Danica sprang into the air, turning a backward somersault She landed on her feet and jumped again, spinning forward this time. She came up in a roll and hit the ground running, me rest of her momentum played out in long, swift strides.

*Wefl, 111 be a wine-drinking faerie," Ivan muttered in disbelief, watching the spectacle from above. For all his complaints, the dwarf