streaming past him was knife-sharp, black with smoke. He looked back over his shoulder, saw the destruction left behind in their blazing wake, and felt a small burst of hope.
Then a huge weight slammed into Atheria and knocked her hard from the air. Audric fell, lost Illumenor, went tumbling. Hands grabbed at him. Someone thrust a spear into the dirt beside his shoulder. He twisted, dodged another, then scrabbled through the mud for his sword. Something shrieked, a terrible snarling scream. His hand landed on metal. A familiar rope of power snapped into his palm.
He grabbed Illumenor and spun back toward his attacker—a towering angel in gold armor. He thrust his spear once more. Audric dodged it, and Illumenor burst into brilliant light. The angel dropped his weapon, shrank back, shielded his eyes. Their blades crashed together. Other angels converged on them, swords raised. He felt their minds groping for his, fingers digging into the edges of his thoughts, but something was shielding him—a familiar, supple barrier that repelled their attacks.
Ludivine. He hoped it was her. A sickening flash of terror swept through him as he imagined someone else keeping him alive, drawing him on through this battle toward some end he could not see.
He spun to meet the angel’s swords, Illumenor sparking brighter with every metallic crash. He dodged their blows, stabbed one angel in the groin, carved a streak of white light across another’s plated chest. He looked for Ludivine in the chaos, but she was keeping herself hidden. Was she watching the fight unfold from some sheltered mountain cave? Had she truly left them all to die?
A furious scream drew his eye. Atheria was locked in battle with one of the beasts—shoulders high off the ground, back ridged with fur and bone. Atheria reared up, ears flat and wings snapping. Red gashes striped her stomach. She kicked out with her forelegs, clobbered the beast with her hooves.
Something hard and cold knocked the back of Audric’s head. He fell, his vision spinning black. He tried to stand but was pushed flat to the ground. A plated boot on his chest pinned him in the mud. He looked up, blinking hard, and saw the shape of an armored angel framed by radiant white wings.
A blade touched his throat. His skin gave beneath it, a needle-sharp prick of pain.
Then the air bloomed with sound. Rich and warm, like voices raised in song.
The pressure on Audric’s chest lessened. He surged upward, Illumenor blazing, and sliced the angel’s torso in two. The body fell, its two halves smoking, and did not rise again. Whatever angel had lived inside it had fled, and Audric could see why at once.
Across the Flats, great winged shapes were dropping out of the sky. The spinning light of casted magic illuminated them as they hurtled into battle. They swept fast through the fight and knocked scores of angels to the ground.
Audric stared in wonder at their mighty furred bodies, their huge hooked wings that boomed like drums as they flapped.
They were dragons. Dragons, which no one had seen for an age. Dozens of them, some skinny and lean, the size of horses, others broad and muscled, large as warships. Figures rode atop them carrying staffs and swords, cloaks flying like dark wings behind them.
A passage from one of Audric’s favorite stories flashed through his mind. At the dawn of the Second Age, with the angels banished to the Deep, the saints began carving new cities out of the war-ravaged ground, and during these first years of peace, the godsbeasts fled the human cities. Where they went, it is not known, but some believe the ice dragons, the bestial champions of Saint Grimvald, retreated to the far north. They allowed only their chosen companions, the Kammerat, or dragon-speakers, to join them in those frozen reaches. Any others who have dared seek them have perished, their bodies returned home in the night, wrapped in the dark hooded plaincloth the Kammerat favor.
Audric watched in awe as the Kammerat raised polished horns of bone to their lips. They rode the dragons as easily as if they had born atop them. It was they who filled the air with song, the cascading calls of their horns ringing through the night.
The beasts tormenting the archers at the wall dropped their prey and shot back across the lake to meet the new arrivals, their shrieking calls piercing the air. Two winged battalions raced toward each other through a sky of smoke and sparks. For