sneer that was the drake's reply played out simultaneously on all five sets of jaws.
Valas let his arrow fly, and all four of his own conjured images did the same. The little brass ovoid-a container for a spell that had been very specially crafted by an ancient mage whose secrets had long ago been lost-had done its work, and for each of the five portal drakes, there was a Valas.
For each of the five portal drakes there was an arrow.
The dragon might have heard them or sensed them in some other way, or maybe its curiosity had gotten the better of it. The creature whirled around and met the arrows with its right eye. Four of the arrows blinked out of existence the instant they met with the false drakes, and those illusionary dragons disappeared as well. The barrage left only one real arrow, one real portal drake, and one real eye.
The force of the impact made the creature twitch then stagger back a step. Valas could tell that the dragon could see him-all five of him-with its one good eye.
"I'll eat you alive . . ." the portal drake rasped, "for that." Valas drew his kukris, and his images did the same. The dragon, blood pouring from its ruined eye, didn't bother to pull out the arrow that still protruded from its eye socket. Instead it charged, wings up, claws out, jaws open.
Valas stepped to the side, into the drake's blind spot. The creature had obviously never fought with only one eye before, and it fell for the feint. Valas got two quick cuts in-cuts each answered with a deep, rumbling growl. The drake lashed out, and Valas stepped in and to the side, letting one of his images cross in front of the attack. The portal drake's claw touched the image's shoulder, and by the time the talon passed through the false scout's abdomen the illusion was gone.
The dragon grumbled its frustration, and Valas attacked again. The creature twisted out of reach and snapped its jaws at Valas-coming dangerously close to the real dark elf. When the dragon's single eye narrowed and smoldered, the scout knew the dragon had pegged him.
Valas danced into the drake's blind spot, stepping backward and spinning to keep the dragon off balance and to keep his own mirror images moving frenetically around him. The drake clawed another one into thin air then bit the third out of existence.
Valas watched the image disappear and followed the portal drake's neck with his eyes as it passed half an arm's length in front of him. He looked for cracks, creases, for any sign of weakness in the monster's thick, scaly hide.
He found one and sank a kukri between scales,through skin, into flesh, artery, and bone beneath it. Blood pumped from the creature in torrents. The dragon flailed at Valas, though it couldn't quite see the scout. As the creature died, it managed to brush a claw against the last false drow. The drake started to fall, and Valas skipped out of the way. The narrow head whipped around on its long, supple neck, and the jaws came down on Valas's shoulder, crinkling his armor and bruising the black skin underneath.
The scout pulled away, rolled, and came to his feet with his kukris in front of him.
No attack came. The portal drake splayed across the floor of the cavern. Blood came less frequently and with less urgency with every fading heartbeat.
"Always knew . . ." the dying dragon sighed, "it would be ... a drow."
The portal drake died with that word on its tongue, and Valas lifted an eyebrow at the thought.
He stepped away from the poisonous corpse and sheathed his kukris. There was no sign of Danifae. Valas didn't know if she'd kept running back the way they'd come or if she was hiding somewhere in the shadows.
With a shrug and a last glance at the portal drake, Valas turned and went to the abandoned monastery. Assuming that the Melarn battle-captive would eventually return to the cavern and the portal that was their goal there, Valas climbed into the great downturned mouth.
Inside the semicircular structure were two tall, freestanding pillars. Between them was nothing but dead air and the side of the tall cavern wall. The interior was shrouded in darkness, and from it came the sharp smell of the portal drake's filth.
Danifae stood between the pillars, her weight on one foot, her hand on her hip. "Is it dead?" she asked.
Valas stopped several strides from