closed her eyes and focused on her breathing while she waited for the enemy to draw near. Magda mounted, as did Anatoly, riding Ixabrax’s youngest brother, Khazad. At the sound of the enemy’s approach floating on the cold night air, all three quaffed dragon draught, the last of their supply. Coldness flowed into Abigail’s veins.
The enemy crested a rise and formed up for an attack run. All four dragons leapt into the air, scattering in different directions. Abigail gasped in pain, willing her mind to focus on the fight and not on her injury, but was still distracted by the pulsating agony in her broken leg. Zuhl’s trio of young dragons remained in formation, targeting Izzulft. The elder dragon roared in defiance and gained altitude, easily outpacing his children.
Nix carried Magda into the sky, following her mate in a wide orbit, waiting for a chance to strike. Her youngest son, Khazad flew at her wing, carrying Anatoly. Ixabrax waited off to the side, orbiting in wider circles.
Spells from the three riders fell short. Izzulft tipped over and fell into a dive, gaining terrible speed and closing the distance to the dragon on the right of the formation in seconds. He crashed into his daughter and grappled her wings tight against her chest, falling with her while his tail snaked around and cut the man riding her in half.
As they plummeted to the ground, Ixabrax altered course to glide toward the spot where Izzulft intended to land. “Be ready, I’ll get you as close as possible.”
Abigail slipped her hand through the thong on the Thinblade. Izzulft continued to fall with the other two dragons in tight dives behind him. Ixabrax altered course to intercept one of his sisters.
All Abigail could do was hold on and endure the pain, waiting to cut a collar while dragons battled around her. She started laughing at the insanity of it all.
Nix made a run at the lagging dragon that was chasing Izzulft to the ground, breathing frost in a great cloud, icing the wings of her daughter and collapsing the shield of the priest riding her. Magda waited until they had passed before unleashing her spell, a dozen shards of magical force, one after the next, leapt from her hand, streaking to the target and hitting the priest in the back with unerring precision. He slumped forward against the dragon’s neck.
Izzulft broke their fall at the last moment, sparing his daughter a crushing death but dropping her hard enough to stun her, while remaining aloft and banking sharply toward the dragon still diving toward him. Zuhl loosed his spell. An orb of amber, tinted with blackness, shot toward Izzulft, transforming into a wide circular net at the last moment and collapsing around him, midair. Izzulft lost strength and folded his wings, falling nearly a hundred feet to the ground.
He hit hard.
Rolling to a stop on the glacier, the elder dragon groaned but didn’t try to get back up. Zuhl pressed the attack, crash-landing on top of Izzulft and dismounting with a collar in hand, while Izzulft’s daughter held him down. The moment Zuhl’s foot touched the ground, Izzulft thrust into the air, carrying his daughter with him. He flew in an arc that brought them down near Ixabrax, landing on top of his daughter and holding her head down to expose the collar.
Ixabrax extended his head and neck close to his struggling sister, so Abigail could reach out with the Thinblade. She clenched her teeth in pain but managed to cut the collar cleanly and quickly. A moment later, Ixabrax’s sister stopped struggling and Izzulft let her up. When Ixabrax launched into the air again, Abigail gasped in agony, fighting to remain conscious.
All at once the cacophony of battle was interrupted by the roar of a hundred drakini pouring over the nearest ridge. They split evenly between the now five free dragons and fanned out to attack en masse. One of the two remaining collared dragons circled in protection of Zuhl, while he removed the corpse in the saddle of the other and fastened himself in. A few moments later, he was airborne again with the second dragon riding his right wing.
Abigail felt sudden, stabbing pain with each thrust as Ixabrax struggled to gain altitude and distance from the twenty drakini pursuing him. Once he leveled off and started to glide in a wide circle, Abigail managed to wrest her focus from the insistent claim of such intense pain. She scanned the enemy below, all