She ran. She didn’t look left, or right, but ran, fleeing from the altar, the portal, the ogre and his opponent, and fleeing from Seppelitus himself.

  Before Seppelitus could puzzle what might have caused her such fear, he felt another surge of magic, and glanced back at the altar. The power he had called hadn’t dissipated as it usually did. Instead, it writhed along the chains, darting in and out of the shackles, and pouring over the altar in a sheet. It was almost as if it couldn’t break free.

  Seppelitus took a step back, wondering what he should do next, and the dragon roared. He turned his head for the barest of breaths, caught by the spectacle of the lord knight transforming into a copper-coated beast, at least two draft horses tall, and three long.

  “Master,” the ogre cried. “I have delivered.”

  And Seppelitus looked back at the altar.

  “Damn fool boy!” roared through his head, just as the dragon bellowed in fury, and the ogre shrieked again.

  “Master!”

  An acidic smell tainted the air, but Seppelitus wasn’t interested in finding out why the dragon was so angry, or why the ogre sounded in despair; he was more concerned with the way the magic he’d called was writhing in the grip of another magic, one he hadn’t called.

  He tried to take another step back, only to have the magic lash out and wrap itself around one wrist. Another tendril seized him by the ankle, and he was dragged off his feet. He hit the floor hard, just as a third tendril caught his other wrist and his hands were drawn together.

  “Master, save me!” the ogre screamed, and bone cracked amidst the wet sounds of meat being torn.

  There was a heavy thump as it hit the floor, and the sound of metal rattling away, but Seppelitus couldn’t track the sound. The tendrils dragged him across the floor, slamming him into the side of the slab hard enough that he saw stars. He tried to use his free leg to slow his progress, but another tendril captured that, too, and he was pulled to the altar top.

  The demon laughed, as though scenting victory.

  “Spill his blood,” said the voice from the portal. “Spill his blood, and I will save you.”

  Seppelitus heard the sound of frantic scrabbling as though the ogre tried to rise. It was followed by the shriek of tortured metal, and another, more fleshy tearing sound, and the ogre screamed again. Bone cracked, once more, and the ogre fell silent. Seppelitus heard claws scrape over the chamber’s stone floor, and tried to wriggle free.

  He reached out for his own magic, only to find it trapped by the same other power that held him to the top of the slab, the same other power that had wrapped itself about his throat and was slowly choking the life out of him. He couldn’t even call for help. All he could do was watch, as the magic raised the ogre’s blade into view, and slowly moved it toward him.

  “Nullify!” the dragon roared, and darkness flared from its copper hide.

  As the darkness rolled over him, Seppelitus felt the tendrils holding him, loosen, and it was enough. He didn’t wait for his own magic to return, but flung himself from the altar’s surface, and away from where he remembered the portal being. It was hard to tell, in the all-consuming dark. The sudden slicing pain of a blade curving across his back and side came as a surprise, but then he heard it hit the floor.

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  That was gonna hurt in the morning. Seppelitus crawled slowly to his feet and felt for the wall, stepping carefully through the black. He fell, again, when he found the ogre, felt the caustic sting of its blood as he scrambled away from it in panic, falling when he tripped over it a second time. This time, he scrambled back from it on all fours.

  His panicked scrabbling took him into a pillar, and he stopped abruptly.

  “Stupid boy.” The dragon’s voice sounded in his head, and a gauntleted hand descended onto his shoulder.

  “Up you come. Let me help you,” the lord said, hauling Seppelitus’s arm over his shoulder, and guiding him up the passage that would take them out onto the mountainside.

  Seppelitus stayed conscious long enough to see dawn quivering along a distant horizon, and taste the cold morning air, then he passed out.

  * * *

  When he regained his senses, he was no longer on the mountainside, his clothes were clean, his wounds carefully stitched—and he had an overwhelming urge to pee.

  Pushing himself upright, he rolled back the linen covering him, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Warned by the tenderness in his side and back, Seppelitus carefully slid down until his feet touched the floor. More careful movement revealed a chamber pot beneath the bed, and a basin for washing his hands in on the nightstand. Someone had brought him back to the mansion.

  Seppelitus looked around. A stack of clothes sat, in a neatly folded pile on a chair by the nightstand. Boots had been tucked beneath it. He dressed, listening for the sound of movement, for any warning that he might not be alone. He felt as though someone watched him, even though the room was empty of anything but the furniture and furnishings that should be there.

  He dressed slowly, watching the shadows, listening to the sounds of the empty room around him, trying to hear noises from beyond the door. He noticed the fire was burning low, and took a log from the basket beside it.

  “You know the healers would have a fit to see you out of bed?”

  Seppelitus dropped the log, and straightened—too quickly for the stitches at his side. He gasped, his head spinning with pain. If the lord knight had not hurried to his side, he would have fallen.

  “Easy there,” he said, guiding Seppelitus so he could lean on the edge of the bed.

  “Idiot boy,” echoed in his head.

  “I can hear you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Seppelitus didn’t know whether to be outraged or amused.

  “What do you want?”

  “Your service.”

  Well, that was to the point.

  “And if I choose not?”

  “It’s a long walk back home.”

  Seppelitus imagined it was.

  “You owe me,” he said, and the dragon snorted.

  “If it wasn’t for you, I’d not have had to fight an ogre to get my people back.”

  “If it wasn’t for me...” Seppelitus let the words fade. There was no good way to end that sentence. The dragon was right. If it wasn’t for him, the villagers wouldn’t have been taken in the first place. It really had been his fault.

  He shrugged. He couldn’t help being born.

  “You’re not going to threaten to share my secret?” the dragon asked, and Seppelitus shook his head.

  “Why not? It might be worth your while.”

  “I doubt it.”

  What had he heard? Never deal with a dragon? And if that held true, blackmailing one was more stupid than…well, it was just stupid, and he wasn’t, no matter what the dragon said.

  The lord knight walked toward the door, the firelight casting his shadow on the wall. It was not a human shadow, and Seppelitus, raising his head to follow the man’s movement stared. Lord Bright caught his look, and stopped, his back to the corner of the room.

  “Be my bodyguard,” he said. “I need a loyal man at my side.”

  “Andremus is loyal…and your seer.”

  “They have different roles to play. I need someone to ride with me.”

  “What of your captain?”

  “He does not know what I am.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “The men of the north are not fond of dragons—not even those that protect their lands.”

  Seppelitus looked at him, and Lord Bright shrugged.

  “It’s just the way they are,” he said.

  “But, surely, if they knew…”

  “Let them get through grieving,” Lord Bright said, his eyes suddenly bleak. “They’re angry with you. If they knew I was…what I am…I could still lose them.”

  Seppelitus stared.

  “Are they worth keeping that much?” he asked, and the lord knight fixed him with look that confirmed it more than the man’s next words.

  “That much and more.”

  They stared at each for a long moment.