By the time the remaining men, a soldier and enforcer, reached Syla’s group, the numbers were equal, and the two Royal Protectors stepped out to meet them. As swords clashed, the noise ringing from the brick walls of the surrounding buildings, Syla stepped back into the glassworks doorway. Tabuvar had wisely disappeared inside with Celena. Teyla remained at Syla’s side.
“I guess I’m your bodyguard until Fel finishes that enforcer,” she said.
“Or we could both hide inside,” Syla offered, though she hadn’t moved to do so. If she could touch one of the men, she wasn’t without power that she could use to defend herself. But hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary.
She leaned out to look up the street they’d come down, wondering about acquiring a wagon, but swore when she spotted an entire squadron of fleet soldiers marching toward the glassworks. Their leader saw the fight and must have guessed at the significance of the Royal Protectors.
“That way!” the man barked and ordered his troops to charge.
“So much for the numbers being even.” Syla reconsidered hiding in the glassworks. There was a back door out of the building by the living quarters, but she didn’t want to abandon Tibby and Fel—and she certainly didn’t want to leave the shielder in the middle of the street.
Someone fighting outside grunted in pain and pitched to the ground. Fel’s opponent. Fel spun to look at Tibby, but nobody had stopped to pick a fight with the fifty-something bespectacled engineer, leaving her and what they had to consider a giantmysterious package to deal with later. Fel ran toward the troops battling the Royal Protectors, but the fleet squadron had arrived, swelling the enemy numbers.
Tabuvar stepped up to Syla’s shoulder, grim-faced and now holding a crossbow. “Hide in the tool closet, Your Majesty. I’ll?—”
The shattering of glass came from the front of the workshop. Syla winced, expecting an explosive, but the enforcer responsible had used a sword hilt. He reached through and unlocked the front door of the shop.
Cursing, Tabuvar lifted his crossbow. “They’re coming from all sides.”
He fired at the enforcer opening the door, making the man pause and back out of sight for a moment. But more uniformed troops were visible through the broken window.
Wreylith?Syla asked.Is there any chance that you’re nearby?
Syla groped for a way she could help if the dragonwasn’tanywhere around.
I am nearby,Wreylith boomed, the power of her telepathic voice promising that she was indeed close.Tell your people to extricate themselves from among the enemy forces.
That’ll be hard for them to do.
Fel was in the middle of fighting two men at once, and the Royal Protectors were entangled with their foes as well.
Don’t light anyone on fire, please,Syla added, guessing what Wreylith had in mind.
The dragonharrumphedinto her mind.
A moment later, her red-scaled form came into view, flying low over the buildings as she headed toward them. With a great roar, she landed on the rooftop of the glassworks, turning so that she could see the surrounding streets and the combatants.
The clangs of swords faltered as men paused to look up. Smoke wafted from Wreylith’s nostrils.
Two men swore and ran into alleys, but the fleet leader yelled, “Stay, men! Get the women!”
His troops held their swords uncertainly toward Wreylith.
Her long neck flexed, then snapped like a whip, and her head darted down with viper-like speed. Her jaws snapped, and she knocked the leader’s sword out of his grip as she picked him up in her great maw. She flung him screaming over buildings to disappear into a street a block away. Without pausing, her head snapped down toward another target. Someone dared fire a crossbow at her. The quarrel glanced off her shoulder without doing noticeable damage.
“My people, get out of the street!” Syla waved for Fel, Tibby, and the Royal Protectors to join her inside.
Even as Wreylith plucked up or outright crushed men, more smoke was wafting from her nostrils. Shewantedto roast someone. Probably because of irritation that the men had interrupted her cave hunt.
Fel and the Royal Protectors ran into the glassworks, dodging Wreylith as she attacked another man, one who tried to swing his sword at her before she plucked him up. Unlike the stormers’ gargoyle-bone blades, the metal edge didn’t pierce her scales, and Wreylith ignored the attack. She tossed the man over a building in the same direction as the first.
As the Royal Protectors entered the glassworks, pushing Syla gently but determinedly back from the carriage doors, she lost view of some of the fight, but she realized that Tibby hadn’t abandoned the sphere. Worse, two newly arrived enforcers were charging toward her. Maybe they’d realized Syla wasn’t reachable at the moment—and that Aunt Tibby was. Or maybe someone had grasped the significance of the sphere.
“Look out, Aunt Tibby!” Again, Syla waved for her to come join them. The sphere, if it had been made as sturdily as theothers, could surely withstand damage if the men reached it. As she’d just noted,theydidn’t have magical weapons to hurl at it.
“I haven’t had an opportunity to make more explosives,” Tibby cried in frustration as the men advanced.
“Just get out of there!” Syla yelled as Fel ran out of the glassworks and toward her.
