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"Put me down, old Fyren!" Danica called out Cadderly’s eyes popped wide, but the obedient dragon pulled up short beside a ridge, and both Danica and Vander hopped fro off before Cadderly could react

"Hey, we’reall the fun!" Ivan realized as the wyr altitude The dwarf started to call out to the dragon, but Pikel grabbed hi into his ear

Ivan roared happily, and both dwarves scra

"What are you doing?" Cadderly deht!" Ivan cried back, and then he disappeared fro hand over hand down the scaly side His head popped back up a one

"What?" Cadderly replied incredulously, and it took him a few moments to catch on "Fyrentennimar!" he cried desperately,

Danica and Vander sped off for the back and wider end of the valley, looking for any h the stench and smoke Only a few on still flying wide, though now angled for his second pass, the two spotted several goblins and a single, lu directly for the and thethe cover of sooblins and the giant were looking back on to even think that thereahead

Danica caer after another, dropping a pair of goblins, and then charged forward, diving into a roll before her surprised adversaries and co up with a flurry of ferocious blows

Facial bones were sers crushed a windpipe Before Danica had even played out her oblins lay dead at her feet

The evil giant, on the far side of the band, turned to e, but noticed a e club at the ready A goblin rushed by, eyeing Danica and shrieking in fear

Vander cleaved it in halt

"Giant-kin," the club-wielding e of the hill giants

Vander snarled and rushed ahead, his great sword coiant fell back, throwing its club up in a frantic defense By sheer luck, the club fell in line with the rushing sword, Vander’s blade diving many inches into the wood

Vander tried to pull back on the sword, to retract it and slash again, but the club’s hard wood held it fast

The hill giant, ht hundred pounds, rushed forward, letting go of its club and spreading its huge arulf its foe

Vander twisted and punched out, connecting solidly but doing little to i went down heavily, under two tons of hill giant flesh

The four reoblins looked asfor one of its companions to make the firsta spear

Now that the initial surprise was gone, Danica stayed down in a defensive crouch, preferring to let her eneoblins wisely spread out around her, but she re slowly so that no creature could remain behind her

The spear wielder puht She stopped aloblin’sback hard to the left, spinning low and straight-kicking one of the other goblins in the knee

The creature jerked straight, then fell back, clutching its broken li, now eyeing the spear wielder directly, taking its ht Cadderly saw the fight off to the side, noticed Vander buried beneath the flabby folds of the iant He tried to think of a way to help, but suddenly the valley walls were up around hi approach

Shayleigh nion’s back, deter her bow repeatedly At first, her shots were rando a hit, but then she concentrated her fire on one hill giant By the tie of the beast its wide chest sported a half-dozen arrows

"Get lower, ye da wyr Cadderly that Ivan and Pikel were in position The young priest fell flat to his belly and peered over the front edge of the dragon’s wing

Hanging below him were the Bouldershoulder brothers, one in each of Fyrentennion did fly lower, and Pikel howled in glee as he put his tree-trunk club in line and used the dragon’s iant that was too slow in ducking

Ivan took an axe swipe on the other side as they passed, but hebut air

"Sandstone!" the frustrated dwarf bellowed

Cadderly’s orderly sensibilities could not accept the craziness about hied to sit back up and dropped a hand into a berry-filled pouch He uttered the last words of the enchantned tones, then took out a handful of the berries and tossed them randomly into the air The seeds exploded into tiny bursts of fla and even killing a few goblins

Fyrentennihtly, as the valley started to narrow, but the friends knew that he would not soar away, knew that he had not finished the run

A swarm of creatures huddled about the back end of the valley, he enchanton reared near theh the archway (one actually passed through without being hit, to run screaiants, in sheer terror of the great dragon, juon’s serpentine neck shot forward, and then came the fla the fire’s angle, i the whole mass of creatures

On and on it went, interonized cries ca bones; all thely, the dwarf having a fine view of the catastrophe fro his head in disbelief, couldn’t find the words to reply

Danica saw the panic welling in the goblin, knew that it wanted to throw the spear and run off She locked her gaze upon it fully, forced it to stare into her eyes, al in their intensity

She had to hold the goblin’s shot a bit longer, until the anxious club wielder to her right htened and seeaze steady She dipped and turned suddenly, caught the club in both hands as it predictably caoblin’s knees with her feet and pulling the creature around hqf

The goblin jerked suddenly, its eyes popping wide, and Danica, though she couldn’t see the spear sticking fro, and her understanding of her enemies, had been perfect

She ca creature’s grasp and hurling it straight back, into the chest of the next charging goblin The creature fu it tangled with its sword, then finally tossing it aside It ed to focus its attention on Danica just as her foot snapped into its throat

Again Danica was spinning, leaping over the dead club wielder and tearing the spear fro strides later, she let fly the crude weapon The spear didn’t hit the inal owner’s legs enough to drop the goblin hard to its face

It lay on its belly for ato shake away its dizziness

Then Danica was upon it, and it was dead The oblin, the first of the four she had hit It was floundering about, half-hopping, half-crawling, as it continued to grasp at its shattered kneecap It struggled past two of its coers Thinking to arers, but stopped and looked up, disotten there first

Vander slapped futilely against the giant’s bulk, thrashing about with all his strength, even biting thecould iant

Vander found his breathing hard to co he could hold out beneath the two-ton beheiant began to bounce, pushing off the ground with its huge hands and free-falling back on top of poor Vander

Vander’s initial thoughts were to curi up in a ball He realized, though, that his body could not take the pounding for long, whatever he ht do - the first bounce had blasted out his breath, and he could only draw small amounts of air between each subsequent sla back down, Vander expected his rib cage to collapse

Without even thinking of the s up near his belly Fortune ith the firbolg, for when the hill giant caht drove Vander’s knees hard into its abdoher this tiht come back with one final slaht out in pursuit of the h before its fall could build ht; leg iant, its girth hanging several feet off the ground, freed up one hand and punched Vander across the face, nearly knocking him senseless