F'lessan had brought a pouch of sweetsand. Tai looked forward to a quick wash, even in cold river water. Cove Hold had been warm and she'd been in a nervous sweat there, worked up another in the crowded control room while showing off the fine clear sky view that the Honshu scope was capable of. They soaped each other, still with enough energy to make it playful. But fatigue settled on both of them soon enough, and the dragons splashed in gratefully to take their turn. Their antics sent sprays of water high up the bank. Laughing, F'lessan moved their things up on to the highest of the terraces and, throwing Tai her towel, began to dry himself. They dressed, since the dawn air could be chill, spread one blanket down, and pulled the other over them, using the towels as pillows against the rough ground cover.

Tai smiled, listening to the dragons' happy noises, and was at peace with herself in a fashion she had rarely experienced.

"I don't know if they sound more like fire-lizards or dolphins when they 'talk' like that," F'lessan said, cocking one arm under his head and reaching for her hand with the other.

"They're related, after all," she said, somewhat drowsily, quite content to lie there, next to him, letting his fingers twine in hers.

She heard him sigh.

"There are so many things to talk about," he murmured, "but I think they can wait until tomorrow, don't you?"

He turned his head toward her, though she couldn't see but a blur of his face and the whiteness of his teeth in one of his so charming smiles.

"It is tomorrow, you know."

"Well, a little further into the morning, then."

He lifted his head just enough to kiss her lightly.

Why was it that the tenderest of his kisses affected her more than the passionate ones-which she enjoyed, too? It was his tenderness toward her that undid her most.

She woke, sitting bolt upright, a second before everything happened, before Golanth roared, before Zaranth reacted to what she was staring at so intensely in the underbrush. That moment was graven on the back of her eyes as surely as the Fireball's explosion: she and F'lessan on the uppermost terrace, Zaranth just below them, her body taut for something Tai could not see and Golanth, head toward the river, sprawled lengthwise on the lowest level, his tail half propped against a thick bush.

Whether it was his tail which had enticed them or not would always be moot. Many felines were hunting that dawn. The sun had risen and sun-warm dragon hide exuded a scent all its own. Dragons generally sought heights for sunbathing. This morning, with all four deeply asleep, the dragons were accessible.

The felines had arrived stealthily. Perhaps thirst had initially drawn them to the river, only to find the sleeping dragons. Perhaps Golanth's tail had twitched in his sleep, attracting attention. Whatever Zaranth was staring at suddenly was flung backward at incredible speed and that was the signal for an orange-striped feline to clamp its teeth on Golanth's tail. At his roar the rest of the considerable hunting party attacked. Spotted, striped, and tawny hides, assaulting him from three directions, abruptly covered the bronze.

He reared to his full height, front legs clawing the air to remove the one that had sunk teeth in his left eye ridge. He tried to whip free of the one on his tail and kick off the third which had bitten into the fold of his flesh between rib cage and hip, to buck against the others racing in from the thick shrubs that bordered the river. Feline jaws clamped harder, determined to retain their hold.

Then others used Golanth's body as stairs to attack Zaranth, talons outstretched, heads angled to sink fangs in whatever flesh they could reach.

F'lessan moved so quickly that, in throwing the blanket from his legs, he entangled Tai in its folds. Springing forward and then vaulting over Zaranth's hindquarters, he launched himself at the nearest feline, brandishing the knife a rider always carried, though it was a blade that was shorter than the fangs of the nearest beast. Zaranth, too, reared, sending the one attacking her head spinning through the air.

These are NOT trundlebugs,Zaranth cried. THROW them away!

Golanth had torn the one off his face with one forepaw, but it turned in midair, legs at full stretch, and its right front paw raked down F'lessan's back. Its momentum took it to the ground where it instantly gathered and leaped toward the rider. F'lessan ducked, plunged his knife into the chest of the beast, and rolled away, the feline snarling with rage and trying to get rid of the knife lodged in it. F'lessan grabbed a loose rock and, with it as a weapon, ran to help his dragon, despite the blood flowing from the claw marks on his back.

Trapped on one side by the terrace, Golanth had no way to unfurl his right wing. With his rider in peril, he would not go betweenwhere he could have shed the felines in the great black cold. Nor, in such close quarters, for fear of searing their beloved riders, could either dragon summon residual flame to deter their attackers. One feline was attempting to shred Golanth's left inner wing sail and others, sinking talons deeply into tough dragon hide, climbed all over him.

Not just over Golanth, Tai realized, frantic to get free of the blanket. Tawny bodies were flinging themselves at Zaranth as well but didn't seem able to do more than leave long bleeding furrows. The beast biting the soft part of Golanth's flank was flung into the river where it sank instantly. Zaranth howled, shaking her head as if ridding it of a burden, kicking out with a hind leg though Tai saw nothing but a darker green liquid oozing down the green leg. A tawny streak came at her from behind and disappeared. The one trying to run up Golanth's back was suddenly in midair, all limbs spread as if something had picked it up by the belly and punched it violently away. The one with jaws sunk into Golanth's left hind leg was similarly torn from him. Ripping at the blanket, Tai got to her feet, clutching it in one hand, wishing it had been any sort of a hard-edged weapon, wondering how she could get to F'lessan who now had two large felines circling him. Blood poured down his back.

The next thing she knew, she was beside F'lessan, the blanket billowing in the air behind her from the force of her arrival. Cracking the blanket like a beast whip, she hit the face of one of the felines who retreated, snarling, before she flung the blanket over the next one, catching the folds on its claws. F'lessan pushed her down and the second beast leaped on him. During the split second before the animal reached him, Tai could only think one thing: I've lost him! I've lost him!

Suddenly the air was full of dragons, wings spread, and flame spouting from their mouths. Tai was horrified lest the dragon fire sear them. Human flesh would shrivel-that powerful fire could char through dragon flesh.

WATCH ME!Zaranth's voice was like a thunder in the innermost part of Tai's skull. FLING THEM!was answered by even more powerful external shrieks. Beset by fear and terror, by the horror of losing F'lessan and Golanth, she was utterly unable to absorb the strange things that were happening. Why was Zaranth telling the other dragons to watch her, to fling them? Zaranth never hurt the trundlebugs she moved! Now felines were spinning through the air without dragons touching them. Why had that one exploded into fragments?

Abruptly the creature struggling out of the blanket at Tai's feet was no longer there, just the blanket sinking emptily to the ground. The predator who had been positioning its hind legs to disembowel F'lessan was gone. Badly wounded, F'lessan turned toward Golanth, his body stretching out, yearning, but unable to rise and go to the bronze. Over the sound of dragon and feline roars and snarls, Tai could hear him calling Golanth's name!