Free SpringFire by Terie Garrison Page A

Shandry, she pointed out the converse, that we’d lose it earlier in the afternoon, too. That really didn’t seem such a huge price to pay for feeling ever so slightly warmer in the morning.
    I used my maejic a little more carefully, or maybe the weather was warming up a bit. I was more disciplined than ever about meditating each morning before we left and each afternoon when we stopped, and I tried not to expend any more power than necessary to keep myself comfortable.
    Traz had been much quieter than normal ever since that first night, as if the possibility that he was a sage had overtaken all his thoughts. He’d kept to himself, mostly preferring to walk behind us rather than in front. He often seemed lost in thought, pensive and subdued.
    The morning of the third day of our descent—a full week now since we’d set out—it rained hard for hours, soaking us all to the skin. At midday, the sun finally came out and warmed us up a little, but the road was slushy underfoot.
    In the afternoon, we reached a place that Shandry called “the bends.” We’d been descending a great valley, just as Shandry had said. But here, it was as if a knife had sliced a chunk from the mountainside. Where we stood, we looked down a steep hill, down which the road went in tight switchbacks. The hillside was bare of trees, with just an occasional shrub clinging to the sharply angled earth. Far below, the pine forest spread out before us.
    Until now, the road had been easy to travel. Shandry said that from late Spring through Autumn, this was a much-used pass, with wagons and carts traversing it easily. During the Winter, though, a better pass farther to the south was the primary trade route. And this part of the road was why. Just that morning’s rain had left the footing treacherous.
    I paid close attention to where I walked, placing one foot carefully and making sure it was planted before taking the next step. The turns were where it was most dangerous due to the odd camber of the roadway.
    About halfway down, Shandry, who was leading Dyster, slipped and fell backward with a loud splash of mud. I’d just turned to help her up, when from behind us, there was a short yelp of surprise, followed by a crashing sound. We looked back just in time to see Traz sliding down the hillside. The slippery slope accelerated his fall, and the road just below barely slowed him at all. He slid out of view without another sound.

    When the mighty red dragons first arrived—and we can certainly imagine what a surprise that caused—there was great upheaval. Many of them were extremely antagonistic toward humans, though it was not until later, when we learned of the great persecution from which they had fled, that we understood.
    Still, there were those among them who were politic enough to treat with the inhabitants here. They negotiated a home with the sages, newly settled at Lake Delaron, which led to the development of that community—a symbiotic relationship between humans and dragons that continues to this day, all these hundreds of years later.
    From this we learn that making peace is always preferable to making war. For the dragons, despite all their power, had ultimately to flee from the humans in their world in order to survive. Yet it is with humans that they now reside in harmony, each lending the other unique elements of their power to create a peace that is itself far greater than the sum of its parts.
    ~from the lecture notes of Tandor

“Traz!” Shandry and I screamed in unison. I pulled her to her feet and headed toward the place where he’d tumbled down. I couldn’t hurry or I’d fall, too, and it took an agonizingly long time to make the twenty or so steps. Being careful not to overbalance, I looked over the edge. Traz’s crumpled form lay unmoving on the road below.
    Shandry stood next to me, looking down, her face pale. “Do you think he’s all right?” she asked. Dyster, impatient to keep moving, stamped a hoof and