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orb’s influence is that strong, maybe we should prepare for trouble,’ Kira continued. ‘With all the blood being spilled in the trenches, I doubt it will attract
much interest, but there’s no harm in being careful.’
    ‘I can’t argue with that,’ Elian replied, his expression thoughtful. ‘What do you suggest?’
    ‘Let’s get the dragons to form a circle around us as they did last night. We’ll mount up a little earlier than normal and get into position to leave as soon as Aurora can form
a gateway.’
    ‘Sounds sensible.’
    The dragons agreed. Once inside the protective circle formed by their scaly flanks, Kira began to relax. The three riders huddled together for warmth, but it made little difference. Their layers
of protective clothing masked any benefits and the cold slowly seeped into their limbs. Before long they were all walking around in the circular hollow, stamping their feet and waving their arms to
stimulate blood flow.
    Time dragged, every minute stretching out into an age as dawn stubbornly refused to break. Kira began to think the night would never end. Looking at the others, she could see they were having
similar thoughts. It was the sound of the first dog barking that brought her to an abrupt standstill. Elian cocked his head for a moment and then continued his efforts to warm himself as soon as he
had identified the sound.
    ‘What’s the matter, Kira?’ he asked. ‘It’s just a dog.’
    Kira’s nerves were tingling all down her back. Was this it? Did the dog’s barking herald the danger she had sensed since they first landed? A second dog added its bark to the first.
That was enough. Kira turned to the others.
    ‘Mount up!’ she ordered abruptly.
    ‘What?’ Elian exclaimed. ‘Don’t be silly, Kira. What threat are a couple of dogs?’
    ‘We’re being hunted. We need to get out of here now.’
    Her tone held such authority that there were no further questions. Elian knew better than to challenge her when she spoke with that voice, and Nolita was always happier when given directions.
The three riders scrambled up the sides of their dragons.
    ‘The dogs are coming closer, Kira,’
Fang warned.
‘And there are lots of them,’
he added. He sounded surprised and Kira could not blame him. Dragons were
used to being respected and feared by all members of the animal kingdom, with a few very unusual exceptions. More and more dogs were adding their voices to the pack. Their frenzied barking held no
respect for anything. They were closing fast.
    ‘We need to get into the open,’ Kira called. ‘We should get into the air and fly until the sun comes up. There’s no space for the dragons to take off here, so let’s
get back to the field where we landed.’
    ‘No arguments here,’ Elian called back.
    The dragons had to go carefully. Moving through the trees on their own was one thing, but they did not want their riders to be swept from their saddles by low branches.
    They had barely entered the trees when the first of the dogs came running towards them, attacking in a ferocious, mindless pack of slavering, snarling teeth and fur. They were all shapes and
sizes, from great lumbering canine brutes right down through the scale to animals barely bigger than rats that yapped and snarled around the legs of their bigger cousins. Had the dragons been in
the open, the dogs would have posed little threat. Dragon scales were impervious to the teeth and nails of the canine attackers. Hampered by the trees, however, the riders were in danger. There was
little the dragons could do but try to ignore the dogs and push forwards towards the open fields nearby.
    Although some dogs leaped at Kira, snapping at her legs with vicious teeth and madness in their eyes, the majority of the pack focused their attention on Firestorm and Nolita. The day dragon all
but disappeared as the dogs swept around him. Kira could see that Nolita had drawn her legs right up and was now kneeling on the