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“Giant hyenas!” shouted one of the guards.

More warriors rushed in to bring down the gibbering creatures, but their blades bashed uselessly off the rocky hides. The hyenas bounded atop the defenders and ate through them. Dozens fell, and the creatures loped forward into the courtyard.

One hyena stalked straight toward the keep.

Dylan lifted his sword, staring at the spiky creature. “What are you?”

It came on snarling, its legs gathering speed. It leaped.

Dylan stepped aside, letting it crash into the side of the keep, then rammed his sword into its neck. The hyena wailed, scabrous claws skittering on broken flagstones. Dylan drove his blade deeper, and the hyena shuddered to stillness.

“That is for the queen!” Dylan cried, dragging his sword from the wound. He grinned as another of the beasts stalked toward him.

Its eyes were wide, circling in mad hunger, and its nostrils flared with the scent of fresh blood.

Dylan waved his sword. “Is this what you want?”

The hyena bounded toward the blade.

Dylan drove the sword into its mouth. Steel cracked through the creature’s palate and rammed into its brain. Wheezing and gushing, it fell atop the other hyena.

Another beast gibbered as it bounded toward him.

Dylan spun, his sword barely lifted before the hyena pounded into him. It hurled him back, smashing him against the keep. He rattled down the wall. The hyena lunged a second time. Stunned and breathless, Dylan wedged his sword between himself and the creature. The blade clacked through the thing’s teeth.

The hyena reared back, yanking the sword out of Dylan’s hand and flinging it away. The creature yipped and turned its bloody grin on its prey.

Dylan drove himself back against the banded iron door and scrambled to his feet. Weaponless, he lifted his fists. “Come on now.”

The giant hyena cocked its head, blinked glassy eyes, and lunged in to bite. Despite the punches to its muzzle, the hyena’s fangs bit through the man’s right thigh and spilled him to the ground.

Groaning and mantled in blood, Dylan pulled himself back up the door. “Get back!”

It grinned at him and darted its head in again.

It tore him apart.

THE DESPERATE HOUR

As Eir explained her plan, Logan stepped back from the others.

A sudden voice spoke in his head: Come to me, Logan Thackeray. I am in Ebonhawke. I have need of you.

“She’s calling to me,” Logan muttered. “Queen Jennah is calling to me. . . .” His knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor. “No!”

“Are you all right?” Rytlock asked, striding up beside him.

Logan gaped at his friend.

“Come on! Spit it out. We’ve got an Elder Dragon on the way.”

“Queen Jennah,” Logan muttered. “She’s in trouble.”

Rytlock grasped Logan’s shoulder and hoisted him to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

Logan said. “She’s calling to me! I have to go!”

“What?”

“She needs me!”

“We need you!”

“I swore an oath—”

“Yeah, to us.”

“No, to her.”

Rytlock’s eyes blazed “You’re part of my warband. You are my brother. You can’t abandon us!”

Logan turned away, striding toward Snaff. “Give me the hole in your pocket.”

The asura genius turned from the dragon-blood stones he had been working and lifted his eyebrows. “Huh?”

“Let me see that hole-in-your-pocket thing.”

“This?” Snaff asked, dragging forth the coin-size portal.

“Don’t let him—,” Rytlock began, lunging, but Logan batted the portal from Snaff’s hand.

It flew, tumbling through the air, and expanded into a wide circle with a slender metal edge. The ring tottered flat upon the floor, opening up the portal back to the land south of Ebonhawke.

Logan stepped toward it, but Rytlock grappled him. “You’re not going!”

“Let go of me! I have to go. I’ll come back.”

“What if you can’t come back?”

“I can come back. I will!”

“What’s going on?” asked Eir, approaching.

“He’s leaving,” Rytlock said.

“Leaving?” she said, gaping at the hole in the floor.

“I have to defend Queen Jennah.”

Eir looked levelly at him, and her voice was