My head came up with a jerk. I whipped around, started to follow Stefan out the door, but then paused and gave Grease an agonized look. He grinned at my expression, his eyes wide with pain. "Go, man; I can hang," he called. "Nail that son of a bitch Kaa'saht!"
I looked at the battered trooper for an instant more, then nodded. "Right," I rumbled, then turned to Fields. "Secure the house and perimeter. We'll be right back." Not waiting for a response, I charged from the room.
By the time my feet hit the snow outside Stefan had shed his human guise, summoned that green-glowing torque dragons use to speak to humans, and was working the area around the building, nose held low to the snow, his tail lashing with barely-controlled rage. I immediately went to the side opposite him, my body rapidly expanding to its normal size as I sniffed at the ground. My tail also lashed with agitation, but within me there also burned a wild, almost irrational hope as I searched. . . .
"My Lord!"
Instantly I turned, my talons churning the snow as I leaped in pursuit of Stefan as he bolted up the slope and into the forest, following the scent he had detected. Immediately the gloom of the forest closed over us, and visibility improved slightly as the howling wind was broken by the trees. The snow was still coming down fast, but I could still make out disturbances in the white blanket before us. Something large had passed this way not long before.
Up the mountain we went, plunging through the deepening drifts, my breath soon coming in tearing gasps as my body strained to maintain a pace it was ill-suited for. Stefan stopped from time to time, dropping his snout to the snow to re-orient himself. I sniffed as well, found faint traces of Kaa'saht, perhaps Ashadh, and another, unfamiliar, female scent. Pasqual. So; I have your true scent at last, I thought, burning the scent into my memory as Stefan charged forward once again.
Higher and higher the trail led, angling to one side of the peak now, possibly aiming for a mountain pass that led out of the canyon in which the ranch house lay. We were in the clans' patrol areas now, and a new worry began to creep over me as I thought of the opportunity we were presenting if they detected us. Pathetic, hissed my human half, the entire race teetering on the brink of extinction, and all they can think of is power. A pause, then, grudgingly, Then again, how is that different from what most humans would do? Is all supposedly-intelligent life so worthy of contempt? I shook my head, forced myself to the task at hand, which was following Stefan's tail through the dark pines. It was not as easy a task as one might think; half-blinded by snow, his green and black-mottled scales blending into the surroundings, only his personal scent kept me from losing him several times.
The trees grew smaller, the storm wilder the higher we went, intensifying to near-whiteout conditions as the wind began to pick up already-fallen snow and hurl it about. Clear membranes slid down over my eyes, protecting them from the ice crystals being blasted against us. Stefan was moving more slowly now, stopping more often to find the scent as the storm worked to obliterate the trail. Finally he ground to a halt. "I've lost them!" he shouted above the roar of the wind.
My heart froze into a lump of solid ice. I shouldered him aside, buried my snout into the snow and breathed in. Loam, trees, stone, ice. . . . Something? No; just my fevered imagination. The scents were gone, swept away by the storm.
The storm! my human half yelped. Damn it, it's so convenient, it can't be natural! You idiot, you're facing another Lung! I blinked, then cursing myself for a fool, I summoned the sphere. It popped into existence before me, its usual snap ripped away by the wind. I grabbed the softly glowing sphere and jammed it into my mouth, my mind reaching for its power almost before connection was made. Stefan sprang aside, hissing in shock as a nimbus of silvery light flared into being around my body. I swung my head up, staring into the sky, at last seeing the lines of power that both bound and fed the storm as all of my fear and rage exploded out of me in a mental command consisting of a single word.
Stefan grunted as if slugged in the gut and toppled to the ground, clutching at his head in pain. Above me the clouds seemed to convulse, churn, then began to shred apart as the lines of power shattered into a shower of bright sparks that quickly faded. The wind began to drop almost immediately, its dying wail failing to hide a distant howl of agony from somewhere up ahead.
Pasqual. Instantly I headed for the sound, the snow kicked aside in a spray of white by my churning legs, leaving poor Stefan to once again recover on his own as I plunged through the trees. It wasn't very far; scarcely a mile separated where we had lost the trail and our quarry, but that would been more than enough with the storm, whose clouds had dissolved to the point of letting through the light of early morning by the time I came upon what was more a thinning of the trees than a small clearing. In the snow, a large dragon with scales the blue-silver-grey of polished gunsteel lay groaning while another, smaller dragon stood by helplessly.