"Come on," said Drake. "We've got to keep moving. If we can stay free and undetected long enough, they'll have to search the whole city for us. This may be a small city, but it's still much too big for only a hundred men to cover. With them spread that thin, we'll have a chance to slip away into the forest. Once we're outside the city walls, they'll never find us."

     "What about the dragon?" asked Jerry. "All it's got to do is fly a few hundred feet up and it can look down on the whole city. It'll be able to see every street from that height. We'll be dead the moment we step out the door!"

     "We'll think of something," promised the priest. "Don't worry."

     Easy to say that, thought Thomas as they crept timidly from building to building, but how do you evade a creature that can spot a mouse from half a mile away? He thought back to his days at the University, and struggled to remember everything that Ras Tolliber, Lexandria's resident dragonlore expert, had taught them about red dragons. The red dragon is the most feared of all the creatures of the world, he had said. Its breath weapon consists of an acetylene-like chemical that it spits, cobra fashion, and is ignited catalytically by an enzyme secreted by a gland between its front teeth. This gland is much prized by... Yes, yes, thought the young wizard impatiently. Very interesting, but not very useful. What else?

     All three species of true dragon incorporate metallic compounds and oxides into their scales, intoned the solemn, imaginary voice of Ras Tolliber. This gives their hides great strength. In the case of red dragons, this is mostly iron oxides, and it is this that gives them their rusty red coloration...

     Tell me something useful! demanded Thomas. All modern dragons are believed to have evolved from a single... Their blood is poisonous and corrosive, and much prized for its magical properties, including its ability to... Their bones are hollow, indicating that their smaller ancestors could fly by muscle power alone, before they grew so large that they needed to evolve levitation magic... They have the best eyesight of any known animal...

     None of this is any good to us! cried Thomas in frustration. Give me something I can use! The red dragon is renowned for its greedy and covetous nature... "Yes! That's it!" he cried aloud, making the others stare at him, but then he slumped again. "No," he said. "I thought I had something, but..."

     "But what?" demanded Diana.

     "Nothing," said the wizard. "It depended on us having all that loot we found in the Ghost Ocean, but it's all still back outside the city. It might as well be on one of the moons. It was just an idea, that's all. Forget it."

     Shaun and Matthew glanced at each other guiltily. "Er, this idea of yours, it depends on all that treasure, does it?"

     "It did," replied the wizard. "I remembered something one of my old teachers told me. Never mind, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway."

     "Well, er, actually, we've got it here, said Matthew sheepishly. "We didn't like just leaving it there with all those Shads around, they might have found it, so we, me and Shaun, thought we ought to bring it along. That's why we didn't want to leave our backpack behind, although if I had left it behind I wouldn't have had my lockpicking stuff on me and I couldn't have opened that safe, so you see..."

     "Matt!" snapped Diana, and Matthew nodded, slinging his backpack down off his shoulders. Shaun did the same, and they pulled out large cloth bags that clinked with the coins inside. They handed them over while Drake and Diana glared at them reproachfully.

     "Great!" said Thomas. He quickly put all the gold and silver coins into a single bag. "You all get as close to a city gate as possible and get ready to run when you see me distract the dragon. I'll see you outside."

     Lirenna stared at the bag, guessing what he had in mind and going pale with fear at the risk he was about to take. “That won't work, surely,” she protested. “There's not nearly enough gold here to distract a dragon. You'd need great piles of it!”

     “A dragon’s love of gold goes beyond rationality,” said Thomas, though. “Or at least, that’s what Tolliber always told us. Time to find out if he’s right.”

     Lirenna stared at him in fear and doubt, but she could see that it was their only chance. She nodded, therefore, gazing into his eyes as she wondered whether she'd ever see him again. "How will you get out"? she asked.

     "Don't worry, this is a big city, and there aren't that many of them. I'll find a way out."

     "I'll come with you," said Drake. "You'll need someone with a sword in case you run into any of them by accident." He turned to the others. "Head southeast, that'll take you back to the same gate we came in by, then head for the rendezvous point. We'll wait half an hour before distracting the dragon. I think I know what Tom's got in mind."

     "Be careful," said Shaun. "We don't want to have to come back in to rescue you."

     "Yes, be careful," said Lirenna, giving Thomas a passionate hug, her eyes wide with worry and fear.

     "We will, I promise," replied Thomas, returning the hug before gently disengaging himself. "Now get out of here before they find us."

     The six of them left, heading southeast as Drake had directed, and the priest and the wizard headed in the opposite direction. Reaching a window, Thomas popped his head out and saw the dragon high above them, as Jerry had said it would be. Circling lazily, its four legs tucked in close to its body while its wings were spread out wide. Its head moving this way and that as it watched the city below. High though it was, though, it still loomed impressively large, giving a terrifying impression of its true size, and Thomas pulled his head back in before it saw him.

     "How close to the gate do you think they can get using just the alleyways?" he asked. "This distraction will only keep it occupied for a couple of minutes. Will they be able to cover the rest of the distance in that time, do you think?"

     "I don't know," replied the priest gravely, "but Petronax has studied the layout of Agglemonian cities for years, and you can be sure he'll get them as close to the gate as possible without crossing any large streets. If anyone can get them out, he can."

     The city block they were in was roughly wedge shaped, being bounded on either side by two of the wide radial streets that ran from the market square in the city centre to the main gates in the city wall. The block reached to within a hundred yards of the city centre, being separated from it by a wide circular road that contained all the administrative areas, public buildings and the homes of the rich and powerful. They reached it after twenty minutes, having had to sprint across a couple of narrower roads while praying that the dragon wasn't looking in their direction at the time, and then they waited another ten minutes, by which time they estimated that the others should have reached another wide circular road that ran less than a hundred yards from the city wall. From there, they were only a hundred yards from the gate they'd come in through, and could reach it very quickly by running down one of the radial roads, once the dragon had been lured away. If there were any Shadowsoldiers guarding the exit, they would just have to fight their way through them.

     Thomas counted slowly to six hundred and then, praying that the others were ready, took hold of the bag containing the treasure. He loosened its purse strings and threw it out into the street where it landed, spilling some of the glittering coins out onto the ash covered ground. Then the two of them turned and ran back into the city block as fast as they possibly could.

     The dragon was five thousand feet up, and the almost circular city was spread out below it, its streets and city blocks arranged like a dartboard. Its eyes still throbbed slightly, but it kept them fixed on the wide streets, knowing that the impudent creatures that had dared to strike it would have to cross one of them sooner or later. It saw dozens of figures moving along them, travelling in groups of three and four, but its phenomenal eyesight, unparalleled in the entire animal kingdom, could easily distinguish the insignia they were wearing in place of their usual bone armour and skull helmets, which they'd foregone for this mission in order to allow them to cross the continent without attracting notice. The hated enemy wouldn't be wearing them, and the moment they appeared it would swoop down and destroy them before they'd gone a hundred yards. They wouldn't escape this time! Oh no! No toying and playing with them this time! This time it was out for blood! No-one, absolutely no-one, stung it in the eyes and got away with it!

     Then a tiny glitter caught its eye, and dropping a few hundred feet for a better look, it recognised the unmistakable glitter of sunlight on gold and silver. Quite a respectable pile of it scattered in the middle of the inner circular street. It gave a booming laugh. Another trick. They were trying to lure it down so they could cross a street into an outer city block and reach a gate in the wall. It was almost an insult to its intelligence that they thought such a trick would work. Sorry, humans, it thought with amusement. It won't work. That treasure's not going anywhere. I'll smoke you out first, deal with you as you deserve, and then go and claim it.

     Then its monstrous heart missed a beat as it saw a group of half a dozen goblins walking down the street towards the pile of treasure, only seconds from finding it. All its carefully worked out plans and strategies deserted it in a flash of cold fear, accompanied by a single thought. No! Leave it alone! That's MY treasure! It folded its wings and dove straight downwards like a diving falcon, its eyes blazing in fury and greed.

     No sooner had the goblins spotted the pile of coins and run excitedly to claim it than it was on them, tearing and biting with its teeth and claws. All five goblins were dead within seconds and the dragon carefully gathered up the treasure with its long, prehensile tongue. Mine! it thought. Death to all who try to steal it! Then a shock of cold fear rushed over it as it realised what an idiot it had been, what an ass it had made of itself, and it flung itself back into the air with a scream of rage that shook buildings and made Shadowsoldiers quiver with fear. What if the goblins had taken it? it shouted to itself. What could they have done with it? It could have gotten it back from them any time it wanted!

     A mile up, it saw half a dozen of the intruders sprinting for one of the smaller gates and disappearing into the undergrowth that still covered that part of the city, and it dove for them so fast that a sonic boom thundered across the city, causing weak walls and ceilings to collapse and trap several Shadowsoldiers in the rubble. To Hell with Krassban! it thought. This time they're going to burn! It prepared its breath weapon, ready to turn the area around the gate into a blazing inferno, but just as it was about to let them have it, it remembered that it still had the treasure in its mouth. It swerved around, dropped it all into a street where it could collect it later, and turned back to give the fleeing intruders what they deserved, but by then they were through the gate and into the forest, protected by the massive greybeams from its killing dive.

     It flamed part of the forest canopy to open a hole for itself down to the forest floor and dropped down, where it saw the six intruders running away, scattering in different directions. It tried to pursue, but the massive treetrunks were spaced too closely together for it to squeeze between them. It breathed its longest, narrowest tongue of flame at one of the fleeing intruders, the largest of the men. He ducked behind a tree to shelter himself from the flames, and although the tree itself was scorched and burned, the man himself was unharmed when the flaming ended and he emerged to run once more. The Dragon drew in its breath for another blast, but by then he was out of range and getting further away by the second. He and the others had escaped.