Title Page Dedication Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 2 5 Chapter One 7 Chapter Two 14 Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six 25 36 43 48 Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine 55 61 70 Chapter Ten 75 Chapter Eleven 81 Chapter Twelve 87 Chapter Thirteen 93 Chapter Fourteen 106 Chapter Fifteen 112 Chapter Sixteen 123 Chapter Seventeen 129 Chapter Eighteen 137 Chapter Nineteen 142 Chapter Twenty 146 Chapter Twenty-One 154
CHAPTER ONE It was Monday so they were hunting wyrms in the petrified forest That's what the Queen Under the Mountain always scheduled for Monday The pack of elf hounds bounded past stone trees barking and howling They poured through the wood like a tide Behind them rode dukes and duchesses lords and ladies servants and sorcerers Huntsmen blew huge curling horns They chased a wyrm that was old and clever She slithered over boulders and under fallen trees of metal glancing back to see if she had lost the elf-hounds elf-hounds yet Several times they paused to catch the scent of her again They sniffed the cavern air Then one of the dogs spotted the flick of the wyrm's tail barked warning and plunged after the monster The whole pack followed The whole pack except for one She was a young elf hound slim and elegant with bright sharp eyes She held back She watched the other dogs surge forward Her eye was caught by movement far off to the side up a hill of marble oak trees with spreading branches She had seen the wyrm's children squiggly baby wyrms the mother was leading the dog pack away from them on purpose so her children could escape The elf hound watched the infant wyrms flee unnoticed The lords and ladies rode up behind the elf hound They would reward her if she led the whole Royal Hunt to the fleeing young What's wrong with this one asked one of the knights She's just standing there She'd be one of our best dogs said the Master of the Hunt if she wasn't always dreaming of something else Well said a duke force her to get moving She should join the rest of the pack 7
