Don't you hate waking up disoriented in the midst of a battle?

Gerald was shaken awake. He heard his name being roared, the sound of dragon fire, and nearby explosions. As he looked frantically around to see what was happening, more dragon fire came from above, pushing Selene lower. She sent fire back up but her adversary was blocked from Gerald's view. He caught a glimpse of a dragon-Argyll!-attacking Younger the same way.

Suddenly Selene dodged left, then right. A large, dark ball flew past. A cannon ball? Selene dodged again, but then to Gerald's horror, flew straight into the path of another cannon ball. He heard a loud thud. Selene went limp, and Gerald was falling. The blanket was ripped away with one of his packs; Selene tumbled slowly above him as the ground rushed up.

There was a castle next to a loch; this must be Urquhart. Already the castle and loch had grown to twice their size.

On a dare, Gerald had once jumped thirty feet from a bridge into a river. He'd landed wrong and it had hurt. Water wasn't soft when you hit it hard enough. Gerald suspected this was going to hurt a lot. Maybe kill him. He didn't know. Then he remembered some of Cuthbert's stories of dragons falling from heights. This would kill a dragon; there was no way Gerald would survive.

The castle and loch had doubled in size again.

Gerald thought of Sally. Of Samantha, of Cle, of his friends at Cair Parn, of Kenna, of the Eldest, of...

In old movie serial narrator voice: "What will happen to Gerald? Will he survive? We'll find out in Nemeses Unexpected, volume II of The Dragon Lord Chronicles, due out by early December of 2016!"

Illustration by the awesome Alli Walker. This is a photo of an unfinished illustration.