They did not charge in. A dragon that nested above the clouds could see a fool coming from a long way off.
Instead, they moved into the great forest, low and quiet, under the roots of trees so vast that a single trunk was wider than a village, and they climbed toward the nests from below where the dragons would not think to watch.
Erix sent his amber eyes up first, drifting them through the mist and the branches, mapping the high nests and the beasts that slept in them.
"Five of them, like the Shrine said," he murmured, reading what the eyes brought back. "Spread across four trees. Two nest together on the tallest. The others keep apart." He drew a slow breath. "We take them one at a time. We never let two of them come at us at once if we can help it. That is the whole game here."
"And if they call to each other?" Korin asked.
"Then we finish fast," Erix said, "and we move before the rest arrive."
