Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) by James A. Hillebrecht

permeating every part of the corridor, a sour, pungent, reptilian odor that made every human throat wretch and gag: the dragon stench. Malcolm stood quietly for a moment, making his lungs accept the tainted air, and when he could breathe normally again, he closed his eyes and concentrated.
    Slowly, he began to picture three small glowing shapes, and he focused on them, making them real in his mind, giving them form, color, and movement, letting some small part of his power enter them. Then he opened his eyes to include the cavern again, pushing the three forms forth from his mind like a woman giving birth, and suddenly, there were three small birds flying directly before him, a robin, a sparrow, and a wren.
    “Go, my little friends,” he said with a smile. “Go and probe the darkness.”
    Obediently, the robin flew down the corridor behind him, while the wren and sparrow headed in the direction he intended to go. The magical birds had only limited sight here, barely enough to avoid the cavern walls, but that was still sufficient to give them (and him) some warning of the approach of an enemy. Malcolm watched them go and took a firmer grip on his staff, feeling comfort in the familiar tingling within the wood. It would have been both quicker and easier if he had simply used the staff to conjure these scouts, but he had learned long ago to husband the staff’s power, knowing he might well need all the magic it contained in the minutes ahead. Then he began to walk steadily down the tunnel.
    The walls of the caves sparkled with glints of gold, as if veins of pure ore lay just beneath the surface, a fortune awaiting only a pick and willing hand. Fool’s gold, thought Malcolm grimly as he kept his eyes warily on the tunnels ahead. He knew a close inspection would soon show that the specks were not ore at all but rather the embedded scales of gold dragons as they had slithered past against the walls. But by the time a greedy prospector had pulled his eyes away from those specks, he could easily find himself facing the terrible source of that gold.
    He passed a side tunnel, then another, then two more, the proliferation lessening the effectiveness of his scouts as they tried to cover more and more area. He knew he was still far from the vital sections of the dragons’ lair, the treasure hordes, the sleeping chambers, the breeding den and the hatchery, and it was highly unlikely he would get any closer this time than he had in the past. Despite the danger of approaching such sensitive areas, Malcolm let the staff lead him towards them, knowing it was the best way to force his opponent to show himself. If he simply waited here, he would yield the initiative and the advantage to Mraxdavar.
    The wren and the sparrow were nervously hesitating in the darkness ahead, the sound of a heavy body moving along the rock corridor getting steadily closer to them, and Malcolm quickly sent the wren ahead to investigate. A moment later and a faint red-gold radiance gave him his answer. A dragon was twisting steadily down the corridor, its wings folded, its heavy taloned claws dragging it along, the dim light coming from the dragon itself, a sign of the great heat pulsing within its body. Yet despite the size and fierceness of the beast, Malcolm recognized it was only a young dragon, hardly more than one of Mraxdavar’s grandchildren.
    A single thought brought the wren flitting back down the corridor, while Malcolm concentrated on the dragon, his mind moving along the corridor, touching the rock and the rock again, until it finally found the active, hungry intelligence of the monster. Concentrating hard, he began gesturing constantly to the left with his fingers, focusing in that direction, frowning, wondering, luring. Far ahead in the darkness, he could sense the dragon hesitating, alert to something though it wasn’t sure what. An older, more experienced dragon would be instantly aware of the influence, might even be able to focus back on its