I didn’t believe that I could win this fight, but I had to go down trying.

I held my breath, expecting him to launch forward and begin trying to wrestle the knives from my hands, when he stopped suddenly and looked directly over my shoulder, out of the window.

His breath hitched and his lips parted.

His eyes widened.

I was shocked as he stepped back away from me.

What in the world? I didn’t even have time to turn around to see what on earth he was distracted by when there was a sudden blow against the side of the mountain.

The ground shook, and glass shattered.

I fell, ducking my head between my knees, trying to protect myself from the sudden shower of shards of glass.

My back stung as several shards pierced through the sheer fabric of my dress.

There was a deafening roar—that of no man or creature I’d ever witnessed before.

It penetrated my eardrums and vibrated around my brain.

“Dragons!” Anselm bellowed toward the opposite end of the corridor.

“The castle is under attack!” Dragons? Before I could even look up to see what had just smashed through the window, heat engulfed me.

I cowered closer to the window frame as a blaze of fire shot through the corridor.

Through the blaze I could just about make out Anselm running for his life and disappearing at the other end.

As the fire died, I clutched my mouth to stifle a scream.

I backed up into a corner and folded myself as small as I could as a set of sleek-reddish brown scales slid into the hallway.

I cast my eyes up and down the length of the gigantic creature.

Its head was facing the hallway’s exit, so I couldn’t see it, but the rest of its body was formidable enough to make me tremble.

It was perhaps five times the size of an ogre.

Smooth bat-like wings grew from its back.

Its legs were thick as tree trunks and each foot was equipped with four heavy claws.

Its long tail was pointed and sharp, almost like a stingray’s.

Since I was backed up into a shadowy corner, the beast hadn’t yet noticed me.

I jumped as it roared again, its whole body heaving as more fire shot down the length of the hallway.

Then it started moving swiftly toward the exit, where it turned a corner and disappeared out of sight.

My knees trembling, I stood up, only to be knocked back down as a second tremor ran through the floors.

Again glass shattered—in a room perhaps a few hundred yards away, in the corridor perpendicular to the one I was sitting in.

Gripping the edges of the window pane, I pulled myself to a standing position and stared out of the smashed window.

Beneath the grey cloudy sky were a spread of dragons, their heavy wings beating the air as they headed directly toward me.

Their scaly oblong faces were clearly visible, as were their slanted yellow eyes.

I looked left and right.

Several had already made contact with the building, and another window smashed a few floors down.

“Oh, my,” I breathed, backing away and sprinting down the hallway.

I was in a daze.

Dragons? Ogres? What the hell is happening to me? I even considered for a moment as I ran along that corridor, ducking down as another window smashed a few yards away from me, whether I was indeed in a dream.

It would have to be a very long dream if it was.

A dream that was impossible to wake up from.

As an ogre appeared before me in the hallway, he looked like he was about to throw himself at me, but on seeing another dragon climbing through the broken window and into the hallway behind me, he began running alongside me.

I threw myself down a flight of stairs just in time to escape the wave of heat that gushed from the dragon’s mouth.

I looked around the floor I’d just dropped down on.

I’d been expecting more winding passageways, more endless doorways to run my hands across, but instead I was in some massive open hall.

There were dozens of ogres running to and fro, strapping on armor, brandishing weapons and running toward the windows.

It was chaos.

I jumped as a heavy hand closed around my shoulder.

Gripping the knife, I was about to strike when I realized just in time that it was Bella.

Terror was written all over her face as she stared down at me.

“We need to hide!” she hissed.

She gripped me by my midriff and began milling through the crowd of ogres preparing for battle.

Bella wore a long cloak and gathered me against her chest.

I did my best to cling to her as she lowered the black cloak over me, hiding me from view.

She was so thick and heavy, it felt like if she fell, she’d crush me to a pulp.

I had to just hope that wouldn’t happen.

“What is happening?” I gasped.

I couldn’t see where Bella was running since the fabric was covering my face, and I couldn’t remove it for fear of losing grip on her.

“They come sometimes, the dragons.

Erisard’s lot.

To plunder us…” Her breath hitched.

“They eat us ogres.” The hallways echoed with shouts and screeches.

I began to sweat beneath the fabric as I felt the temperature rising.

“Dragons,” I murmured.

I still couldn’t believe it.

I was about to ask another question when Bella let out a blood-curdling shriek.

She jolted upward, and if it weren’t for her clinging to my midriff, I would have fallen away from her.

She… we… were being lifted into the air.

As more glass smashed, I thrashed against the cloth covering my eyes and stared downward.