Death of the Dragon c-3

by Ed Greenwood

  “A goblin grave,” Rowen replied.

  A handful of mold-covered lumps that might have been fresh bodies came into view. There was also a glint of gold, buried well down among the skeletons.

  Rowen continued, “When goblins become a burden on their clan, their children give them an iron tree. They bring it here, string all their treasures on it, and jump.”

  Vangerdahast nodded. “Very practical of them. I take it that’s the reason they never come here?”

  “The reason they never leave,” Rowen corrected.

  The ghazneth raised his face to the drizzle and closed his eyes in concentration. Though it had only been a short while since Nalavara had bitten him apart, all that remained of his wound was a pale scar across the top of his abdomen. After collapsing to the ground in two pieces, Rowen had pulled himself together and asked Vangerdahast to start pelting him with magic. The wizard had blasted him with magic missiles, lightning bolts, and any other spell he could cast with the components at hand. Some of the magic did stun the ghazneth for a moment, but most of it he simply absorbed and used to regenerate himself. It was the most frightening thing Vangerdahast had ever seen, at least until he recalled the other six phantoms wreaking havoc on Cormyr at that very moment.

  The drizzle did not stop, and Rowen opened his eyes. “I can’t stop it.” He shook his head. “All that magic… I’m out of control.”

  “Ah, well…” Vangerdahast wanted to say something comforting, but could think of nothing the boy would not recognize instantly to be a lie. “A little rain never hurt anything.”

  “A little rain, no, but we both know it won’t stop there. You should kill me now, before I become the Seventh Scourge.”

  “We’ll have no talk of that kind,” Vangerdahast said sternly. He felt at more of a loss than he had since Aunadar Bleth had managed to poison Azoun on that fateful hunting trip. “I doubt I could kill you. To become a ghazneth in the first place, you had to betray your duty to Cormyr and rob an elven tomb. Do you think I can just wave a hand and undo that?”

  Rowen considered this a moment, then shook his head. “I suppose not. It is the darkness of my betrayal that makes me a ghazneth, and a ghazneth I will stay until that betrayal is forgiven.”

  “If that were so, you would be a ghazneth no longer. Your betrayal was small enough as such things go.” Vangerdahast did not add that he himself had made worse mistakes for less cause and still not turned into a ghazneth, but he had never opened an elven tomb either. “I, for one, have already forgiven you.”

  “But you do not wear the crown of Cormyr.” Rowen let his chin drop. “That will be the hardest part of this-to admit to Tanalasta that she was the reason I betrayed my oath.” He remained silent a moment, then turned his pearly eyes back to Vangerdahast. “You should have let Nalavara kill me.”

  “I couldn’t. The realm still has need of your services,” said Vangerdahast, hoping he had finally hit on a way to lift Rowen’s despair. “We must get the scepter to Azoun.”

  “But you wished Nalavara out of existence,” said Rowen, as always too observant for his own good. “Three times. I heard it.”

  “And she no longer exists here, wherever here is.” Vangerdahast raised his hand and displayed the ring of wishes. “Unless this damned thing worked better for me than it ever has for any of my predecessors, Nalavara remains a force to be reckoned with, and you may be our only way of getting the scepter to Azoun.”

  “Me?”

  “When the change takes you,” Vangerdahast explained. “Xanthon could come and go at will. As you become more of a ghazneth, presumably you will, too.”

  “And you think you’ll be able to trust me?” Rowen asked. “With the scepter in your hand?”

  “That’s the reason I risked what I did, yes,” said Vangerdahast, “though you may have to leave alone if it proves impossible for me to go with you.”

  Rowen laughed bitterly and stood. “If I must leave alone, I think it would be wiser for you to kill me.” He began to back away from the edge of the pit, and said, “What good will the scepter be to Cormyr if I have drained all its magic?”

  20

  Alusair let her arm fall and nodded in grim satisfaction as the banner beside her dipped for the last signal.

  Obediently, at the head of the valley, a banner dipped in answer.

  “Positions,” Alusair murmured almost absently, her eyes on that distant height.

  Men moved to their bows and the bristling “flowers” of arrows standing ready in the turf, the few hopeless shots taking up bills and pikes behind the archers. They’d step forward only when the charging foe were mere paces away.

  It seemed to take only a few quick breaths before the first smoke drifted up. Alusair smiled grimly.

  “Welcome to our cookfires, you eaters of men,” she said aloud, reaching for her own bow. It shouldn’t take long now.

  Orcs had no more love of smoke than men and could no more resist ready food and water. Alusair’s men had driven the few stray sheep they’d found down to the ponds in this valley the day before, setting the perfect lure.

  Like stupid beasts the orcs had plunged down upon the prize. They even fought among themselves over who’d get mutton for evenfeast. They were down there now, and Alusair had made ready their next meal: massed volleys of arrows, right down their throats.

  Smoke was rising in dark clouds now, the breezes driving it right down the valley.

  “Waste no shafts,” Alusair murmured, repeating the order she’d given rather more forcefully some time ago. “Fire only at tuskers you can see.”

  There came a snarling out of the smoke, then its cause.

  Orcs were running hard, some with unlaced armor bouncing askew, but all with weapons out and ready. Red eyes glittered with rage and smoke-smarting pain, seeing the doom to come and knowing there was no way to escape it.

  All around Alusair bows twanged and death hummed. The Steel Princess chose a target, sighted, and let fly. She plucked up another shaft from the sheaf standing ready even before her victim threw up its hands to claw at the air, her shaft standing out of its throat, and fell over on its side in the dust. It rolled under the running feet of orcs who stumbled and fell, but kept coming-only to sprout swift thickets of arrows and fall in twisting spasms of pain.

  A barricade of writhing orc bodies was growing across the mouth of the valley. The slaughter was as impressive as it was swift. Unless they dared to tarry among the vultures for other orcs to kill while they tore free their shafts to use again, Alusair’s warriors would have very few arrows left to loose at later foes. Not that arrows were much use against the dragon she expected at any moment. Lord Mage Stormshoulder had hazarded a spell to warn her of what it had done to her father’s army, and she had seen it winging across the horizon not long after setting this trap.

  As if that grim thought had been a signal, a dark and sinuous shape appeared over the hills on the horizon. Alusair cursed and cried out, “Into the trees! Break off battle and run!”

  Some did not hear her through the screams and whistling of arrows and the clang of blades rising from the few places where orcs had managed to stagger through the storm of shafts and reach the waiting line of Cormyrean pikemen, but a horn echoed her order, and the warriors of the Forest Kingdom started to move.

  That was when Alusair saw the first dark line of orcs stream over a nearby hilltop, then more, over the next hilltop. Gods, but there must be a thousand thousand of them!

  “Move, gods damn you!” she raged, waving her blade. The dragon was growing in size with almost breathtaking speed.

  It was going to catch her army on the hillside well shy of the trees. They were right in the open, as helpless as the sheep she’d left for the orcs.

  Alusair saw some of her swordsmen scrambling in among the arrow-bristling heaps of orc bodies across the mouth of the valley, and others staggering as they gasped for air in their haste. She saw a few turn and ready their pikes or bows in vain but valiant defia
nce as the dragon’s dark shadow swept down.

  A shadow that was abruptly banished by fire-a long, blinding torrent of flame, unhampered by trees or rock barriers or a dragon harried by spells or wounding weapons-a deluge of searing flame that blackened and laid bare half the hillside, and gave the men on it no chance to even scream.

  Alusair could have sworn that the roaring sound coming out of the dragon as it swept past, its belly low enough for her to touch if she’d leaped high, was mocking laughter.

  Dark red death swooped up into the sky, wheeled, and came down again. Alusair raised a blade she knew was useless and watched the dragon come.

  It spread its huge wings above and behind itself like two huge sails that cupped the air and slowed its racing bulk. Alusair heard the air rippling over them with its own roar in the instant before the dragon pounced.

  It snatched up two huge clawfuls of men in its talons and squeezed, reducing the men to bloody bonelessness even as it crashed down on vainly running warriors and rolled, crushing hundreds more with its great weight and flailing, smashing wings. It bit at men as it rolled playfully, twisting to and fro on its back like a gigantic dog. Alusair snarled at it in futility, never slowing her race for the trees.

  She half expected the great red dragon to rear upright and start plucking up clawfuls of trees like a petulant child tearing up flowers from a garden. Instead it roared out its triumph in a wordless bellow that rang back from the hilltops and was echoed by orc throats on all sides, before it sprang into the air and flew away, looping and wheeling in the air almost as if it was taunting the surviving humans below.

  Alusair crashed into a tree with bruising force, reeled away, and shook her head to clear it of images of horses and their riders bitten in two with casual cruelty and great talons tearing men to bloody shreds of meat.

  In the space of a few breaths victory had become disastrous defeat. With a vicious snarling the foremost orcs reached the trees, raising their blades. Alusair shouted to rally her men and moved to meet them almost eagerly. To have a foe she could reach and smite and have any hope of felling was suddenly a wonderful thing.

  Snarling, tusked mouths screamed as her blade bit down, and growling orcs were suddenly all around her, black blades singing out. She ducked and hacked and sprang, rolling and twisting like a young girl at play, alone among her foes. Black blades crashed together, skirling past her ear, and one bit sudden fire along her flank, cleaving armor with the force of its strike.

  Cormyrean swordsmen were hacking their way to meet her, crying her name. The Steel Princess saw one man-Faernguard, that was his name-take a blade in the stomach and fall to his knees, spilling out his guts in a steaming, bloody flood. He’d barely drawn breath to scream when an orc cut his throat, jerking the head around with brutal ease.

  Gods above! And what if the dragon returned? What then?

  Alusair stared in horror at the men dying all around her, some of them crying her name. Men she knew-some of them men she’d bedded or gotten drunk with-died in bloody horror. They were protecting her with their own bodies… and their lives.

  21

  Tanalasta woke feeling like someone was kicking her from the inside and discovered it was so. There was some little creature down in her abdomen, punching and pushing and trying to find its way out of her of belly. She wanted it out, too. Groggy and confused, she pushed herself up in bed and found herself looking down at a swollen belly that could not possibly be hers and saw little ripples working their way across the tight-stretched skin and tiny bulges rising where the thing was trying to push out through her skin.

  “Guards!” she cried. “It’s alive! In the name of the Flower, get it out!”

  “Tanalasta, it’s all right. Nothing is wrong.” The voice was male, kindly, and vaguely familiar. A dark, work-weathered hand appeared from beside her and gently forced her head back to the pillow. “Stay down a moment. You’ve been asleep.”

  “Asleep?” Tanalasta asked, growing calmer but continuing to stare down at her belly. The thing looked more familiar now, though she still could not understand how it had grown so huge-or why it was jumping around so. “How long?”

  “Not long.” A weathered face with gray, close-cropped hair leaned into view, and Tanalasta recognized the man as her friend and spiritual mentor, Owden Foley. “Only a few days.”

  “Only a few?” Tanalasta gasped. She frowned at her swollen belly. “What happened?”

  “Happened?” Owden asked, sounding as confused as she was. He followed her gaze, then chuckled heartily and laid a hand on her stomach. “Nothing bad. Your baby has learned to kick, that is all.”

  “My… baby?” Tanalasta repeated. She noticed the soreness in her breasts, and the scabs where the snake’s fangs had pierced her skin, and everything that had happened came flooding back to her. She stared down at her writhing belly and suddenly felt tired and frightened and guilty. “In the name of the goddess! How could I have forgotten?”

  “Forgotten, my dear?”

  Tanalasta felt something wet and warm rolling down her cheeks, then realized she was crying. The fact surprised her, for she had considered herself long past tears-and far, far above the station where such luxuries could be permitted. She used the edge of a silk blanket to wipe the drops away, but they reappeared instantly, running down her face in such a torrent that they cascaded from her jaw and soaked the blanket.

  A muted clanking drew Tanalasta’s attention to her anteroom door, where Korvarr Rallyhorn and one other guard stood watching their crown princess sob like some delicate little girl who’d skinned her knees. Tanalasta wiped her eyes again and willed herself to stop crying, but her tears flowed all the more, unleashed by her embarrassment and a sudden appreciation of the risks she had been taking with the life of her unborn child.

  Seeing that the princess’s eye had fallen on him, Korvarr bowed cautiously. “The princess called?”

  Tanalasta started to order him away, then realized that doing so would only compound Korvarr’s concern and send a flurry of concerned whispers fluttering through the castle halls. She started to blubber an excuse about a bad dream but made it only as far as “I was having…” before she realized that reacting so strongly to a nightmare would make her appear even weaker. Tanalasta let the sentence trail off unfinished.

  Korvarr’s dark brows came together. “Yes, Highness?”

  When Tanalasta could think of nothing to say, Owden came to her rescue by furling her blanket back and proudly pointing to her swollen stomach.

  “The princess’s child is quickening,” Owden explained happily.

  Korvarr looked rather confused and did a quick scan of the room, no doubt trying to fathom whether there was some secret meaning to the priest’s words. When he found nothing amiss, he gave Tanalasta an uncomfortable smile.

  “That is very good news, I’m sure.” His gaze shifted to Owden. “Thank you for informing me.”

  This drew a snort of amusement from the priest. “Relax, Korvarr. No one’s saying you’re the father.”

  “Of course not! I would never do such a thing to the princess.”

  Owden cocked his brow. “Truly?” He looked to Tanalasta, then drew the blanket back over her. “I don’t know how you should feel about that, Princess.”

  Korvarr’s face reddened. He began to stammer an apology, then seemed to lose his way and settled for simply clamping his jaw. The lionar’s embarrassment drew a deep chuckle from Owden, and the humor proved catching. Tanalasta found herself laughing and crying at the same time, then crying with laughter, then finally just laughing. She motioned the lionar over and took him by the hand.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Korvarr. I may be your princess, but I’m also just a woman,” she said. “A woman and a friend. Never forget that.”

  This seemed to put the lionar a little more at ease. He smiled stiffly, then bowed. “Thank you, Highness.”

  Owden rolled his eyes, then said, “Korvarr, perhaps you should inform Queen Filfaer
il that her daughter has awakened. As I recall, she can be touchy about that.”

  “She did leave instructions to be notified,” said Korvarr. Despite his acknowledgment, he made no move to leave. “But it may be some time before she is available.”

  “Really?” Owden looked doubtful. “I would want to be certain of that, were I you. The last time, Queen Filfaeril seemed most eager-“

  “As she is this time, I assure you,” interrupted Korvarr, “but she is occupied with a matter of state.”

  The slight furrow in the lionar’s brow did not escape Tanalasta’s notice. “What matter of state?” she asked.

  The lionar glanced in Owden’s direction, clearly appealing for help and receiving none.

  “Lionar, I asked you a question,” Tanalasta said. “Where, exactly, is the queen?”

  Korvarr arched his dark brow at Owden one more time, then sighed and said, “She is in the Audience Hall with the Lords Goldsword and Silverswords, and some others.”

  Tanalasta threw her covers back and swung her legs out of bed. “Discussing what?”

  This time, Korvarr knew better than to hesitate. “You, Highness, and what should be done.”

  “Done?” Tanalasta stood, then nearly fell again when her head grew light and her vision blackened.

  Owden caught her by the arm and braced her up. “I know you’re concerned, Princess, but you must not rush. You have been in bed for days. Go slowly.”

  Tanalasta paused long enough to let her vision clear, then looked back to Korvarr. “Done about what?”

  “About Sembia’s offer, Highness,” said Korvarr. “Ambassador Hovanay has repeated it, and Emlar Goldsword has been working hard to convince the more conservative nobles that the, uh, uncertain paternity of your child-“

  “Uncertain!” Tanalasta fumed. Practically dragging Owden along, she started across the room toward her wardrobe. “Didn’t anyone tell them?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Owden. “Given your previous discretion, the queen thought it best to keep the matter secret.”