by Ed Greenwood
“Aye! Well said,” and the like came from a dozen throats. Amid their thunder, Azoun gestured to Dauneth and Giogi. They saluted and turned their mounts away, down the slope that led to the next hill closer to Suzail-a height where the king’s tent had been erected, and a few hostlers stood holding nobles’ warhorses.
“What about Marsember?” a lone voice asked softly, as the war captains turned grimly to face the foe again.
“We’ve not swords enough to spare to guard both,” Azoun said bleakly. “The navy holds Marsember with the aid of some hired adventurers. If a thousand thousand goblins appear at its gates, there’re boats enough.”
“But…” the voice began, then fell silent.
Battlemaster Ilnbright’s broad and hairy hand fell on the Marsembian’s shoulder. “That’s the hard part of being king, lad,” he growled in a whisper that was audible half the hill away. “There’s never enough to do anything proper, or please all the folk. Ye do what ye can, and yer subjects hope ye’ve a heart and honor to be their shields. This one does-be thankful ye live in Cormyr and not someplace a lot more cruel.”
“Haliver,” the king said quietly from close by, “sound the trumpet. It’s time.”
Battlemaster Ilnbright nodded, squared his shoulders, and took the horn from his broad belt. He did not hesitate as he blew the call that would send almost every man on that hill down to his death.
Ilberd Crownsilver had never been in a battle before. He was here now only because he was a Crownsilver, young and expendable enough to ride into possible death so as to serve the king and bring glory to the family. He’d been young enough to be excited and even nonchalant about the clash of arms. After all, how much harm could one take, riding with King Azoun and Royal Magician Vangerdahast? He was even looking forward to swaggering into eveningfeast to grimly tell his kin of his bravery and tell them of how the king had personally praised his cool manner and valor. At least, he’d been young enough for all that about an hour ago.
Now he was cowering behind a rampart of fly-swarming goblin bodies, the stink of death and his own vomit strong around him, hoping to somehow see the end of the day alive. His ears were ringing from the constant din of screaming, blades crashing upon blades and armor-some of these knights used their swords like clubs or threshing flails, battering their foes into the dirt by simply hammering on armor and shield until the limbs beneath broke or were wearied and beaten down-and he’d yet to see a valiant death. Or even a clean one.
Their first charge had slaughtered goblins by the thousands. The brook was running black with goblin blood and flooding the field, its channel so choked with little humanoid bodies it created a wide marsh of blood-hued mud. Their second charge fared as well, but the earfangs were endless. On they came, in an endless howling flood, and more and more men were beginning to fall. Perhaps four hundred were left-no more-and still the goblins came on, waving their spears.
And the Devil Dragon had not yet taken wing. Almost lazily she lay sprawled on that hilltop, gloating, as her forces surged on in their hundreds and thousands, overwhelming the Purple Dragons by the sheer weight of their numbers. The army of Cormyr had retreated back up the hill to force their foes to climb to meet them. The hillside was heaped with dead goblins, slaughtered almost at will until the arrows and quarrels ran out, sword arms grew tired, and the patient sun beat down.
Still the goblins came. Each wave forced its way a little higher up the slope. Each left behind a red wash of fallen, but there were armored men aplenty among all the goblins now, and though he’d swung his sword all of twice, Ilberd was reeling with weariness.
He didn’t know how the battlemaster and the other older, larger knights could even stand up, yet they spent the time between each wave drinking water from troughs, mustaches dripping, and pointing out particular goblins to strike at when the next wave came. The time during waves they spent hacking like merry madmen, bellowing war cries and bounding around like boys at play. Gods above, if he ever lived to see the sunset, this would be the last battlefield he’d ever
“Guard yourself, lad!” Haliver Ilnbright bellowed, clapping Ilberd between the shoulders with enough force to make him stagger, and striding on without breaking stride. “They’re coming again!”
“Slow to learn, aren’t they?” a white-haired old knight who’d lost his helm in the last fray drawled. “This is getting to be like a proper romp in the Dragonjaws, it is! I’ll have to get my minstrel to write a ballad about this…”
“I hope he sings swiftly,” a Purple Dragon armsman growled. “Here they are!”
The howling spilled over the bodies in another rushing tide of flapping leather, slashing swords, and beady goblin eyes. Men planted themselves-no running and leaping now-to hew steadily, like harvesters with scythes and many fields in front of them, in a rhythm of death.
Ilberd dodged a yelling goblin, slipped, found himself nose to nose with another-and was promptly blinded by its blood as a foot took it in the face and a blade bit deep into its neck.
” ‘Ware, lad,” Lareth Gulur shouted through the din of steel all around them. “Hold your place… ‘tis hard to fell goblins when you’re wallowing about on the…”
His next words, whatever they may have been, were lost in a little scream as one goblin ran right onto his blade, a second thrust a blade deep into his crotch, and a third bounded up to slash his face.
The Purple Dragon spun around, clawing at the air for support, and crashed down on his face. Ilberd didn’t even have time to gape. It was all so sudden. Sudden, and final.
And the realm said the Steel Princess did this every day-had done this every day, for years. Gods, but she must have been frightening to stand near!
“Back, boy, if you don’t know how to use that!” Hathian Talar roared, shouldering him aside and slaying a trio of goblins with a deft fore-and-back cut. He tripped over Gulur’s arm, saw who it was, and cursed like a fiend, then he snatched up his fallen friend’s blade, shook the dead goblin off it, and charged down the hill with both blades flashing in his hands like bolts of lightning. Goblins fell in droves around Talar, as he stood alone in their midst roaring like a walrus. Tears were streaming down his face and he was shouting curses so fast the words were tripping over each other to get out of his mouth.
Ilberd Crownsilver gaped at him in utter astonishment-and was still staring like a statue when hurled goblin maces battered Talar down, and a snarling swarm of goblins surged over him, hacking and stabbing.
The young Crownsilver flung down his sword and fled blindly up the hill, weeping. He had to get away from this, had to get anywhere. He had to be where men weren’t shrieking and dying, their lives spent in an-
Fingers of iron caught hold of his shoulder and shook him until his teeth rattled. The hands spun him around, setting him so firmly on the ground that both Crownsilver heels were bruised right through his boots.
“We don’t need the rear guarded quite yet, lad,” Battlemaster Ilnbright growled. “We’re in rather more pressing need of our line on this end of the ridge not collapsing completely. Just stand in this gap here and kill goblins, hey? It’s not that hard, you just need a bit of practice!”
A sword was slapped into Ilberd’s hands with numbing force, then the mountainous commander was off down the line again, racing in to stand beside a faltering, bleeding lionar to hack down half a dozen goblins before the wave fell back down the hill, shrieking their rage as they went.
Ilberd swallowed, then his stomach heaved, and he tried to be sick again, though he’d nothing left to empty from it. When he could stand upright once more, he looked up at the crest of the hill and his jaw dropped.
King Azoun had lost his helm in the fray and was bleeding from one ear. A second slash across his cheek was already drying into a dark line. He was holding up a staggering giant of a man-the bannerguard, Kolmin Stagblade.
Kolmin took two faltering steps, looked up at the darkening sky, then crashed over onto his side with a landing that shook
the dirt under Ilberd’s boots. The man lay still. Azoun bent to him, then straightened, looking grim. The flies were already swarming.
A sudden coldness settled over Ilberd Crownsilver’s chest. It was at that moment that he abandoned all thought of a triumphant entry into the family halls and decided that he’d never see them again. He wasn’t going to leave this field alive.
The clouds were covering the sky now, blotting the sun from view, and in the sudden gloom Ilberd saw Battlemaster Ilnbright striding up to the king. Wisps of white hair blew in the breeze on both their heads, and Ilberd suddenly realized how old these men were. They’d stood on fields like this one forty years ago, and more.
And they were still alive.
He was grinning at that, heart suddenly lighter, when his thoughts fell upon a new idea. Just how many other eager young men had stood with them then who weren’t alive to stand there now?
It was three grim, weary hours later when Battlemaster Ilnbright fell, roaring to his last breath, under a cloak of struggling, scrambling goblins. Ilberd himself hewed down the last of them, tears of rage and grief temporarily blinding him.
When he looked up, it was to see perhaps sixty men still standing around him or sitting wearily on the ground, some groaning from their wounds.
The field below the hill was knee deep in dead goblins. They were heaped head-high in some places. Still, a fresh wave, a thousand strong or more, was trotting out from behind the hill where the dragon lay sprawled at ease.
“That’s it,” someone said quietly. “We’re doomed.”
“What?” someone else growled. “And not have a chance to take some of these home to Malaeve so she can try her recipe for goblin stew?”
No one bothered to laugh, but there were a few silent smiles as men took up blades and worked aching arms in slow swings, waiting for death to come up the hill and snatch them down.
“For Cormyr,” someone whispered, almost as if it were a prayer.
“For Cormyr,” a dozen throats muttered in response. With something like wonder, Ilberd discovered that his own voice had been one of them.
Somehow they’d withstood that wave, the exhausted and blood-drenched few on the hilltop, though one lionar lay twisting and sobbing, his guts on the grass around him, pleading to someone-anyone-to cut his throat and end the pain.
King Azoun took a flask from his belt and put it to the man’s lips. The healing potion did not close the grisly wound, but the pain faded from the warrior’s face, and the king put one arm around his shoulders to help him stand. They were standing together grimly, knowing how little time they had left to live, when the thunder began.
Men looked up at the scudding gray clouds, racing across the sky as if in haste to be elsewhere but as endless as the swarming goblins. No lightning split that sky, and no rain fell. Could the dragon be working a spell? Or was this the work of the royal magician?
Ilberd glanced along the hill at Vangerdahast, who’d lain on his stomach murmuring spells and reading scrolls aloud for most of the day. He’d been wreaking great havoc among distant goblins but took no part in the hewing on the hilltop. If the strength of Cormyr on this hilltop shrank to any less, the young swordlord thought grimly, the wizard might not have any choice about fighting with blade and boots when the next wave came.
The thunder deepened, becoming a steady sound, and louder. The Devil Dragon was on her feet now, twisting around to look behind her. She sprang into the air with a ripple of powerful shoulders, great batlike wings beating once before she plunged down in a pounce on something out of sight, behind the hill.
Someone near Ilberd muttered, “The elves, come again? That can’t be…”
The thunder swept around the hill, driving a red foam of shrieking, spitted goblins before it before they were trampled and ridden down. Purple Dragon banners flapped above the riders. They raised their swords in a shouted salute to the king, then they crashed into the goblins between the hills.
“Gwennath,” Azoun said quietly. “Thank all the watching gods-Tymora most of all-that I’ve a marshal who knows when to disobey orders.”
“She’s emptied High Horn!” a war captain bellowed joyously. “See the banners-they’re all here!” He burst into unashamed tears, not caring if half the world saw his mustache dripping.
A figure in black armor rode at the head of that thundering mass of knights-a figure that raised one slender arm to Azoun as the riders swept past up the valley, driving the helpless goblins before them.
Azoun returned the salute, and laughed in delight.
He was still laughing when the gigantic red dragon swirled into view around the hill, clawing and biting as she roared past mere feet above the heads of the High Horn cavalry, and plunged down on the front ranks of the galloping Cormyreans, biting and clawing.
When she rose from the confusion of rolling, screaming horses and shouting men, jaws dripping with gore, the dark-armored figure could not be seen. When the wyrm turned in the air and breathed fire along that line of death, nothing but dark-armored figures could be seen, toppling amid the smoke.
“So passes Gwennath, Lady-Lord High Marshal of Cormyr,” a knight beside Ilberd murmured. “Who rode all the way from High Horn to win this battle for us-and lose her own life.”
“Win it?” someone else growled. “Forgive me if my eyes fail, but I seem to see a dragon…”
The Devil Dragon turned in the air with indolent grace and plunged down upon the cavalry, taking them in the rear just as they had done to the goblins. She skidded along, shaking the ground in fresh thunder with the force of her passage, and snapping her jaws like a dog ridding itself of stinging flies. A bloody cloud trailed from her as she swept her foes in a terrible tangle down the battlefield, leaving a long, bloody smear.
When their heaped, shattered corpses brought her to a halt at last, she bounded aloft again, scattering those who tried to hurl lances at her with a sweep of a mighty tail. She circled, looking down at those she was going to slay at her next pass. Or the next one.
Gwennath may have been dead, but she’d left one last trick for her slayer. The great red dragon had barely begun her dive down at the cavalry when there was a flash from within its close-packed ranks, then another.
“That’s magic!” someone on the hilltop shouted.
“Lord Wizard?” someone else barked. Vangerdahast peered, and kept peering, and said simply, “Aye. Magic.”
They stood and watched as the dragon came down, large and terrible in the sky-unmoving, claws outstretched and mouth agape as the ground rushed up, her eyes rolling wildly at the last.
“It’s spellbound!” someone cried excitedly, as horsemen scattered in the valley below.
The dragon crashed headfirst into the valley.
The ground shook, and many of the men on the hill fell as the ground quivered under them. Those who kept their footing saw men and their mounts cartwheeling helplessly through the air in the vale below, twisting in agony and despair, and vain attempts to catch hold of something in the roaring chaos that engulfed them.
The ground shook for a long, groaning time. The stiff-winged wyrm slid along like a giant plough, choking out a cry that sounded very like a human woman sobbing, as it helplessly hurled a great cloud of dust and dirt at the sky in its wake.
Clods of earth rained down on the hillside, and men swore in awe and threw up their hands-too late-to shield their eyes. The earth itself seemed to groan and echo its complaint back from the hills around, as at last the Devil Dragon came to a halt.
A horn sounded even before the great wyrm stopped moving, and lancers in the valley below spurred their mounts forward in a charge that ended at those curving scales as they milled around, thrusting and hurling for all their might.
The dragon surged as her assailants raged around her, heaving herself up once, twice, then twisting and rolling over on her side among screaming horses and sprinting men. She thrashed, flailed, then shook herself all over, hurling bodies like broken dolls in all
directions, and righted herself.
Ilberd could have sworn the Devil Dragon was wearing a grim look as she flapped her wings, bowling over men and horses like so many toys and clearing a wide area around herself. She reared up and beat her wings in earnest, then, faltering only once. When she took to the air, she was not quite free of the magic, and her wavering flight was straight to her hilltop, to a crashing, heavy landing.
The beast lay motionless, but for her heaving sides, for some moments. The men on the hill saw many spears moving up and down with her scales.
“Blood to us,” a war captain growled in satisfaction. “Now let’s get over there and finish the task.”
They were already moving forward when a lancelord pointed and snapped, “Gods above! More of them!”
Up into view from the far side of the dragon’s hill were coming more goblins-a steady stream of fresh faces, shields, and waving blades.
The men on the hill came to an uneasy halt-all except for the king and the wizard, who trudged steadily on amid the goblin bodies, heading down the hill into the blood-drenched valley. The cavalry swept past the way they’d come, seeking more goblins to slay or perhaps a place to take shelter from red dragons on the wing.
Lancelord looked to lionar, then down at the dwindling figures of the king and the wizard, then at each other again. Helpless shrugs followed and the grim, bloody survivors began to descend the hill once more.
“King Azoun?” one of them called uncertainly.
“On! Our work’s not done yet!” the king called back, rather grimly.
“What price glory?” Ilberd Crownsilver grunted wearily, as his slippery descent brought him down beside his ruler. “Haven’t we slain goblins enough?”
“We’re not here to win glory, lad,” Azoun growled. “We’re here because Cormyr needs us. Or at least that’s why I’m here.”
The young swordlord stared at him for a moment, face going pale, then suddenly ducked his head and went on down the hill.
As they came to the blood-choked stream, the king drew his sword again.