by Ed Greenwood
She snarled fire in at the men-and at the same time thrust one claw in through another window, not caring if she shattered the wall around it, only that her scales blocked the door they'd come in by.
The Priests of the Serpent cursed and wailed and shaped spells in a desperate frenzy-and the Dragon breathed fire in at them until there was nothing left outside that charred wardrobe door but ashes.
And as they died, the jangling sound rose to a sudden shriek-and something snapped. With a wailing of many despairing voices, it all rushed away into nothingness…
And the Thrael was no more.
All over the Vale, Priests of the Serpent stiffened, screamed, and their heads burst into flame. Most froze where they stood, and burned like torches.
Fangbrother Maurivan was one of them, crumpling to his knees on a hill above Stornbridge with the throat of a vainly struggling Mistress of the Pantry Klaedra clutched in one clawlike hand-while he wrenched at her string of coins with the other. Blazing, he toppled over onto her, and they both burned.
Up and down the Silverflow folk of Aglirta cried out, fell to their knees in soaking sweats, and starting sobbing and trembling as the Blood Plague left them forever, leaving behind only the memories of what the Serpent-priests had done to them… and the revulsion.
In the sky above Flowfoam the jangling, singing sound burst forth, audible to all, and bringing with it a great gash in the air-a rift of dark fire and a bright shimmering flash rising out of it… a flood of short-lived radiance that vomited forth the whirling body of a man.
That spreadeagled form spun wildly, trailing black flames, and grew with horrible speed, welling up into something serpentine and monstrous, with a great flat many-fanged head… and the Great Serpent reared up, hissing, behind the Dragon as it glided around a tower of the palace-and pounced.
Long, dark fangs struck deep into a golden-scaled tail. Tshamarra whirled around in startled pain, and with a hiss of triumph, the dark, looming snake threw coils of its great body around her wings.
26
Doom, Death, and Dragons
Many boats were on the Silverflow that unfolding morning, crowded with tersepts, their gleaming-armored guards, and with frightened but determined Aglirtans clutching whatever weapons they'd been able to find. All were rowing hard for Flowfoam.
From boat to boat men eyed each other uneasily, but no one dared to break into battle until they knew what lay ahead on the Isle of the King.
The royal island was close now, rising from the broad, rushing river in its usual lush green, girt about with the weathered walls of what for years had been Castle Silvertree.
As the Dragon whirled briefly into view above those gray turrets, there were shouts and curses on the boats, and a brief faltering of oars. Tersepts snapped orders, horns blared, and as swiftly as it had paused, the hurrying journey resumed, boats cleaving the water with men peering warily at the sky ahead and making sure their weapons were at hand.
Then the sky spat forth something that the rowers watched become the Serpent. There were more shouts, and a general lifting of oars to drift, as nigh everyone afloat stared up into the brightening sky.
The Serpent reared up, dark and huge and terrible-and then struck, its sinuous length arrowing savagely down.
The men on the boats barely had time to gasp or cry out before the Dragon was struggling in the heart of coils-clawing its way aloft, still trapped in tightening grip of the gigantic snake, to hang almost overhead as the Serpent bit and bit again.
Men looked up from the water at the nightmare splitting the sky, and moaned or cursed or screamed in terror. Many raised shouts of "Go back! Turn back! We must get gone!"
"No!" a white-haired tersept roared, in a voice that rang out as loud as any war-horn. "Aglirta is ours-not some Dragon's or Serpent's or the plaything of wizards! How can we flee now, and dare to call the Vale our own? Row on!"
"Well said!" a ragged mountain of a blacksmith bellowed from another boat. Tersepts were, well, tersepts, but many men knew and respected Lorgauth the Smith, and there were other, grimmer sounds of agreement from many boats, all around. A few vessels rested oars and started to drift back downstream, but most of the rowers on the river pulled hard on their oars, heading for the Flowfoam docks.
A dragon-wing beat vainly at the air. Two great scaled bodies rolled in the sky, fangs struck, a gout of flame spewed vainly-and the warring Serpent and Dragon crashed down onto the palace together, rolling and biting like two maddened cats.
A roof collapsed under them with a groan, stones crashing down in a deadly rain inside, and pillars toppled.
The two struggling monsters clawed, bit, and lashed their tails, smashing walls and driving balconies and even entire turrets down to ruin. The Serpent struck and struck again, biting the Dragon repeatedly as they slithered and arched and spat, crushing galleries and great chambers.
And the Dragon burned.
Tshamarra wept as liquid fire rushed through her, boiling along her veins… a venom that ravaged her as deeply as her destruction of the Thrael had torn asunder the Great Serpent's powers… even as it snatched Ingryl Ambelter back from helplessness in the maze of enchanted mists Gadaster had flung him into.
At last the Serpent had a foe he could see and strike at-a foe he hated and feared-and strike at it he did, again and again. Fangs pierced deep into golden scales, smoking blood sluicing out in their wake, until Tshamarra Talasorn's world became a red-gold whirl of pain, lit by gloating Serpent-eyes and flashing fangs…
Dimly she knew her strength was leaving her. She was draped back over a wall, shedding scales as she slid down into the Throne Chamber of Aglirta-open to the sky now once more, and full of running, shouting folk. The pain was like a red river within her, a river of her shed blood, and the flames snarling along it were the Serpent's dark venom, gnawing its way through her…
The western wall of the Hall of Shields cracked and fell away. The armed folk barricaded grimly therein found themselves suddenly staring down into the roofless, riven Throne Chamber.
That once splendid hall was a wasteland of death and rubble. Courtiers, servants, guards, and Serpent-priests alike lay dead in their blood, or were fleeing wildly from the rearing Great Serpent and the Dragon struggling feebly beneath it. Beyond their fray, most of the western end of the palace lay in ruins, little more than crushed heaps of rubble.
"Horns of the Lady," King Raulin Castlecloaks gasped in horror, staring up at the sky and the triumphant Serpent rising to fill it. Beside him, Hulgor Delcamper said something worse.
As they watched-and Craer Delnbone sobbed in despair, beside them-the body of the Serpent started to dwindle.
"Come on!" Ezendor Blackgult roared, darkly magnificent in his borrowed black palace armor, as he waved his warsword above his head. "Band of Four, to me!"
The Golden Griffon did not wait for a reply, but raced to where a once secret stair had become little better than a slide, descending steeply into the Throne Chamber.
Hawkril, a fully armored giant once more, sprang after him. Craer stumbled in their wake, weeping openly.
Embra Silvertree strode after him, tall and sleek in battle leathers like those Craer wore. After a few strides she turned to look back at Hulgor, Flaeros, and Lorivar. "Guard the King," she told them grimly, and waved a hand at the Serpent below. "Our duty lies yonder."
"But, Lady Embra-!"
That protest burst from the lips of King Raulin Castlecloaks, standing uncertainly in the midst of the handful of loyal men. He fell silent, opening his mouth helplessly, and reached out to her with one hand… not knowing what else to say.
The smile Embra gave him was a trifle sad. "Be of good cheer, Majesty," she said calmly. "There's no better way to spend one's time-one's life-than fighting for Aglirta… and who knows? We may live to see another sunset. Remember, lad: 'Tis not when you die… 'tis how you die."
She nodded to the pale-faced and trembling Raulin, cradled her Dwaer firmly in both hands, turn
ed, took two running steps, and sprang off the edge of the stair, flying down into the battle below.
The Serpent bit down again, roaring with triumphant, bubbling laughter- but its fangs struck only fallen stone: the Dragon was a small, slender, and half-fainting human sorceress once more, lying crumpled between two fallen pillars.
Overduke Blackgult raced in under those fangs like an impatient black flame to defend her, catching her up into the crook of his arm. "Now, little one," he muttered, "I was once something of a bold dabbler in sorcery… I think I can still fly us out of here. You can join the King, yonder, and watch the rest of us the heroically, hey?"
"Blackgult!" Hawkril roared from nearby, the crashings of armored footfalls heralding his frantic rush. He wasn't going to reach them in time, before the Serpent-
– Bit down, a fang twice the height of Blackgult plunging down so close beside his hip that he could easily have nudged it with an elbow. The Golden Griffon swung himself around to shield Tash's limp body from the stinging rain of venom that accompanied the Serpent's bite, and coolly finished his incantation.
The gigantic snake snatched its head back aloft, trailing rubble and spilling him sideways… and Blackgult swung around to cradle the woman in his arms from a hard fall onto rubble, a fall that never came. His awakening magic sent him gliding along the ground, no more than a handspan above a tumbled heap of fallen stone blocks. He grinned tightly and bent his will to lofting them higher, curving around and up-
"Blackgult!" Hawkril roared again, planting himself with his warsword held pointing right up into the sky, preparing to meet that descending maw.
The warning drove the Golden Griffon to fling himself sideways, curled around the sorceress. The huge snake's shadow fell over them as he spun away, laughing at the success of his magic-and straightened out in a glide that brought them rushing to meet Craer.
The procurer reached for Tshamarra, his eyes blazing. Blackgult put her gently into her man's arms and flew up and past them, curling back around to face-
The Great Serpent's strike was at Hawkril. The armaragor leaped aside at the last moment, into a little hollow in the rubble, and the snake's huge head glanced off rubble and followed, turning to pursue the warrior.
Blackgult flew right at the head, tugging out his blade once more, aiming for those triple eyes. Three eyes? No, just two, but with something circular gleaming between them, embedded in serpent-scales…
Flashing with hatred, those orbs swiveled to regard Blackgult. The moment their gazes met, he knew who was glaring at him.
Ingryl Ambelter, the self-styled Spellmaster of All Aglirta, was the Great Serpent!
And a mighty wizard still. The embedded thing-a Dwaer, of course!- flashed, and bolts of strange green flame lanced out of those eyes at Blackgult.
There was no time to counterspell, or dodge. The green fire clawed and swirled, streaming icily around him.
The Golden Griffon tried to twist up and out of its reach, but his sword crumbled away to nothing in his hands, his gauntlets and breastplate and shoulder-plates started to follow…
Cursing, Ezendor Blackgult soared up and away, trying to dart free of the spell. More of his armor fell from him as he went, tumbling…
He swooped, curved, looped and swooped again. One green bolt faded, but the other curved after him, reaching… reaching…
He turned his racing flight into a dive at the Dwaer, arcing over the huge snake-head to come at it from behind its eyes, so that as it swept up and turned to regard him again, he-landed hard in the scaled ridges just above the embedded Stone, and slapped his hand down on the Dwaer.
Magic stormed into him, at first at his imperious calling-and then, driven with fury, by the Great Serpent beneath him, even as it twisted its head to scrape down along a ragged edge of broken wall, and rid itself of this unwanted rider.
But Ezendor Blackgult had used Dwaerindim in battle far more than his foe, and his mind had melded with the strange flows of power in more than one Stone-so he was able, despite Ambelter's great might, to both withstand the flood of magic that was intended to burn him to mindlessness and spin himself a shield to keep him from harm against the stones.
The Great Serpent roared in fury, and flailed its head back and forth, battering this remnant of wall and then that-and Blackgult clung with his fingertips to the Dwaer, using its own power to keep himself glued to it, and drank in all the magic he could.
He was burning, now, the pain rising in him white-hot and choking, even as it numbed his limbs and made the world recede behind mists of white fire…
Grimly, Blackgult hung on, forcing himself to stand against the pain. He would need every last bit of power, if he was to have any hope of-
Ambelter finished a spell, and the Dwaer erupted in fury. The Golden Griffon snatched himself away from it, most of one hand seared to ash, and flew as he'd never flown before, racing across the ruined Throne Chamber like a bolt of lightning.
Craer met him with two drawn daggers and a snarl. "Get backl She's done enough-"
"Aye," Blackgult agreed, using a mere wisp of power to stun the procurer for the instant he needed to burst past, "she has. Wherefore it falls to me to do this!
He landed, aglow from head to foot and almost a head taller than he should have been, bent in a crackling of energies-and kissed Tshamarra Talasorn full on the mouth.
She lay on her back in what was left of a doorway, with the signs of Craer's frantic digging to get her down and into a cellar chamber below all around her, and though her eyes were open, they were dark.
They flashed as he came down on her, and she started to shudder. Blackgult pulled his head back, almost as if he was sucking something out of her, and then broke free, cradling her around the shoulders to keep her head from crashing back onto the rubble, to gasp, "Pray forgive me, Lady, but someone has to be the Dragon."
And he sprang up into the air right in front of Craer's enraged and astonished face, fresh pain raging in him.
He was not the one chosen by the Arrada. Ezendor Blackgult no longer had the power of mind and body to properly be the Dragon. Yet he must be. Aglirta was in need.
"As always!" he finished that thought wryly, though it came out as a great roar. Up into dragonshape he spun, expanding in size almost as much as in agony. He clawed the air and spat fire helplessly, wracked with pain, before he ever got near the Great Serpent.
Hawkril had driven his warsword deep between two scales as Ambelter had rid himself of Blackgult, and was now leaping for his life about the Throne Chamber as the maddened Serpent pounced at him, biting and missing and biting again. Embra Silvertree was hurling Dwaer-bolt after Dwaer-bolt at its eyes, trying to make it miss… and, thus far, succeeding. To and fro it went between the two overdukes, arching as it tried to reach over the rubble-and Blackgult fell on it from behind in a savage fury, knowing he hadn't long to live with the Dragon-powers shuddering through him.
"Unworthy, I am," he breathed, though it came out as a long tongue of fire that seared serpent-scales and sent Ambelter writhing away. "Such a pity…"
Then the pain was so great that he could only snarl-when he wasn't biting and clawing for all he was worth.
Venom and blood spewed forth together, smoking, and Blackgult dug his fangs in deep and fed fire through them.
The Great Serpent squalled and convulsed, thrashing wildly and sending palace stones flying, in a great rain that pelted down into the Silverflow.
His tail came around in a great whipping blow that slammed the trembling Dragon to the ground. Blackgult groaned, already lost in pain, and Ambelter flung coils around him just as he'd done to Tshamarra. At the same time, he burrowed his great flat serpent-head in through a gap in the rubble into some dark cellar chamber or other, and called on the Dwaer to help him shape an old, old spell. It worked, and as the Great Serpent tightened his coils around the Dragon, his forked tongue twisted into a grotesquely overlong human arm-an arm that reached out to slap the stones.
&nb
sp; The Living Castle enchantments were strong here, and the Spellmaster used the Dwaer to make his call upon them mightier than he'd ever been able to before-and halfway across the rubble-strewn battlefield that had been the Throne Chamber before the coming of this dawn Embra Silvertree was dragged to her knees, sobbing and struggling.
The old enchantments were blood-bound to her, and as seductive as the Dark Three had been able to make them then, with full power over her young body and an almost whimsical shared ruthlessness. Embra fought those spells as best she could, but she might as well have tried to stop all winds from blowing across Darsar. She was unable to use the Dwaer, to see, even to breathe…
The king and the men and maids watching with him saw the Lady of Jewels fall on her face, senseless. Her Dwaer rolled away from her limp hand.
Hawkril was still a good dozen running paces away from it when the head of the Great Serpent soared back up into view, and then darted down again-and a hand reached out of its wide-fanged mouth, where its forked tongue should have been, and snatched up the fallen Dwaer.
Then the head turned almost gloatingly around to glare at the Dragon, trapped in its coils-and from it beams of ravening magic shot out from two Dwaer, lancing deep into the gold-scaled creature.
Stabbed and burned, and then stabbed and burned again, as the trembling, riven Dragon screamed in agony.
Screamed, and then started to dwindle, just as Tshamarra had done.
"Oh, gods, no," Hulgor Delcamper growled, as he stood shielding the young and white-faced King of Aglirta with a sword in either hand. "It'll not be long now. The well, everyone!"
The watchers in the shattered hall saw the Great Serpent rear its head once more in hissing triumph. A shimmering blossomed in the air behind and above that head, becoming a hole surrounded by dark fire-and out of that hole appeared a lone human woman, floating upright in midair. Her head was a skull that in turn seemed to float above her shoulders-and she held a twinkling Dwaer-Stone in each of her spread hands.