Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [140]
Even the young prince's voice was shrill, tinny, and irritating to the mage's ears. Only three years separated the two in age, but the young prince still sounded like a petulant child.
The bickering pair waited on a low, windswept hill outside Suzail. They made an odd pair as they sat astride their light message ponies. The crown prince was whipsaw thin and gangly, the apprentice wizard broad-shouldered and well muscled. An impartial observer would probably have judged that the lean, hungry one was the mage and his larger companion had Obarskyr blood in him.
Behind them, low on the horizon, the smoke from the wreckage of Cormyr's capital city spiraled up into the warm summer air.
The great rage of dragons had descended on Cormyr without warning and without mercy. Arabel, Dhedluk, Eveningstar, and a score of other settlements had gone up in flames. Small hamlets were reduced to kindling, and the roads would likely once more become haunted, dangerous paths through lawless wilderness.
But it was Suzail that had suffered the worst. Three great dragons, red wyrms of huge dimensions, had descended on the city like eagles among sheep. The docks and the lower wards, built mostly of wood, roared up in flames. Most of the stone buildings weathered the initial blasts, though glass melted and scorched wooden doors caught fire from the heat. Those buildings that still stood, the dragons ripped apart with their claws, seeking the humans cowering within.
Castle Obarskyr sat above the conflagration, separated from the flames by wide gardens now wilted from the heat. Protected by generations of spells, wards, and glamors, it became the rallying point for the city. Here the nobility fled, and here, in the scented chambers of King Arangor, the response was launched.
Three wings of Purple Dragon guardsmen had erupted from the secure doors of the castle. King Arangor, barely fitting into his own armor, led one wing south to the docks, accompanied by Thanderahast. The future King Azoun II led a similar wing of troops to the west, where the smallest of the three dragons was ravaging the warehouses and taverns. The third wing struck north and east, where the noble manors were clustered along the base of the hill. This was the smallest of the groups but contained many of the nobility of the realm-the Crownsilvers and Truesilvers, the Dracohorns and Dauntinghorns, the Bleths and Illances. This group was led by Lord Gerrin Wyvernspur and aided by Thanderahast's pupil, Jorunhast.
Each of the groups met their dragons and triumphed. The crown prince's soldiers drove out the dragon to the west. The dragon on the docks was trapped against its own burning work and slain, but at a heavy cost-the king was sent flying from his saddle in the fray and severely injured.
Lord Gerrin's party found the third red dragon prowling the cobblestoned streets of the noble district like a huge hunting panther, sniffing at cellar stairs to discern which houses had plump aristocracy hiding in the basement. The noble knights struck hard and fast, and Jorunhast barely had time to unleash a few spells before they had run the dragon through.
Jorunhast was standing over the still-cooling body of the red dragon in the wreckage of House Illance when a great shadow passed over his face. He looked up to see only darkness as a great shadow blotted out the sun itself.
A fourth dragon, larger than any they had seen before, descended on Castle Obarskyr.
It had come out of the north, and Lord Gerrin's party saw it first. The nobles and their retainers could do naught but gawk at the immense size of the creature, as if one of the moons had been pulled down and now hovered over their city. Jorunhast was caught in the spell as well. It was the largest creature the Cormyrean-born mage had ever seen.
All they could do was watch as the monstrous creature banked its mighty wings and settled over Suzail.
The new arrival was three times the size of the great