Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [105]
His eyes were on the unfolding attack he'd been expecting-and fearing.
The beast the soldiers were calling the "Devil Dragon" was every bit as huge as the talk over the fires had painted it. It was a red dragon larger than any living wyrm the arrowmaster had ever seen, yet as menacingly graceful in the air as a falcon.
It soared into view around the flank of a hill, banked over the killing ground where the archers of Cormyr were working butchery on the orcs, and swooped down on the bridge. The arrowmaster could see the men there cowering as the dragon's jaws opened.
"At the jaws-loose!" he shouted, but the order was hardly necessary. He'd made his own walk along the line earlier, explaining to each man and maid that the battle could well depend on their bows-at the moment the dragon opened its mouth.
"I want all your shafts down its throat," he repeated his order grimly, as bows twanged all around him. The hand that could no longer hold a bow itched and ached at his side the way it always did when there was a crucial shot to be made. "Tempus, be with us," he breathed, clenching his fist around the sharp flint in his palm, to make the blood flow and take his prayer to the war god.
His mouth fell open in astonishment.
The dragon was flying into a hail of arrows, aye, shuddering as many shafts went home in its tender maw, but it was committed. Its wings were folded back to let it glide, its claws out, gushing a flood of flame before it that even now was splashing on and around tall shields that would not be able to stand against dragonfire and were beginning to waver.
Behind those shields, however, men were heaving and shoving as if demented, hurling aside what the arrowmaster had thought were full crates of arrows and shoving other crates in and under what had been hidden under those crates. It was a battering ram that had lain in an armory vault for as long as the arrowmaster could remember. Its rear end had been sharpened, the axe blows so recent that the wood was still bright. The sharp end was now rearing up, as the grunting warriors thrust crates filled with rocks under it as wedges.
Lost in the lust to rend, the dragon saw its peril only at the last instant. It flung itself aside, roaring. The old ram, tipped with ancient, gem-edged dwarven axe blades from the Royal Armory, failed to pierce its breast, but merely gouged open the dragon's belly. Scales flew away in the dragon's wake like clay jugs crashing down from a merchant's bouncing cart.
Screaming, the dragon twisted away, so low that had the Starwater not been there, it would have crashed into the ground. Smoking dragon blood showered down on the Purple Dragons waiting there, open-mouthed in awe, as the dragon turned almost over on its back and fled back north over the forest. The beast trailed a long cry that might almost have been a scream. It crashed through several treetops before it disappeared from view.
Moans and cries arose from the orcs and goblins north of the river, and there was much milling about, snarling, and cracking of whips.
From a little above the arrowmaster, King Azoun looked down on the confusion with satisfaction.
"This is our chance," he said to the Steel Princess as he turned, eyes flashing. "I'll lead a foray across the bridge, offering ourself to the goblinkin as if overbold. You take your bladesmen across the river down there-beyond that fire, where its smoke will cloak you-and advance inside the forest. I'll charge the main orc camp like an idiot swordswinger, and they'll have to abandon it or stand up and fight me."
Alusair nodded. "They're orcs," she said simply, "They'll fight."
Her father nodded. "At the horn call, you bring your blades out to take the orcs from behind. We should be able to slaughter them. If they flee east, our archers can feather them for a good two miles ere they can find cover enough to escape. We can be rid of the orcs by nightfall-and win this war yet."
Alusair knew her face was wearing a broadening grin to match his. As he took her by the