Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [114]
"They also have the power to make their dreams come true." Owden stepped back and motioned to her weathercloak's throat clasp. "So they must be careful."
Tanalasta sighed, then closed her throat clasp and pictured her father's stately face. When the piercing brown eyes began to look sunken and the dignified bearing seemed to grow weary, she spoke to him in her thoughts.
Vangerdahast trapped somewhere strange. He has Scepter of Lords. You need to destroy dragon, which is Lorelei Alavara. Who's that?
The look of guilty fear that flashed across the king's face made Tanalasta wish she had not asked.
You wouldn't know, came the king's reply. Lorelei not in history books, and no time to explain. Thanks, and all luck with the ghazneths.
The king's face vanished as the throat clasp's magic faded, and Tanalasta found herself looking at a room full of nervous knights.
"The king is well and sends his wishes for a successful battle." Tanalasta raised a hand and allowed Owden to pull her weary bulk out of the chair. "What of the ghazneths?"
"The first is almost here, Highness," said Owden. "The lookout thinks it is Lady Merendil. It has a narrow waist and waspish wings."
"It is," Tanalasta confirmed. She glanced over at the nervous looking knights. "I have faced Lady Merendil before. She's the Scourge of War, and you will find yourselves consumed by a mad bloodlust. You mustn't yield to it. Pray to your gods and keep your head about you. Remember who the enemy is, and we will do well."
The voice of experience seemed to comfort the knights. The doubt vanished from their faces, and they began to finger their holy symbols and utter prayers for strength. Tanalasta allowed Owden to help her toward her hiding box, at the same time summoning a pale-looking dragoneer who had been assigned to stand in the doorway as a messenger.
"Is the second ghazneth still trailing a hazy tail?"
"He is."
"Good. That will be Xanthon Cormaeril." She gestured through the door toward a hallway on the far side of the sweeping staircase. "Tell your war wizards to hide in there. On my command, one after the other, they are to blast him with their quickest, most powerful magic."
"Magic, Highness?" gasped the dragoneer. "On a ghazneth?"
"He is the youngest," Tanalasta explained. "I've seen him stunned by powerful spells."
"True," said Owden, "but if you don't get to him-"
"I think it is time for us to go to our place," Tanalasta said, cutting off the protest. "It cannot be long before Lady Merendil arrives."
The princess's words were truer than she would have liked. They had barely reached her hiding box before Lady Merendil's waspish form streaked through the window Melineth Turcasson had smashed open earlier. A tempest of clacking echoed off the walls as the knights fired their crossbows. Merendil shrieked in pain and fell from the air, bouncing off the banquet table and still somehow managing to angle toward Tanalasta.
Realizing that the thing was coming for her, Tanalasta was seized by a terrible blind fury. She found herself pushing the door of her hiding box open and pulling her iron dagger. Owden caught her by the hair and jerked her back inside.
"Have you gone mad?" He slammed the locking bar down, sealing them inside the dark box, then grasped Rowen's holy symbol and thrust it into her hands. "Calm down. Take your own advice and pray to the goddess."
The ghazneth hit the door with a deafening clang, then tried to rip it open and toppled the box over instead. Tanalasta landed on her stomach with a painful whumpf. The dark interior erupted into a cacophony of thunderous booms as Lady Merendil tried to tear the iron box open, then the crate suddenly rose on end and toppled over backward. Tanalasta's head sank through the leather padding and struck the iron beneath.
She thought for a moment that the muffled ringing in her ears was from a cracked skull, then she heard the dull thud of iron biting bone and the sharp crack of snapping limbs and the anguished howls of dying men, and she knew the knights were carrying the