Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [152]
Vast she was, yet sleek and terrible in her power. The young Crownsilver gaped at her magnificence, standing transfixed as she soared into the sky then turned, wings rippling, and plunged down upon them. He'd never seen such catlike grace, or sheer size-the beast was as large as some castles of the realm. He'd never seen such-
–swift and casual death. The dragon raced into the Cormyreans, spewing fire when she was perhaps twenty paces from the royal magician and following it like a giant torch thrust through cobwebs. Men were hurled in all directions. Ilberd saw Elber Lionstone tumbling along the dragon's scaled back, his face a mask of pain and his frantically stabbing dagger rebounding from its scales in futility. He fell sideways from view, to crash somewhere back down the hillside whence they'd come. Red fire streamed along the dragon's path, blazing in the grass around their boots. Men groaned or cursed weakly as they staggered or struggled to rise. Many a gauntlet dipped to a belt flask to quaff enchanted healing and banish searing pain.
For a moment it seemed the royal magician had vanished-burned to ashes by the dragon's fire or devoured by it, perhaps-then, as the Devil Dragon passed overhead, returning to her chosen spot, Ilberd saw King Azoun staggering along with a body in his arms that seemed more ash than flesh. Ilberd stumbled forward to help. Azoun gave him both a fierce grin and the limp, senseless, and gods-be-damned-heavy Vangerdahast to hold.
"Time for swords, it seems," the king said cheerfully, watching the goblins who'd surrendered stream down and away from the hilltop.
They left their weapons behind, shields and gleaming steel covering the hilltop between the dragon and the Cormyreans like a cloak of war metal. At the base of the hill, cleaving up through them, were other goblins, answering a hissed call from the dragon. These new earfangs held their weapons ready, and showed no sign of imminent surrender.
"I must get to the dragon!" the king shouted suddenly. "To me, men of Cormyr!"
A breath later, they were pounding across the hilltop, slipping and sliding on the discarded weapons underfoot, and the dragon was turning her head in their direction, looking as startled as any boy surprised in a pantry in mid-theft.
She gathered her mighty wings to spring aloft, and Azoun roared, "Don't let her fly away!"
"Ahead of you, my king," a lancelord with the arms of Tapstorn on his shoulder shouted back. "Behold!"
Ilberd saw a ring on his finger-a prized heirloom of the Tapstorns, no doubt-gleam with sudden fire. Magical fire blazed only for an instant as the ring blackened and crumbled away, leaving Murkoon Tapstorn wincing and shaking scorched fingers. The flames streaked across the hilltop to pounce on the dragon's head, raining down blows of something unseen like a crashing, ringing chorus of forge hammers. The great wyrm shrank back, ducking her head and retreating. The striking spell seemed to move with her, its battering ceaseless.
They reached the first hissing, snarling goblins, mere steps from the great bulk of the dragon. Ilberd was gasping under the weight of the royal magician, who rode upon his shoulders like a dead man-who, by the gods, might well be a dead man.
The clang of steel began, quickening swiftly to a constant skirling song as the weary men hacked and hewed in a mad frenzy, cutting their way through an ever-increasing flood of goblins with cruel hooked blades in their hands and hatred in their eyes. Ilberd saw Skormer Griffongard fall, the battlemaster's helm torn away to reveal his long, tawny mane of hair and his eyes two blazing flames of fury as he hacked and stabbed his way through wine-purple goblin blood. They literally ran up his body, cutting and stabbing, and he sank from view under their howling tide.
Murkoon Tapstorn staggered,