Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [153]
Ilberd swung Vangerdahast's body around like a ram, its limp boots smiting aside squalling goblins, and kicked out with all his might. He felt ribs break under his boot and that goblin sailed away, trailing a thin scream. Ilberd charged forward into the space where it had stood, stepping high and not caring what he trampled. A sharp, burning pain just above his left knee marked a successful stab into his leg. He roared out his pain and punched that goblin assailant in the face, wheeling to stab down with his sword. The movement made the wizard fall from his shoulders, crashing down atop half a dozen squeaking goblins. Freed of the weight, Ilberd spun and lunged and danced like a madman, butchering goblins until they fell back around him and he could scoop up Vangerdahast once more.
As he turned and straightened, he saw six goblin spears pierce Kaert Belstable, sliding bloodily out of the oversword's back. Belstable staggered, dark blood gushing from his mouth and nose, and with a snarl threw himself forward onto one of his attackers, clawing at the earfang's eyes with bloody, failing fingers. They went down together, and goblins swarmed over the warrior, stabbing enthusiastically.
Lanjack Blackwagon-or rather, the twisting top half of him-crashed down bloodily onto goblins streaming forward beyond that fray, his legs and guts spilling from the jaws of the Devil Dragon as she laughed aloud.
Ilberd watched in horror as that head-as long as a cottage, and lined with yellowed, hooked teeth as tall as a man-reared. Murkoon's battering spell was gone, and the beast opened steaming jaws to savage the man who stood beneath it, sword raised.
The king!
Flame gushed forth in a white-hot torrent, setting the grass alight and driving goblins into shrieking flight in all directions. It was too hot to see through, but when it died away and Ilberd blinked the afterglow from his eyes, Azoun of Cormyr was standing where he had been before, his great warsword raised, enchanted runes glowing blue up and down its blade. He was unscathed.
Even as Ilberd gaped at what he was seeing, Azoun sprang forward like a much younger man-and the dragon followed her gout of flame with a lunge of her own, her many-toothed jaws snatching at the running man, to bite his torso from his legs as she'd served Lanjack.
Azoun gasped something, his armor flashed, and his breastplate suddenly became a bar of steel, a double-ended piercing javelin as long and as thick as a man. The dragon's jaws closed on it, black blood spurted, and the Devil Dragon screamed in pain. The cry sounded female, and somehow… graceful.
The dragon was still shaking her head to dislodge the steel fang that had so wounded her when Azoun tore something free from a sheath or wrappings beneath his breastplate, and struck the nearest flailing piece of dragon-its right wing. There was a flash of golden light so bright that the clouds overhead momentarily lit up, and the dragon screamed again.
For just a moment, Ilberd Crownsilver thought it dwindled from a huge, scaled wyrm into a nude, winged elf maiden, dancing in pain with her long red hair swirling around her and her broken, many-feathered wings dangling. She threw back her head sobbing, and her eyes were two diamonds of fury and fire. Then she reared back with a roar that made Ilberd's ears ring and was a dragon again. He blinked, scarcely believing he'd seen that other form.
"Man," the dragon roared, "what did you strike me with?"
"The Scepter of Lords," Azoun replied calmly. "The greatest of Lord Iliphar's craftings."
"You're unworthy to even utter his name, human!" the dragon spat. Tiny tongues of fire spilled out of her jaws, but seemed to curl away from what the king held. In the hand that wasn't full of a notched, darkening warsword there was a golden scepter carved