Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [158]
A secret king of Cormyr? Or had he crowned himself king of some new realm? Alusair thought. Had he been playing us all false after all and commanding the foes of Cormyr? Or was the circlet some ancient adornment passed on by Baerauble, with fell powers to be used only when the realm tottered?
No matter-or rather, no matter to be worried about now.
Alusair turned her head with difficulty. Where she stood was on the very edge of the storm, and its winds shoved against the movement like a solid stable door that had smacked her cheek long ago.
"Rowen!" she called, knowing the gale tore the name from her lips before anyone upwind could possibly hear it.
She could not see the ghazneth, shrouded in its cloud, but it must have been watching her. The wind died in an instant, and Alusair charged forward, running hard across squalling goblins, heading straight for the king. The thunder of booted feet and the mingled curses of men and goblins told her that her knights and dragoneers were right behind her.
A goblin swung a wickedly hooked bill at her. Alusair caught its blade with her own and kicked out, as hard as she could, skidding on trampled grass as she came down. Yelling, the goblin tumbled through the air and away. The Steel Princess found herself teetering on the edge of the dragon's spew. Sudden balls of flame rolled up from it, coalescing out of nowhere, and a brief crackle of blue-green lightning played over it.
"Wild magic!" one of the priests gasped. "Thank Chauntea!"
"Chauntea?"Alusair snapped, bewildered, even as they wheeled around in unison to form a defensive wall around the darkened area. Snarling goblins surged forward against them, hacking and stabbing.
"He has to thank someone," a dragoneer panted. "Being a priest, he calls on his god."
"Thank you, sir wit," Alusair said sarcastically between pants of effort, as she spitted a goblin who'd run in behind one of his fellows, then lunged forward to hack at the dragoneer's ankles. "That much I managed. What I want to know-" she growled as her blade burst through a chink in a rusty forest of salvaged plates worn by the tallest goblin she'd ever seen, and her blade sank hilt-deep into it, the point running into the goblin behind, "-is why wild magic is such cause for thanks."
She had to kick with all of her strength to get the bodies back off her blade, and out of habit swung them sideways as a ram against others trying to swarm past. Spitting, snarling goblins were all around her now.
The dragoneer swung his sword like a scythe, raking goblins aside. One of them fell into the dragon's blood with a shriek of terror, rolled, and raced back out of it, limbs pumping frantically, as fresh fires arose around them.
Alusair stabbed down viciously with her dagger, slashed open a goblin face on her backstroke, and danced aside from two lunging spears. She booted the goblin she'd blinded right into the faces of the two spear-wielders, and followed it with two quick sword thrusts. Was there no end to goblins? What did they all eat, anyway?
"Livestock and the fair farmers of Cormyr who tend them," the dragoneer told her sourly, and Alusair stared at him in bewilderment for a moment before she realized she'd asked those questions aloud.
Lightning cracked across the hilltop then-blinding, ravening bolts that raked through the goblins surging forward to strike at the Cormyrean shield ring. Lightning lashed shrieking goblins as if it was a giant whip wielded with deft skill by some unseen giant, striking down this squalling earfang then that. When the fury died away, leaving behind a seaside tang in the air and the unlovely stink of cooked goblin flesh, only a handful of living goblins were left, almost cowering against the blades of the humans they fought. Some died immediately, and others fled, squeaking and gibbering in utter terror. Alusair did not have to snap an order