Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [18]
"All is as you requested, Your Majesty," the High Warden of the Eastern Marches was saying earnestly. "The poles-crew await your orders. The mages stand there, with the cage. As you can see it is wrapped to hide its true nature, just as you instructed."
"Wrapped to hide-?" Alusair murmured, coming up to stand beside her father's shoulder. "What by all the unslain orcs of the Stonelands is…
"Tell me now," Azoun was asking, "what was the look on Elemander's face when you brought him my orders, and showed him the royal ring?"
"Total astonishment," Dauneth said with a smile, "but it soon slipped into disgust about the time I began describing the massive cold iron bars. 'Beneath my skills,' he sniffed, and snatched the ring from my fingers to make sure I wasn't playing him false. He cursed-I can't remember all the words even if Your Majesty cared to hear such foulness, and I doubt there even is such a thing as the 'blind-flying spawn of a love-slave-slapped, dung-sucking donkey'-then he took the suit of armor he'd been working on from its stand and hurled it the length of his shop."
The king exploded in laughter, slapping his thighs then dealing Dauneth a blow across the back that sent the young warden staggering. "Wonderful!"
"Will someone," Alusair asked with silken politeness, "kindly tell me what this matter of royal armorers fashioning crude cold iron cages is all about?"
"Lass," her father said jovially, indicating the hilltop and giving Dauneth a nod to tell him to send the poles-crew on its way, "we're going to catch ourselves a ghazneth-and if need be, trade its freedom in exchange for our lost royal magician!"
"Oh," Alusair replied with deceptive mildness, "Just like that? Well, now that you've told me, I'm sure everything's going to go off without a hitch. It certainly sounds plausible enough, hmm?"
Azoun lifted an eyebrow at her tone, murmured something under his breath that might have been, "Just like your mother," and swung around to point back behind them. "Surely you've had enough of fleeing from floods of orcs?"
"Gods, yes," Alusair growled as fervently as any Purple Dragon veteran sick of long marches and given a chance at sitting idle instead might.
"Well, with Dauneth's reinforcements guarding our flanks, we're going to turn around and strike right back at them. They've been howling at our heels for long enough now that they don't expect anything else from us except grim retreat. We're giving them a despairing last stand right now, on the other side of that last hill behind us. The moment that tent is up, we're going to break ranks and run back here. They'll pour after us to enjoy the rout and slaughter, and we'll send Dauneth's troops looping out and around them like a long arm, taking them from behind while the war wizards Dauneth's also brought with him hurl spells at them from the tent."
"So the slaughterers will become the slaughtered," Alusair said calmly. "I'm with you so far. Just how, exactly, are we to deal with the ghazneths who'll inevitably come soaring in at us when we start this hurling of spells?"
"Wizards will cast visible defensive magics-harmless faerie fires-on the tent," the king told her, "then scuttle inside when the ghazneths swoop down. The cage will be lined up with the tent mouth, and Purple Dragons will be standing inside with weapons of cold iron raised and ready to transfix any ghazneth bursting in."
Alusair shook her head, then suddenly shrugged and grinned. "In other words, you're just pitching in, running wild, and hoping," she said. "Well, why not? We've tried everything else."
"I knew you'd be ready for a little striking back," her father replied, "because, by all the sheep who've ever drunk from the Wyvernwater, I certainly am!"
* * * * *
Three young war wizards stood in the dark mouth of the tent on the hill, their faces tight and pale with fear. Fireballs and lightning bolts streamed from their hands, flashing into the heart of the howling orcs surging up