Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [33]
"Boldovar." Filfaeril gasped the name so softly that Tanalasta barely heard it. "No!"
"Faithless harlot!" Boldovar hissed, wagging his red tongue at the queen. "I love that in a woman."
Filfaeril shrank back, then turned and would have run, had Tanalasta not caught hold of her arm. Owden stepped forward, placing himself squarely between the queen and her tormenter. Boldovar sneered and spread his wings in readiness. Instead of raising his iron mace, the harvest-master pulled the sacred flower amulet off his neck and thrust it toward the ghazneth.
"In the name of the Great Mother, return thee to the grave and surrender thy body to the good soil."
Boldovar's eyes grew as hot as flames. He began to curse and gnash his teeth so furiously that a bloody froth spilled from his mouth, but he veered away from the holy symbol and tried to circle around-not to Filfaeril's side but to Tanalasta's. Owden cut the ghazneth off and stepped forward, pushing the amulet to little more than an arm's reach of the ghazneth.
"Owden, don't be a fool!"
Tanalasta caught the priest by the back of the cloak, then glanced in the direction of the first ghazneth. The creature was knee-deep in mangled dragoneers and also struggling to reach her. It was hindered by a trio of warriors whose armor and iron halberds had suddenly turned flaky and orange with rust, and by a short chain of golden magic wrapped around both legs. At the other end of the chain lay a feeble old wizard bearing a fatherly semblance to Sarmon the Spectacular. One arm was buried to the shoulder beneath the cobblestones, and he was screaming in anguish as the ghazneth struggled to pull free.
There was no sign of Korvarr, unless he was the green hummingbird darting in and out to plunge his pointed beak into the ghazneth's scarlet eyes. The bird seemed to be having more effect than any other attacker. Every time it struck, the ghazneth screeched and used its powers to heal the injured eye, then flailed about madly trying to knock the tiny creature from the sky. As quick as the dark fiend was, however, the hummingbird was quicker. It dodged, darted, then zipped in to strike again.
A cloud of wasps and flies arrived in a boiling, stinging swarm. Tanalasta looked back to see Xanthon less than five paces away, tearing into her last two bodyguards. Behind him, the palace garrison was streaming into the bailey from all directions, but the princess had noticed the pattern of the ghazneths' attacks and knew the guards would never arrive in time to save her. Even Boldovar, who had held Filfaeril captive for nearly a tenday, and in his madness still considered her to be his queen, was circling toward Tanalasta instead of her mother. Clearly, the time had come to reach for her escape pocket and count herself lucky.
Instead, Tanalasta turned to face Xanthon. It alarmed her to find him here, as powerful as ever, and perhaps even more so. His wings were now large enough that the tips rose above his shoulders. Had her theory about how to defeat the ghazneths been correct, he would be no more than the sniveling traitor who had fled Sarmon at Goblin Mountain, but the princess was not about to give up her idea so easily. If her theory was wrong, she would at least understand why.
Xanthon trapped one dragoneer's iron sword in the head of a halberd and began a tight loop, preparing to fling the weapon out of the warrior's grasp. Tanalasta raised her chin haughtily and stepped toward the battle, dragging her mother along and ignoring the wasps and flies descending to attack their faces.
"How now, Cousin?" Tanalasta called. "Is a Cormaeril on the throne no longer vindication enough?"
The loop