Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [58]
A circle of war wizards rushed up and stood gaping down at her. At first Tanalasta could not imagine why they looked so surprised, then she recalled her enlarged breasts and swollen belly, and the dark line running down the center of her abdomen. Owden placed his hands over the snake bite and chanted his spell, and Chauntea's healing magic began to warm her chest and surge through her veins behind the snake's poison.
A dozen dragoneers appeared next, gaping over the war wizards' shoulders and gasping at the obvious signs of the princess's pregnancy. Head clearing, Tanalasta reached for her torn robe, but found herself still too weak to pull it across her abdomen. Alaphondar appeared at her side and began to shove the circle back, chiding the gawkers for neglecting their fellows who were busy fighting the battle.
As the chastened crowd backed away, Queen Filfaeril finally broke into the circle and saw Tanalasta lying on the ground. Her eyes grew as large as saucers. She looked from Tanalasta's face to her belly, back to her face again, then to the thin pink blood dribbling out from beneath Owden's hands.
"Why is my daughter still here?" Filfaeril demanded, speaking to no one in particular. She grabbed the nearest war wizard and shoved him toward Tanalasta. "Back to the palace-at once!"
17
The cavern reminded Vangerdahast of what starry nights once looked like, save that these stars hung down around the height of his belly, winking and blinking in the radiance of the ball of lightning dancing atop the ghazneth's finger. The ghazneth-Vangerdahast still found it difficult to think of him as Rowen Cormaeril-had brought him into a strange warren of narrow passages and soaring chambers packed with thousands of small, goblin-sized iron racks. The racks looked eerily like goblin scarecrows, with anywhere from one to a dozen crooked iron arms hung with jagged scraps of metal, broken spectacles, brass buttons, bits of colored glass, anything that might glitter or gleam. No paths or trails twined through the peculiar little legion, which stood in such close array that Vangerdahast could not thread his way through without constantly stopping to unsnag his tunic hem.
The ghazneth seemed to suffer no such difficulty. He slipped through the jagged hordes swiveling his hips to and fro, sidestepping and pivoting past the little scarecrows so quickly that it was all Vangerdahast could do just to keep up. Presently, the foul stench of rot and mold began to fill the air, and the scarecrows grew so thick that even Rowen could not slip through the host without dislodging a chain of brass buttons or knocking a string of tin scraps to the slimy floor. Whenever this happened, he paused to return the object to its place, arranging it more artfully than before. Vangerdahast tried to move more carefully, but said nothing about the long string of displaced trinkets his own passage had left strewn behind.
Finally, they came to a dark clearing, and the stench grew so overbearing that Vangerdahast had to cover his nose. The ghazneth stopped at the edge and put out an arm to prevent Vangerdahast from going farther.
"Can you jump across, old man?"
"Across?" Vangerdahast glanced down and saw that he was standing on the edge of a foul-smelling pit. "By the wand!" Rowen raised his hand, and the lightning ball expanded until Vangerdahast could see the far side of the pit, perhaps four paces away. "Can you jump that far?"
"When I was twenty," said Vangerdahast. "Now it would take magic."
"Not wise," said Rowen. He took Vangerdahast's arm and clasped it above the wrist. "Grab hold."
Vangerdahast eyed the distance and frowned. "Why don't we just work our way-"
The wizard's suggestion dissolved into a cry as the ghazneth sprang, jerking him out over the reeking pit. Vangerdahast caught a glimpse of sheer,