Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [73]
Azoun Obarskyr awaited those howling goblins calmly, standing alone and swaying with weakness, but wearing a wolfish smile. His eyes were looking for just one thing: ready crossbows in goblin hands. The moment he saw one, he triggered the first of the two blade barrier spells the plainest ring on his left hand held and sprang back down from the rock.
No quarrels sped at him out of the grisly whirlwind of shredded leaves, wet goblin screams, and thudding bodies that followed. He calmly unleashed the second and last blade barrier off to the right of the first, where he could see more racing goblin bodies.
He took the ring from his finger and hurled it into the heart of the butchery of conjured blades, watching where squalling goblins fell and where amid the moss and dead leaves their weapons landed.
When he saw what he wanted, Azoun was down from behind his rock like a striking snake. He had a cocked goblin crossbow in his hands and was darting sideways to scoop up a quarrel before any goblin nearby even knew it.
"Never," he murmured aloud as he settled himself under a thorn bush with the bow ready to fire, "was a ring of spell storing quite so valuable to the Crown of Cormyr. Have my thanks, Vangey-wherever you are."
Both the main body of goblins and almost all the leaves in the area where the spell-born blades whirled were shredded now-a dark, wet mass of huddled ruin beneath whirling emptiness. He suspected he'd not have much longer to wait before-
Like a dark thunderbolt, a ghazneth plunged down.
Flashing blades melted away like mist before a gale as it drank in the magic of Azoun's unleashed spells, paying them almost no attention as it sought the ring.
Azoun calmly put his quarrel into the thickest part of its body as it stalked forward, then threw himself down, not pausing to try to recognize it. "Men of Cormyr," he bellowed up at the shredded branches above, "empty every bolt and arrow you have into this beast! Stint not! Fire at the king's will!"
He rolled upright and peered over the edge of the rock. He'd not taken the time to try to recognize the ghazneth before, and he doubted he could be sure of it now. It was almost entirely obscured by the thudding rain of arrow after arrow as the Purple Dragons enthusiastically feathered it with iron arrowheads by the dozens.
Azoun watched in satisfaction as the ghazneth staggered, took two or three frantic running steps through the trees, then beat wings that shook and trembled until it was aloft, crashing through dozens of branches in its heavy, faltering flight away.
"Purple Dragons, to me!" Azoun roared, sitting down behind the rock again. Now would not be a heroic time to take an arrow from his own men, either mistaken or deliberate. There must be some in Cormyr who blamed this war on the Obarskyrs. There always were.
In but a few moments the king was surrounded by familiar, grinning faces above breastplates emblazoned with the Purple Dragon. "Well met, Your Majesty!" a dragoneer bellowed, extending a hand to his king.
Azoun took it and was hauled to his feet. "Well met, indeed!" he boomed, looking around as armored men clustered around him. "What news?"
"More losses, my liege," one of the swordlords growled. "The war wizards, too, have deserted us."
"Deserted?"
"Easy, there," a lancelord reproved the first officer, and turned to face the frowning king. "They said they'd learned by magic that neither you, Your Majesty, nor Arkenfrost, had been seen at court. They told old Hestellen they feared treachery on the part of certain nobles-they named no names-and said they could trace you, if you stood nearby, through your clothes that they'd but lately handled. And with that they went."
"To Suzail?"
"Aye."
"Stormshoulder, Gaundolonn, and…?"
"And Starlaggar," the lancelord said unhappily.
The king nodded grimly, seeing again a bloody,