The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [105]
The Lady Silvertree shook her head. "This is neither that dragon nor a real dragon at all, I'm thinking. As for the Great Serpent, we can probably never slay it. There'll always be both Serpent and Dragon, but their power comes from the awe or fear or worship folk give them. Shatter the priesthood, and reduce fear of the Serpent to old tales, and the real Serpent won't be more than a big beast."
"Like this?" Tshamarra asked, waving at the rearing three-headed monster, now snapping furiously if gingerly at Embra's tormenting force-arrows. "I'd say this sort of big beast could destroy any Vale town, or even Sirlptar, if it got going!"
"Not this big," Embra snapped tensely. "Get down!"
From its great height the three-headed nightmare had done what she'd feared it might: surged forward in a clumsy pounce, trying to bring down and crush the flying things that were wounding it with its great bulk.
Hawkril and Craer dived away from the hollow, into the trees, and Embra's outflung arm sent the Lady Talasorn over backwards onto her shapely behind and whirling away, head over heels, down a muddy, leaf-cloaked slope into the wider forest.
She had a brief, confused glimpse of the Dwaer flaring into eye-searing brightness, trees toppling, a dragon-head-Gods, 'tis as big as a small castle!– striking at someone-Blackgult?-off to her right, and then the dragon screamed again, and all other sounds were swept away…
Her left arm hurt. She was lying on it, twisted into a huddled tangle around three leaning tree trunks, and someone was whispering anxiously, "Tash? Tash? Are you-?"
"Alive?" she replied, finding her mouth full of blood. "I'm not sure."
Craer's hand stroked her cheek tenderly. She reached up to hold his fingers and keep them there, leaning into his soothing touch with a contented murmur.
"What happened, lord of my heart?"
"Well, l-what did you call me?'
His voice was so swift with excitement that Tshamarra Talasorn felt a thrill of power. "Well," she purred, "lord of my bed, anyway."
He did not-quite-sigh, but the Lady Talasorn heard his disappointment, even over the faint rumble of Hawkril standing some way off, commenting in low tones, "There was a time when the bed would have been all you cared about, Longfingers."
Craer made no reply to that. Instead, he bent closer to Tshamarra and asked, "Can you move? Should I try to lift you? The battle's over."
"One of them, anyway," she said wryly. "I-Lift me. I seem to be wedged…"
As her knee was turned, she gasped in pain, and Craer snapped, "Embra, get over here!"
"Not yet, Craer," the Lady of Jewels snapped back. 'Just hold her still- I'm busy."
"Graul and bebolt," Hawkril gasped. "How deep-?"
"I'll live," Blackgult said shortly, his voice tight with pain. "Get the beast dead first."
" 'Tis dead, or dying, Father," Embra replied. "See? It dwindles."
"Turn me," Tshamarra hissed to Craer. "I have to see."
The procurer's hands were tender, and therefore slow, but the Lady Talasorn was turned back to face the hollow in time to see the scaled, three-necked lump subside to the size of a cow-and a row of broken-off teeth, just the tips of dragonfangs-melt at the same rate from the punctured and battered breastplate of the Golden Griffon.
Hawkril was holding Blackgult up, though Embra's father was bent over and shaking with pain.
"Ribs, at the very least," the armaragor told his lady. "He's fading."
"Craer!" Embra snapped, without looking, as she strode toward Blackgult with the Dwaer flickering in her hand. Was its radiance more feeble? "Help Hawk. Get him lying down, gently!"
"A moment more," Blackgult gasped, holding up a staying hand. "Look!"
Such was the snap of command in that last word that the overdukes all turned to gaze at the same thing: the great three-headed dragon melting back into the dirty, much-hacked body of a man, lying sprawled on the lip of the hollow with a look of staring horror frozen forever on his face.
"The plague-magic," Embra said bitterly.
Blackgult nodded. "Some regain their proper