Death of the Dragon

42

Alusair had only two hundred men left, and half those were wounded. The rest of her company had already fallen to the teeming hordes in… wherever they were. She had no idea where that might be, except that it was dark and full of little green goblins. The company was down to one iron-tipped arrow per man, and they were holding those in reserve. After an all-night chase-except that nobody really had any idea what “all night” meant in this city of darkness-she had finally come to some high ground and decided to make a stand.

They had built a low stone breastwork and lit the perimeter with magic lights, but the little buggers just kept charging up the stony slope, wave after wave of them armed with little iron spears and little iron swords. Alusair’s dragoneers were well-trained, proficient with their weapons, and in good condition, so they cut down most of the creatures at the breastwork. Still, even her men weren’t perfect, and every three minutes or so one of the tiny bastards slipped through to drive a spear through the belly of one of her soldiers. Soon enough, she would lack the manpower to defend the barricade, then the hordes would come pouring in and finish them off.

Alusair had been in worse situations-much worse. “Ready the fall back!” she called.

The Steel Princess raised her sword to signal the retreat-then cowered in shock as the cavern erupted into a deafening roar of thunder. Blinding sheets of lightning crackled up the slope, clear-cutting whole swaths of goblins and turning the ground into a slick black mess of gore. The enemy charge simply vanished, and in the flashing light that remained, Alusair saw a circle of ramshackle stone walls, broken at odd intervals by the crooked windows and tilted doorways of the vast goblin city.

Rushing out of the tunnels were the next wave of goblins, brandishing their little iron swords and clambering up the slope over the entrails and blood of their predecessors. Alusair ignored the mad charge and continued to scrutinize the passages, looking for the source of the strange lightning storm. There were only a handful of magicians in Faerun capable of such a flurry of magic-and only one who had good reason to help her.

Instead of Vangerdahast, she found a dozen men in rusty chain mail rushing out of a tunnel far to her right. They were all soaking wet and carrying iron maces, screaming supplications to Chauntea even as they raised barriers of thorns and bubbling mud between themselves and the goblins.

Alusair sighed in disappointment but decided that if she could not have Vangerdahast, a dozen Chauntean priests would have to do. She waved her sword toward the small party and commanded, “Prepare to support with bow fire by number.”

Half of her dragoneers exchanged their swords for long bows and nocked arrows. When the first goblin broke through the priests’ barriers and raised his sword to hamstring the group’s wiry leader, a single iron-tipped arrow sizzled down from the barricade. It took the little warrior square in the ribs, knocking him from his feet and sending him tumbling down the slope backward. The priest raised his mace in salute, then-of all things-it began to rain.

At first, Alusair did not know quite what to make of the storm. The rain came in driving sheets, with forks of light-fling dancing every which way and peals of thunder rolling across the cavern roof. Rivulets of water poured down the slope along courses that had never held a trickle before, and Alusair began to wonder if she had somehow come under the influence of Mad King Boldovar.

A dark figure burst from the tunnel behind the priests and she finally understood. So far, they had only identified six of the Scourges mentioned in Alaundo’s prophecy, but here was the seventh-floods and storms-chasing a group of Chauntea’s priests up the slope in front of her. She could not understand how either of them had come to be in that cavern any more than she understood how she had, but her course of action remained clear: help her allies and attack her enemies.

“There’s a ghazneth!” Alusair yelled. “Every man, ready iron arrows. Fire on my command only!”

A soft clamor echoed through the cavern as every man along the line prepared his bow. Amazingly, the goblins fell back at the sight of the ghazneth-perhaps feeling he could handle a mere two hundred humans alone.

Alusair was determined to prove the error of their ways. If she accomplished nothing else in this dark place, she was going to teach these little green-skinned discipline mongers to respect the human way of doing things. She waited until the priests had closed to within a dozen steps of their breastwork, then lowered her sword.

“On the ghazneth-fire!”

The cavern reverberated with throbbing bow strings, and a wall of iron points sailed down the slope to plant itself in the ghazneth’s body. The impact of so many arrows actually lifted the monster off its feet and hurled it a dozen paces down the slope.

A howling wind tore through the cavern instantly. The rain began to fall from the ceiling in buckets, and the lightning came so fast Alusair thought her head would burst from so much light. She raised her sword and began to clamber over the breastwork.

Before she could order the charge, the eldest Chauntean priest, a short wiry man with a hawkish nose, blocked her way. He reached up and plucked the sword from her hand as though she were a child.

“No!”

Alusair scowled, then yelled, “This is my command-“

“And you have no idea where you are, or who that is!” the priest shouted back. His subordinates began to clamber over the breastwork and set to work healing Alusair’s wounded soldiers. “We have been trying to catch you for days.”

The ghazneth sat up and began to pluck the arrows from its body, though the holes did not close as Alusair had seen the wounds of the other monsters do.

Alusair narrowed her eyes, offended by the man’s angry tone, yet intrigued by what he was saying. “And you are?”

“Owden Foley,” he replied. Owden waved two of his priests down the slope toward the ghazneth. “And if you are through skulking about down here, we have some real work to do. The goblins are on the march.”

Alusair frowned. Though she recognized Owden’s name as that of her sister’s favorite priest, she was still having trouble understanding… well, pretty much everything.

“On the march?” she said. “To where?”

“To reinforce Nalavara, of course,” Owden waved a hand at all the priests he had brought with him into the darkness, then continued, “But I seem to have discovered the secret to traveling between the two realms. If you have done with your sightseeing down here, it is time we return to Cormyr and turn your blades where they will do some good.”