Death of the Dragon

44

The Steel Princess peered through fog that was streaming across heaped bodies like smoke in a hurry to be elsewhere. The dead were everywhere, piled and sprawled across the rolling fields like a grotesque crop. Vultures and crows were already circling and gliding, looming out of the mist like lazy black arrows as they descended. The goblins were like a gory, countless carpet, but among them too many a brave knight or dragoneer lay stiff and staring. Even if this was the realm’s last battle for a season or more, there’d be few Purple Dragons to watch the borders and patrol the roads. The Stonelands would just have to go unwatched for a year or three-and if Sembia or another eager reaver decided to reach out into the Forest Kingdom, little valor and fewer swords would be left to stand against them.

Alusair’s boots slipped on a tangle of interlocked blades, and she nearly fell onto the goblins frozen in desperate striving with the lancelord who lay beneath them, his face cut away into a ruin of blood and crawling flies. She recovered herself grimly and peered again at the battlefield. Somewhere ahead in all of this death lay her father. He’d have been fighting the dragon chin to tail, no doubt, and that would probably mean on a hilltop, given where dragons prefer to swoop.

That one on the right, Alusair decided, would be her first destination. She could see goblins clambering up its slopes, a handful of living among so many dead. Swallowing, she hefted her blade and glanced to her right, where a dark cloud hid the ghazneth that the priest had so grimly but insistently assured her was a friend and vital ally. The ghazneth had once been Rowen Cormaeril. Gods above, Alusair thought, what cruel joke are you playing on fair Cormyr now?

The cloud was trudging along with her as obediently as any war captain, and Alusair had curtly ordered him to be treated as such, ignoring the raised eyebrows and dark looks she’d received in return.

“Giving orders might not be easy or popular, but by crown and Tempus, they are my orders to give!” she’d snarled.

She could see a large, dark bulk on the hilltop ahead, now, accompanied by the canted, barbed ruin of a dragon’s wing. The Devil Dragon was down.

“Haste!” she snapped, pointing with her sword. “The crown lies in peril!”

She could see now that a smaller hill, off to her left and a little behind her, was crowned with the royal standard and what could only be a tent. They looked undamaged, and she could see the glint of a few-a very few-helms and shields there. Azoun’s own crown banner, though, wasn’t flapping on high. The king had not returned to his tent.

“Move, you oxen!” she snarled at the men around her, as they slipped and slid wearily in goblin gore. “I’ve seen bloated barons scuttle faster when their creditors came calling-or their wives to the brothel doors!” She lifted her blade like a scourge and smacked her own hip with it, as if flogging herself to greater speed. “Get up there!”

Someone among the grimly hastening knights made an insolent lowing sound, and someone else echoed it. There were chuckles, and a few tight smiles, and Alusair’s spirits suddenly rose. Gods, but she was proud to lead men such as these!

A goblin squirmed under her feet, among the dead, thrusting upward viciously at her crotch. Before she could do more than dance aside, three swords had met in its squalling body, her knights sprawling to reach it with no thought for their own safety.

“Loyal idiots,” Alusair cursed them fondly. “Get on!”

They were most of the way up the hill now, climbing over goblins heaped so high that the untidy piles were rolling and sliding downslope when disturbed, often carrying a cursing Purple Dragon with them. Ahead, on the summit, the living goblins were taking no notice of their advance but seemed locked in some sort of vigorous dispute involving something on the ground in front of the dead dragon.

Alusair licked suddenly dry lips, and murmured, “My father-it must be.”

Owden Foley, laboring up the hill to her right, gave her a sharp look, then glanced at the dark cloud moving beside him. Before he could speak, a sudden wind howled across the hilltop, bowling many goblins over and away, and forcing the rest to the ground. It was a gale that moaned as if it was alive, but it scoured only the summit. The climbing Cormyreans could barely feel a breeze on their faces.

The slope ended and they were atop the hill, with the ghastly bulk of the dragon rising like a wall across the crest, and goblins sprawled helplessly everywhere. There were no heaped dead here-only living goblins, now screaming out their rage and terror as they saw the armored humans looming up with bloody swords drawn-and something more.

Something dark, wet, and glistening lay in front of the dragon’s jaws. The dying wyrm’s ichor had spewed forth in a huge pool, drenching two sprawled men who lay there, one atop the other. Both of them wore crowns and looked more or less whole. One-the one feebly moving an arm-was King Azoun. The other was… Vangerdahast?

A secret king of Cormyr? Or had he crowned himself king of some new realm? Alusair thought. Had he been playing us all false after all and commanding the foes of Cormyr? Or was the circlet some ancient adornment passed on by Baerauble, with fell powers to be used only when the realm tottered?

No matter-or rather, no matter to be worried about now.

Alusair turned her head with difficulty. Where she stood was on the very edge of the storm, and its winds shoved against the movement like a solid stable door that had smacked her cheek long ago.

“Rowen!” she called, knowing the gale tore the name from her lips before anyone upwind could possibly hear it.

She could not see the ghazneth, shrouded in its cloud, but it must have been watching her. The wind died in an instant, and Alusair charged forward, running hard across squalling goblins, heading straight for the king. The thunder of booted feet and the mingled curses of men and goblins told her that her knights and dragoneers were right behind her.

A goblin swung a wickedly hooked bill at her. Alusair caught its blade with her own and kicked out, as hard as she could, skidding on trampled grass as she came down. Yelling, the goblin tumbled through the air and away. The Steel Princess found herself teetering on the edge of the dragon’s spew. Sudden balls of flame rolled up from it, coalescing out of nowhere, and a brief crackle of blue-green lightning played over it.

“Wild magic!” one of the priests gasped. “Thank Chauntea!”

“Chauntea?”Alusair snapped, bewildered, even as they wheeled around in unison to form a defensive wall around the darkened area. Snarling goblins surged forward against them, hacking and stabbing.

“He has to thank someone,” a dragoneer panted. “Being a priest, he calls on his god.”

“Thank you, sir wit,” Alusair said sarcastically between pants of effort, as she spitted a goblin who’d run in behind one of his fellows, then lunged forward to hack at the dragoneer’s ankles. “That much I managed. What I want to know-” she growled as her blade burst through a chink in a rusty forest of salvaged plates worn by the tallest goblin she’d ever seen, and her blade sank hilt-deep into it, the point running into the goblin behind, “-is why wild magic is such cause for thanks.”

She had to kick with all of her strength to get the bodies back off her blade, and out of habit swung them sideways as a ram against others trying to swarm past. Spitting, snarling goblins were all around her now.

The dragoneer swung his sword like a scythe, raking goblins aside. One of them fell into the dragon’s blood with a shriek of terror, rolled, and raced back out of it, limbs pumping frantically, as fresh fires arose around them.

Alusair stabbed down viciously with her dagger, slashed open a goblin face on her backstroke, and danced aside from two lunging spears. She booted the goblin she’d blinded right into the faces of the two spear-wielders, and followed it with two quick sword thrusts. Was there no end to goblins? What did they all eat, anyway?

“Livestock and the fair farmers of Cormyr who tend them,” the dragoneer told her sourly, and Alusair stared at him in bewilderment for a moment before she realized she’d asked those questions aloud.

Lightning cracked across the hilltop then-blinding, ravening bolts that raked through the goblins surging forward to strike at the Cormyrean shield ring. Lightning lashed shrieking goblins as if it was a giant whip wielded with deft skill by some unseen giant, striking down this squalling earfang then that. When the fury died away, leaving behind a seaside tang in the air and the unlovely stink of cooked goblin flesh, only a handful of living goblins were left, almost cowering against the blades of the humans they fought. Some died immediately, and others fled, squeaking and gibbering in utter terror. Alusair did not have to snap an order for her warriors to let them go. They knew all too well what they were here for.

Sardyn Wintersun, wearing more blood than she’d ever seen on him before, grimly gave the order to “Stand fast, blades out, and hold against all foes!”

She opened her mouth to snarl that she hadn’t died and left him in charge just yet-then closed it again, the words unspoken, as he waved her into the dark area within the shield ring. Alusair looked at him for a moment, then nodded in curt and silent thanks, and turned into the dark, wet gore. It was a glistening black, sucking warmly at her boots, and ankle-deep. Strange singing sounds heralded the magic raging fitfully within it as she advanced. Flames surged up around her boots as she strode-strange yellow-green tongues that tickled her nose and throat like exotic spices-and Owden was moving along grimly at her side.

The dark, grotesque form of the ghazneth was with them, stepping to the fore, and the magics boiling up from the black, slimy blood seemed to stream into it and vanish.

Their journey was only a few paces, but it seemed as if they’d been walking for hours across a strange realm before they came to where the King of Cormyr lay twisting fitfully atop the scorched, motionless body of the Royal Magician. Alusair went to her knees heedless of what the blood-magic might do, and was almost hurled back by a tongue of flashing, tinkling radiance. A dark hand reached out to drink in the fell flood, and Alusair flashed Rowen a smile of thanks before she stretched out cautious fingers to trace along her father’s jaw, took firm hold with her other hand of the blade he’d let fall, and asked hesitantly, “Father?”

For a moment it seemed as if the King of Cormyr had not heard. He turned his head slowly, almost idly, his eyes staring up unseeing at the low, streaming ceiling of gray clouds, and twisted his lips in a bitter-or was it rueful?-smile.

The princess was about to speak again when Azoun said slowly, “So they did get you, bravest of daughters. Twice the warrior most of my knights are. My little Alusair. My Steel Princess. I’d begun to permit myself the tiny, sneaking hope that you’d somehow escaped the dragon, and yet lived.”

“Father,” Alusair said, leaning close to kiss him, “I am alive… and so are you. You’ve slain the dragon.”

“Such long sadness,” the king murmured. “So deep, so fierce. Her love as strong as any Obarskyr, but for a different Cormyr…”

“Father? Are you hurt?” Alusair asked sharply, shaking him gently. It was a foolish question if she’d ever uttered one. Owden Foley was already deep in muttered incantations, laying his hairy-backed hands on Azoun’s throat, brow, and palms with careful care.

The princess sat back to give him space to reach. Under his careful hands, the king murmured something unintelligible. A fleeting lacework of purple fire flashed into being across Azoun’s body, then was gone. The king convulsed, gasping, and his eyes fell shut. Alusair’s own eyes narrowed.

“What was that, Harvestmaster?” she snapped.

Owden Foley’s face was grim as he met her angry gaze. “The best healing I’m capable of-or so it began as,” he said. “What it became, I’ve no idea. We’ve got to get his majesty out of this dragon’s blood. I don’t know why, but it’s twisting all magic awry-and worse.”

“Worse how?”

Owden lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned close to the princess to murmur his next words, putting a hand to his mouth to shield his speech from the man lying beneath them. “It’s eating away his flesh, Your Highness-right down to the bones, if we let it work long enough. We have to move him.”

“His tent,” Alusair snapped, inclining her head in the direction of the other hill. “There’ll be water there to wash this ichor away.” She lifted her hands, now tingling-no, burning slightly-under their coating of black slime. She regarded them thoughtfully for a moment before she turned her head the other way and called, “Sardyn!”

“My lady?”

“Are you finished felling goblins, or do some of the lads feel the need to add to their sword-totals yet?”

“The hill is clear and we’ve all had our fill and more,” came the heartfelt reply.

Alusair’s lips twisted in a wry smile and she turned to regard the shield ring. Sardyn had turned to address her, but the others, true to their training, were still facing the battlefield, leaning on their blades and resting now. Gods, what brave swords!

“I need the king and the royal magician carried-as gently and as safely as possible, in a ring of blades-to the royal tent. Tarry not.”

Sardyn inclined his head, then bellowed, “Break ranks! Walking ring! Elstan, Murrigo, Julavvan and Perendrin-to me!”

All around her, men started to move. Alusair stood, motioning Owden and Rowen to keep their distance from her, and went a little distance away, to where she could wipe the dragon’s blood from her boots, knees, and hands. Her fingers went to the clasp of the weathercloak she wore, bunched and sweat-drenched, around her shoulders beneath the high-fluted shoulders of her armor.

“He’s alive, Tana,” she murmured in relief, as she fixed her sister’s face in her mind and concentrated on it.

The contact did not come. Frowning, Alusair closed her eyes and shut out the battlefield, its calling crows and tramping men fading away, to see Tanalasta as vividly as she could.

That time she’d thrown back her head and laughed so heartily that she’d spilled her tallglass of flamekiss or when she’d slapped Alusair, and had her wrist grabbed and held, and they’d stared into each other’s eyes as slow fear over Alusair’s strength mounted in Tanalasta’s eyes. Or…

Nothing. Emptiness, darkness-not even the confused, dim dream images of someone sleeping. The clasp tingled as she drew on it. Abruptly Alusair turned her thoughts away, calling up the face of one of the few men who’d attracted her for more than a few nights-the turret-merchant Glarasteer Rhauligan. Twice her age, and iron calm, with hair going gray and wrists as strong as steel. She wondered if the court spies had ever informed Vangerdahast or her father of those acrobatic liaisons among the shadows of the armory, or what they’d thought.

The contact was almost instant. Rhauligan was in an alleyway somewhere-Suzail, by the look of it-holding a man none too gently against a wall.

The next time you think armsmen off to war means their wives are yours for the taking… Rhauligan was snarling, the words echoing in Alusair’s distant mind.

Even as he felt her presence, she breathed the words, “We’ll speak later, I promise,” and broke the contact.

So the clasp’s enchantment was working, all too well.

She bent all of her will to capturing and holding as vivid a collection of remembered Tanalasta’s as she could, but met only with darkness, an empty sensation, and ominous silence.

Alusair threw back her head, her mouth suddenly dry, gulped in a deep breath, and rose to her feet. Owden and Rowen were waiting on either side of her, well away but obviously standing guard, and the procession carrying Cormyr’s king and court wizard was just disappearing from view down the hill.

The Steel Princess ignored their anxious glances and stared at the royal tent on the distant hilltop. From her lips, after a moment, came a long, shuddering sigh. She shivered as a sudden chill washed along her shoulders and arms.

There could be only one reason why Tanalasta did not answer.