Death of the Dragon

18

“Very good progress, Your Majesty,” Warden Huntsilver confirmed. “We can judge how far we’ve come by certain trees that mark the distance along the trail. There’s one of them: Velaeror’s Oak, named for the swordcaptain buried there, after his valiant death fighting brigands, by your great, great-“

Azoun. The voice in his mind was warm and familiar, yet sharp with an urgency he’d seldom heard before. It took a lot to break Filfaeril’s outward calm. The king put an imperious hand on Maestoon Huntsilver’s arm, and the quickwitted and sensitive warden of the King’s Forest fell silent, instantly devoting his attention to guiding the silent Azoun smoothly along the root-studded trail, so that the king need not even look down… or anywhere.

Faery, I am here, he replied silently, fumbling behind his belt buckle for the little catch that would release what he might need. To the gods’ dark places with all ghazneths! He was king in this land, and he’d use his ring if it seemed needful. What ill? Another three identical rings tumbled into his hand. The only spares he possessed-perhaps all that still existed. He held them ready to touch to the one on his finger, not caring, just now, if he burned all the magic in the royal treasury.

Gods, but he’d missed Faery’s voice-even if it did now bring dark tidings.

Tana has been wounded, and-as many now know, though she keeps secrets well-is pregnant.

Azoun was more amused and pleased at his eldest daughter’s spirit than angry, though he knew he should be furious at the keeping of a secret that could so endanger the crown. Do you approve of the father? he sent to his queen, not hiding his feelings, as he touched one of the rings to the one he was wearing, and it flared up with a bright pulse that they felt in their linked minds like a racing line of fire.

I have not yet met the father, she replied tartly, so it is difficult to-Her touch faded. Hastily Azoun thrust another ring against the first. In an instant, it blazed up and was gone. Gods, would all magic prove so fleeting?

Come to me, my lord love. Filfaeril’s voice was stronger now, almost pleading. Whatever Tana says or does, I need you. More than that, Cormyr needs you here, if only briefly.

I come in all commanded haste, Azoun sent wryly, ending the contact with the wordless rush of emotion that they used in lieu of a kiss across the miles between their lips.

“Warden,” the king said smoothly, shaking the ashes of a crumbling ring off a blistered finger and sliding his last replacement onto it without heed for the pain, “affairs of state call me away, perhaps for a short time, but more likely for longer. You are to obey Swordlord Ethin Glammerhand as you would me, and guide all here safely and swiftly through this my royal forest. The good Swordlord is..

Azoun turned to find and identify Glammerhand, only to find him walking right behind them. “Here, my liege,” the swordlord said promptly. “I have heard, and will obey. Your needs now?”

“Halt and rest the men, but speedily send to me the Lord Mage Arkenfrost.”

Glammerhand bowed his head and turned to give the orders. Remaeras Arkenfrost was the ranking war wizard accompanying the army, and a calm, shrewd diplomat to boot-eminently suitable for teleporting himself and his king into the midst of a possibly tense court confrontation. He was also, as it happened, carrying many healing potions and other beneficial magics brought along to safeguard the king and officers. Azoun disliked many of what he liked to privately call “Vangey’s Brood” because they were arrogant, ignorant of the real world, openly ambitious and overeager, or suffered from all of these faults at once, but there were exceptions-mages he liked on sight and respected increasingly the more he saw of them. Arkenfrost was one such mage.

Azoun felt a rush of warmth now as he saw the man hastening toward him in response to the subtlest of hand signals from Glammerhand. Ever-tired eyes like those of a hangdog hound, pepper-and-salt beard, well-tailored but dark and plain robes worn over warrior’s boots… what a war wizard who served Cormyr before his own interests should be. Perhaps they could say and do the right things to rein in the more fractious nobles and set things to rights at court, then return to this army soon.

“Your Majesty?” the wizard asked, kneeling as if he was an oath-sworn warrior. Some of Vangey’s Brood never knelt, even at the most formal state occasions.

“Good Lord Mage,” Azoun greeted him, clasping the mage’s work-hardened hands firmly and drawing Arkenfrost to his feet, “I’ve urgent need to be at court, at the side of my queen. How soon can the two of-“

Something blotted out the sun overhead. Something dark and large. Very large.

Almost instinctively Azoun drew in under the shading boughs of the nearest tree as he peered up at the biggest red dragon he’d ever seen.

Just above the treetops it hung, gliding more slowly than he’d thought the lightest bird could manage, its sharp eyes fixed on the warriors of Cormyr. Dragoneers and lionars suddenly erupted into a whirlwind of shouting, trembling, and vomiting. Some men drew their swords and hacked wildly at those nearby, or at the empty air. One man stared fixedly ahead and began to foam at the mouth, while another sank down drooling something yellow from his blackening, bloated face. Others began to scratch feverishly, whimpering, and Azoun saw a bristling green mold spreading over the limbs of one such victim, coating armor and flesh alike with horrifying speed.

“They come for us! They come!” one man bellowed, attacking the nearest tree with such insane force that his sword bent under the force of his blows. A swordcaptain beyond him started to howl like a hound.

“Swordlord,” Azoun said evenly, “are your wits still about you?”

Ethin Glammerhand was sweating like a river, and a muscle was working on one side of his jaw, rippling in endless, uncontrolled spasms, but his voice was steady enough as he replied, “I-I think so, my liege.”

The king drew his sword and said, “Bring all of the mages and priests to me, speedily if you think they are as stricken as these men here. Use any officers you can trust to disarm and truss those doing harm to others. Worry not about chasing those who flee into the forest.”

“Forthwith, Your Majesty,” the swordlord snapped, and leaped away into the confusion of shouting, staggering men with a stream of bellowed orders. The sound of his voice seemed to steady some of the demented, but Azoun had eyes only for the war wizard standing beside him, and the point of his blade was raised and ready.

“Arkenfrost?” he barked.

The Lord Mage smiled thinly. “I believe my wits are unaffected, Majesty,” he said. “In answer to your query, we can be standing beside the Dragon Queen in the space of two breaths. If I must now use magic to heal or quell maddened or injured clergy or mages, it will of course take longer to be elsewhere.”

Azoun grimaced rather than grinning. “You’re as sound as any of us, I guess.”

Glammerhand was already trudging back toward them, head swinging constantly from side to side as he shot glances around at the tumult of men among the trees. “If any of the holy men or the mages were affected, Majesty, they’ve recovered speedily and thoroughly enough to conceal their afflictions entirely from me.”

“Can you handle those affected without us?”

“With all respect, Your Majesty,” the swordlord growled, “I can do so better if I need not watch and worry for the king’s safety.”

“Get gone, then?”

Ethin Glammerhand’s frowning face split in a real smile. “Eloquently put, my liege.”

Azoun gave him an answering smile, sheathed his blade, and turned to the waiting lord mage. “Arkenfrost?”

The war wizard inclined his head, and reached forward his hand to touch Azoun’s wrist. “To the queen,” he murmured and cast his spell.

The world was suddenly a place of blue roiling mists, shot through with lightninglike flickers of brighter, lighter blue, through which Azoun was endlessly falling… but suddenly on solid ground-or rather, somewhere that moved underfoot, as warm and fetid as a slaughterhouse charnel pit, all rotting meat and damp rushing air. Somewhere slippery.

Shaking his head to clear his eyes of the afterdaze, Azoun clung to the reassuring firmness of the sword in his hand, and crouched low, trying to listen, and keep his balance. He seemed to be somewhere dark and warm that was rapidly getting darker.

Abruptly he realized that the dark bulk immediately in front of him was a gigantic tooth, long and sharp, and that it was one of a line of teeth. He was in the mouth of a huge creature, standing on a tongue that was rising under his boots like an inexorable wave, to hurl him forward into the reach of those clashing fangs! Arkenfrost was already tumbling ahead of him. Gods preserve-they were in the mouth of the dragon!

The fangs drew back, Azoun’s world suddenly brightening, and an instant later the King of Cormyr was plunging helplessly forward, borne on the reeking wind of the dragon’s breath. In a moment those cruel teeth would clash down, and he’d be cut in two or crushed.

Shuddering, the Most Royal Flower of the Obarskyrs kicked out hard against the slippery tongue, tumbled crazily forward until his boots struck a fang, and sprang away. Teeth crashed down, someone screamed, and the king was suddenly in utter darkness and awash in stinging fluid-fluid that seared like flame, and swiftly acquired the iron reek of fresh human blood. Arkenfrost was probably now dead.

The dragon’s teeth parted again, light flooded in around the king, and Azoun flung himself between them, out into the brightness beyond.

He was falling, tumbling away beneath the huge red dragon as it flew on over the forest, its jaws working-not, it seemed, having noticed his escape. His weathercloak’s featherfall magic would save him from a smashed-bones death when he reached the ground… if, of course, the dragon didn’t see him and come flying back to bite and swallow.

The King of Cormyr watched the wyrm dwindle into the distance, and wondered grimly how Arkenfrost’s spell had taken him into the red dragon’s maw. A twisting of magic on the dragon’s part or the act of some unknown foe… or the treachery of Arkenfrost himself?

No sane man seeks his own death, but… Azoun Obarskyr had been wrong when judging men a time or two in his life before.

Yet not, he thought, this time. It was all too easy for any king to start to see conspiracies in every shadowed chamber and deceit in every word that fell from any lips. And to what purpose? If every man’s hand is raised covertly against the king, what profits said monarch from acting differently? How does it help the realm, or keep a royal head on its accustomed shoulders for a breath or two longer?

The dragon, it seemed, was not coming back, and this was undoubtedly the King’s Forest beneath him, the tops of its thick-standing trees approaching swiftly now. It was a long fall, cloaked in the magic that would save him from a killing landing… too long a fall. Goblins had bows, and many forest beasts had keen eyes and the habit of looking aloft for approaching trouble. Or meals.

Azoun drew his sword and devoted himself to peering all around and down at the trees rising to meet him. If nothing threatened, he might as well enjoy the view of his realm perhaps the last look at it he’d ever have time enough to enjoy.

Or perhaps not. Something was streaking at him from the south, coming low over the trees, and coming fast. A small, dark fleck against the blue sky, rapidly becoming a larger dark spot, with wings.

Aye. A ghazneth. Azoun swallowed, finding his mouth suddenly dry, and licked his lips grimly, raising his blade and slapping at the hilt of his nearest dagger to be sure of just where it was.

Gods, but they were fast! The leathery black wings were almost a blur as the ghazneth swept up to the slowly descending king. Azoun saw two thin arms, two crooked legs, a lanky but unmistakably female body trailing long brown hair, and a face whose eyes glittered with hatred and the rising fire of the hunter eager to slay. Her fingers had become impossibly long talons-hooked, cruel claws whose needle-sharp tips seemed cloaked in clinging drops of dark liquid. Poison? Or the blood of her last victim?

The ghazneth climbed in the air as she closed with her drifting target, and Azoun steadied his blade, holding it in both hands. On and down she came, with a wordless shriek of anger. Azoun waited, his sword held low and a little behind him, for just the right moment to strike. The ghazneth beat foul wings in a flurry to slow then swoop then slow again, trying to fool him but sacrificing the sheer power of a swift pounce.

She twisted at the last moment, banking past him to claw and scream, and Azoun swung his blade in a hand, roundhouse slash, cutting mainly air and feathers but biting into something as the ghazneth flapped strongly away and dipped one wing to loop around. She was trying to come at him from behind as he fell, turning uncontrollably in the wake of his swing and her strike, and Azoun snarled silently in determination and twisted, trying to throw himself around to meet his foe.

He was only just in time. The ghazneth was gliding right at him, talons raking the air so as to present him with a whirling wall of death. He ducked his head to protect his eyes and slashed the air, chopping hard and swiftly to keep her from getting inside his reach.

A talon got through, cutting a line of fire across his head. The ghazneth trying to blind him with his own blood. A second talon just caught his cheek as he twisted his head back and away and drove his blade solidly through a flailing wing and into the back and thigh beneath.

The ghazneth screamed, a raw, rough cry of anger and pain. Azoun found himself in the blind heart of a dark flurry of stinking wings that buffeted him like the winds of a spell-spun tempest he’d once been caught in. The fury ended only when she twisted away from his blade and spun in the air, the magnificently-muscled line of her naked back momentarily only a foot or so from his nose, to strike at him face to face.

His sword, its everbright enchantments gone at her touch, was behind or beyond her wings and useless, but the King of Cormyr was ready. As her talons swept up and she drew back her legs to kick, she met his dagger, hard and full into her breast.

Azoun grimly set aside the fact that this was a weapon-less woman and his own blood-kin, and kept stabbing, pumping his arm and keeping his legs drawn up to protect himself. She spat blood at him, breast heaving under his blade, but her shrieks and squalls soon became coughs, and she faltered in the air and drew away without striking home with a single talon.

Where she had struck earlier, though, Azoun felt a sickening weakness, and a trembling was beginning. Her wounds were closing as he watched, while his own were festering-no, worse than that. As the weakness spread, his skin was withering and the flesh beneath it was rotting, a dark and spongy blight that was spreading swiftly. Soon he’d not be able to hold his sword. He had to end this quickly or have it ended for him.

Bringing his sword back in front of him like a leveled lance to keep her at bay, he felt in his codpiece for the magic he’d hoped not to have to waste this soon in the defense of Cormyr. He sought to distract his foe with the taunting, polite purr, “And whom, Dark Lady, have I the pleasure of slaying today?”

Her reply was a scream of bubbling rage out of which he could only just discern the name “Suzara” before she plunged in again.

The king was ready. He swung his sword aside and threw the small iron globe in his hand full into Suzara’s face. If only its explosive magic persisted long enough to work, in the face of the magic-starved ghazneth’s draining of dweomer…

It did. In a flash of raging radiance the sphere burst apart in leaping hoops and bands of cold iron that swung out into the air, dimming and flickering as Suzara flung back her head and gasped in unmistakable pleasure. The iron bands shrank in with lightning speed to tighten around the fell creature.

Gods be thanked! They were crashing through branches together now, Azoun and his monstrously transformed ancestor, and already the iron bands were crumbling away to white flakes and gray ashes as the ghazneth greedily drank their magic, but as they tightened the bands of cold iron burned Suzara, lacerating her limbs. The king saw her trapped wings spasm and writhe in pain as she tumbled past the last few boughs and smashed into a dark, stagnant forest pool.

Its waters danced away from the crippled ghazneth, then slid back over her like an eager blanket, leaving no trace of her but a few bubbles that soon slowed, then stopped.

Not dead, Azoun knew, just down out of battle for a time and probably not a long time. He’d best be away from here in haste, and without using more magic than he had to, either, not with a dragon gliding along just above the trees sniffing for it.

Healing was needful right now, though he probably required more than he was carrying. Azoun drained the two steel vials that rode in his boots, hefted his no-longer-magical blade, and set off through the damp green depths of the forest in the direction of the army he’d left behind such a short time ago.

The King of Cormyr felt surprisingly cheerful, despite the small concerns of a ghazneth behind him, a dragon lurking somewhere above, his kingdom hanging in the balance as orcs and goblins raided, the very real possibilities of meeting with a forest predator or just failing to meet with his troops in the vast and trackless trees ahead-and, of course, the danger that the rotting brought on by the talons of the ghazneth would claim him before he reached any aid, or leave him staggering when he did find a foe.

The very thought brought a fresh spasm of weakness in his cooling, trembling limbs and sent him staggering sideways against a tree. His smile, however, was a real one as he concentrated on Filfaeril’s image, bringing his queen to mind as he liked to remember her best, arching to meet his chest a-bubble with laughter, lusty fingers tugging at his hair…

He felt the wry warmth of her awareness as she shared and appreciated that memory. Faery, he said silently into her mind, I’ve been, as courtiers say, unaccountably delayed-but I’m alive, I’m coming, and never doubt, dying to see you.