The Dragon's Tomb

Chapter III

Johauna stepped forward, preparing to brush aside the creature with her boot. “It’s just a bat,” she said in relief to Karleah, behind her. She extended her leg to kick the tiny, squawking animal out of harms way.

“Wait! Jo!” Karleah croaked in sudden fear.

Something hard and heavy crashed against Jo’s shoulder. The squire lost her balance. “What the—!” She fell to the cavern floor, only just glimpsing the massive object that struck her. Where the bat had once been, a seething lump of metamorphosing flesh now lay.

Convulsing. Transforming.

A dragon-size lump of flesh.

Jo rolled to her feet, a snarl on her lips and Wyrmblight in her hands. The blade shone faintly, and its hilt was warm to the touch.

“Stand back!” shouted Karleah, waving her staff at Jo and Braddoc. The old wizardess struck the ground with the staff. It stayed upright by her side, its ball of light illuminating the cavern still. Karleah pulled back her sleeves and immediately began murmuring an incantation, her gnarled hands blurring with speed.

Ignoring Karleah’s instructions, Johauna swung Wyrmblight above her head and leaped forward, shouting, “Fliiinn!”

As Jo hurtled toward the transmuting lump of matter, it exploded in size and shape, taking Verdilith’s form. The squire hurled Wyrmblight down onto the beast in a massive, two-handed arc that carried every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed.

A sudden, blinding flash of blue light came from Jo’s left and struck Wyrmblight before her blow could reach the dragon’s flesh. The blue streaks of Karleah’s spell flared brilliantly, magic clashing with elven silver and dwarven steel. A tremendous shudder of energy traveled up the blade and into Jo’s arms, almost wrenching the sword from her hands. The full force of the blow struck her body, and Jo was thrown backward across the cavern.

The squire’s flight ended almost forty feet later when she struck a stalagmite. The stone projection caught Jo in the back, and breath exploded from her body. She tumbled to the stony ground. Her spine felt snapped in two and tears of pain stung her eyes. Jo struggled for air, but her lungs would not respond. Sharp, stabbing pains pierced her chest.

Am I dying? she wondered frantically. Why can’t I catch my breath? I’ve got to kill Verdilith. I can’t die until he is dead! The squire’s fingers tightened on Wyrmblight, still clutched reflexively in her hand. Please, let me live, she pleaded to the sword. Let me outlive the dragon, if only by moments! She struggled to control the fear that washed over her.

The Great Green, Verdilith, separated Jo from Karleah and Braddoc. Around him lay stalagmites, crushed to rubble beneath his newly formed claws of ivory. His emerald-green hide was laced with myriad cuts, and fresh blood seeped from unhealed wounds. A gaping gash nearly a foot deep and more than three feet long bled profusely along the dragon’s right side. It was a serious wound, though perhaps not mortal, and it looked fresh. Jo had expected Verdilith to be healed by now, healed with the extraordinary spells he knew.

In the instant that all these thoughts flooded through Jo’s spinning mind, the great green dragon reared back in fury, extending and fluttered his giant, batlike wings. Wind whistled through numerous holes in the wings’ fragile membranes. A few of the holes were so large that Jo knew the dragon couldn’t fly.

Attack! Jo cried silently to her friends. Just beyond the beast, she could see Braddoc and Karleah; they stood like statues, poised as they had been when Jo had made her lunge. Apparently Verdilith’s magic is far more powerful than Karleah’s, Jo thought with a moan of pain.

Struggling desperately to move, the squire braced Wyrmblight against the ground and tried to pull herself upward. She rose to one knee before agonizing pain twisted through her back, forcing her back to the stony cavern floor. With an extreme effort, she held her head up and looked toward the dragon and her comrades. Why are they just standing there? she thought anxiously. Why don’t they do something?

The dragon turned his enormous head toward Jo, and the curved amber horns on his brow glinted coldly in the light of Karleah’s staff. Through her haze of pain Jo wondered if Verdilith had somehow read her thoughts. She saw the golden, malevolent eyes staring at her, perhaps gauging her ability to harm him. Then, with slow and deliberate malice, he stepped toward Jo and extended his trembling right claw. She gasped, struggling back from the razor-tipped talon. Eyeing her evilly, Verdilith lowered the massive claw, setting the ivory tip of one nail on the flat of Wyrmblight.

“No!” Jo shrieked, trying desperately to yank the sword away. It wouldn’t budge; the sigil for Glory was snagged on the dragon’s claw. Wyrmblight’s hilt felt suddenly red-hot in Johauna’s grasp. With one quick flick of his talon, Verdilith wrenched the sword from Jo’s hand and sent it skidding across the stone floor toward him. The hilt struck sparks in the darksome lair as it passed.

“Wyrmblight,” the dragon whispered in greedy awe, pinning the sword beneath his claw. Careful not to let the blade touch his flesh, he prodded it toward a cluster of stalagmites. There, with the caution of a jeweler, he slid the sword between a tight pair of rock columns. Then, setting his claw on the hilt, he began to bend the blade sideways. “Good-bye, Wyrmblight,” the dragon mumbled venomously.

“No!” Jo cried out again, struggling to get up. Her body cried out in pain but, gritting her teeth, she slowly rose to one knee.

With a ghoulish smile on his spearlike teeth, Verdilith snapped the blade harshly to one side. Instead of breaking, however, Wyrmblight cut hissing through the rock columns and dropped loose. One of the stone pillars, sliced in half, broke free from the cave roof and fell like a massive tree into the lair. The resulting boom shook the stony ground beneath Jo, and made her ears ring.

“You can’t destroy it, Verdilith,” Jo shouted in agonized triumph. “Not you! Wyrmblight was forged to kill you, and it’ll stay whole until its purpose is fulfilled.”

Verdilith turned his enormous head toward her and regarded her with all the disdain he would have for an injured fly. The vast lids over his slitted eyes drew into a dubious and irritable line.

“Quiet, bitch,” he murmured, green gas spilling gently from his nostrils and rolling over her.

Choking, Johauna croaked out, “Karleah! Do something!” She clamped her eyes closed against the stinging gas and rasped, “Braddoc, attack! Fight, damn you! Fight!” Every battered muscle in her back screamed with the drawn breaths.

Unconcerned, Verdilith snagged the sword once again. He shifted his weight to his back haunches and assumed a sitting position. Only then did Jo see his wounded left arm. A jagged laceration, nearly three feet long, puckered rawly across the inner flat of the claw and up Verdilith’s forearm. Exposed white tendons, likely snapped by Wyrmblight, extruded from the claw and arm; the limb was withered and virtually useless. Somehow Jo knew the wound would never heal, though the skin surrounding it might finally pucker and close over. She grinned with evil satisfaction. “Good for you, Flinn,” Jo whispered huskily, taking shallow breaths. “You’ve maimed the bastard for life!” She gained her feet and staggered toward Karleah and Braddoc.

The dragon studied the sword, cautiously lifting it in his claws. Setting her teeth in determination, Jo inched closer to her friends. Verdilith’s eye turned distractedly toward her, and he let out a roar that reverberated through the cavern. A cloud of noxious green mist erupted from his maw, covering Jo and the statuelike forms of Karleah and Braddoc.

Jo held her breath and dropped again to her knees. Watching her, Verdilith grinned. Slowly he snaked his long, sinuous neck toward her. The beast’s ivory fangs glinted, and his gums glowed with green bile. A long, snakelike tongue flickered out, licking away the viscid fluid. The stench that rolled from his mouth nearly made Jo retch. The dragon lowered his head, a head the size of a small cottage, to Jo’s level. His golden-orange eyes gleamed moistly, and little puffs of poisonous mist plumed from his nostrils.

It was the first time Jo had ever really seen the dragon, and even the pain in her back and lungs retreated in the face of her sudden terror. Nothing could have prepared her for this sight. Nothing could have prepared her for facing Verdilith.

“Ssssooooooo,” Verdilith hissed in a long drawl, “you are the foolish successor to foolish Flinn?” An amber eye flickered to the sword, dangling in Verdilith’s good claw. Even beyond her grasp, the sword seemed to whisper have faith to Jo. Heeding the words, she tapped the anger inside her—her only hope to fight off the terror of his presence. This fiend killed Flinn! she shouted to herself. You must avenge that death, broken bones be damned!

The dragon’s tongue tested the air, and droplets of green spittle splashed at Jo’s feet. “Your magicks and your sword are too feeble to defeat me,” Verdilith continued. The words sounded clipped and strangely alien to Jo, as if they were coming from a great distance instead of the few steps that separated Jo and her foe. “Your precious Flinn proved that. Your attacks now prove that. Your comrades are dead, and so are you.” The dragon opened his jaws, revealing rows of deadly, spearlike teeth.

He dropped Wyrmblight before her.

“Go, ahead,” he seethed. “Take the sword. Kill me if you can.”

Jo grappled the blade, struggling to clutch its hilt with her weary hands. Finally securing her hold, she raised the sword and thrust it toward the dragon’s head.

With something akin to a purr, Verdilith lowered his face toward the sword and rubbed it lovingly along his jaw. The keen, hot edge of steel lightly sliced into the tender facial skin of the dragon, hissing as blood poured slowly onto it. A spark of pain appeared for a moment in Verdilith’s massive eyes, but quickly transformed into a dull glow of pleasure. Jo wrenched fiercely at the blade, trying to redirect it toward the dragon’s throat. Wyrmblight swung about, leveling toward the creature’s throat, but Verdilith caught it lightly between his massive teeth.

Without releasing his bite, the dragon murmured, “A mere shaving implement, this.” He stared mirthlessly at Johauna, his golden eyes narrowing. Despite the dragon’s words, despite his apparent lack of concern about the blade, Jo saw a moment of fear in those great, slitted eyes. He blinked it away, and the wound on his face gently dripped blood onto the stone beside her. “Why need I destroy a shaving implement?” Verdilith continued, his voice strangely tense. “Especially, when I can destroy its bearer?”

“To arms, children of stone! To arms!” came the ragged shout of Braddoc Briarblood from some distance behind the dragon. As Verdilith whirled his huge head toward the call, a thud of metal sounded.

Verdilith shrieked.

In the same moment, a roaring funnel of wind suddenly formed in the cavern. It grew rapidly, swirling to one side of the cave, some distance away. Johauna wondered if Karleah would be able to control the air elemental in time to actually threaten Verdilith.

Whether or not she could, Jo’s time was at hand.

Scrambling unsteadily to her feet, she charged the beast’s exposed breast. Her gray eyes flashed with anger and dread anticipation as she pulled Wyrmblight back for the killing blow. “For Flinn!” Jo lunged unevenly with the blade, letting her stumbling body impart its force to the attack. Still, it was a weak thrust at best, and misdirected, but the sword shone suddenly bright in its path. It glanced off the scales of the creature’s breast and dug into the dragon’s crippled left claw. White mist from the blade clung to the raw wound and turned red.

The dragon screamed again. He reared, his massive wings flapping wildly to help him keep his balance. Jo dropped to the ground, shielding herself from the buffeting wind. Karleah’s wind funnel swept closer, nullifying the winds from Verdilith’s wings.

Braddoc, axe glinting in hand, landed a solid blow on the wyrm’s wounded side. Verdilith seemed oblivious, gnawing his wounded arm in blind rage. Retreating from the creature’s thrashing tail, Karleah stepped amongst a forest of rock columns. From there she directed the wind tunnel toward the dragon. In moments, it engulfed him, pummeling him with coins and gems and dust.

With supple, wicked grace, Verdilith swung his head back toward Jo and hissed, his voice rumbling deep and low through the long, twisted neck. “You’ve earned my hatred, squire! You and that accursed blade are no more!”

Jo blinked the dust from her eyes and tried to see beyond Karleah’s tornado. One moment, he was a dim outline in the swirling storm, the next, he was gone altogether. Then, as quickly as it had come, the tornado vanished. A harsh hail of coins and gems followed for some moments afterward, leaving only a drifting cloud of sand, glittering in Karleah’s magical light.

There was no sign of the dragon.

Stunned, Karleah and Braddoc stared back at Jo from across the empty hall.

The squire slumped to the ground, the strength gone from her body. She clutched Wyrmblight in her arms. Braddoc and Karleah raced toward her, the dwarf reaching her first. He knelt by Jo’s side and smoothed tousled hair and grit from her face.

“Johauna!” Braddoc said urgently. “You’re hurt!”

Karleah knelt beside the dwarf and said testily, “Well, of course she’s hurt! She took the full effects of my most powerful missile spell—a spell, I might add, that would likely have killed Verdilith in his condition.” The old woman tapped the silver-and-gold medallion on Jo’s chest. “It’s nice to know this thing works, dear. You’d have been dead otherwise.”

Jo smiled feebly, but was too weak to respond further. I may not have died then, she thought, but I’m about to die soon. She looked at Karleah’s suddenly frowning face.

“When Wyrmblight intercepted my magic, the spell somehow rebounded on the dwarf and me,” Karleah explained. She began gently prodding Jo’s body, and every now and then Jo gasped in pain. “We couldn’t move; we were paralyzed,” Karleah continued. “We saw and heard everything, fortunately. Only after we were gassed by that behemoth were we freed.” Karleah jerked her thumb toward Braddoc, who held up his amulet, and said, “There again we were lucky.”

“How are you, Johauna?” the dwarf asked. “Where does it hurt?”

“My back … and lungs,” Jo whispered, the stabbing pains in her lungs forcing her to take shallow breaths. “Never … mind me. What … about … Verdilith?” Karleah glanced at Braddoc, who returned the old woman’s look. Then Karleah looked away, and Braddoc turned to Jo. “I’m afraid he got away, Johauna,” the dwarf said slowly. “He turned to mist and … disappeared.”

Jo closed her eyes. I’m going to die, Wyrmblight, she thought to the sword. I’m going to die, and I haven’t avenged Flinn’s death, and I won’t live to see Verdilith’s death. She pulled the blade closer to her, her fingers unconsciously seeking the four sigils. Perhaps I can fall asleep and then die without so much pain, she thought as a heavy darkness descended on her.

Jo felt consciousness begin to slip away. The pain retreated, taking with it Jo’s hopes and needs, dreams and desires. She fought against the gentle insistence surrounding her. Give up the sword, whispered her mind. Give up avenging Flinn’s death. Your time has come to depart from this world. Jo fought against the words. “No!” she shouted. In the indistinct blackness that closed around her, she ran, her soul suddenly given form. She waved her arms wildly, trying to ward off the insistent thoughts of defeat hammering at her.

“Flinn! Flinn!” she called frantically. “Wyrmblight, where are you? Where is Flinn?”

Then, somehow, he was walking toward her in a vision, a glowing figure surrounded by the blackness of death. He was whole and hale again, and seemed younger than Jo had ever seen him. A smile lingered on his lips beneath his dark moustache, and there was only a little iron streaking the black hair. The scars across his face were barely visible. Flinn held his hands out to her, palms upward. Jo looked up from them, across his broad chest now clothed in his midnight-blue tunic from the Order of the Three Suns, and on to his dark eyes. They were shining down at her, and Jo felt her heart break. He had never seemed more beautiful or more majestic.

“I can’t come to you yet, Flinn,” Jo sobbed. “I promised you! I have to avenge your death. Please help me return.”

Flinn still smiled at her with love and understanding.

Jo almost reached out for him, but she stopped herself in time. “Where … are you?” Jo asked instead, gesturing around at the darkness.

Flinn laughed low, a chuckle that held none of its old cynical bitterness. “Ah, Jo!” he murmured. “Return to your body. Have faith—we will meet again someday.”

The image of Flinn disappeared in the blackness that surrounded Jo, but the words have faith echoed through her soul. She felt like crying, whether from great joy or deep sorrow, she didn’t know.

From a tremendous distance, Jo heard Karleah murmur, “Look at that, Braddoc! That—that glowing mist is covering Jo’s body!”

“Aye, and it’s coming from the sword!” Braddoc responded.

“What do you make of it?” Karleah inquired.

Jo’s eyelids fluttered, and she heard Karleah and Braddoc both gasp.

“Johauna! You’re alive!” the dwarf cried.

“You’ve a penchant for stating the obvious, dwarf!” Karleah vented. Jo felt hands gently touching her. Then she heard the old woman hiss in sudden realization. “Of course! The sword healed her!”

Jo’s eyes opened fully, and she focused on her two comrades kneeling beside her. The squire smiled slowly. “Now who’s stating the obvious?” She held out her hands. “Help me up”

The two helped Jo rise to her feet. She felt a Little shaky. That’s to be expected, she thought wryly. After all, you’ve just come back from the dead. Jo stretched, the muscles in her back moving without pain. She tentatively took a deep breath; the stabbing ache wasn’t there. She smiled at the two concerned expressions staring up at her.

“I’m fine. Really,” she said.

Karleah blinked rapidly. “Forgive my staring, Jo,” she said, “but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a dead person.”

Braddoc snorted. He handed Jo her sword and hefted his own battle-axe. “She’s not dead anymore, so don’t go treating her like she’s dead, will you?” The dwarf looked up at Jo with his good eye and jerked his thumb behind him. “The dragon’s gone. We won’t get our vengeance today. But let’s at least load up on some treasure and return to the castle. Maybe if the baroness is in a generous mood, she’ll let us keep a piece or two for ourselves.”

Jo shook her head. “I’ll help you bring some treasure back to camp, but I’m coming back here with supplies. Verdilith’s injured; he’ll return to his lair sometime soon.”

Braddoc shrugged. “We’ve got maybe a week’s worth of rations left, if we stretch it. But you’re right. It makes sense to harry the dragon now before he heals and regains all his powers.”

As the three of them started across the cavern floor, Karleah stopped to get her staff. She frowned at the ball of light, but Jo didn’t bother to ask why.

“I don’t think Verdilith’s healed any since Flinn attacked him,” Johauna said seriously. “Aren’t dragons supposed to have lots of healing spells?”

“So the sages say,” Karleah answered absently. She was looking around nervously. “And I can’t divine why the dragon wouldn’t fight us with spells, particularly since he was too injured to really engage in physical battle.”

“We can puzzle that out later,” Braddoc interrupted as they reached the edge of the golden hoard. The magical light flickered across the vast mounds, which spread out as far as the light would reach.

Hadn’t the light extended farther before? Jo wondered. She dismissed the thought, thinking that perhaps the area of illumination diminished naturally as the spell wore on. “Karleah,” Jo murmured as she and Braddoc moved toward the piles of gold, “you keep watch. We’ll get a few things and be right back.”

“Make it fast, Jo,” the old wizardess called. “I want to get out of here soon… .”

Braddoc wandered to the right, and Jo circled to the left. She began wading through the gold and silver coins littering the floor, enjoying the shift and clink of coins slipping by her boots. She paused every now and then to reach out to touch some gem or gold-chased bauble. Her eyes flitted from necklaces and brooches to rings and bracelets to encrusted footstools and ornamented portrait frames. Jo’s brain reeled. How could there be so much wealth in the world? she wondered. How could there be so many exquisite, exquisite things? Johauna picked up a fire opal the size of her fist and an aquamarine diadem and tucked them in her belt. For the most part, however, the poor orphan girl from Specularum was too overwhelmed to greedily gather treasure. Johauna continued to walk on, her eyes touching on pieces of metalwork that would have paid a king’s ransom in the present age.

Some unknown time later, Braddoc came up behind Jo and touched her arm. The squire jumped. “I’ve been calling you for the last minute, Johauna,” the dwarf said. “Don’t let the dragon’s treasure root in your brain. It’ll take over your thoughts, mesmerize you, consume you—you’ll stop eating or sleeping or thinking of anything but the treasure.”

“Really?” Jo said thickly. She reached out a finger and stroked a cupboard made of gold, inlaid with jade.

Braddoc jerked her arm. “Come along! It’s a good thing I’m here—the treasure’s gotten to you already.”

Jo scowled, trying to think. It was true she hadn’t thought of anything but the riches she’d seen, but she couldn’t have spent more than a few minutes …

“We’ve been picking through the hoard for more than an hour now,” Braddoc said testily, as though sensing her thoughts. He shifted his bulging knapsack on his shoulder. “Karleah’s been nagging us to leave for that whole time.”

“How … how does the treasure get to me like that?” Jo asked. Her thoughts were beginning to clear.

The dwarf shook his head. “It just does. The dragon sleeps on the treasure, you know. I think his essence permeates the gold and traps the unwary. Even I’m not immune to it. Karleah had to tap me with that staff of hers before I was able to shake it off.”

The two rounded a mound of treasure and found Karleah anxiously pacing. She whirled toward them in a pique of nerves and held out her hands.

“There you are, you old stump!” she snapped, waggling her withered finger at Braddoc. “I sent you after Jo a quarter hour ago! There’s no time to lose! We must leave immediately!” the old wizardess urged. “Come!” She gestured for them to move closer.

Jo saw that the light atop Karleah’s staff had faded, giving off the dull illumination of an oil lantern. Jo’s thoughts cleared completely, and she tightened her hold on Wyrmblight. “Whats wrong, Karleah?” Jo asked.

The old woman shook her wrinkled head rapidly. “No time to explain!” she cried. She held out her staff before her. “Quickly! Put your hands above mine as you did before! We must leave now!”

Jo and Braddoc hurried to do as the wizardess bid. Karleah began murmuring her incantation, an undercurrent of fear lending urgency to the words. Jo closed her eyes and braced herself for the unnerving shift through space and matter.

The old mage had frenetically muttered many phrases before Jo felt the magic began to weakly wrap about her. But, even then, the sensation was all wrong. The magic felt unsure, its grip on the three tenuous and fragile at best. The spell that had brought them into the lair had been like hurtling over water aboard the steady deck of a ship. This spell, though, was like falling—falling and rising and falling. Images of rock and sand intermixed with images of sky and ground, as though they were shifting back and forth above and below ground … as though they were slipping down through the world into the nether realms, then back up again.

And it seemed an eternity.

Jo thought she heard Karleah murmur, “Something’s … no, it’s not right—something’s wrong—” Jo tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. Keep a grip on the staff! she told herself. If you let go, you might end up inside rock!

Moments stretched to minutes and then on into endless days before the uneasy travel passed and Jo felt herself returning to her solid form. She opened her eyes and blinked dazedly at Karleah and Braddoc, The dwarf returned her gaze with the same measure of disorientation.

The wizardess let go of her staff and collapsed to the ground.

“Karleah!” The shout came from Dayin, who stood nearby. Karleah had teleported them to the hill where they’d asked Dayin to stay with the animals. We’re safe, Jo sighed as the realization of where they were set in. She turned to Dayin, who was helping Karleah sit up.

“What’s the matter, Karleah?” Johauna asked. She gestured back toward the hill covering the dragon’s lair. “Why was that such a rough transport? Are you still able to send me back to the lair to kill the beast?”

The old woman’s tiny eyes were wide with terror. “Something’s wrong! There’ll be no going back to the lair. We’ve got to get back to the castle, Jo … immediately.”

Jo bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “But I’ve sworn vengeance for Flinn’s death. That dragon is never going to get any weaker than he is now! I’ve got to kill—”

“And I tell you all my magic has been drained from me!” Karleah interjected. Her black eyes flashed. “Don’t you see? We almost didn’t make it that time! I can’t send you back to the lair because … my magic’s gone!”

Verdilith watched the creatures vanish. They flickered in and out for many moments, and he wondered if the old woman’s spell would fail. When at last it seemed unlikely that they would return, he seeped out of the crevice in the ceiling he’d hidden in. His misty form floated gently to his bed of gold, the mist settling through the mound.

The dragon rued the theft of some of his hoarded treasure, all save one piece. He’d known every item the squire and the dwarf picked up, and he’d been tempted to attack again. But he had held his rage in check and watched and plotted. He was too weak now to attack them all, especially now that his magic had been drained away. But he would not always be weak. That would change. That would change.

Verdilith’s misty form sank into the cracks between his coins and jewels and other items. He sank down to the very depths of his treasure. Ah! It is good to touch the first gathered, he thought as he reached the very roots of his hoard. And it is good to be rid of that box!

An evil chuckle emanated from the mound of gold and spread out through the cavern. The dwarf had found the box and couldn’t resist it: preternaturally featureless, marvelously simple, finely crafted, solid and guileless, like the brain of the dwarf himself. The iron box had called to the iron in the dwarf’s soul. When he had picked up the accursed box, a shadowy smile formed along the cave’s misty ceiling. Verdilith considered the other items the grubby creature had pilfered to be almost fair payment, a kind of service fee for taking Teryl Aurochs horrible box from his lair.

The dragon assembled his thoughts, a difficult task in this form, particularly situated as he was within the treasure. Teryl Auroch gave me the box, knowing what it would do, knowing it would drain me. Now the mage himself will know the pain he has caused. Verdilith frowned mentally, then added, I serve him no longer. By the time he comes looking for his precious box, it will be lost, I will be whole, and Wyrmblight and its bearer will be broken.

The dragon turned his thoughts to the squire and her comrades. Invaders. Ignorant and weak. Women, two of them were, he reminded himself. He had thought Flinn’s death would be vengeance enough for him. But it isn’t Flinn. The sword’s the thing. It’s what cut me. It’s what hungers like a tongue of steel for the taste of my blood.

He shifted, coins and gems sifting down, disquieted, around him. I had held that sword in my claw, he thought, incredulous. I had wrenched it against the stones. Why could I not break it? Why did I let the bitch escape with it? She will die for this. But not merely die. She will suffer and die. It is a matter of poetics.

And the sword … I must destroy it. But how? Upon this question, he thought for a long while.

Perhaps days.

At last he thought, I must see Teryl Auroch about this sword. He will have something to destroy it. The mist that formed the dragon’s body threatened to seep away into the ground beneath his treasure. With a struggle, Verdilith pulled the mist closer together. He would have to change now; he was too weak to hold this form together much longer. Ordinarily, changing back into his natural form would be a simple and sensible matter; ordinarily he could heal his wounds in dragon form. But these were desperate days.

The dragon gnashed teeth of mist, disturbing a single coin as he did so. That accursed box! he thought. It stole his healing spells, rendered his magic items worthless, seemed to drain his very soul. Only his natural ability to shapechange remained—his gift from the Immortal Alphaks.

Verdilith shuddered. He had to pull his form together and change now … or dissipate and die. But he feared the change. His wounds were worse in dragon form—tearing wider, filling with gems and filth. For that matter, the transmogrifications were growing longer, more difficult, as he weakened. But death would be worse.

The dragon pulled the mist up and out of the treasure hoard until he was floating above the golden mounds. With a supreme effort, he focused on the transformation. The mist gave way to something more corporeal; it solidified, shaped itself, and hardened. Scales formed, hair grew, and blood pumped through his veins. Talons and fangs lengthened and sharpened. The dragon opened his golden eyes, and his body dropped a little to the treasure hoard below.

His left front claw buckled under pressure, and Verdilith fell immediately, writhing in pain. He screamed. The dragon clutched the claw to his copper breast. Searing pain shot through the wyrm’s arm, and then he succumbed to merciful blackness.

Verdilith fell into a dark sleep, his slumber broken by fitful dreams. His left arm throbbed, and he tried to stretch his claw. The arm moved a little, and the pain subsided momentarily, but then it came back fiercer than before. The green wyrm gave a little whicker of distress. He sank deeper into tortured dreams—dreams fueled by his foreclaw, dreams centering on the flashing great sword and the darkness of death that surrounded it.

A strange, high-pitched whimper of fear escaped the dragon’s curled lips, along with a drop of greenish-yellow spittle. The odor of poisonous bile wafted into Verdilith’s nostrils and the dragon quieted, comforted by the familiar stench. His dream deepened, and somewhere inside him the pain was joined by hatred for the sword.