everything would make sense again when he recovered from the afterdaze. He came up holding his royal shield in one hand and his new cold-forged sword in the other-Vangerdahast had warned him not to use an enchanted sword against the ghazneth-and turned back toward the silk-covered bed.
The phantom seemed to be struggling with its companion. She was sitting on its wing, clinging to its neck and shrieking at it to protect her from the assassins. Burdened as it was by the hysterical woman, the creature was hardly able to rise, much less launch itself at the king or his men. A series of golden bolts shot across the room toward the ghazneth’s abdomen, but it brought its free wing around as fast as always and prevented them from striking.
The woman turned toward Merula and thrust out her hand, crying, “No… no magic!”
And that was when Azoun recognized her, all but naked beneath a shift of sheer gossamer filthy enough to shame any trollop in Arabel. He was so stunned that he nearly let the sword drop from his hand. That woman was, indeed, his wife.
Dauneth and the Purple Dragons started across the room at a charge, and the ghazneth finally peeled the queen off its neck and dropped her to the floor. Azoun rushed forward, confused and angry and hardly able to believe that Filfaeril had betrayed him for… what, some sort of demon?
Dauneth and the dragoneers slammed into the ghazneth at a full charge, their iron swords arcing in from all angles. The first blade bit deep into the creature’s arm, beating down its guard and clearing the way for the High Warden to open a deep slit up the thing’s bulging abdomen. The third attack came in high, sweeping in toward its neck with enough power to separate even an ogre’s head from its shoulders.
Filfaeril was cowering at the ghazneth’s side, staring up at the battle in horror. Azoun angled toward her, blood boiling and ears pounding with the fury of a jealous rage.
“Harlot!”
Filfaeril’s eyes widened, and as she began to scramble away backward, the ghazneth’s black talons swept past her head to catch the second dragoneer’s arm. The sword slipped from the man’s grasp and bounced off an oaken cabinet without coming anywhere near the phantom’s neck, then the ghazneth tore the limb off at the elbow and slammed it into the first dragoneer’s helmet. Both men dropped instantly, one howling in pain and the other as silent as death.
Azoun stepped past Dauneth, trying to slip around the melee to get at Filfaeril, and found a huge black wing coming down to block his way. He ducked beneath it, then heard the ghazneth roar as the High Warden’s blade bit deep into its abdomen. As the king stepped behind the creature, he brought his sword around to slash at the creature’s back. Though the blow would have cleaved a man’s spine, it cut no deeper than a finger’s width into the ghazneth’s tough hide.
A soft patter sounded ahead. Azoun looked down to see Filfaeril cowering on the floor, tears welling in her eyes and her filthy harlot’s shift drawn up around her waist.
“Azoun?” she gasped.
“Traitorous whore!”
The king wrenched his sword free of the ghazneth’s back and started toward her-then saw a wall of darkness sweeping toward him. There was no time to duck or raise his sword before the wing caught him in the face and launched him across the room. He slammed into an open oaken cabinet and dropped to the ground, weathercloaks and battle bracers tumbling down all around him.
Dauneth disappeared around the other side of the ghazneth, trying to reach Filfaeril, only to go tumbling past her when the creature caught him in the helm with a lightning back fist. The High Warden came to a rest against a debased wall tapestry, groaning and shaking his head, but alive.
Now that there was no one in contact with the ghazneth, Merula cut loose with a deafening thunderbolt. The creatore’s wing swung around to shield itself The spell struck with a blinding spray of light and dissipated across the leathery appendage in a brilliant fan of silvery forks, but the blast still carried enough force to knock the ghazneth off its feet.
Filfaeril sprang to her feet and rushed the wizard with her hands out, crying, “No-you can’t use magic!”
“Watch her, Merula!” Azoun cried. “She’s betrayed us.”
This was enough to stop Filfaeril in her tracks. She turned to face Azoun-then suddenly vanished inside a cocoon of sticky white strands.
“That’ll hold the trollop!” the wizard declared.
The ghazneth leaped up and flung itself across the room, placing itself between Filfaeril and the others. Merula instantly clapped his hands together and struck two long fans of magic fire, which he directed at their foe. The phantom raised a wing and turned sideways. When the flames touched the wing’s surface, they simply sputtered and died, and the leathery appendage started to glow with a luminous crimson light. The ghazneth began to inch toward Merula, taking care to keep both itself and the queen well-shielded.
Azoun staggered to his feet and circled around to flank it, only to have Dauneth stagger over and grasp his arm.
“You look none too steady, Warden. Merula and I will keep this devil busy. You see to the harlot.” Azoun gestured at his wife’s sticky white form.
“Harlot? Majesty, have you lost your…” Dauneth’s gaze dropped to Azoun’s waist, then the warden reached down and jerked the unicorn amulet from his belt. “Put this on!”
Azoun shook his head. “This is no time-“
“Do as I say!” Without awaiting permission, Dauneth looped the amulet’s leather string over the king’s helm and jerked it down over his neck. “Now say ‘Chauntea save us!’”
Azoun scowled. “Who do you think-“
“Say it!”
Dauneth’s eyes widened at his own tone, then Merula called out from across the room.
“Majesty? Some help, perhaps?”
Azoun looked toward the wizard’s voice and saw nothing but the interior of the ghazneth’s wing. He turned to help, but Dauneth grabbed the collar of his breastplate.
“Please, Sire.”
“Very well!” Azoun knocked Dauneth’s hand away, then sprang after the ghazneth, crying, “Chauntea save us!”
And instantly, even as he raised his sword to strike, the room changed from a bedchamber to an armory, and the debauched carvings vanished from the faces of the oaken cabinets, and he saw the beauty of Filfaeril’s plan, and how she had used the only weapon she had to buy her rescue party a few precious moments to reorient themselves after teleporting into the room-and how it must have hurt to have her own husband call her a harlot and traitor.
“Dauneth, the queen!” Azoun stopped just inside the reach of ghazneth’s wingtip and ducked a wild attempt to bat him away, then darted forward to meet the slashing claws at the ends of its arms. “Save the queen!”
With the king beyond its first line of defenses, the ghazneth was forced to turn its attention away from Merula to attack. Azoun parried slashes from first its wounded arm, then its good arm and brought his iron blade down on its collarbone.
The ghazneth roared and hurled itself forward, determined to bowl him over and overwhelm his defenses. No longer being a fool, the king hurled himself at the creature’s feet and rolled, his armor filling his ears with a clamorous din. He crashed into a wall cabinet and brought the contents down on top of himself Convinced his foe would be on him before he could rise, he flung the debris away from his chest and raised his sword in a blind block.
The expected blow never came. Instead, a strange gurgle erupted from the creature’s mouth, and the king scrambled to his knees to find the thing only a pace away. Merula was draped over its shoulder, struggling to draw his iron dagger across the ghazneth’s leathery throat. Azoun brought his sword around and lunged forward and drove the blade a mere finger’s length into the monster’s bloated abdomen.
The ghazneth stumbled back, roaring and trying to shake Merula from its back. Azoun glimpsed Dauneth rushing toward the queen with a war wizard’s weathercloak wrapped around his shoulders. According to their plan, it should have been the High Warden or a dragoneer attempting to slit the creature’s throat and Merula preparing to escape with the queen, but the king was happy enough to see Dauneth grab hold of Filfaeril’s cocoon and reach into the cloak to find its escape pocket.
