The clang of steel began, quickening swiftly to a constant skirling song as the weary men hacked and hewed in a mad frenzy, cutting their way through an ever-increasing flood of goblins with cruel hooked blades in their hands and hatred in their eyes. Ilberd saw Skormer Griffongard fall, the battlemaster’s helm torn away to reveal his long, tawny mane of hair and his eyes two blazing flames of fury as he hacked and stabbed his way through wine- purple goblin blood. They literally ran up his body, cutting and stabbing, and he sank from view under their howling tide.
Murkoon Tapstorn staggered, spun around with blood streaming from one sightless eye socket and a snarl of pain on his lips, and fell over a goblin corpse. A dozen or more earfangs pounced on him, and the gauntleted hand that was punching and tearing at them soon went limp and fell from view.
Ilberd swung Vangerdahast’s body around like a ram, its limp boots smiting aside squalling goblins, and kicked out with all his might. He felt ribs break under his boot and that goblin sailed away, trailing a thin scream. Ilberd charged forward into the space where it had stood, stepping high and not caring what he trampled. A sharp, burning pain just above his left knee marked a successful stab into his leg. He roared out his pain and punched that goblin assailant in the face, wheeling to stab down with his sword. The movement made the wizard fall from his shoulders, crashing down atop half a dozen squeaking goblins. Freed of the weight, Ilberd spun and lunged and danced like a madman, butchering goblins until they fell back around him and he could scoop up Vangerdahast once more.
As he turned and straightened, he saw six goblin spears pierce Kaert Belstable, sliding bloodily out of the oversword’s back. Belstable staggered, dark blood gushing from his mouth and nose, and with a snarl threw himself forward onto one of his attackers, clawing at the earfang’s eyes with bloody, failing fingers. They went down together, and goblins swarmed over the warrior, stabbing enthusiastically.
Lanjack Blackwagon-or rather, the twisting top half of him-crashed down bloodily onto goblins streaming forward beyond that fray, his legs and guts spilling from the jaws of the Devil Dragon as she laughed aloud.
Ilberd watched in horror as that head-as long as a cottage, and lined with yellowed, hooked teeth as tall as a man-reared. Murkoon’s battering spell was gone, and the beast opened steaming jaws to savage the man who stood beneath it, sword raised.
The king!
Flame gushed forth in a white-hot torrent, setting the grass alight and driving goblins into shrieking flight in all directions. It was too hot to see through, but when it died away and Ilberd blinked the afterglow from his eyes, Azoun of Cormyr was standing where he had been before, his great warsword raised, enchanted runes glowing blue up and down its blade. He was unscathed.
Even as Ilberd gaped at what he was seeing, Azoun sprang forward like a much younger man-and the dragon followed her gout of flame with a lunge of her own, her many-toothed jaws snatching at the running man, to bite his torso from his legs as she’d served Lanjack.
Azoun gasped something, his armor flashed, and his breastplate suddenly became a bar of steel, a double- ended piercing javelin as long and as thick as a man. The dragon’s jaws closed on it, black blood spurted, and the Devil Dragon screamed in pain. The cry sounded female, and somehow… graceful.
The dragon was still shaking her head to dislodge the steel fang that had so wounded her when Azoun tore something free from a sheath or wrappings beneath his breastplate, and struck the nearest flailing piece of dragon- its right wing. There was a flash of golden light so bright that the clouds overhead momentarily lit up, and the dragon screamed again.
For just a moment, Ilberd Crownsilver thought it dwindled from a huge, scaled wyrm into a nude, winged elf maiden, dancing in pain with her long red hair swirling around her and her broken, many-feathered wings dangling. She threw back her head sobbing, and her eyes were two diamonds of fury and fire. Then she reared back with a roar that made Ilberd’s ears ring and was a dragon again. He blinked, scarcely believing he’d seen that other form.
“Man,” the dragon roared, “what did you strike me with?”
“The Scepter of Lords,” Azoun replied calmly. “The greatest of Lord Iliphar’s craftings.”
“You’re unworthy to even utter his name, human!” the dragon spat. Tiny tongues of fire spilled out of her jaws, but seemed to curl away from what the king held. In the hand that wasn’t full of a notched, darkening warsword there was a golden scepter carved into the likeness of an oak sapling sprouting delicate branches seemingly at random, its pommel a giant amethyst carved into the likeness of an acorn.
“No, Nalavara,” the King of Cormyr told her, almost conversationally. “Lord Iliphar bargained with my ancestor, and gave him the power to rule, and rule well. That bargain has come down to me. In some ways, he’s the guardian and father of my house.”
The Devil Dragon shrieked in utter fury and tried to pounce on the man before her, but her broken wing failed her, and she fell sideways to the earth, crashing down atop many goblins and rolling upright again heedless of how many she crushed.
The thunder of her fall was loud in Ilberd Crownsilver’s ears as a goblin sprang up onto his shoulder and tried to slit his throat. The goblin died when Ilberd, surprising himself as much as the goblin, reversed the blade into the little humanoid’s own throat. Ilberd let the goblin fall onto a pile of its comrades and knew that even if that goblin had succeeded in killing him, he’d seen the Devil Dragon die, and Cormyr saved.
In truth, though, the dragon was far from dead.
Azoun struck once at the dragon’s head, reaching as far as he dared, knowing he might never have so fine a target in this fray again. Hot blood gushed from between the scales a little forward of her right eye, but Nalavarauthatoryl the Red tore herself free and away from him, crushing more goblins heedlessly, and snarling, “Elves do not hold to bargains with murderers of their kin! Iliphar bargained with you, but no soft words will bring back my betrothed. Nigh on fifteen centuries the one I was to marry has been dust, fifteen centuries have I been alone-never to know his arms again, never to have the happiness together that should have been ours. I spit upon your bargain, human-spit fire upon it!”
Flames roared forth again from the dragon’s throat, but this time they were dark red, fitful, and came with a spray of much smoking black blood. The dragon shook her head in pain and frustration, even as the flames she’d snarled forth began to blaze in a spreading ring on the hilltop, driving back chittering goblins and leaving the king alone with his foe-and the fallen, including one ash-cloaked royal magician.
Azoun circled slowly sideways, forcing the dragon to turn and follow, until he stood over Vangerdahast. Perhaps he’d able to snatch some bauble of magic or other from his old tutor’s body, or
“I, too, have known loss in this war,” the King of Cormyr told the dragon, raising both his sword and the scepter, his blade outermost to protect Iliphar’s precious crafting from the swipe of a claw or wing or tail.
Unlike a true dragon, Nalavarauthatoryl never seemed to use her tail in a real battle, but forgot it save as something to keep her balance. “Hundreds of my subjects lie dead, fallen before you and the creatures you have whelmed.”
“Pah! What are their deaths to me? They’re vermin-vermin who must be destroyed or driven out to cleanse these forests for the elves. I will see their fields, stone towers, and all torn up that the trees may once again grow over all.”
Nalavara bit down, but winced away as that sharp blade laid open her lip, just at the edge of her scales. Shaking her head with a savage roar, she batted at the lone human with one clawed forefoot. The warsword struck again, and with it-with another burst of golden light, and more searing, numbing pain-the Scepter of Lords.
The Devil Dragon hissed and drew back. Her eyes glittered with hatred as they met Azoun’s, but the king looked back at her calmly.
“I, too, have lost a beloved to you,” Azoun said. “My daughter Alusair was burned to bones in the fire you gout.”
“So what is that to me, human? In what way does a human life equal that of an elf?”
“Both are ended,” the king said bleakly. “Both are gone, never to tread this fair land again.”
The dragon bit down again but this time wheeled away from the ready blade before being cut-and before actually biting anything.
“And even if they were measured equal, human, why should I care-when humans have raped and despoiled the land itself? What is this Cormyr but the Wolf Woods all thinned and cut back and choked with your refuse and your stone buildings and even your graves, earth wasted to lay out bones that could feed new trees and flower forth?” Nalavara turned restlessly, seeking to use her greater size to outpace the king’s sword and reach around to
