Soon it would lift its head again, and D’zan would charge, strike for its damned heart.
Tyro ran from its snapping fangs, having left his spear embedded between two scales along its neck. So far it had ignored every single wound inflicted upon it. They might have been buzzing gnats against a stampeding ox. But they were Men, and they knew how to die with honor.
D’zan crouched, ready to spring and run when the serpentine head came up. Closer to it now, he heard the clang and clatter of blades against its scales. It must be the belly… There was no other way to pierce its ao phen the sncient hide. Now the steaming snout drew back. It would raise up. D’zan would run. Any second now…
The earth trembled again, and he feared a second Wyrm might rise from the ruins. A chorus of war-cries rose above the howls of dying men. From behind the mound of ruins a cloud of dust rose, and the shouts rang from its direction. Booming shadows rushed across the rubble, raising mighty axes, hammers, and blades. A troop of Uduru warriors swarmed across the ruins toward the Wyrm.
Giants! Never had D’zan seen them in the flesh until now. He could not imagine a sweeter sight than those twenty-three Giants leaping upon the tail, hindquarters, and backbone of the Serpent. The Uurzians saw their rescuers and howled at the sky. The Serpent’s head turned toward its rear quarters. A Giant hacked off its tail, and black gore spurted from the stump to steam like oil upon the rocks. Another Giant took a leg from the beast’s body easily as chopping firewood – one, two strokes of his axe and the limb was a jerking, lifeless thing. The axeman kicked it away.
The Giants wore the purple and black of Udurum, their mail and cloaks torn and crudely patched. They had survived some recent battle, probably the one that brought down their fortress. They must have hidden in the mountains nearby waiting for… what? For the Uurzians? For the Wyrm? For D’zan?
The beast reared up, switching itself toward the Uduru. The stub of its tail knocked a Giant off his feet. It rose, ready to belch flame… and now D’zan faced it from the wrong angle. He could run to join the Uduru, but by the time he faced its belly again it would be down and snapping with its teeth. Maybe he did not have to die today after all. Maybe no more Uurzians would die today. Tyro yelled commands at his men, and now they attacked the wounded beast’s backside.
The monster unleashed its breath. Fire belched forth and scattered the Giants. One of their number went down beneath the full might of the blast, the rest of them singed but unharmed.
“Now!” bellowed an Uduru gray-beard, and the Giants sprang toward the Wyrm’s belly. A pair of axes cleaved it open while a half-dozen spears drove in deeper than the height of a tall man. The beast roared, gushing hot, black blood.
The gray-beard took out one of the beast’s great eyes, sinking a greatsword into the red orb, which broke like glass and splattered his mail with steaming fluid. Giants hacked and pulled legs from the beast, some with their very hands, ripping tendon and bone from the Serpent’s sides.
One last time it reared up to breathe, but no flame came from its torn throat. Instead, the gray-beard Uduru sheared off its head with a sweep of his axe.
Headless it writhed and flailed. The Giants continued pulling off its legs one by one. The Uduru cheered, raising stained blades toward the sky, and the surviving Uurzians joined them. The mountain bowl lay strewn with the corpses of men torn, shattered, and smoldering. But here was victory, all the more sweet when snatched from the jaws of defeat.
D’zan raised his blade and walked among the milling men. His eyes were on the Giants, who slapped one another’s backs and started laying claim to fangs, bones, or scales from the dead beast. It stank more heavily now than it did whilan eree alive, crimson innards exposed and flopping among the broken stones.
Tyro hailed the Uduru with gratitude and recognition in his eyes.
“Tallim the Rockjaw!” the Prince of Uurz shouted. “Never have I been more glad to see you and your brothers!”
The gray-beard Uduru laughed, dark gore dripping from his gauntlets. “Prince Tyro? Is the Emperor with you?”
Tyro shook his head and offered his hand to the Giant. Rockjaw removed his metal glove and carefully grasped Tyro’s forearm in his fist.
“My brother Lyrilan and I-” Tyro stopped. “My brother!” He only now remembered Lyrilan, and his face was grave.
D’zan yelled to him, “Prince Lyrilan lies behind those rocks. His horse bolted and he fell. I believe he lives, so I kept him out of the way.”
Tyro spared him an approving glance and went to find his brother.
“That is a fine blade,” said Rockjaw.
D’zan realized he was still holding the greatsword. “Thank you. It was my inheritance.”
The Giant grunted. “Well now, you are not Uurzian… you have southern skin. You must be the Yaskathan Prince.”
D’zan blinked. “I am,” he said.
Rockjaw nodded, black gore dripping from his beard. “I have another Prince in my care. One who is most eager to meet you.”
D’zan sheathed his blade. It must be a Prince of Udurum. This boded well for the success of his journey. But he could not think on that while Lyrilan lay helpless and the corpse of a mythical monstrosity lay before him, being stripped of its treasures like a dog’s carcass devoured by ants.
“I look forward to meeting your Prince,” said D’zan to the Giant. “And I thank you for my life.”
The Giant bowed, then turned back to stripping the carcass with his brethren. “We’ve not seen his like since the Fall of Old Udurum…” he heard Rockjaw say.
The Uurzian captain had survived, though his cloak was burned and his cheek blistered. Still he gave orders in Tyro’s name while the Prince tended to his brother with water from a canteen. D’zan went to join Tyro. Lyrilan was coming around as his brother wrapped a white cloth about the scholar’s skull.
“What was it?” Lyrilan asked, his voice weak.
“A Serpent,” said Tyro. “It’s dead now. Rest… I will tell you all later.”
Lyrilan nodded. A field physician tended to the worst of the wounded men while soldiers helped their fellows as best they could.
“How bad is he?” asked D’zan.
“Not bad,” said Tyro without Tyht=looking at D’zan. “He’ll be all right when he gets some rest and some hot food in his belly. He is tougher than he looks.”
Lyrilan laughed, then groaned.
Tyro stood and looked at D’zan. “I should be condemning you as a coward,” he said. “But it appears you may have saved my brother’s life. So I will forgive your absence in this battle.”
Tyro’s eyes were dark steel. D’zan could not meet them, so he looked at the charred ground instead.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” he muttered.
“Say nothing to me,” said Tyro. “But thank the Gods that all these men were here to die so that you may live.”
D’zan turned his eyes to the clouded sky. If the Giants had not come, they would all be dead. But if the Men had not held off the beast as long as they did, the Giants would have come too late.
“Your training resumes tomorrow night,” said Tyro. “Pain or no pain.”
D’zan nodded.
“It is easy to be a Prince,” said Tyro. “But far harder to be a man.”
He clapped D’zan roughly on the shoulder and marched off toward his men.
D’zan knelt before Lyrilan.
“What did he say?” asked the scholar.
“Only the truth,” said D’zan.
“You saved my life?”
D’zan shrugged. “ Someone has to write my life story.”
Lyrilan smiled.
Giants and Men stripped the beast of every last fang, claw, and scale. Such tokens would bring high prices in the markets of Uurz or Udurum. A detail of Uurzians set about burying their fallen men under cairns of rock. All told, Tyro had lost forty-six good men, and more than a hundred endured wounds of various severity. The beast had only
