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Gore sprayed, scales flew, the dragon roared-and its jaws sprang open. Hawkril tumbled out, still hacking as he went, and fell onto the waiting first part of the shield. Embra lowered him swiftly away from the wildly thrashing head-and used her improvised ax of force to strike aside the burned head, which had nosed perilously close to the descending armaragor.
"A vicious beast," she murmured, as they watched Craer scamper along the lip of the hollow, easily evading snapping bites of the third head, "but clumsy. Almost as if it doesn't know how to fight-or even use its jaws with any precision. And there's no way it could have fed all that bulk to grow this large and not be an expert with those fangs, if its mind is its own."
"Or if it's been a dragon for very long," Blackgult commented.
Embra shot him a glance. "That's so, Father!" Then she looked at Tshamarra. "My thanks for bringing me back. For now, at least, I'm free of the plague."
The Lady Talasorn managed a pale smile. "I thought the Dwaer made magic so easy. I know better now. Lady, I salute you."
Embra smiled wryly. "Hah! You think I know what I'm doing with this? I just wish we weren't always fighting, so I could explore the implications of half the unleashings I do. What if using the Dwaer harms Darsar in some way we don't even know about?"
"Later, Daughter," Blackgult said firmly. "There's this three-headed dragon, remember?"
Hawkril stumbled onto the rocks rising to the lip of the hollow, climbing to join Craer. Embra whisked the shield that had carried him back up into the fray, jabbing it into another neck.
The dragon recoiled, snatching its third head well away from Craer. Eyes narrowing, Embra struck it again with both shimmering shield-wedges. The dragon reared up, letting light back into the hollow and causing a fresh frantic turmoil among the trapped horses.
"Not a dragon long," Tshamarra murmured. "Could it be the Dragon, sent by the gods and destined to oppose the Serpent? And if it's come again, is the Serpent itself risen again, too? Can we spend our lives slaying that snake and never truly kill it?"
The Lady Silvertree shook her head. "This is neither that dragon nor a real dragon at all, I'm thinking. As for the Great Serpent, we can probably never slay it. There'll always be both Serpent and Dragon, but their power comes from the awe or fear or worship folk give them. Shatter the priesthood, and reduce fear of the Serpent to old tales, and the real Serpent won't be more than a big beast."
"Like this?" Tshamarra asked, waving at the rearing three-headed monster, now snapping furiously if gingerly at Embra's tormenting force-arrows. "I'd say this sort of big beast could destroy any Vale town, or even Sirlptar, if it got going!"
"Not this big," Embra snapped tensely. "Get down!"
From its great height the three-headed nightmare had done what she'd feared it might: surged forward in a clumsy pounce, trying to bring down and crush the flying things that were wounding it with its great bulk.
Hawkril and Craer dived away from the hollow, into the trees, and Embra's outflung arm sent the Lady Talasorn over backwards onto her shapely behind and whirling away, head over heels, down a muddy, leaf-cloaked slope into the wider forest.
She had a brief, confused glimpse of the Dwaer flaring into eye-searing brightness, trees toppling, a dragon-head-Gods, 'tis as big as a small castle!- striking at someone-Blackgult?-off to her right, and then the dragon screamed again, and all other sounds were swept away…
Her left arm hurt. She was lying on it, twisted into a huddled tangle around three leaning tree trunks, and someone was whispering anxiously, "Tash? Tash? Are you-?"
"Alive?" she replied, finding her mouth full of blood. "I'm not sure."
Craer's hand stroked her cheek tenderly. She reached up to hold his fingers and keep them there, leaning into his soothing touch with a contented murmur.
"What happened, lord of my heart?"
"Well, l-what did you call me?'
His voice was so swift with excitement that Tshamarra Talasorn felt a thrill of power. "Well," she purred, "lord of my bed, anyway."
He did not-quite-sigh, but the Lady Talasorn heard his disappointment, even over the faint rumble of Hawkril standing some way off, commenting in low tones, "There was a time when the bed would have been all you cared about, Longfingers."
Craer made no reply to that. Instead, he bent closer to Tshamarra and asked, "Can you move? Should I try to lift you? The battle's over."
"One of them, anyway," she said wryly. "I-Lift me. I seem to be wedged…"
As her knee was turned, she gasped in pain, and Craer snapped, "Embra, get over here!"
"Not yet, Craer," the Lady of Jewels snapped back. 'Just hold her still- I'm busy."
"Graul and bebolt," Hawkril gasped. "How deep-?"
"I'll live," Blackgult said shortly, his voice tight with pain. "Get the beast dead first."
" 'Tis dead, or dying, Father," Embra replied. "See? It dwindles."
"Turn me," Tshamarra hissed to Craer. "I have to see."
The procurer's hands were tender, and therefore slow, but the Lady Talasorn was turned back to face the hollow in time to see the scaled, three-necked lump subside to the size of a cow-and a row of broken-off teeth, just the tips of dragonfangs-melt at the same rate from the punctured and battered breastplate of the Golden Griffon.
Hawkril was holding Blackgult up, though Embra's father was bent over and shaking with pain.
"Ribs, at the very least," the armaragor told his lady. "He's fading."
"Craer!" Embra snapped, without looking, as she strode toward Blackgult with the Dwaer flickering in her hand. Was its radiance more feeble? "Help Hawk. Get him lying down, gently!"
"A moment more," Blackgult gasped, holding up a staying hand. "Look!"
Such was the snap of command in that last word that the overdukes all turned to gaze at the same thing: the great three-headed dragon melting back into the dirty, much-hacked body of a man, lying sprawled on the lip of the hollow with a look of staring horror frozen forever on his face.
"The plague-magic," Embra said bitterly.
Blackgult nodded. "Some regain their proper shapes," he growled, trembling in Hawkril's hands. "Others do not."
He swayed, and even as Craer let Tshamarra fall back against a tree and sprang toward the man who'd once been his master, Blackgult groaned, bent double, and spewed forth blood of a hue none of them had ever thought to see out of a man. His head shifted horribly, sliding into a longer shape, a snout with teeth that became fangs before their horrified eyes, armor sliding askew as the flesh beneath it shifted and sank, becoming-
"Tash! To me!" Embra cried, the Dwaer flaming. "He'll try to use the Stone-he's reaching far it!"
Hawkril flung himself forward into a roll that mashed Blackgult's growing, reaching tentacle to the ground, pi
The Dwaer flared as she came, and Blackgult threw back his head and roared in pain as a sudden glow of magic washed over him. His armor fell away with a clatter, baring the scaled shoulders beneath. Bones wriDied beneath that hide as new limbs burst forth, grew barbs, and expanded, reaching out… and out…
Hawkril wresded with the tentacle beneath him, struggled to his feet, and lumbered toward Blackgult-as Embra hissed another spell that sent sparks racing over her father and banished his scales.
Craer fell heavily, pitching Tshamarra to the ground. She crawled over his fallen form and on, clawing her way across the forest. "I'm coming, Embra!" she cried-and caught her breath in horror as a tentacle raced toward her, sliding through the long-fallen leaves like a black, wet tongue.