Clayton Emery - Sword Play

And the dragon was rumbling, hissing, the lich keening some weird cry or incantation like nails on a slate.

More of the walls collapsed until, looking up, Sunbright saw portions of the apartment he'd occupied above. Plaster and blocks fell like lethal rain. The courtiers and soldiers had finally had enough and raced for the far doors. Seeking only to free Greenwillow and flee, the barbarian bulled his way through them.

The elf threw out her chained hand, shouted something Sunbright couldn't hear over the crash of masonry. Whatever it was, he thought, it would wait until he'd gotten her out.

A strap whisked past his nose, snugged around his throat, and tightened like steel. His wind was cut off, his lungs empty. At his ear, the minister Angriman hissed, "You'd destroy the dream, so I'll destroy you!" He gave the thick leather belt around Sunbright's throat a savage twist.

Backing, Sunbright lashed out with his elbow to ram the man's gut, then stomped to crush the minister's instep under a hobnailed heel. But dumpy, pouchy Angriman must have been a soldier at one time, a good one, and was still tough as oak. Dodging the wild swings, he jerked the barbarian backward until he crashed into the side of the ebony throne. By the time Sunbright thought to stab overhead with his sword, the minister had ducked behind the massive structure. He could strangle his victim without being stabbed.

Sunbright would be out of the fight in a moment anyway, for his vision was blackening like storm clouds. He flailed and kicked, but only managed to shoot a foot from under himself. He fell, hung by the throat. He had his sword but precious little good it would do him. His last image was of Greenwillow, thirty feet away, hopping up and down and making a chopping motion. His eyes must be deceiving him.

How humiliating, to survive a dragon and a lich, only to be killed by a crazed clerk.

Then he got it.

He tried to suck a deep breath and got nothing, gave up, arched his back, aimed as best he could through the red, swirling air, and flung Harvester hard.

Spinning like a birch leaf in autumn, the heavy sword sliced the air and thudded point-first into the heavy oak bench to which Greenwillow was chained. He'd hoped to get the weapon close enough for her to sever the chain's links, but his aim was better than he imagined. Harvester's heavy nose slammed through the links as if they were paper, and Greenwillow was free.

That was all Sunbright saw as the world flooded red and black. Maybe the dragon had finally coughed and blistered him into another world.

Dimly he heard an elven shriek, and the pressure on his throat disappeared. Gagging, he sank onto the floor, found it wet with blood not his own. Immediately a cool hand was tugging him back up. Through a roar like the ocean he heard Greenwillow shout his name. Lumbering to his feet, he draped an arm around her shoulder. He croaked, "Harvest-"

"I've got it!" She hauled him along bodily while her severed chains clanked and his boots dragged. Slowly vision returned, and he could see to walk.

Or run. Greenwillow dashed to the wall the dragon had almost leveled. Sunbright could have reached out and touched the creature's smoking nostrils. Wrathburn rumbled at the lich in a guttural language while the lich shrilled and waggled its arms like a skeleton outraged at being dead. They were arguing, but about what? Possession of the crown? Was that why Wrathburn had, so far, withheld his wrath and burn?

Possibly, for as the two staggered for the far doors, the dragon stopped arguing, snuffled, and filled the room with fire. Smoke and flame exploded around them, and Sunbright threw the unprotected Greenwillow, who wore only a thin silk dress, ahead of him, then landed on her. Over his shoulder he glimpsed the lich, reduced to a true skeleton that slowly collapsed. Angriman, wounded in the head by Greenwillow, was reaching for his master and his dream when his skin turned black and ignited. Then burning paint, wood, cloth, plaster, and everything else in the room gave off such smoke it blew clouds out every exit.

Retching, crawling, Sunbright collected Greenwillow in one arm and clutched her to his chest, while she dragged Harvester between his legs. Together they half fell down the stairs, then tumbled outside as hot smoke gushed all around them.

Shielding his eyes, Sunbright looked up at the palace. It was completely engulfed in flames. Fire licked through the windows and flared through the roof. Pressed flat by the leaden sky, smoke roiled from above and spilled out holes to writhe, like giant snakes, in the streets.

Sunbright ran down the side of the palace, along the front and down another side. Greenwillow had hiked her skirts to show long legs flashing as she pelted with him. Her chains jingled. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"Ruellana! She might still be inside!" Heat and flame drove him back from the small door they'd entered upon first reaching the city. "She must be on the third floor!"

"There is no more third floor!" hollered the elf. "Stop trying to be a martyr! She would have gotten out early; she knows to take care of herself first!"

Even in fire and battle, he thought, Greenwillow found time to be catty. But she must be right. No one would stay in a castle while a dragon was peeling off the roof. The two trotted back to the street where a crowd stood well back and watched the palace burn.

Sunbright stared, squinting. "That's the end of the One King, I'd say."

"True." Greenwillow rubbed a smudge on her nose, chains clinking at her wrists. "If he walks out of there, maybe he deserves to take over the world."

"No, he's gone," said a woman's voice behind them. "Imagine being so taken in by his mad dreams. We must have been mesmerized."

The pair spun about to find Ruellana standing behind them. Her bright red hair was raked straight and streaked with soot, and stripes marked her throat. She wore a queer costume: a red leather vest and silk shirt, red-striped trousers with flop-top boots, and a white baldric with a basket-hilt sword. It looked like a dancing girl's idea of traveling togs, or perhaps the costume of an actor playing pirate. She held up a bundle of dark green, black straps, and an ornate sword: Greenwillow's clothes and tackle.

The elf didn't hesitate, but shucked her thin, shimmery dress to stand mother-naked in the street. Sunbright felt his eyes bulge, for it was the first time he'd seen all of Greenwillow, who was lithe as a whippet but had womanly curves aplenty. Unconcerned, the elf donned her fine elven clothes, yanked her hair back into a fine black ponytail, and borrowed Harvester to pry off her manacles.

Sunbright had seen Ruellana do many odd things, so this latest conjuring trick didn't rock him. But he asked anyway, "How did you…?"

"I saw the dragon coming through the window and knew the king was doomed. So I donned my fighter's garb and grabbed Greenwillow's from a chest. Not bad for a simple country girl, eh?"

She was hardly that, Sunbright knew, but he didn't comment. Instead he tilted his head at a familiar sound coming from down the street, faint above the crackling of the burning building and other houses, but rising. Shouts, calls, cheers. "What's…?"

Down the street ran a trio of orcs, weaponless, protecting the backs of their heads with gray hands. Behind them rushed a mob of citizens hurling stones, bricks, and crockery. Some stopped to snatch up fallen swords or pikes. A dazed orc who staggered around a corner with a head wound was tripped and kicked, then stabbed in the belly by a balding man in a freighter's smock.

"The citizens," mumbled Sunbright. "Their city was occupied by the One King's army, and now they're revolting!"

The citizens who'd been standing around gaping at the fire joyfully took up the shouts of resistance, then scrambled away to find weapons and hunt down orcs and the king's men.