Ed Greenwood - Death of the Dragon

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 strike at him from behind.

“This Cormyr,” Azoun told her almost gently, “that you burn and tear apart and visit plagues and goblin infestations and insect swarms and the like on, Lorelei Alavara, is the fair land you care so much about.”

“How dare you?” The dragon almost sobbed, rearing up above him in a tall and terrible way. She threw herself down upon him, broken wings spread, snarling, “Have my life too, then, human! Strike me down. Or is it you that shall go down first, eh?”

They rolled, the human frantically, to avoid being crushed, and the dragon after him, seeking to grind him into bloody pulp with her great weight. She clawed at him as she went, gouging great furrows in the earth. Goblins fled down the slopes of the hill crying in terror.

After a dazed and drifting time, Ilberd Crownsilver remembered his name. He remembered his fall, and the terrible lunge of the dragon before it, and the battle before that. He was lying sprawled on his back with the same gray, tattered-smoke clouds above him that had hung over him then… and he was lying on cold, still, and unpleasantly sharp goblins. He was seized with the sudden desire to get up and stand again and know his fate-even if it was to die under the blades of scores of cruel earfangs.

The young nobleman struggled to his feet, the world heaving and rocking through his swimming eyes. Something red-his own sticky blood, he discovered, looking at his fingertips calmly-was streaming into his right eye, and he’d hurt something low on the left side of his belly that involved torn armor and more blood beneath.

“Well, you did want to taste glory,” he growled to himself. “Tastes a lot like blood to me, but there it is, hey?” He coughed weakly, spat out a lot of blood, and looked around. There were goblins in plenty, wandering the field dazedly or picking over bodies for blades and helms, but none near. Some of them even seemed to be fleeing from the hill he was standing on.

Ilberd looked back up the hill to where he’d stood with the king against the Devil Dragon-in time to see that great wyrm hurl herself down on Azoun and roll about trying to claw at him, for all Faerun as if king and dragon were two children brawling in the dirt.

“Glory,” he said in disgust and spat blood again. His helm and dagger were gone in his fall, somewhere, but his sword was still in its scabbard. He drew it, deliberately, admired its weight and heft in his hand one last time, and started up the hill.

Cormyr needed him-and if that was good enough for his king, dying in the dirt up there under a dragon’s jaws, well… it was good enough for him. Smiling, Ilberd Crownsilver went to find his doom.

“This is madness, Nalavara,” Azoun gasped, as they rolled apart and clambered upright, each in their own way. “We both fight for Cormyr-to guard and keep unstained the land we love!”

The red dragon’s eyes glittered. “Clever words,” she hissed. “Humans are always spewing more snake-tongued cleverness. Die, human king!”

Her flame this time was but a few wisps that barely challenged the failing defensive magics of his blade, but her bite was as swift and savage as ever. Armor plate shrieked under a tooth as she crushed Azoun’s left shoulder and sent him staggering back, despite his thrusts into her chin with both warsword and scepter.

“I strike in sorrow,” he gasped, as the golden light flooded around him once more, “and apologize to you for the sin of Andar Obarskyr and for the sins of my father and grandsire and forefathers back to Andar in keeping secret the murder Andar did-and for my own part in doing so, too. Will offering you my life for that of your beloved end all this?”

The red dragon drew back and stared at him in amazement, dragging her broken wing.

“What did you say, human?”

Azoun spread wide his arms, allowing her a clear path to his breast, clad only in sweat-soaked leather where the transformed and sacrificed breastplate had gone. He looked old, his hair white and his face weathered and careworn, but he also seemed almost contented.

“Will my own life atone for what you have lost?” he asked again. “If so, I yield it gladly. Take it, so long as you restore peace to Cormyr and, by your honor, Lorelei Alavara, all who dwell in it.”

For a moment the red dragon’s scales wavered, and he was seeing the sleek bare body of an elf maiden, her red hair cascading around her in a long and glorious cloak, her large, dark eyes almost pleading, her mouth trembling on the edge of a smile.

Then it was gone, and he faced the dragon once more-a smaller wyrm, it seemed, but bright-eyed in its renewed fury.

“No!” Nalavara snarled, “Your trickery comes too late. Too long has my hatred carried me, human, until it is all I have left. Nothing you can say or do will bring back my Thatoryl. As he crumbled, so shall you all. The peace you seek will fall upon ‘fair Cormyr’ only when the rotting corpse of every last human feeds the forest that has been so defiled!”

“Time changes Faerun, as the dragons gave way to the elves, and your kin to mine,” Azoun said gravely. “I can’t bring Thatoryl Elian back, but I can raise a stone-or plant a grove-in his memory. My huntmasters tend the land even now, and leave some stretches untouched. I can make Cormyr far more a forest again… but the paradise you hunted in is gone, I fear, forever. Can we not work together to plant its echo? Must this end in more blood?”