Ed Greenwood: The Dragon's Doom

"Gentles," Master Telgaert murmured, waving a hand at the waters, "the tide turns already."

"And we're late, as usual," a short, slender man who had the sleek look of a successful procurer said heartily. "But of course. So let's be kissing and cuddling and getting you Delcamper rabble aboard, hey?"

The slender woman beside him winced. "There are gentler ways of saying that, Craer."

"What, the sly nothings courtiers tongue all the time? Aren't you sick of them by now, Tash?"

"Longfingers," a taller woman said firmly from behind him, "say farewell, get out of the way, and shut your mouth for once-or we'll all soon be able to watch how well overclever scions of House Delnbone swim!" Embra raised the toe of her boot meaningfully.

"Like unto an eel," Craer boasted, bowing with a flourish.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me," Tshamarra Talasorn told the sky just above her innocently, "given what I see of my lord in our bedchambers, of nights."

The procurer assumed a scandalized expression, and drew back from his lady to utter a shocked protest-only to have his ear grasped firmly by the Lady Orele, who towed him around to face her, kissed him firmly on the lips, said, "Farewell, lad. Call on us when you grow up," and marched toward the waiting ship.

When she reached its gangplank, calmly ignoring the mirth behind her and the rude gestures Craer was enthusiastically making at her back, she nodded to the slender woman in leathers who waited there-a grave nod of recognition that was returned in kind.

"Orathlee," the woman of the ship identified herself with a warmly welcoming smile, holding out a hand to help her aged passenger aboard. Two of the Wise would have much to talk about, on the run to Ragalar.

Flaeros Delcamper was blushing like a flame as he followed, and Hulgor Delcamper was grinning in his wake, for Embra Silvertree's kisses had been both long and deep, and those of Tshamarra Talasorn only slightly less so.

Two or three of the Delcamper manservants held out their faces hopefully as they trooped past to help load baggage, but the two sorceresses merely grinned and waved them away-and at least one of those men took his leave wearing an expression of clear relief. Sorceresses were not to be safely trifled with, and the Dragon of the Arrada even less so.

In a surprisingly short time lines were cast off, farewells were called, and the Fair Wind sailed. The sleek ship caught the breeze immediately and scudded swiftly out of sight, and the regal party turned away from the docks.

It took them only about three chattering paces to become aware that amid the hurrying sailors, cellarers, and carters were some individuals who did not move, but stood like statues grimly awaiting the regal party-and that these persons were forming a ring around the Aglirtans.

Hawkril growled deep in his throat and laid a hand on the hilt of his warsword-and the folk of the docks melted away from around him with a deft wariness that bespoke familiarity with many brawls and spilled blood, leaving the regal party facing their foes.

A dozen men. Sirl mages, by their garments, wizards for hire. Behind them stood a row of wealthy merchants from the Isles of leirembor, smiling in triumph.

Although she knew very well that the leiremborans still sought revenge for Blackgult's failed invasion, and probably saw this as a perfect opportunity to either slaughter the ruler of Aglirta, or win from him concessions or a rich ransom, Tshamarra Talasorn assumed the role of the bewildered outlander, and asked crisply, "Yes, sirs? What is the meaning of this?"

The wizards merely smirked. One man of the Isles cleared his throat importantly, stepped forward to speak, and-kept silent as Craer and Hawkril drew their blades with a flourish and stepped forward to defend the regent. Behind them, Raulin swallowed nervously and drew his own sword.

Tshamarra raised her hands with a ready spell crackling warningly around them, and stepped forward. "Desist, wizards," she warned, "or there'll be slaughter this day on the docks of Sirlptar."

The mages sneered at her and shook back their sleeves to lift their own hands. The fires of risen magics crackled around them, too.

"Not so mighty without your Dwaer-Stones, are you?" one of them chuckled.

Embra Silvertree smiled back at him. "Oh, we manage," she replied softly-and soared up into Dragon-form, towering great and terrible amid the chaos of their bursting enchantments and frantic slaying-spells.

Screams broke over the docks of Sirlptar, and folk fled in all directions. Tshamarra smote one mage reeling with a spell, Craer brought down another with a hurled dagger to the throat, and above them the Dragon leaned down and breathed fire.

Her huge gout of rolling flame broke over three of the mages… and left nothing of them but dancing cinders. Others abruptly remembered important business elsewhere and vanished-either in a winking of mage-light or in a terrified sprint toward the nearest alley.

In the space of a gasped breath twelve Sirl wizards were gone from the docks, leaving a handful of terrified leiremborans frantically beating at their blazing robes and garments. One of them ran along the wharves with a terrified wail until he reached a spot where he could leap into the sea and douse the flames.

Embra let him go, but lowered her great head to look straight into the eyes of the remaining merchants, and said, "Come to Aglirta with hostile magic, or the words of the Serpent on your tongue, and you can expect a like reception." She used the power of the Dragon to magnify her voice so that it rolled out across Siriptar like thunder, carrying to every ear and for some miles beyond. "Those who come in peace, to trade, we welcome-but never mistake our welcome for weakness."

Embra's words boomed clearly in the taproom of the Sighing Gargoyle, causing every man there to stiffen and fall silent.

In a table in one corner of the room that Flaeros Delcamper would have recognized, four drinkers smiled a little ruefully at each other across a small forest of empty winebottles. Maelra Bowdragon shuddered, too, but Uncle Dolmur patted her thigh comfortingly under the table, and her father clapped her shoulder reassuringly above it, and she sighed a long sigh and then managed another smile.

"I suppose this means we'll have to invent something to trade in, or keep clear of the Vale henceforth," the Master of Bats observed.

"Oh, I don't know," Craer Delnbone replied, stepping forward out of the brief flash of a teleport-spell with Tshamarra Talasorn at his side. "We're short of bats in Aglirta."

He handed a chittering, wing-flapping bat back to Arkle Huldaerus, and added a trifle archly, "Though we won't be, if you keep sending them to spy on us in such excessively obvious numbers."

The four mages around the table eyed each other in startled silence for a moment-and then, suddenly, everyone started to laugh.