“Mighty Fyremantle!” she heard Saorsha say. The older woman’s voice was tight with strain, but at least she could say something. Lucy forced her eyes to open and looked up into the face of the massive dragon. His scales gleamed like blood in the hot sun and radiated heat in shimmering waves.
His smoldering eyes were fastened on the empty stone where the barrels and boxes were supposed to be. His blackened nostrils curled in disdain. “This is all you were able to scrape together?” he said in withering scorn.
Mayor Efrim and Saorsha quickly fell to their knees and bowed low. Lucy followed suit. “Oh, no, inestimable lord. The taxes are here as required,” Mayor Efrim explained. “The boxes are still below. We had to make a final accounting to be sure everything was accurate. It is being loaded as we speak.”
“Below!” the red roared. His voice pounded at them like thunder. His anger sparked little flames around his teeth. “I gave you ample time to gather my tribute. Why should I bother to fly down into that dung heap of a town? Bring it up here this instant.”
“Of course, of course,” Saorsha said hastily.
Fyremantle suddenly cocked his scaled head. “What is that I smell?”
“We have prepared a feast for Visiting Day, your magnificence,” Lucy said. “If you will be patient, we’ll have the taxes-”
“Why should I be patient?” he rumbled. “You have disobeyed me.”
“Oh, no! No, lord. We have only been delayed. The treasure will be here any minute.”
He snorted a blast of hot, scorched breath. “It had better be.” He lifted his head and gazed toward the festival ground. He sniffed the air appreciatively. “Perhaps I will wait for a short time.” Abruptly he leaped to the edge of the headland and dropped off. His wings stretched out to slow his descent, and he glided down to the field. His massive weight landed with a shuddering thud. His crafty eyes gleaming, he snaked between the old buildings.
No one waited for him. Even the kender had disappeared into the grass or the nearest buildings. With a bound he landed amidst the trestle tables and crushed them under his body. His tail swept back and forth like a scythe, demolishing everything in its path. He snatched up the bowls and platters of food and dumped everything down his insatiable maw as he made his way toward the fire pits. Two of the sides of meat vanished between his jaws in just a few bites. He used a claw to pry open three beer barrels left standing near the fire pits. Each barrel was emptied down his throat. When he was finished, he looked around in satisfaction. The festival was in ruins; only the two remaining sides of beef were left.
On the headland, the sheriff ran down the road toward the festival, leaving the councilwoman and the mayor to follow in the pony cart. The hidden townspeople peeped nervously through cracks to see what he would do next. Not even Ulin knew for certain how quickly the sleep potion would affect a large dragon, and the greatest fear was that Fyremantle would leave before the trap could be sprung. A small fire had already started near the firepits where the wind from his wings had sent embers from the cooking fire flying into the dry grass. To their relief the dragon did not seem to notice the fire, nor did he try to start any of his own.
“Come on,” Ulin whispered urgently. “Stay and eat that last bite of meat. Take your time, you blasted worm.”
Lazily, Fyremantle stretched out his limbs and settled down on top of the wreckage to finish the last of the beef. His great body dropped to the ground, and his wings furled against his sides.
“Get ready,” Ulin hissed to those around him.
The red blinked his eyes. His tail flicked a few times then lay flat on the newly dug earth. His head snaked down and reached for the last haunch of beef.
“Now!” Ulin bellowed.
Fyremantle’s head snapped up with an audible “Huh?” sound.
Behind the old ruins, Notwen, Kethril, Challie, and Ulin sprang into action. Lighted wicks in hand, Challie and Kethril lit the fuses to two cloth bags filled with flash powder and hurled them into the firepit. A heartbeat later two brilliant flashes exploded like stars only a feet away from the dragon’s startled gaze.
He roared in fury, but the dazzling light and the clouds of smoke that issued from the pit momentarily blinded him to the frantic activity of the people around him.
Ulin felt his heart pounding in his chest. The dragonfear emanated in cold, palpable waves, causing his hands to shake and his entire body to tremble as if stricken with a fever. For a sickening moment his eyes watered with tears, and he felt his knees buckling. He looked around and saw Kethril clinging to a doorframe. Others fell to their faces, groveling in terror.
Fyremantle began to rise from the ground. His wings, though hindered by the buildings, lifted from his back.
Ulin turned his thoughts to Palin and his twisted hands, to his wife dead of a plague, to the Academy lying in ruins, and to his hatred of all evil dragons that caused such misery in the world. Anger raw and hot seared back his terror and stilled the trembling in his limbs. “Notwen!” he bellowed. “Do it now!”
The strong, powerful voice of the mage galvanized the trembling gnome. Ulin lit the fuses on a series of long pointed tubes placed strategically on one side of the street while Notwen lit the fuses of another.
The results were spectacular.
Like arrows of fire, the tubes rose above the street, jetting pink sparks and clouds of smoke. Attached to one set of rockets was a light-weight net strengthened with wire. The others carried ropes at their tails. They soared to their apex and arched down over the dragon, the net falling first and the ropes coming down on top. They were so carefully aligned that most of them crossed each other perfectly and laid their lines over the dragon from his neck to his tail.
Fyremantle squalled in confusion and rage. The powders Ulin had sprinkled on the food sapped his strength and left him lightheaded and weak, but the big red was not easily overcome. He struggled to stand, his head whipping back and forth, and his tail lashed at the buildings on either side. Spurts of fire blew from his jaws. His claws raked the ground and tore great holes in the road until he reached the grid of iron that sat just below the surface.
The rockets, having done their work, fell sputtering to the ground, and the citizens of Flotsam jumped to grab the ropes. One end of the net had been hidden in the dirt and was fastened to the iron grid beneath the dragon, but the other edge was loose and had to be tightened down. Shouting and screaming, the men and women tied the edge of the net and ropes down to rings Notwen had embedded in the ground and to anything that might hold the dragon in place.
While they struggled to hold him, Lucy, charging ahead of Saorsha and Mayor Efrim, worked her way around the buildings and came up behind him. At the edge of the net, her father met her.
“Don’t worry about fire,” Kethril yelled over the uproar. He tapped the ring on his hand. “It’s an artifact from Istar I picked up years ago. It will protect both of us, if we are touching.”
Lucy squeezed his hand gratefully. That took one problem off her mind. She had thought she’d have to make a mage shield to protect herself from the dragonfire, but with her father there to protect her, that was one less spell she had to worry about.
She placed her hand on the heaving net pinning the dragon and began the incantation that Ulin had taught her. The turban squirmed with delight, its crystal eyes glowing in the surge of magic that flowed through them both. Lucy tightened her hand around a strand of the net. She felt the magic fill her mind and body, its familiar warmth a welcome invasion. Carefully, precisely, she shaped the magic to her will, all the while praying in a small part of her mind that nothing would take her magic away. She sensed something close by, something odd, and for a second she thought she felt something tickle her skin.