"Murodhir?" Sir George asked incredulously. "Why, he's the bane of every drake in Darokin and Traladara."
"Then he must be good for something," Marthaen declared, impatient with the old knight. "If you knew about Murodhir, then why were you looking for the dragon who stole the collar everywhere else in the world last year?"
"Because Murodhir is also a monumental coward," Sir George answered defensively. "He fears only one thing-other dragons-but his terror of them is so absolute that I could hardly imagine him going into Windreach after the collar. I'm still not sure I believe it."
"Then perhaps we should discover that for ourselves," Marthaen commented coldly. "I suggest we pay Murodhir a little visit in the morning. Jherdar, would you like to come along?"
"Indeed I would," the red dragon replied eagerly, anticipating the event with delight.
"You would help me?" Thelvyn asked incredulously.
Jherdar stared at him. "I am not enthusiastic about the prospect of having you as the Dragonking, and I will oppose your policies if I do not agree with them. But I am certainly no traitor, and I have no patience for any dragon who would betray his own kind. I want to see the Collar of the Dragons recovered, even if I have to see you wear it."
Thelvyn was careful to hide his amusement over Jherdar's qualified statement of support. But it was more than he had expected from the red dragon he had once defeated in battle as the Dragonlord.
*****
The dragons left the Colossus Mountains well before dawn in order to pass directly over the Highlands with little concern for being seen. If they followed a straight path, the journey to Lake Amsorak was a fairly short one, perhaps three hours for dragons who were rested and eager. They came within sight of Lake Amsorak while the day was still young, and they turned to pass westward along the north shore in search of their quarry.
Amsorak was the largest lake in that part of the world, perhaps in all the world. Its vast proportions almost qualified it as an inland sea, although its waters were fresh, fed by the icy meltwater of the snows from the great range of the Amsorak Mountains to the north. Even though they knew that Murod-hir's lair was somewhere along the north shore, that included a couple of hundred miles of remote territory. And the lair itself was just as likely to be somewhere in the mountains, several miles inland from the lake itself. The lair of a renegade king could be difficult even for another dragon to find.
As it happened, Murodhir's own cohorts betrayed the location of their hidden lair. The dragons were still fairly early in their search when Marthaen's keen eyes suddenly spied a pair of black dragons winging northward as quickly as they could fly, hanging low over the trees along the shore of the Amsorak River as it stretched northward toward the mountains. The blacks had seen the approaching dragons first and were sprinting for the protection of their lair, knowing that they faced an overwhelming force. Immediately Marthaen led the pursuit.
"We'll never catch them before they reach home," Jherdar said, struggling to keep pace with the gold dragons.
"We don't want to catch them yet," Marthaen said. "Let them lead us to their lair. Otherwise we might spend days searching."
The dragons pushed their pace as hard as they could, determined not to lose sight of their prey. Indeed, they were actually gaining slowly on the pair of frightened black dragons, although they were still nearly a mile behind as they came to the foothills of the mountains. Murodhir's lair was less difficult to locate than they had expected. A wide, dark cave opened beneath a broad overhang of moss-covered stone along the western shore, where the river had cut deep as it cascaded down from the heights. A high wall of dark stone, massive but crudely set, had been laid across the lower part of the entrance to the cave, leaving the upper portion open to the approach of dragons.
The two black dragons flew directly into the dark opening, landing quickly and folding away their wings as they turned to crouch behind the wall, raising their heads to peer out. They seemed to offer a poor defense, but they were not alone. A company of goblins began to file out at a run along the top of the wall, most of them still putting on their armor and helmets. There were about a hundred goblins in all, and they were armed with powerful crossbows.
Since Marthaen was still in the lead, he elected to bring their company down into the open field before the cave, landing just out of range of the crossbows. The goblins held their position, waiting. Sir George leaped down from his saddle as soon as Kharendaen settled to the ground, hurrying to get out of the way. The battle seemed hopeless for the defenders. Besides Thelvyn and Kharendaen, both Jherdar and Marthaen had their bodyguard, a dozen more young dragons. Even so, they did not fancy taking on so many crossbows.
Marthaen rose and reached over his back to draw the massive sword he always carried. If the dragons made a sudden charge at the wall, they were unlikely to take any serious harm before they were over it. Then it would be a simple matter to scatter the goblins and capture the two black dragons.
"Wait a moment," Thelvyn said. "Let me try to crack open their fort.Then you can drag them out without any bother."
"I suppose that the Dragonlord has such powers," Jherdar commented.
"Perhaps he does," Thelvyn agreed. "But I think that the time has come for us to see what the Dragonking can do. I need for all of you to be ready to rush in the moment after I
strike."
"When we go in, you wait outside," Marthaen told him. "This is not work for the Dragonking. We will bring the
renegade out to you."
It was all right with Thelvyn not to go into that dark, damp hole, and not because he was afraid. He was determined to scatter the goblins before they had a chance to use their crossbows. The last thing he wanted to see was the barbed bolts of those weapons penetrating Kharendaen's sleek armor. He rose to his hind legs and lifted his arms with his wings half open, reaching within himself for the powers that were his to claim as the child of an Immortal.
His own part in the battle was brief, if spectacular. His form began to glow with a soft light of pure silver as he gathered raw destructive power to himself. Then great, swift spears of lightning shot out from him, eight or ten rapid bolts of power in rapid succession, leaping across the clearing with the sound of thunder. Each bolt struck a separate part of the crude stone wall, progressing along its length in a line as they ripped apart the stone, sending great blocks and jagged splinters of stone flying along with the burned bodies of the defenders.
The last echoes of the lightning were still fading as the dragons leaped forward, crossing the clearing in long, swift bounds. Jherdar raced ahead of his companions in his eagerness for battle, but there was more of a fight waiting for him than he had expected. As he leapt over the ruined wall, he expected to face only a pair of dazed black dragons. Instead, he found himself pulled down by five renegades, who had been waiting for him. They were on top of him before he could begin to fight back. He could feel their claws pulling at his armor and their sharp fangs snapping for a death grip on his neck.
The attackers outnumbered the black dragons, and Jherdar should have had no great cause for alarm, but the tight quarters in the mouth of the cave kept his companions from assisting him. Marthaen climbed up on the highest part of the ruined wall, desperate to help his old friend before the renegades gained a hold on Jherdar's neck. The area just inside the wall was packed with blasted stone. He could barely see occasional glimpses of red armor beneath the tangle of black bodies writing below him. Hardly knowing what else to do, Marthaen arched his back and leapt down into the midst of the battle with the indiscriminate fury of a lightning bolt, crashing down with his greater weight onto the back of one of the black dragons. Not daring to pause, he pushed his way into the middle of the fight, thrusting aside the smaller black dragons to give Jherdar a chance to force his way free.