The dragon paused. It wriggled and shifted, so that it could peek through the holes widening in the melting door. "Why, so it is! And I might have ruined it all. Thank you for bringing that to my attention."
"Don't mention it," Jack muttered. "Umm, would you consider a modest bribe to leave us alone? Say, half the treasure in the room?"
Zandria and her companions muttered angrily, but they held their tongues. The dragon was silent for a few moments, evidently considering the offer. "If you strip and leave your weapons and gear in this chamber, I'll allow you to leave," it said. "All of the treasure, of course, would have to stay."
The humans and the dwarf exchanged glances. "I don't believe it for a moment," said Tharzon. "Dragons are notorious liars."
"Why, I would offer my sacred bond to any who threw themselves at my mercy!" the dragon replied. "I value my word very highly."
"We decline," said Zandria. She studied the chamber quickly; the door was at the bottom end of the southern arm. She gestured sharply and sent the surviving Falcons back to the west arm, then hissed at Jack. "You three to the east."
Jack, Anders, and Tharzon retreated to the east arm of the cross-shaped room. Jack wasn't a great tactician, but he appreciated the arrangement at once. The dragon wouldn't have anyone standing right in front of it when it forced the door. It would have to enter the room bodily and then turn to attack the Falcons on its left or the rogues on its right. One band or the other would have the opportunity to attack the creature from behind.
The dragon snarled in rage and threw itself against the ruined door. The ancient dwarf-made valve held for a moment and then failed utterly as the very stones it was anchored in were jarred from their place. Metal shrieked and groaned, stone cracked like thunderbolts, and then the creature was inside the room, a great dark serpent lunging forward with incredible speed and power. Its wings battered the walls, knocking treasure in every direction. It glanced once into the east alcove, its carious yellow eye gleaming, and then it hurled itself toward the west and the Red Falcons.
"Die, monster!" shrieked Zandria.
She worked a spell of lightning, blasting at the dragon with a brilliant blue bolt of energy. Thieron began chanting a priestly spell to summon strength and fortitude against the creature, while Brunn and Maressa leaped forward, blade and battle-axe flashing. The dragon drove them back with huge snaps of its fanged maw.
"Come on, Tharzon!" shouted Anders.
He leaped forward with his greatsword in hand, the dwarf only a step behind, war-axe high. The two struck at the gleaming dark flank of the dragon, barely marking the creature's scaly armor, and then the dragon twisted with a powerful motion and slammed its long, whiplike tail through the alcove, sending both Northman and dwarf flying as it pulverized them. Jack leaped over the lashing tail and conjured a ball of magical force, hurling it at the dragon's back. The detonation brought a roar of pain from the monster. It twitched its tail and upended Jack, too.
"This isn't going all too well," he mumbled as he picked himself up from the stone floor.
He looked up just in time to see both Anders and Tharzon knocked off their feet again by the dragon's tail, while across the room Zandria-now levitating in the air and blasting at the dragon with darts of brilliant magic-was suddenly swatted across the room by a wing the size of a small sail. She hit the stone wall hard and fell stunned to the ground on the east side of the chamber.
The dragon's lashing tail suddenly twisted away from the alcove, replaced by one dark wing. The half-elf Kale was dragged into view, caught in the coils of the deep dragon's body like a small animal trapped by a constrictor snake. The thief screamed shrilly, feebly stabbing at the dragon with a small dagger, and then something cracked loudly enough to be heard over the dragon's bellows and the shrill ringing swords. Blood started from Kale's mouth, and he dropped his dagger, his head vanishing beneath the dragon's coils.
Jack looked around. The door was dicey, but he had other ways to leave. He picked himself up from the floor and then darted forward to set one hand on Tharzon and the other on Anders.
"Come on, lads! Let's quit while we're ahead!"
"But the dragon-" Anders began.
"Is not our fight," Jack finished.
He summoned the energy for his travel spell, shaping the chaotic spiral with care; this spell taxed him, and he'd never tried to carry two companions at once. The dragon whirled about, sensing that something was happening, but before it could strike again, the room faded into mist and darkness-
– and they were somewhere else, falling to the cold stone floor in silver light. Jack landed heavily and lost his breath. Anders and Tharzon fell to the ground right beside him, their weapons ringing on the stone. His head swam with dizziness, but Jack staggered to his feet. As he thought, they were in the outer rotunda. The silver light still caged the room, but against one wall a great smear of smoking, bubbling stone showed where Durevin had met his end in the dragon's vile corrosion.
Tharzon sat up slowly. "What happened? Where are we?"
"I used a spell of transport," Jack answered. "The range is short, no more than a hundred yards or so. I thought we'd get around the dragon by returning to the nearest safe place I could reach."
"You dragged us out of the fight and abandoned Zandria to that monster?" Anders asked. "The Guilder's Vault was ours! All we had to do was beat the dragon, and we would have walked out of there with a king's ransom!"
Jack pointed at the open stairway leading down to the long corridor. Sounds of battle echoed up from the opening. "The fight's still going on, Anders, not more than thirty or forty yards down that hallway. Please, feel free to rejoin the fray. I doubt that the dragon's going anywhere."
Anders stalked in a circle, frustrated. "But all that gold!"
"All that gold does not serve a dead man at all," Tharzon remarked. "Did you line your pockets at all while we were in there, Anders?"
The Northman nodded. "I scooped up a handful of trinkets before the dragon broke down the door."
"As did I, and as did Jack," Tharzon said. "Come on, friend Anders. You aren't leaving empty handed, and it was only a morning's work."
Jack caught the Northman's arm and pulled him toward the entrance to the rotunda. "We would be well-advised to absent ourselves from the scene. Zandria and her friends will defeat the dragon, in which case it may come this way again, or they will be defeated, in which case it may come this way again. Either way, I mean to be in the Cracked Tankard enjoying an ale by the time that comes to pass." He laughed and patted his pockets. "In fact, I will even buy the first round. Now let me tell you about the plan of genius I hatched to pilfer the treasure from the Red Falcons before that oversized snake ruined it all."
CHAPTER NINE
Jack, Anders, and Tharzon celebrated their escape from the Guilder's Vault with steins of beer and flagons of wine for most of the rest of the day. Between the three of them, they had pocketed a handsome amount of dwarfwork valuables. Jack did not see fit to mention the small brandy bottle nestled safely inside his jacket. He didn't know whether to sell it (Cedrizarun's work was doubtless worth many hundreds of gold crowns, possibly thousands), share it with his comrades, drink it himself, or give it to that old sot Ontrodes for a lark.
"That weighty decision must be delayed until I have given the issue due consideration," he told himself. "The tragedy of using this irreplaceable liquor poorly would haunt me for the rest of my days."
Now that he'd had some time to reflect on their narrow escape, he seemed to recall that a month or two back the Lady Mayor had issued a proclamation offering a generous reward, a very generous reward, to the plucky soul who braved Sarbreen's awful dangers and hungry deep dragons in order to recover various artifacts from the depths, including the Orb of Khundrukar. Something to the effect of a noble title and ten thousand gold crowns for recovering the dwarven device…