He could hardly see the dragon, and wasn’t really conscious of his surroundings anyway, but somewhere deep in his mind, Brind’Amour realized that he was indeed hurting the monster, and that it was transforming.
Finally the energy fizzled, and the wizard stood swaying, thoroughly spent. After a moment, he managed to consider his opponent, and his eyes went wide.
No longer did the dragon stand before him, nor was his foe the foppish king of Avon. Greensparrow and Dansallignatious had been caught somewhere in the middle of their dual forms, a bipedal creature half again as large as a man, but with scaly skin mottled green and black, great clawed hands, a swishing tail, and a serpentine neck as long as Brind’Amour was tall.
“Do you think you have defeated me?” the beast asked.
Luthien heard that call distantly, and the very voice of the beast, a whining, grating buzz, wounded him, stung his ears and his heart.
“You are a fool, Brind’Amour, as were all your fellow wizards,” Greensparrow chided.
“And Greensparrow was among that lot,” the wizard said with great effort.
“No!” roared the beast. “Greensparrow alone was wise enough to know that his day had not passed.”
Brind’Amour had no response to that, for he, too, had come to believe that the brotherhood of wizards had surrendered their powers too quickly and recklessly.
“And now you will die,” the beast said casually, moving a stride forward. “And all the world will be open to me.”
Again, Brind’Amour could not refute the dragon king’s words—at least not the first part, for he had not the strength to lift his arm against the approaching creature. He wasn’t so convinced, though, that Greensparrow’s claim about the world would prove true.
“They know who you are now,” he said defiantly, his voice as strong and confident as he could possibly make it. “And what you are.”
Greensparrow laughed wickedly, as if to question how that could possibly matter.
“Deanna Wellworth will take back her throne and her kingdom, and Greensparrow the foul will not be welcomed!” Brind’Amour proclaimed.
“If I can so easily defeat the likes of Brind’Amour, then how will the weakling queen, or any of her ill-advised allies, stand against me?” As he spoke, Greensparrow continued his advance, moving to within a few feet of Brind’Amour, who was simply too spent to retreat. “I will take back what was mine!” the beast promised, and the time for talking had passed.
Greensparrow’s serpentine neck shot forward, maw opening wide. Brind’Amour let out a cry that sounded as a pitiful squeak, and threw up his arms before his face. Fangs tore his sleeves, ripped his skin, but the defensive move stopped Greensparrow from finding a secure hold, his snout butting the wizard instead and throwing Brind’Amour down to the ground.
At the same moment, the dragon king caught a movement to the side and behind, as a form uncoiled from its position at the base of a tree and rushed out at him.
Brind’Amour’s companion! the dragon king realized. But how had he missed seeing that one?
Luthien took two powerful strides, bringing Blind-Striker in a two-handed over-the-shoulder arc that drove the blade hard against the beast’s extended neck. He chopped again and again as Greensparrow tried to reorient and square himself to this newest foe. Green-black scales splintered and flew away. The beast’s clawed hind feet dug trenches in the earth as it backpedaled.
Luthien, blinded by rage, screamed a dozen curses and pumped his arms frantically, refusing to give up the offensive, knowing that if he allowed the beast to gain its composure and its footing, he would surely be doomed. Again and again he launched his mighty sword, each swing culminating in a hit, sometimes solid, sometimes glancing. He kept Greensparrow backing, kept whacking at the twisting form with all his strength.
But then he slipped—a slight stumble, but one that allowed the dragon king to get out of reach, to gain its footing.
“The Crimson Shadow!” Greensparrow snarled. “How much a thorn you have been to me!”
Luthien put his feet back under him and started to charge once more, but skidded to a fast stop, realizing that to dive into that tangle of claws and fangs was certainly to die.
“For months I have been waiting for this moment,” Greensparrow promised. “Waiting to pay you back for all the trouble. For Belsen’Krieg and Morkney, for Paragor of Princetown and for the ridiculous cries of ‘Eriador free!’ that have reached my ears.”
Luthien stepped forward and swung, but found himself falling backward before the blade got halfway around, as the snakelike neck snapped out at him. He fell into the mud and scrambled backward. Greensparrow was laughing too hard to pursue.
“Watch him die, Brind’Amour,” the dragon king chided. “Watch all your hopes torn apart.”
Luthien glanced Brind’Amour’s way, praying that the wizard was ready to join in then. But Brind’Amour could not help him, not this time. The wizard remained on the ground, barely holding himself in a sitting position. His magic was gone, expended in the enchantments, particularly that last bolt of power, his ultimate attack. It had taken much strength from the dragon, had even reduced it to this present form, but it had not destroyed Greensparrow.
Luthien studied his foe carefully. The dragon king was certainly wounded, had suffered a great beating from the tree and the energy bolts, and from Luthien’s own wild attack. Large welts lined Greensparrow’s neck, and his face was scored on one side. One of his wings was tucked neatly against his back, but the other hung out at a weird angle, obviously broken.
Slowly Luthien slid his foot back under him.
“Or perhaps I should not kill you,” Greensparrow was saying, his gaze as much at the empty distance as at Luthien. “Perhaps I should bring you back to Carlisle, an admitted liar and enemy of the throne. Perhaps I could use you to discredit Deanna Wellworth,” the beast mused, and looked back—to see that Luthien was up and charging!
Greensparrow snapped his head at the young Bedwyr, but too late. Luthien came under the descending maw, throwing up the tip of his blade, and Greensparrow’s own momentum worked against him as Blind-Striker bit under the dragon king’s bottom jaw, right through scales and skin, right through the flicking forked tongue and into the roof of his mouth.
Luthien continued forward and held on with all his strength, trying desperately to get inside the angle of the monster’s flailing arms.
Greensparrow hissed and thrashed and Luthien could not hold the sword and stay in tight. His feet went out from under him as Greensparrow spun to the side, but Blind-Striker held fast and Luthien was pulled right from the ground.
A clawed hand swiped at his exposed ribs, tearing through his chain-link armor and the thick leather tunic below it as easily as if it was old and brittle paper. Bright lines of blood appeared, one gash so deep that Luthien’s rib was visible.
Still he hung on, growling against the pain, but then the other blow came across, punching and not raking, a blow so fierce that Luthien flew away, taking his sword with him.
The dragon king’s head jerked violently to the side as Blind-Striker tore free, and Greensparrow slumped to one knee, giving horrified Luthien enough time to scramble away into the cover of the swamp.
But the beast was fast in pursuit, sniffing and snarling, sputtering curses that rang in the ears of the young Bedwyr. Never before had he run from battle, not from Morkney, not from the demon Taknapotin. But this beast, even wounded as it was, was beyond both of them, was something too evil and too awful.
And so Luthien ran, stumbling, pressing his arm against his side in an effort to keep his lifeblood from spilling away. He heard the sniffing behind him, knew that Greensparrow was following the trail of dripping blood.