Of more immediate interest, though, was the Fang of Orm, somewhere below, probably still in the hands of some detestable gully dwarf scurrying through the rubble. For that relic, Lord Vulpin had robbed Clonogh of his spirit. For that same relic, Chatara Kral had ordered the mage tortured. For the Fang of Orm and the power to use it, a few minutes ago, Clonogh would have given his soul. Now it meant less to him, though he still wanted it. Now he had magic of his own, unburdened by the pain of instant aging.
What he wanted now was revenge. And in the Fang of Orm rested delicious vengeance.
A chorus of screams arose now from below, and Clonogh turned full around, watching with bemused interest as a great dragon swept from the sky to glide across the ramparts of Tarmish. In its wake, on the ground, attacks and defenses collapsed as men by the hundreds ran in all directions, trying to escape. Dragonfear spread and rippled among them. Where Crealic mercenaries manned repelling catapults atop a wall, the dragon swept low, its huge claws ripping downward to destroy the defenses. Spears and javelins bounced harmlessly from its armored scales, and men tumbled from the wall, along with the wreckage of their machines.
Clonogh frowned. Somehow, it seemed, Chatara Kral had induced a dragon to help her. But then the dragon, completing its sweep of the walls, turned its attention outward, trailing wreckage in its wake as it slashed through the Gelnian attack.
Puzzled, the mage watched from his high perch. The dragon veered here and there, smashing into concentrations of troops almost at random. And always, where it went-gliding low on great, flaring wings-it left a widening wake of fleeing men in its path. Spears and arrows arose from the human masses. Many bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s armored scales. Others missed, to fall back among the humans below.
Around and around the attacking fields the huge beast flew, dipping and diving here and there while armed men ran screaming from it. Then with beating wings it rose above the walls and again descended upon Tarmish.
And now the grapple lines dangling from the walls, lines placed by the attackers, were alive with panicked soldiers trying to escape from the fortress. As the dragon descended into the central courtyard, the great gate of Tarmish swung open and fleeing defenders by the hundreds streamed outward, a shrieking stampede of men trying to get away from the fear among them. In the receding fields, armies blended-Gelnian and Tarmite fighters fleeing together in their panic.
For Clonogh it was beyond understanding. A dragon had come to Tarmish, and was raging among the combatants, but it seemed not to discriminate. It was attacking both sides with equal enthusiasm.
Clonogh could not identify the dragon. Several times, during the dragon wars, Clonogh had seen dragons. He had always identified them by their color. There had been the beasts in service of the dark lords-brilliantly-colored creatures of crimson or blue or green. And then there had been the others, those whose colors were the colors of fine metal-the silvers, the coppers, the golds. These, he remembered, had fought against the chromatic beasts.
But the dragon he saw now, wreaking havoc on Tarmish, striking attacker and defender with equal enthusiasm, was none of these. Its iridescent scales flashed in the high sunlight with definite hints of brilliant green but equally strong hues of rich umber and warm bronze.
It was a mystery, but it had nothing to do with him. He knew dragon magic had occurred, and that he had been strengthened by it, but he knew also that its purpose had been something else. He had just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Now the far fields were alive with fleeing men, and Clonogh knew who they were. Mercenary soldiers, some wearing the colors of Tarmish and some of Gelnia, mingled in their retreat, and Clonogh smiled a cruel smile. Whatever the dragon’s purpose here, both Lord Vulpin and Chatara Kral had just lost their hired armies.
His eyes roving the scenes around and below the tower, Clonogh saw Lord Vulpin raging along his southern rampart, followed now by only a handful of true Tarmites. And in the field beyond the gate. Chatara Kral stood in the midst of her desolated encampment, screaming orders at fleeing men who did not look back to respond. Only a few of her troops remained with her now, native Gelnians bound to the cause of the Tarmish campaign.
In the devastated footings of one of the great walls, where a jagged opening gaped above the city’s underground, several furtive gully dwarves scurried from the shadows and darted for better cover. They disappeared into the dark hole, where drains led downward to the caverns. All but one. One of the gully dwarves held an ivory stick in its grimy fist-the Fang of Orm. And that one, darting for cover, encountered a Tarmite soldier. With a shriek the gully dwarf turned and fled, back into the base of the tower.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the raging dragon, which had now devastated and scattered the armies both inside and outside of Tarmish, was gone. As though it had never been there, it simply vanished, and once again Clonogh’s magic-honed senses detected the ironlike taste of a dragon spell.
“Transformation,” he muttered, recognizing the pattern of the magic, though he had no clue as to what the beast had become, or where it had gone. Dragon magic had restored him, magic drawn from the dragon’s previous spell, but though his sorcery was now powerful again, he was still only human. The mind of a dragon was not the mind of a human, and the intricacies of its sorcery were beyond him.
Still, it was gone now from view, and whatever the beast’s purpose had been, it did not seem to have any further effect on him. He stood unharmed on the skeletal remains of the tower, and Tarmish Castle lay in shambles around him, gaping and broken first by the missiles of contending armies, then by the wrath of a rampaging dragon.
The place was almost silent now. Here and there injured men cried out among the dead, and as the breeze shifted he could hear the strident, stunned voices of both Lord Vulpin and Chatara Kral, barking curses and orders at the scattered handfuls of Tarmite and Gelnian troops they still commanded.
The jagged hole where the gully dwarves had disappeared gaped dark and silent, like a beckoning cavern. Soldiers of Tarmish were hurrying toward it. On the south wall, several of Lord Vulpin’s lieutenants noticed them and pointed.
Raising a bony fist, Clonogh muttered a small spell. On the south wall Lord Vulpin halted and turned, as though confused. For a moment he gazed around, this way and that, then his gaze fixed on the tower and he started toward it. Beyond the open gate, Chatara Kral also turned, hesitated, then strode toward the gaping portal and the tower beyond. Behind each regent, confused men milled about, some choosing to follow their leaders, others turning away.
With a savage grin, Clonogh paced the great tower, hearing the thud of little feet on the rising stairs. The Fang of Orm was on its way to him, in the hands of an innocent.
In dim recesses in the bowels of Tarmish, Graywing stared about him in bewildered disgust. The dragon that had been here not half an hour ago, seeming to fill the resonant caverns with its fearful presence, was nowhere to be found. He and Dartimien had searched for it, splitting up to scour the echoing, vaulted chambers in wide sweeps, poking and peering into every tunnel and shadowed niche.
There was no sign of the formidable beast anywhere. Now Graywing stood a few steps into the great chamber in which the castle’s foundations towered like dark monoliths, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. There were gully dwarves everywhere he could see, doltish little creatures bumbling about here and there, more or less centering upon a major concentration of Aghar around the base of a huge pillar. Some sort of conference seemed to be going on there. A dozen or so gully dwarves were engaged in animated debate about something, while uncounted others looked on with dull curiosity.