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.""Can you handle those affected without us?""With all respect, Your Majesty," the swordlord growled, "I can do so better if I need not watch and worry for the king's safety.""Get gone, then?"Ethin Glammerhand's frowning face split in a real smile."Eloquently put, my liege."Azoun gave him an answering smile, sheathed his blade, and turned to the waiting lord mage."Arkenfrost?"The war wizard inclined his head, and reached forward his hand to touch Azoun's wrist."To the queen," he murmured and cast his spell.The world was suddenly a place of blue roiling mists, shot through with lightninglike flickers of brighter, lighter blue, through which Azoun was endlessly falling.but suddenly on solid ground-or rather, somewhere that moved underfoot, as warm and fetid as a slaughterhouse charnel pit, all rotting meat and damp rushing air.Somewhere slippery.Shaking his head to clear his eyes of the after-daze, Azoun clung to the reassuring firmness of the sword in his hand, and crouched low, trying to listen, and keep his balance.He seemed to be somewhere dark and warm that was rapidly getting darker.Abruptly he realized that the dark bulk immediately in front of him was a gigantic tooth, long and sharp, and that it was one of a line of teeth.He was in the mouth of a huge creature, standing on a tongue that was rising under his boots like an inexorable wave, to hurl him forward into the reach of those clashing fangs! Arkenfrost was already tumbling ahead of him.Gods preserve-they were in the mouth of the dragon!The fangs drew back, Azoun's world suddenly brightening, and an instant later the King of Cormyr was plunging helplessly forward, borne on the reeking wind of the dragon's breath.In a moment those cruel teeth would clash down, and he'd be cut in two or crushed.Shuddering, the Most Royal Flower of the Obarskyrs kicked out hard against the slippery tongue, tumbled crazily forward until his boots struck a fang, and sprang away.Teeth crashed down, someone screamed, and the king was suddenly in utter darkness and awash in stinging fluid-fluid that seared like flame, and swiftly acquired the iron reek of fresh human blood.Arkenfrost was probably now dead.The dragon's teeth parted again, light flooded in around the king, and Azoun flung himself between them, out into the brightness beyond.He was falling, tumbling away beneath the huge red dragon as it flew on over the forest, its jaws working-not, it seemed, having noticed his escape.His weathercloak's featherfall magic would save him from a smashed-bones death when he reached the ground.if, of course, the dragon didn't see him and come flying back to bite and swallow.The King of Cormyr watched the wyrm dwindle into the distance, and wondered grimly how Arkenfrost's spell had taken him into the red dragon's maw.A twisting of magic on the dragon's part or the act of some unknown foe.or the treachery of Arkenfrost himself?No sane man seeks his own death, but.Azoun Obarskyr had been wrong when judging men a time or two in his life before.Yet not, he thought, this time.It was all too easy for any king to start to see conspiracies in every shadowed chamber and deceit in every word that fell from any lips.And to what purpose? If every man's hand is raised covertly against the king, what profits said monarch from acting differently? How does it help the realm, or keep a royal head on its accustomed shoulders for a breath or two longer?The dragon, it seemed, was not coming back, and this was undoubtedly the King's Forest beneath him, the tops of its thick-standing trees approaching swiftly now.It was a long fall, cloaked in the magic that would save him from a killing landing.too long a fall.Goblins had bows, and many forest beasts had keen eyes and the habit of looking aloft for approaching trouble.Or meals.Azoun drew his sword and devoted himself to peering all around and down at the trees rising to meet him.If nothing threatened, he might as well enjoy the view of his realm perhaps the last look at it he'd ever have time enough to enjoy.Or perhaps not.Something was streaking at him from the south, coming low over the trees, and coming fast.A small, dark fleck against the blue sky, rapidly becoming a larger dark spot, with wings.Aye.A ghazneth.Azoun swallowed, finding his mouth suddenly dry, and licked his lips grimly, raising his blade and slapping at the hilt of his nearest dagger to be sure of just where it was.Gods, but they were fast! The leathery black wings were almost a blur as the ghazneth swept up to the slowly descending king.Azoun saw two thin arms, two crooked legs, a lanky but unmistakably female body trailing long brown hair, and a face whose eyes glittered with hatred and the rising fire of the hunter eager to slay.Her fingers had become impossibly long talons-hooked, cruel claws whose needle-sharp tips seemed cloaked in clinging drops of dark liquid.Poison? Or the blood of her last victim?The ghazneth climbed in the air as she closed with her drifting target, and Azoun steadied his blade, holding it in both hands.On and down she came, with a wordless shriek of anger.Azoun waited, his sword held low and a little behind him, for just the right moment to strike.The ghazneth beat foul wings in a flurry to slow then swoop then slow again, trying to fool him but sacrificing the sheer power of a swift pounce.She twisted at the last moment, banking past him to claw and scream, and Azoun swung his blade in a hand, roundhouse slash, cutting mainly air and feathers but biting into something as the ghazneth flapped strongly away and dipped one wing to loop around.She was trying to come at him from behind as he fell, turning uncontrollably in the wake of his swing and her strike, and Azoun snarled silently in determination and twisted, trying to throw himself around to meet his foe.He was only just in time.The ghazneth was gliding right at him, talons raking the air so as to present him with a whirling wall of death.He ducked his head to protect his eyes and slashed the air, chopping hard and swiftly to keep her from getting inside his reach.A talon got through, cutting a line of fire across his head.The ghazneth trying to blind him with his own blood.A second talon just caught his cheek as he twisted his head back and away and drove his blade solidly through a flailing wing and into the back and thigh beneath.The ghazneth screamed, a raw, rough cry of anger and pain.Azoun found himself in the blind heart of a dark flurry of stinking wings that buffeted him like the winds of a spell-spun tempest he'd once been caught in.The fury ended only when she twisted away from his blade and spun in the air, the magnificently-muscled line of her naked back momentarily only a foot or so from his nose, to strike at him face to face.His sword, its everbright enchantments gone at her touch, was behind or beyond her wings and useless, but the King of Cormyr was ready.As her talons swept up and she drew back her legs to kick, she met his dagger, hard and full into her breast
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