Chapter 8
An Act of Mercy

Verden’s thunderous departure from This Place had created a havoc of noise and confusion. Little vortices of wind howled and danced about the great chamber, flinging things here and there, flattening stew fires and raising a thick haze of dust. Clout, Blip and the others who had just entered, their backsides blistered and clothing charred, raised themselves and looked around in confusion. Something very large had passed above them, and now they couldn’t see a thing for all of the dust.

Around them, querulous voices blended: “Wha’ happen?” “Where dragon go?” “Where th’ Highbulp?” “Who ate my stew?”

“Ever’body hush!” Clout shouted. “Big, red dragon chase us in tunnel. Make fire on us! Where Highbulp?”

“Who?”

“What’s-’is-name … th’ Highbulp. Glitch! Where Glitch?”

“Who cares?” a voice whined. “Where my stew?”

A dim figure appeared in the haze, leaning on a mop handle. “Where Clout?”

“Right here. What Gandy want?”

“Clout say ‘red’ dragon. Where?”

“In big tunnel,” Clout repeated. “Big, red dragon. Fire dragon.”

“Gettin’ be way too many dragons roun’ here,” Blip added firmly. “Highbulp oughtta do somethin’.”

The roars of battle came then, echoing down the main corridor to shake the walls of This Place.

With no Highbulp in sight, Gandy took it upon himself to issue the emergency order. “Run like crazy!” he shouted.

Blinded by dust, gully dwarves ran everywhere—mostly into one another—and as the dust began to settle there were piles and tumbles of Aghar all over This Place.

*  *  *  *  *

Flame Searclaw was huge, far more massive than Verden Leafglow, and a ruthless and cunning fighter. The instant he realized that the green was behind him, he spread his wings, braked himself and lashed out with his great tail. Verden was just turning to attack, and the tail caught her off-balance. It thudded into her left shoulder below the wing, and her arm went numb. The second blow missed, but she had lost the advantage. She righted herself and saw Flame turning, clawing his way around in the corridor to face her.

Something tugged at her crest, and small feet kicked wildly in front of her right eye. “Get out of my way!” she shouted, shaking her head. High on her neck, Lidda clung and reached to pull the Highbulp up, away from the dragon’s face. “Glitch get outta way!” she ordered. “Dragon busy!”

Almost blind with fright, Glitch accepted the tug and climbed up beside her. “Yes, dear,” he panted.

Verden tried to press her attack on Flame, but now he was facing her, and the mockery in his voice was brutal. “You are soft, green snake,” he chided. “And you have riders! Appropriate masters for one like you—gully dwarves!” With an evil chuckle, he opened his mouth and blinding fire shot out. On impulse, and out of spite, he aimed it high, directly at Verden’s crest and the pair of Aghar clinging there.

Verden saw it coming, and her geas prodded her: they must not be hurt. She must protect them. At the last instant she stretched upward, drawing back her head, exposing her breast to the driving, killing flame. Reorx, she thought, I denounce evil. The dark ways are no longer my allegiance.

The fire struck, a roaring mass of white-hot blaze that crescendoed and mushroomed, filling the corridor. Verden was flung backward by the force of it, stunned and disoriented. She crashed against a wall, staggered for a moment, then straightened herself. Somehow, it seemed that she was unhurt. She looked down and realized that the iron shield on her breast had deflected the fire, turned it aside and thrown it back. The oval felt as cool as it had before, but now its surface was no longer rusted and stained. As though the ages had been burned away, it gleamed now, a mighty shield of polished iron.

Atop her, clinging to the dragoncrest, Lidda chirped, “What Highbulp say?”

“Wh-what?” Glitch stammered.

“Glitch say, ‘yes. dear,’ ” Lidda reminded him.

“Did not.”

“Did, too! Glitch wanna get marry?”

“Nope.”

“Don’ argue, Glitch!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Reorx,” Verden whispered, new understandings flooding her mind. In that instant of fire, she had rejected the Dark Queen who had punished her. More, she had accepted another god, a god of an entirely different color. Yards away, Flame Searclaw was shaking his head, trying to clear his vision. His reflected fire had nearly blinded him. Verden’s long neck swayed, timing his movements, mimicking him, and her great haunches gathered beneath her, rippling with power. Flame swayed, searching blindly, then raised his head higher, and Verden launched herself at him. Low and fast, she went in for the kill. Even as the red’s head rose, she plunged in under it, fangs and talons seeking his throat.

It was over in a moment. Great jaws closed on the underside of Flame’s neck, the vulnerable area just above his shoulders, and a taloned claw closed a foot above. Fangs pierced scales, talons buried themselves in flesh, and the green dragon wrenched at the writhing neck, tearing it open. Dark blood sprayed and pulsed, and Flame Searclaw choked on his own scream. Bucking and thrashing, he tried to pull away, but Verden clung grimly, shaking him as a dog shakes a snake, ripping his throat wider and wider.

Thrashing red wings created raging storms in the confines of the corridor, then subsided to erratic twitching and went still. Verden drew back and studied the huge corpse sprawled in the dimness of ancient stone arches. “Reorx,” she whispered. “I have stepped aside from the spear. Am I free?”

The iron shield at her breast throbbed. It is for them to say, something told her. Ask mercy of them.

She was aware again of the two gully dwarves, still clinging to her crest. She lowered her head. “Release me,” she said.

For a moment, Glitch clung desperately, then he realized that the commotion was over. “Okay,” he said. Releasing his grip, he clambered down to the floor and stood, trying to remember at least some of what he had just seen. He wasn’t at all sure, but it seemed to him that he had just done battle with a red dragon and won! He began to swell with pride, and by the time he reached the dead dragon he was strutting and grinning. Lidda came after him, and took him by the hand.

“That all settle, then,” she said. “We get marry right away.”

He glanced around at her, puzzled. “We do what?”

“Never mind,” she said, firmly. “It all settled.”

“Highbulp kill a dragon!” he chortled, pointing at Flame Searclaw’s dulling corpse. “Glorious Glitch th’ Most, Highbulp an’… an’ dragon-basher! Get ever’body, come see dragon Highbulp kill!”

He started to climb the corpse, so he could stand atop it and be admired, but Lidda pulled him back. “Highbulp gonna let other dragon go?”

“Already did!” he reminded her. “Turned loose, got off an’ …” he looked around at Verden, frowning. “Jus’ as soon dragon get lost while Highbulp show off dead dragon,” he said. “Don’ need you here! Shoo! Go ’way! Come back later!”

“Glitch don’ need dragon anymore,” Lidda persisted. “Glitch great dragon-basher. Don’ need dragon for keep aroun’.”

“Nope,” he admitted. “Jus’ get in way, prob’ly.”

Lidda gazed at Verden for a moment, something like true understanding shining in her eyes. Then she elbowed Glitch in the ribs. “Go ’head, then,” she demanded. “Highbulp say, ‘dragon is release.’ ”

“Okay,” Glitch said. “Dragon is release! Don’ need dragon anymore! Go ’way!” He waved an imperious hand. “Shoo!”

Verden’s eyes widened. Within her, something fell away and she was unbound. The geas was broken. She was free! Free to do as she pleased. Free even to kill these miserable creatures if she chose! Still, Lidda had given her back her life. The little female gully dwarf—least of the least—had done an act of mercy!

Verden Leafglow turned away. Up the corridor, and beyond other connecting corridors, beyond the buried city of Xak Tsaroth, beyond the Pitt, spread a whole world that she had never seen in this life. It was out there, waiting for her.

Something clattered at her feet, and she looked down. The Shield of Reorx had fallen from her breast. With gentle talons, she picked it up and half-turned, holding it out to the gully dwarves. “Keep this,” the green dragon said. “When you have children, give it to them.”

She didn’t look back again. Somehow, the sight of the Highbulp standing atop a slain dragon, looking smug and arrogant and actually believing that he, personally, had killed the great beast, was a little more than Verden Leafglow really wanted to deal with.

But in her mind as she crept around the upward bend, a silent voice like the voice of iron whispered. The spear seen from aside passes by. But it is still a spear, Verden Leafglow. One day you will see my shield again. A gully dwarf—the unlikeliest of heroes—will bear it. In that time you will see a sign. When you do, you might choose to settle some old debts.

Vengeance? Verden wondered.

Balance, the iron voice corrected. From chaos, order may arise. But first there must be balance.