“When it goes for the body,” Bulmammon whispered to the private, “I will set off a brilliant flash of magical light in its eyes. Keep yours turned away. Then, I’ll tie it up with the rope, cinching the beast to the trunk of the tree. Are you a fast runner?”
“I’ve kept pace with you, Captain,” replied the private.
“Once the creature is held tight, you take the rope from me and run it around the dragon as many times as the rope will go. Got that?”
Private Baeron nodded.
Then it came, the shuffling rumble of something large and injured picking its way through the scrub plants and down the slope. By the sound of it, the dragon moved slowly, both wounded and watchful. This baby dragon might have been starving and maimed, but its desperation would make it all the more dangerous-a cornered beast.
The sound of the approach grew nearer; the throb shook the mountain. Then, from around a black brake of briars, the wounded wyrm appeared. First came a taloned foreleg, its sinews tight with pain and its claw curled in a ball. That leg was not made to bear weight, but it had done so for some time now, perhaps compensating for a wounded haunch. Into the puff of dust sent up by the foot came the murky outline of a hunger-ravaged breastbone, and another foreleg, this one drawn up beneath the shadow of a gaunt shoulder blade. Above the breastbone, a serpentine neck curled, holding the head up among the shadows of the stars. The moment-glow of fire within the beast’s belly, licking up past gullet, tongue, and teeth, pierced the darkness above the shoulders.
As it moved forward, it cast a spell, seemed to drag the shadows along with it.
“A simple obscuring glamour,” noted Bulmammon. “It will not stand up to my blinding light.”
The dragon limped toward the tree. Using his night vision, Bulmammon watched his ring of Sivak pickets slowly tighten around the beast. The Aurak’s breathing slowed, a true predator lying in wait for its prey, and he laid a scaly claw on the tense arm of the private. “Wait. Not yet.”
They watched as the magic-shrouded monster sidled toward the dangling corpse. Its fog of darkness could not conceal its starved and miserable state.
“The ropes will hold it,” Bulmammon muttered in assurance to himself. “The ropes will bind it to the tree until dragonfire has ignited the whole hilltop. It will light its own pyre.”
At last, the slack-skinned creature was beneath the dripping corpse. It sat down in the dust, lifting its foreclaws from the ground as it craned its neck. The obscuring darkness around it extended upward to envelop the corpse. The rope and the bough shuddered once under terrific weight.
“Not yet,” said Bulmammon, his claws digging into the young man’s flesh.
The bough shook twice more, and then sprang loose, whipping two severed cords into the air. The sound of crunching bone filled the air.
“Now!” the assassin cried.
Bulmammon kept his tight grip on Karl’s arm, nearly yanking the private off his feet as the draconian bolted forward. In his other claw, the draconian held the end of the grapple rope. In moments, the draconian and the messenger had crossed halfway to the dragon.
Within the shadow, the chewing stopped, and wide intelligent eyes turned toward the two attackers.
Bulmammon gasped out a single arcane word, and with a blue-white pop, a lightning-bright ball of energy flashed into and out of existence around the dragon’s head.
Captain Bulmammon shut his eyes. When the pop was over and darkness swooped back in upon the hilltop, the draconian swung around. He glimpsed, for one moment, the starved head of the baby dragon. It hovered in white-eyed shock, the half-masticated corpse of the Sivak hanging in its open mouth. The dragon’s prickly ears stood upright, and its foreclaws were balled in terror. Fire licked between the dragon’s teeth.
Bulmammon halted, yanking the private backward. A hot sizzling roar belched out into the night. Dragonfire. If Bulmammon hadn’t stopped him, Private Baeron would have been in the burning heart of the blaze. Then the fire was gone and the captain darted forward, dragged the private with him.