Then Eriond stepped out from behind a tree trunk and walked out into the center of the clearing as calmly as if he were merely taking a midmorning stroll.
"Eriond!" Polgara cried as, with a triumphant shriek, the dragon swooped down into the clearing. Talons extended, she struck at the unprotected young man. Her beak gaped, and vast billows of sooty orange flame poured forth to engulf him. With fear for the boy clutching at his heart, Garion ran forward with his sword aloft; but even as he ran at the huge beast, he felt the sudden familiar surge of Aunt Pol's will, and Eriond vanished as she translocated him to safety.
The earth shook as the dragon struck the ground, and her vast roar of frustration filled the clearing with the ruddy light of her fire. She was enormous. Her half-folded, scaly-looking wings reared above her higher than any house. Her lashing tail was thicker than the body of a horse, and her curved, tooth-studded beak was dreadful. A sickening stench filled the clearing each time she belched forth her billows of flame. By the light of her fire, Garion could clearly see her slitted yellow eyes. From what Belgarath had said, he expected a look of dull stupidity, but the burning eyes that searched the clearing were alert and filled with an intense, frightening eagerness.
Then Durnik and Toth were upon her. They dashed from the shelter of the trees, Durnik with his axe and Toth with the smith's sharp-bladed spade, and methodically they began to chop at the dragon's writhing tail. She shrieked, belching flame into the air, and began to claw at the sodden forest loam with her talons.
"Look out!" Silk shouted. "She's turning!"
The dragon whirled awkwardly, her wings beating at the air and her talons throwing up huge clots of earth, but Durnik and Toth had already run back into the shelter of the trees. As she swept the clearing with her burning eyes, Silk nimbly darted out behind her with his short, broad-bladed Drasnian sword in his hand. Again and again he drove it into the base of her huge tail. Then, as she floundered around to meet his attack, he danced clear to regain the safety of the surrounding forest.
And then Eriond stepped into the clearing again. Without any sign of fear but with a grave expression on his face, he walked out of the trees and moved directly toward the raging beast. "Why are you doing this?" he asked her calmly. "You know that this isn't the time or place."
The dragon almost seemed to flinch back at the sound of his voice, and her burning eyes grew wary.
"You can't avoid what's going to happen," he continued seriously. "None of us can—and you can't change it with this kind of foolishness. You'd better go. We really don't want to have to hurt you."
The dragon faltered, and Garion suddenly sensed that she was not only baffled, but that she was also afraid. Then she seemed to clench herself. With an enraged bellow, she sent out a vast sheet of flame from her gaping beak to engulf Eriond, who made no effort to escape.
Every nerve in Garion's body shrieked at him to run to his young friend's aid, but he found that he could not move so much as a muscle. He stood, sword in hand, locked in a kind of helpless stasis.
As the billow of flame subsided, Eriond emerged from it unscathed and with an expression of regretful firmness on his face. "I'd hoped that we wouldn't have to do this," he said to the dragon, "but you aren't giving us too much choice, you know." He sighed. "All right, Belgarion," he said, "make her go away—but please try not to hurt her too much."
With a kind of surging exultation, as if those words had somehow released him from all restraint, Garion ran directly up behind the dragon with his suddenly blazing sword and began to rain blows on her unprotected back and tail. The awful reek of burning flesh filled the clearing, and the dragon shrieked in pain. She flailed her huge tail in agony, and it was more to protect himself from that ponderous lashing than out of any conscious effort to injure the beast that Garion swung a massive blow with Iron-grip's sword. The sharp edge sheared effortlessly through scale and flesh and bone, smoothly lopping off about four feet of the writhing tip of the tail.
The shriek which thundered from the dragon's beak was shattering, and her fire boiled skyward in a huge cloud. A great jet of streaming blood spurted from the wound the sword had left, splashing into Garion's face and momentarily blinding him.
"Garion!" Polgara shouted. "Look out!"
He clawed at his eyes to clear away the hot blood. With terrifying agility, the dragon whirled, her talons tearing at the earth and her wings thundering. The Orb exploded into intense fire, and its blue flame ran anew up the sword, hissing and smoking as it burned away the thick blood which besmeared the blade. In the very act of striking at him with her beak, the dragon flinched back from the incandescence of the burning sword. Garion raised his blade, and once again the dragon flinched, retreating step by step across the wet clearing.
She was afraid! For some reason, the blue fire of the sword frightened her! Shrieking and trying desperately to defend herself with furnace like gusts of fire, she backed away, her wounded tail still spraying the clearing with blood. There was clearly something about the fire of the Orb which she found unbearable. Once again filled with that wild surge of excitement, Garion raised his sword, and a searing pillar of fire erupted from its tip. He began to lash at the dragon with that whip of flame and heard the crackling sizzle as it seared her wings and shoulders. Fiercely he flogged her with the flame of his sword until, with a howl of agony, she turned and fled, tearing the earth with her talons and desperately flapping the huge sails of her wings.
Ponderously, she hurled herself into the air and clawed at the night with her wings, struggling to lift her vast bulk. She crashed through the upper branches of the firs at the edge of the clearing, fighting in panic to rise above the forest until she was clear. Shrieking, she flew off toward the southwest, filling the murky air with seething clouds of fire and streaming blood behind her as she went.
A stunned silence fell over them all as they looked up at the great beast fleeing through the rainy sky.
Polgara, her face dreadfully pale, came out from under the trees to confront Eriond. "Just exactly what were you thinking of?" she asked him in a terribly quiet voice.
"I don't quite follow you, Polgara," he replied, looking puzzled.
She controlled herself with an obvious effort. "Doesn't the word 'danger' have any meaning to you at all?"
"You mean the dragon? Oh, she wasn't really all that dangerous."
"She did sort of bury you up to the eyebrows in fire, Eriond," Silk pointed out.