The demon raised its dreadful, fang-filled muzzle with a great howl, and it struggled, heaving its vast shoulders this way and that as it desperately tried to wrench itself free of the shape which enclosed it.
‘Does this mean we have to fight them both?’ Zakath asked Garion in a shaking voice.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Garion, have you lost your mind?’
‘It’s what we do, Zakath. At least Poledra has limited Mordja’s power – I don’t know how, but she has. Since he doesn’t have his full powers, we at least have a chance against him. Let’s get at it.’ Garion clapped down his visor and strode forward, swinging his flaming sword before him.
Silk and the others had separated, and they were approaching the dragon from the sides and from the rear.
As he and Zakath warily moved in, Garion saw something that might be an even greater advantage. The melding of the primitive mind of the dragon and the age-old one of the demon was not complete. The dragon, with stubborn stupidity, could only focus her single eye upon those enemies who stood directly before her, and she charged on, unmindful of Garion’s friends moving toward her flanks. Mordja, however, was all too much aware of the dangers advancing from the sides and from the rear. The division of the unnaturally joined mind of the vast, bat-winged creature gave it a kind of uncharacteristic hesitation, indecision even. Then Silk, the sword of a fallen Grolim in his hands, darted in from the rear and chopped manfully at the writhing tail.
The dragon bellowed in pain, and flames burst from her gaping mouth. Overriding what little control Mordja exerted upon her, she wheeled clumsily to respond to Silk’s attack. The little thief, however, skipped nimbly out of her way even as the others dashed in to attack her flanks. Durnik rhythmically hammered on one exposed flank while Toth chopped no less rhythmically at the other.
A desperate plan came unbidden to Garion as he saw that the dragon had turned almost completely around to meet Silk’s attack. ‘Work on her tail!’ he shouted to Zakath. He backed off a few paces to give himself running room, then lumbered forward, his movements made awkward by his armor. He leaped over the slashing tail and ran up the dragon’s back.
‘Garion!’ he heard Ce’Nedra scream in horror. He ignored her frightened cry and continued to scramble up the scaly back until he was finally able to plant his feet on the dragon’s shoulders between the bat-like wings. The dragon, he knew, would not fear or even feel the strokes of his burning sword. Mordja, however, would. He raised Iron-grip’s sword and struck a two-handed blow at the base of the scaly neck. The dragon, weaving her fearsome head and breathing fire and smoke as she sought out those who were attacking her, paid no heed. Mordja, however, screamed in agony as the power of the Orb seared him. That was their advantage. Left to herself, the dragon was incapable of meeting their many-pronged attack. It was the added intelligence of the Demon Lord that made her so dangerous in this situation, but Garion had seen evidence in the past that the Orb could inflict intolerable agony upon a demon. In that respect, it had even more power than did a God. Demons fled from the presence of the Gods, but they could not flee from the chastisement of Aldur’s Orb. ‘Hotter!’ he commanded the stone as he raised his blade again. He struck and struck and struck again. The great blade no longer bounced off the dragon’s scales but seared its way through them to bite into the dragon’s flesh. The half-indistinct image of Mordja, encased in the dragon, shrieked as the sword cut into his neck even as it slashed at that of the dragon. Almost in mid-stroke, Garion reversed his sword and, grasping the cross-piece of the hilt, drove it down into the dragon’s back between the vast shoulders.
Mordja screamed.
Garion wrenched the sword back and forth, tearing the wound even wider.
Even the dragon felt that. She screamed.
Garion raised his sword again, and once again sank it into the bleeding wound, deeper this time.
The dragon and Mordja screamed in unison.
Ludicrously, Garion remembered a time in his bygone youth when he had watched old Cralto digging holes for fence posts. He consciously imitated the old farmworker’s rhythmic motion, raising his reversed sword high overhead as Cralto had his shovel, and driving the blade down into the dragon’s flesh. With each driving blow the wound grew deeper, and blood gushed and spurted from the quivering flesh. He momentarily saw the white of bone and altered his point of aim. Not even Iron-grip’s sword could shear through that tree-trunk sized backbone.
His friends had momentarily fallen back, astonished at the Rivan King’s insane-appearing audacity. Then they saw that the dragon’s almost serpentlike head was raised high in the air as she tried desperately to writhe her neck around to bite at the tormenter digging a huge hole between her shoulder-blades. They rushed back into the attack, hacking and stabbing at the softer scales covering the dragon’s throat, belly and flanks. Darting in and out quickly to avoid being trampled by the huge beast, Silk, Velvet, and Sadi attacked the unprotected underside of the distracted dragon. Durnik was steadily pounding on the dragon’s side, methodically breaking ribs one by one as Toth chopped at the other side. Belgarath and Poledra, once again as wolves, were gnawing on the writhing tail.
Then Garion saw what he had been searching for – the hawser-like tendon leading down into one of the dragon’s huge wings. ‘Hotter!’ he shouted again at the Orb.
The sword flared anew, and this time Garion did not strike. Instead he set the edge of his weapon against the tendon and began to saw back and forth with it, burning through the tough ligament rather than chopping. The tendon, finally severed, snapped, its cut ends slithering snakelike back into the bleeding flesh.
The bellow of pain that emerged from that flame-filled mouth was shattering. The dragon lurched, then fell, thrashing its huge limbs in terrible agony.
Garion was thrown clear when the dragon fell. Desperately he rolled, trying to get away from those flailing claws. Then Zakath was there, yanking him to his feet. ‘You’re insane, Garion!’ he shouted in a shrill voice. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Garion said in a tight voice. ‘Let’s finish it.’
Toth, however, was already there. In the very shadow of the dragon’s huge head he stood, his feet planted wide apart, chopping at the base of the dragon’s throat. Great gushes of blood spurted from severed arteries as the huge mute, his heavy shoulders surging, sought to find and cut the barrel-like windpipe. Despite the concerted efforts of Garion and his friends, there had been little more than pain before, Toth’s single-minded attack, however, threatened the dragon’s very life. Were he to succeed in severing or even broaching the thick gristle of that windpipe, the dragon would die, choking for lack of breath or drowning in her own blood. She clawed her way back onto her forelegs and reared high over the huge mute.