The dragon was joined by another. They circled once, and began to descend in different directions. Shouting orders to the archers who mounted the rooftops, Amrhost cried, "Draw full back. Wait until they are right on top of us. Do not shoot until I give the order!"

The first dragon bore down on them, skimming the rooftops. There was a black figure astride it. A goblin. Amrhost raised his arm. The dragon was a mile away. A thousand feet. A hundred. "Fire and ready!" he shouted. There came the dull thrum of longbows. The dragon went down, a screaming fireball. There was a huge explosion and ball of fire as it crashed through several buildings. Half the arrows were notched as the second dragon burst from nowhere. "Fire!" Amrhost shouted reflexively. "Fire at will!"

The dragon pitched to the ground, injured and maddened by the hail of darts that kept piercing it, relentlessly. It began vomiting fire indiscriminately, to little effect. The goblin astride its back, sensing the dragon's madness, jumped down and tried to flee, only to be set upon by the enraged beast.

A group of dwarves, who had lain concealed behind a nearby building, seized the opportunity and set upon the dragon's neck with their axes. One of them was seized and crushed like an insect, but others fell upon the beast with renewed fury until it lay dead.




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