Lusis gestured at Nema, whose long blue skirts swirled around the doorframe and hurried toward a staircase to the streets. Bess caught the Madam and yanked her around with a growl. "Where do you think you're going, Aragennya?"
A loud squall sounded.
It seemed everyone looked up.
A large worm head dragon came to rest, perched atop the stout wooden roof of Kasia's secondary warehouse. It was still being evacuated as the monstrous beast settled on the stone tiles. Its serpentine neck pointed out at the barges, curiously. It watched the flood of elves onto the doc, watched their inhuman leaping from boat to boat, with a streamer of venom dripping out of its jaw.
"Male," said Ewon quietly. "Smaller. Venomous."
"The males are poisonous!" Lusis called out above the heads of her troop. "And dragon blood is sickening. If drops fall on you, wash them away quickly!"
Nema tried to run again.
Lusis caught hold of the woman and turned her on the docks.
As she came around, Nema spit nearly right into Lusis' eye. "Such vileness!" Lusis slammed the thin Madam against the wall of the Main Building and then shoved her sword under the woman's chin. She snapped, "Let me tell you, if you hurt him, I will not kill you, but I will cut off your face."
The woman squealed, "You goatish hag, I would never hurt him!"
Lusis reversed her sword and smacked the woman off the boards of the building, twice. "That, up there, is a dragon. It's drooling poison. That beast can tear a city apart. People are going to die today! What have you done, Nema?"
"I didn't mean for this!" She stared at the dragon, wide-eyed. "I didn't know about… a dragon."
"I have that much. What did you know?" Lusis asked.
Nema shook her head violently. "It's not what you think."
"Stupid woman," Bess yanked the Madam's shoulder, and the Bowman girl hailed Lusis, "Lady Lusis, this is a snake you have here. She tried to buy me for her houses when I turned twelve years of age. Her pretty words and her pleas are falsehoods, as will be any offer of aid or charity. She will say nothing to benefit you. She hates you. Face her, instead, with the one thing she loves."
"Very well," Lusis pulled and Nema flew off her feet, held down only by Bess, on her other side. They towed the woman to the tall, silvery pillar that was the Elfking. His crowned head turned a fraction to look down at the Council Woman.
Lusis hissed, "She won't answer me."
"Nema," the King's voice was a soft purr, "How has it come to this?"
"Come to what?" Released, she swept away tears from her long lashes. "I love you, and nothing has changed. Erebor's eternal lamps will fade to darkness at the end of the world. I will love you just the same, beautiful one. That is what it has come to."
The King turned, "Can you say that? You are about to destroy my Kingdom and your home." His gracious head bent to one side. His silvery hair spun out around his shoulder and Nema smiled with delight. She reached out to stroke it, and his arm, with her fingers. Lusis started forward and clear-headed Bess caught her back. Bowman's canny face was sure.
"Then do not resist," she said softly. "Lay down your arms, and they will show mercy."
"Who are they?" the King asked quietly.
"I will tell you everything," her hand smoothed his arm, "but break this meaningless vow of hers, and show me good faith: hurl the pretender of Angmar into the lake." Her gaze burned with resentment as she glanced at Lusis.
He didn't quite blink, rather, the King's eyelids narrowed on his silver eyes, and nearly shut for a brief moment. Lusis had never seen such an action among elves before. There was nothing more to the expression but that. She looked at the ice clumped water and wondered if she would be expected to take a dip for this King's gambit to work. She knew she would freely do so for the lives of the people of Lake Township. But she also stood with her heart hardening inside her. I am a weapon of the King, her mind churned.
The Elfking stood over Nema, took out his sword, and looked aside at Lusis. At the same time she felt Telfeth's slim hand close protectively on her arm.
"Nema Aragennya, the King of Mirkwood does not negotiate obedience." His sword flickered around at blurring speed and halted against the jump of Nema's startled throat. "I would rather strike your head straight off your faithless shoulders than subject the Istari's warm heart to a moment of such ice and cold. Do not tax me. Tell me-"
The male dragon made a long cackle and dove from the warehouse roof down in what Lusis thought was a breathtakingly lovely arch, to land on the docks.
On its back curled a small woman whose face was obscured by a horned and jaggedly armoured mask. "Come Nema. One can never turn one's back with you. Always, you find trouble."
Nema pointed at the Elfking, who had been pulled clear by his Elites, "But he is mine!"
"Not yet," said the young woman.
Now tendons stood out in Nema's long throat, "No more waiting! You promised me! You swore if I helped you in and out of the Township at will, you would give him to me. Beautiful and vulnerable, a pliable King, supple to my will. He waved a sword at me!" She swung her hand back at the Council, the poised Elites, and the stillness of the listening King.
"He is unready."
"Unready? He is engaged to that part-Angmar harlot!"
The woman in the dragon-seat laughed. "My dear girl, you are the harlot. She is the hero. We do not like heroes in these parts, of course, but let's not lie to ourselves."
Hearing this, Nema blanched and glanced at Lusis. She shouted. "Listen to me! I upheld my end of the bargain."
"That you did, Nema. That you did." The dragon-rider smiled. "Name your terms."
"I want her gone, and I want my clement King to me!"
The dragon shifted. The woman on its back raised a hand that held a long javelin. As the dragon turned, she leaned into a jab. Lusis felt Telfeth move more quickly than she could have on her own. The blade made a whirring in air, barreling straight for her face. She remembered shutting her eyes as she threw herself aside. She felt it on her cheek and yanked her head back.
It sliced through her braided hair and the wood wall thundered as it hit.
A roar sounded at the elven end of the dock.
Lusis opened her eyes and pulled away from the buried javelin just in time to see the flicker of shadow and motion that was the Elvenking going in. Blood sprayed in a high arc.
Telfeth caught hold of Lusis and dragged her under the javelin. They raced toward a sudden surge of elves across the docks. Nema's fingernails scraped along Lusis' arm. Bess Bowman ducked low and hooked the sharp end of her hammer in the woman's thick skirts. She jolted forward on the boards and her loop of motion turned Nema wildly off balance, tangling her legs.
She capsized, and, in the shredding of fabric, plunged into the Lake.
"Run!" Bess shouted and waved her hammer toward the opposite bank of the River.
Lusis saw the problem at once. Wind was roaring over the wings of a huge female worm-head whose hurtling bulk seemed only heartbeats away from them. She spared it no more attention for her footfalls pounded down toward the Council of Lake Township. She snagged as many as she could and got them running with her.
"Run you fool bankers!" Bess spurred others along. She bellowed at the building beside her as well, "Brace for dragon! Dragon incoming! Dragon!"
"Fires! Redd, the tree!" Lusis howled. "Rangers to the King's tree! They will try to take it with dragons and weaken the King!"
Almost as soon as she said so, a dragon arched down toward the end of the lake and tore into the top of the King's tree. Chunks of wood arced out in all directions. Redd howled in indignation, snatched a pike from one of the elves beside him, and hurled it at the dragon. The scales threw it off as if he'd hurled an acorn at it. The same elf snatched the pike as it whirled through air toward the ground.
Kasia grimaced. "The tree is his claim and our fountainhead of plenty in the land. How can we defend it against a dragon?!" Lusis grappled with the Master
of Boats and pulled him aside. A hunk of tree hurtled past him and cracked against the ground. Jan Kasia looked upon the dragon, bitterly. "Did Nema want to destroy this place to the last lock and stock?"
"Maybe," Lusis said quite seriously, "if you consider her share of it."
Ewon skidded to a stop before them, his blue eyes on the dragon overhead. The Elites were so fast, they fairly seemed to materialize around the tree. Then the mass of them swarmed the dragon. No one of them remained in its reach for longer than a moment, but several topped to earth, injured by the splutter of venom.
As the Elites cleared, the dragon rolled and crashed from the Silver Beech into the mouth of Forest River. It quickly righted itself and bounded up the embankment. It opened its wings and screamed, a horrible sound like massive sheets of metal twisting that rocketed through the field in which it stood, and tore down emptying city streets.
Lusis felt her blood fairly freeze.
Halfway through the field, Eithahawn, Osp, and many of the locals and Kasia's staff made for the barge to the Halls. The dragon turned its long neck and took them in, and when it roared, Eithahawn's long hair lifted off his shoulders. Avonne shrieked.
Bess Bowman whirled her hammer through air and charged into the field, howling.
Seconds behind came Lusis and her troop, they raced the elves toward Eithahawn, unsure what they might do once they reached him. None of them were prepared to fight dragons, even though Bess' family had a long history of doing exactly that. She hadn't the weaponry for it. But that didn't slow her any as she reached the worm-head. She swung her hammer widely at the beast. The dragon was so surprised that it yanked its head back from her on its snaking neck.
"This is the steel," she swung, "of the black arrow," she dodged the reaching head, "that felled," her hammer caught a long fang of the dragon and snapped it, "Smaug!"
The dragon yowled and she was thrown aside and rolled, shaking her head, back up to her unsteady feet. Her men pulled her out of easy reach.
The dragon raised up, swallowing air as it did so. When it crashed back down, the earth rocked, and its open mouth had taken on an eerie green glow.
"Venom!" the elves shouted. Telfeth dragged Lusis in the direction of the Kingdom's-seneschal. It seemed that everyone was scrambling, not the least of whom was Jan Kasia. He charged for his reaching daughter.
A blast, not unlike a powerful jet of steam, shot out from the dragon's jaws and blackened the snow. It withered the grass, blackened the earth, and was upon them so quickly that running proved futile. It was then that Eithahawn gestured a long hand in air, and a flash of light, pure and blue, arched across the field in which he stood. The jet of venom turned to harmless ash in air, and the elf-light rolled into the Silver Beech. The tree bloomed full of flowers in a matter of moments, its leaves coming to fruition. When the flower petals began to fall away from the beechnuts, wherever they touched dragon's skin, welts and boils appeared.
The thing cried out in pain and began to open its wings to flee.
"Thi!" shouted Ewon – now. And the Elites swarmed. Lusis rushed forward with them, for she had the same terrible idea.
The stink of blood fouled air as she closed in. An elf cried out to her left, having had a splash of venom strike the back of his hand. She saw the huge and crushing leg come around, grabbed the injured elf, and yanked him clear.
Her first stab ran up the one vulnerable seam she could see on the dragon – the small loose bit of flesh where the wing met the flank. She sliced it open and Elites flew in behind her. Telfeth caught hold of her and lifted her over the dragon's rolling back. The dragon screeched, its struggles became wilder and more dangerous, like a ship tossed in oceanic waves. Lusis was thrown off, and crashed into her older brother's chest as he hurried to catch her.
"Redd!" Elsenord threw the axe that had been dislodged back up to the huge Ranger.
"Clear out, Lusis!" Icar came tearing by. "It's rolling!"
But it didn't roll. It fell utterly still.
She looked through the blowing snow and steam at the lifeless dragon. At the end of its long neck, tall, pale, and resplendent, was the Elfking. He drew deep breaths into his chest, and tossed the dragon's severed head into the snow.
"Not bad," shouted the dragon-rider. Her big female dragon landed in the field, her long tail easily ploughing through the deserted camp of the Men of the Peaks. "Not bad for a sprite who is little more than the chattel of a harlot."
Lusis felt stung by that, seeing as she was his contract and not Nema. She pulled free of Remee and shouted, "Come down off that dragon and take off your mask, coward. We'll see who the harlot is then, I suspect."
"Oh?" the woman's helmet turned. "I am forced to wonder, Buckmaster, if you actually are as they claim. For I have heard such stories of you. I am warned, time and again of you. Surely, she is the stuff of the living legend as comprises the Elvenking in the Great Greenwood."
The elf-steel glinted in Lusis' hand as she raised it, "Take off the helmet… and come down here."
"Ah, but… what magic have you, as could stand against me." The dragon queen pointed one of her long spears at the Elfking. "And what magic have you?"
Eithahawn's long hand curled around Lusis' shoulder and he breathed, "We are no match for such a beast. A dragon-rider, or witch-queen, for that is the helm she wears, Lusis. Some slow poison has risen up from the cradle of Angmar." His chest rose and fell with panting, "Please take my father from this place. They are surely for him, Lusis. The mark upon his hand, and upon the hand of Lord Elrond, they are no coincidence."
"Lord Elrond." She blinked, "Where is Lord Elrond now?"
Kasia came puffing up to snatch his daughter from stupefied Osp. "It's more important to ask where," he coughed, "where the orcs and werewolves are, don't you think?"
"Werewolves," Osp's lips curled. He turned at Steed's racing return through the field.
The elf-blooded Ranger panted, "There is no hope for the barge. We need to make for the safety of the Vaults – the caverns the elves prepared for the safekeeping of Men – Osp. All of us. Now." He let off an arrow at a dragon flying overhead. His shot was on-point, but the shaft snapped. The head of the arrow simply ricocheted out into the lake. "Dammit."
"Take them," Lusis nodded to Steed. Telfeth pressed an extra quiver of arrows on the man.
Eithahawn stayed with her a wistful moment.
"They need a leader," Lusis told him. "What… whatever it was that you did, you shielded the tree with a wave of light, Eithahawn. You can protect them as they make their way to safety."
The Elfking's voice rolled out across the field, speaking Sindarin. The volley of water that had spun up from the Forest River now formed itself into a trio of large eagles and shot into the field. They slammed into the dragon and knocked it onto its side, unseating the dragon-rider.
She spat some terrible words, half-pinned by the dragon. It rolled up and backed away without her, and their foe came to her feet. "I summon you, my werewolves!"
They riffled through the trees. The first few huge, snarling beasts broke through, bloodied and full of rage. Lusis felt a sudden certainty that Helin's Raiment of elves had already engaged them.
Certainly, the masked-woman froze in dismay. "So… few?"
"Go," she shouted back at Eithahawn.
He gritted his teeth at the racing wolves and tore after Osp and Steed. Lusis turned and ran along the length of the field. She raised her sword and pointed at the tree line. Rangers, some her own, some Argus Samas' troop, lurched into a run with her. By the time they reached the middle of the field, they were a rough line, flying for the arriving wolves.
She watched Telfeth race up one of the dragon's wings and leap over its back to the other side. The elf maid meant to fill the hole in the line made by the dragon. But Lusis' plan was more devious. She pounded in at such high speed that the sudden course correction she made wrenched muscle, but, as she was set to flicker by the dragon's head, she suddenly hooked to the r
ight. This put her very close to where the queen had her sword out in her hand, and made ready for the approaching Elfking. Lusis controlled her breathing, and her timing.
The world, for her, slowed and quieted.
She heard her inhalations, and the exhalations of her pounding footfalls.
The large female dragon had seen her. Its head was slowly turning. Its round, black, beach-rock of eye fixed on her. Its jaws opened to snap her out of air. The queen raised her blade and made to step forward to block the falling sword blow of the King.
Lusis folded her knees and laid back in air. Her elven boots impacted snow and the leather she wore skipped across it. Her sword reached, reached, barely able to make the distance since the queen had stepped out, but the impact of the King's blade drove her smaller form back and down. The blade hooked into the dragon-rider's flexed knee. It passed through tendons and muscle, and found air on the other side. She thought it might had dove into the woman's left leg, but Lusis lost track of the damage she was doing, because the dragon's head snapped in air right above her. Its chin smacked against her body and bounced her off the snow and cold earth.
She squinted through tears of pain as she slid by under it.
She had no weapon in her left hand. So she balled up a fist and struck it under the jaw. "Curse you, evil thing! Do no harm here today!"
Then she was out the other side in an explosion of blood, skull, and brain matter. She shot over a bump and up to her feet, and seemed to sail over the snow without taking a step. The orc running at her fell down, terrified, and tried to scramble back from the assault of this unnatural woman standing and flying across the snow at him. In reality, she'd encountered the thin coating of ice the King's river-eagles had made, but Lusis stabbed the orc nearest her and kept going until she rolled to a stop in the blowing snow.
Redd made a loud and joyous bellow. "Rangers, ahead!"
Orcs were fleeing from them, heading for the trees, which left the werewolves confused and vulnerable to the glaives of elves, some of which had been handed out among Rangers.
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