Twoflower hung on as best he could as Ninereeds swooped through a succession of caverns and soared around a spiral staircase that could easily have accommodated a retreating army. At the top they emerged into the more inhabited regions, the mirrors at every corridor corner brightly polished and reflecting a pale light.
I smell other dragons .
The wings became a blur and Twoflower was jerked back as the dragon veered and sped off down a side corridor like a gnat-crazed swallow. Another sharp turn sent them soaring out of a tunnel mouth in the side of a vast cavern. There were rocks far below, and up above were broad shafts of light from great holes near the roof. A lot of activity on the ceiling, too… as Ninereeds hovered, thumping the air with his wings, Twoflower peered up at the shapes of roosting beasts and tiny men-shaped dots that were somehow walking upside down.
This is a roosting hall , said the dragon in a satisfied tone.
As Twoflower watched, one of the shapes far above detached itself from the roof and began to grow larger…
Rincewind watched as Lio!rt’s pale face dropped away from him. This is funny, gibbered a small part of his mind, why am I rising?
Then he began to tumble in the air and reality took over. He was dropping to the distant, guano-speckled rocks.
His brain reeled with the thought. The words of the Spell picked just that moment to surface from the depths of his mind, as they always did in time of crisis. Why not say us, they seemed to urge. What have you got to lose?
Rincewind waved a hand in the gathering slipstream.
“Ashonai,” he called. The word formed in front of him in a cold blue flame that streamed in the wind.
He waved the other hand, drunk with terror and magic.
“Ebiris,” he intoned. The sound froze into a flickering orange word that hung beside its companion.
“Urshoring. Kvanti. Pythan. N’gurad. Feringomalee.” As the words blazed their rainbow colours around him he flung his hands back and prepared to say the eighth and final word that would appear in corruscating octarine and seal the spell. The imminent rocks were forgotten.
“—” he began.
The breath was knocked out of him, the spell scattered and snuffed out. A pair of arms locked around his waist and the whole world jerked sideways as the dragon rose out of its long dive claws grazing just for a moment the topmost rock on the Wyrmberg’s noisome floor. Twoflower laughed triumphantly.
“Got him!”
And the dragon, curving gracefully at the top of his flight, gave a lazy flip of his wings and soared through a cavemouth into the morning air.
At noon, in a wide green meadow on the lush tableland that was the top of the impossibly-balanced Wyrmberg, the dragons and their riders formed a wide circle. There was room beyond them for a rabble of servants and slaves and others who scratched a living here on the roof of the world, and they were all watching the figures clustered in the centre of the grassy arena.
The group contained a number of senior dragon lords, and among them were Lio!rt and his brother Liartes. The former was still rubbing his legs, with Small grimaces of pain. Slightly to one side stood Liessa and Hrun, with some of the woman’s own followers. Between the two factions stood the Wyrmberg’s hereditary Loremaster.
“As you know,” he said uncertainly, “the not-fully-late Lord of the Wyrmberg, Greicha the First, has stipulated that there will be no succession until one of his children feels himself—or as it might be, herself—powerful enough to challenge and defeat his or her siblings in mortal combat.”
“Yes”, yes, we know all that. Get on with it,” said a thin peevish voice from the air beside him.
The loremaster swallowed. He had never come to terms with his former master’s failure to expire properly. Is the old buzzard dead or isn’t he? he wondered.
“It is not certain,” he quavered, “whether it is allowable to issue a challenge by proxy—”
“It is, it is,” snapped Greicha’s disembodied voice. “It shows intelligence. Don’t take all day about it.”
“I challenge you,” said Hrun, glaring at the brothers, “both at once.”
Lio!rt and Liartes exchanged looks.
“You’ll fight us both together?” said Liartes, a tall, wiry man with long black hair.
“Yah.”
“That’s pretty uneven odds, isn’t it?”
“Yah. I outnumber you one to two.”
Lio!rt scowled. “You arrogant barbarian—”
“That just about does it,” growled Hrun. “I’ll—”
The Loremaster put out a blue-veined hand to restrain him.
“It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground,” he said, and paused while he considered the sense of this. “You know what I mean, anyway,” he hazarded, giving up, and added “As the challenged parties my lords Lio!rt and Liartes have choice of weapons.”
“Dragons,” they said together. Liessa snorted.
“Dragons can be used offensively, therefore they are weapons,” said Lio!rt firmly. “if you disagree we can fight over it.”
“Yah,” said his brother, nodding at Hrun.
The Loremaster felt a ghostly finger prod him in the chest “Don’t stand there with your mouth open,” said Greicha’s graveyard voice. “Just hurry up, will you?”
Hrun stepped back, shaking his head.
“Oh no,” he said. “Once was enough. I’d rather be dead than fight on one of those things.”
“Die, then,” said the Loremaster, as kindly as he could manage.
Lio!rt and Liartes were already striding back across the turf to where the servants stood waiting with their mounts. Hrun turned to Liessa. She shrugged.
“Don’t I even get a sword?” he pleaded. “A knife, even?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.” She suddenly looked smaller, all defiance gone. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I thought you said you’re sorry.”
“Don’t glare at me like that! I can imagine you the finest dragon to ride”
“ No! ”
The Loremaster wiped his nose on a handkerchief, held the little silken square aloft for a moment, then let it fall.
A boom of wings made Hrun spin around.
Lio!rt’s dragon was already airborne and circling around towards them. As it swooped low over the turf a billow of flame shot from its mouth, scoring a black streak across the grass that rushed towards Hrun.
At the last minute he pushed Liessa aside, and felt the wild pain of the flame on his arm as he dived for safety. He rolled as he hit the ground, and flipped on to his feet again while he looked around frantically for the other dragon. It came in from one side, and Hrun was forced to take a badly-judged standing jump to escape the flame.
The dragon’s tail whipped around as it passed and caught him a stinging blow across the forehead. He pushed himself upright, shaking his head to make the wheeling stars go away. His blistered back screamed pain at him.
Lio!rt came in for a second run, but slower this time to allow for the big man’s unexpected agility. As the ground drifted up he saw the barbarian standing stock still, chest heaving, arms hanging loosely by his sides. An easy target. As his dragon swooped away Lio!rt turned his head, expecting to see a dreadfully big cinder. There was nothing there. Puzzled, Lio!rt turned back.
Hrun, heaving himself over the dragon’s shoulder scales with one hand and beating out his flaming hair with the other, presented himself to his view. Lio!rt’s hand flew to his dagger, but pain had sharpened Hrun’s normally excellent reflexes to needle point. A backhand blow hammered into the dragonlord’s wrist, sending the dagger arcing away towards the ground, and another caught the man full on the chin.
The dragon, carrying the weight of two men, was only a few yards above the grass. This turned out to be fortunate, because at the moment Lio!rt lost consciousness the dragon winked out of existence. Liessa hurried across the grass and helped Hrun stagger to his feet. He blinked at her.
“What happened? What happened?” he said thickly.
“That was really fantastic,” she said. “The way you turned that somersault in mid-air and everything.”
“Yah, but what happened?”
“It’s rather difficult to explain—”
Hrun peered up at the sky. Liartes, by far the most cautious of the two brothers, was circling high above them.
“Well, you’ve got about ten seconds to try,” he said “The dragons—”
“Yah?”
“They’re imaginary.”
“Like all these imaginary burns on my arm, you mean?”
“Yes. No!” she shook her head violently. “I’ll have to tell you later!”
“Fine, if you can find a really good medium,” snapped Hrun. He glared up at Liartes, who was beginning to descend in wide sweeps.
“Just listen, will you? Unless my brother is conscious his dragon can’t exist, it’s got no pathway through to this—”
“Run!” shouted Hrun. He threw her away from him and flung himself flat on the ground as Liartes’ dragon thundered by, leaving another smoking scar across the turf.
While the creature sought height for another sweep Hrun scrambled to his feet and set off at a dead run for the woods at the edge of the arena. They were sparse, little more than a wide and overgrown hedge, but at least no dragon would be able to fly through them.
It didn’t try. Liartes brought his mount in to land on the turf a few yards away and dismounted casually. The dragon folded its wings and poked its head in among the greenery, while its master leaned against a tree and whistled tunelessly.
“I can burn you out,” said Liartes, after a while. The bushes remained motionless.
“Perhaps you’re in that holly bush over there?” The holly bush became a waxy ball of flame.
“I’m sure I can see movement in those ferns.”
The ferns became mere skeletons of white ash.
“You’re only prolonging it, barbarian. Why not give in now? I’ve burned lots of people; it doesn’t hurt a bit,” said Liartes, looking sideways at the bushes.
The dragon continued through the spinney, incinerating every likely-looking bush and clump of ferns. Liartes drew his sword and waited.
Hrun dropped from a tree and landed running. Behind him the dragon roared and crashed through the bushes as it tried to turn around, but Hrun was running, running, with his gaze fixed on Liartes and a dead branch in his hands.
It is a little known but true fact that a two legged creature can usually beat a four legged creature over a short distance, simply because of the time it takes the quadruped to get its legs sorted out. Hrun heard the scrabble of claws behind him and then an ominous thump. The dragon had half-opened its wings and was trying to fly.
As Hrun bore down on the dragonlord Liartes’ sword came up wickedly, to be caught on the branch. Then Hrun cannoned into him and the two men sprawled on the ground.
The dragon roared.
Liartes screamed as Hrun brought a knee upwards with anatomical precision, but managed a wild blow that rebroke the barbarian’s nose for him.
Hrun kicked away and scrambled to his feet, to find himself looking up into the wild horse-face of the dragon, its nostrils distended.
He lashed out with a foot and caught Liartes, who was trying to stand up, on the side of his head. The man slumped.
The dragon vanished. The ball of fire that was billowing towards Hrun faded until, when it reached him, it was no more than a puff of warm air. Then there was no sound but the crackle of burning bushes.
Hrun slung the unconscious dragonlord over his shoulder and set off at a trot back to the arena. Halfway there he found Lio!rt sprawled on the ground, one leg bent awkwardly. He stooped and, with a grunt, hoisted the man on to his vacant shoulder.
Liessa and the Loremaster were waiting on a raised dais at one end of the meadow. The dragonwoman had quite recovered her composure now, and looked levelly at Hrun as he threw the two men down on the steps before her. The people around her were standing in deferential poses, like a court.
“Kill them,” she said.
“I kill in my own time,” he said. “In any case, killing unconscious people isn’t right.”
“I can’t think of a more opportune time,” said the Loremaster. Liessa snorted.
“Then I shall banish them,” she said. “Once they are beyond the reach of the Wyrmberg’s magic then they’ll have no Power. They’ll be simply brigands. Will that satisfy you?”
“Yes.”
“I am surprised that you are so merciful, Hrun.”
Hrun shrugged. “A man in my position, he can’t afford to be anything else, he’s got to consider his image.” He looked around. “Where’s the next test, then?”
“I warn you that it is perilous. If you wish, you may leave now. If you pass the test, however, you will become lord of the Wyrmberg and, of course, my lawful husband.”
Hrun met her gaze. He thought about his life, to date.