The Seeress of Kell

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 batlike 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 crosspiece 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 farm worker'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-trunksized 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 tine 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