by Alex Stewart
“That sounds reasonable,” Drago temporized. Graymane, he was sure, wasn’t about to give up attempting to fulfill his oath, and wouldn’t take kindly to his ally switching sides. If he ever found out, of course. Drago didn’t have to tell him; but the elf seemed very good at what he did, and would probably work it out for himself given enough time. And if he did, would be in even less of a forgiving mood. On the other hand, he’d given his word to help Graymane achieve his objective; but if the elf assassinated Gorash now, before he’d dispatched his message to Fairhaven, he couldn’t be entirely sure that the bandit’s followers wouldn’t be after him for revenge. After all, he’d really only been hoping that killing Gorash if he couldn’t find any other way would be enough to dissuade his agents, but now he’d met the goblin in person, he could see how charismatic a leader he was: he definitely seemed the sort someone would want to avenge, rather than taking advantage of the resulting power vacuum like an ordinary bandit’s lackeys would.
Then matters moved out of his hands entirely. The curtains dividing the tent twitched, and a stealthy figure slipped out between them. Graymane crept toward the table, signaling for silence as his eyes met Drago’s.
“Splendid.” Gorash nodded affably, and took another mouthful of wine. “If you’ve had enough to eat, we’d better get you back. It’ll be sunrise soon, and we don’t want anyone to miss you.”
“I guess not,” Drago said, his sluggish mind still trying to wrap itself around this latest unexpected development. The incongruous thought occurred to him that his shift in the mine today would be even more grueling after the excitement of the night, and an almost complete lack of sleep. As casually as he could, he dropped his hand to his boot, not entirely sure what having a knife in his hand would accomplish at this point, other than providing some reassurance, or even which of the two people facing him he’d be prepared to use it on. But, as he’d expected, his fingertips brushed against an empty sheath, taking the decision out of his hands.
“We’ll let you have your weapons back when you leave, of course,” Gorash said, picking up on the movement as astutely as Drago had suspected he would. Graymane nodded, apparently taking Drago’s search for a blade as an attempt to divert his prey’s attention, and took another stealthy step toward the oblivious goblin. A knife was in his hand, held ready to slit the bandit’s throat; another pace and he’d be ready to strike.
Drago just couldn’t let him. Whatever Gorash’s crimes, he should be given a chance to answer for them; this wasn’t justice as he understood it, just cold-blooded murder, no different from the one Graymane was supposedly here to avenge. He began to jump down from the chair, already knowing he would be too late to intervene by the time he got round the obstructing table.
But before his boots even hit the rug, Gorash was moving, twisting aside, and dashing the contents of his goblet into the elf’s face. He must have been aware of Graymane’s approach the whole time, watching it reflected in the silver surface of the drinking vessel.
Graymane flinched reflexively, blinking his eyes clear, but was too experienced to drop the dagger, turning to stab at Gorash’s torso instead. But the bandit was too quick, pivoting out of the way of the thrust, seizing the elf’s wrist, and pulling him off balance. Turning again, he got behind the blade and Graymane’s extended arm, placed his free hand on the elf’s elbow, and pushed out and down. Trapped by the momentum of his own attack, Graymane plunged to the floor; Gorash immediately went down too, his knees landing on the elf’s ribcage with an audible huff of expelled breath. He might even have cracked a rib or two, Drago thought, but doubted that either combatant would even have noticed yet if he had, swept away as they both were on a riptide of adrenaline.
Astonishingly, Graymane had kept hold of the knife, and was attempting to twist round and use it, despite what must have been the agonizing lock Gorash was maintaining on his wrist. The goblin sighed, transferred a knee to Graymane’s elbow, and shifted his now free arm to the elf’s neck, applying a brutally efficient stranglehold instead.
“Wait,” Drago said, as unwilling to stand by and see Gorash murder Graymane as he had been the other way around a few seconds before. “You don’t have to kill him.”
“No, but I want to.” Gorash kept the pressure on unrelentingly. Graymane was clearly weakening, thrashing more feebly than he had been.
“He might have information you can use,” Drago persisted, casting around for a weapon of some kind. If he jumped Gorash unarmed it could only end one way, probably quickly, as the guards outside responded to a shout for help. The heaviest thing he could see was the wine flagon, which was still mostly full, and he went up on tiptoes to snag it from the table as he skirted the piece of furniture.
“I’m sure he has,” Gorash replied, in surprisingly reasonable tones. “And I’m sure he’d rather die than confide any of it to me. Isn’t that right?” He released the pressure on Graymane’s neck just enough to uncork a stream of expletives which almost scorched the rug. “Yes, I thought so.” He reapplied the stranglehold, choking off the invective with a final gurgle.
With a pang of regret at having to waste so exceptional a vintage, Drago swung the flagon at Gorash’s head; but before it could connect, he was thrown to the floor by a heavy blow against his back which left him sprawling.
“I’ll take that,” a clipped feminine voice said, snatching the flagon from his hand smoothly enough to keep most of its contents where they belonged, “before you make an unconscionable mess of my carpet.”
Drago rolled onto his back, preparing to leap to his feet, and checked the motion suddenly as he became aware of the tip of a sword resting an inch above the hollow of his throat. The elven woman holding it placed the flagon delicately back on the table with her other hand, and glanced at Gorash with a hint of amusement.
“I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”
“Be right with you, darling.” Gorash tightened his grip on Graymane’s neck a little more, eliciting a rasping noise which didn’t sound at all healthy. “Just got someone to finish.”
The elven woman sighed, with what looked to Drago like genuinely fond exasperation. “We’ve talked about this, dear. We don’t kill people in the tent. The stains are so hard to get out of the rugs.”
“Right as always, my love.” Gorash dropped what was left of Graymane, stood, looking faintly abashed, and kicked the fallen dagger across the room. Graymane stayed where he was, gasping for breath, and looking considerably the worse for wear. “But you know how annoying it is when somebody tries to assassinate you.”
“Indeed.” Violet eyes, framed by raven hair, stared down at Drago with evident distaste. “But you don’t have to execute them yourself, you know. We have soldiers for that.” She turned toward the tent flap, and raised her voice. “Boys, get in here. Couple of traitors to hang.”
Immediately, the guards appeared from outside; the goblin who’d stuck his head in a few moments before, and, to Drago’s surprise, another elf. Both were dressed in mail, with the oak tree motif emblazoned across their surcoats.
“Not that one.” Gorash indicated Drago with a casual wave. “He only wanted to talk to me.”
“He was doing a lot more than talking when I walked in,” the elf woman demurred, but to Drago’s relief she put up her sword anyway, returning it to the scabbard at her waist. “He was about to stove your head in with a flagon of the Kemmian Reserve.”
“Then it’s lucky you got back when you did,” Gorash agreed. “It would have been a real shame to waste it.” He poured himself a replacement for the drink he’d thrown at Graymane, and a second goblet for his wife; Drago, to his distinct lack of surprise, was pointedly excluded. When his attention returned to the gnome, he seemed considerably less affable than before. “And did you have any particular reason for doing that, or were you just lying to me about not being an assassin for hire?”
“I wasn’t lying,” Drago said, “but you were about to kill him. I had to do something.”
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“Why?” The elven woman’s voice was hard with suspicion. “Were you working together?”
“Never seen this gnome before in my life,” Graymane rasped, as the soldiers dragged him to his feet.
Drago shook his head. Graymane was probably about to be lynched, and there didn’t seem anything he could do about that, but if he was going to survive the next few minutes himself he was going to have to be completely honest. That was the only thing he could be reasonably certain Gorash would respond to favorably, given their previous conversation. His wife, on the other hand, was a lot harder to read.
“I appreciate the gesture,” he told Graymane, “but that isn’t quite true.” He turned back to Gorash and the elven woman. “When we found we were both looking for you we agreed to work together, although he insisted that he be the one to kill you. Something about an oath he’d sworn.”
“Then the sooner he’s in the ground the better,” the woman said, addressing Gorash directly. “If he’s taken an oath to kill you, he won’t stop trying as long as he’s drawing breath. You know what my people are like.”
“Your people?” Graymane glared at her. “You’re no Marcher. If you were, you’d strike him down in a heartbeat for murdering our queen.”
“Really?” The woman looked back at him, amusement and surprise struggling for the possession of her face again. “And which queen would that be?”
“You know damn well,” Graymane growled. “Ariella the Third, slain by treachery in the breach of truce. By this honorless caitiff!”
“I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed,” the woman said dryly. “My husband is a man of his word, and has never breached the terms of a truce in his life. And the last time I looked, I was definitely not dead, despite the best efforts of my sapsucking brother.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I always thought you’d be taller.”
Drago gaped at her, feeling the ground falling out from beneath his feet for what seemed like the hundredth time since his impulsive offer to help Raegan find out who’d been targeting the bounty hunters of Fairhaven. None of the assumptions he’d started out with at the beginning of his journey seemed to be correct. Come to that, was this woman even telling the truth about being Ariella Stargleam, the missing queen?
That, at least, he could verify for himself. Ignoring Graymane’s skeptical expostulations, Gorash’s assurances that it was indeed so, and the would-be helpful interpolations of the two soldiers, he took out his purse. The fact that no one had taken it away from him while he was unconscious, and that it still held several of the gold coins he’d been given by Greenleaf, inclined him to believe the story; no self-respecting bandit he’d ever met would have hesitated to relieve an unconscious prisoner of everything of value they had about them. Fishing out the gold pieces the elven go-between had given him, he sorted through them rapidly.
Most bore the profile of the old king, Ariella and Lamiel’s father, and the newest that of Lamiel Stargleam himself; but a couple had been struck before Ariella disappeared, and the resemblance between the portrait on the coins and the woman standing a few feet away from him was surely too striking to be merely a coincidence.
“It’s true. Look.” He held one of the gold pieces up where Graymane could see it, flaring brightly as it caught the light from the candles illuminating the tent.
After glancing from the coin to the woman and back again a couple of times, Graymane nodded, and attempted to kneel, in spite of the soldiers holding him up; after a moment he simply bowed his head instead. “Your Majesty. Elerath Graymane, at your service.”
“Graymane?” The name seemed to mean something to Ariella and the elven guard, who gave his prisoner a wary glance, although Gorash seemed to be as unfamiliar with his reputation as Drago was. “I always thought you’d be taller.”
“A lot of people do, Your Majesty.”
“Hm.” Ariella nodded briskly. “Let’s get one thing straight. If I decide not to hang you for attempting to murder my husband, you’ll have to knock off that ‘Majesty’ stuff. We’re not in a sodding ballroom. Are we clear?”
Graymane nodded, a trifle stiffly. “We are, yo—my lady.”
Ariella sighed, and shook her head. “Nearly as bad. I’ve got a name, so just use it, all right? You can be as formal as you like once I’m back on the throne.”
“As you wish.” Graymane nodded again, even more awkwardly if possible, but didn’t take her up on the offer. “And may I ask how you’re planning to achieve that? You’re a long way from the palace, and what I saw out there isn’t much of an army.”
“It’ll just have to do,” Ariella said. “We’re gathering our strength slowly. That’s why we’re letting that usurping weasel think his plot worked, and I’m dead.”
“The only problem with that,” Drago said, “is that he isn’t going to stop sending assassins after your husband. If you were really dead, that would make him the rightful king of the Marches, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” Gorash agreed, glancing at him with renewed respect. “Which is why Lamiel’s so desperate to see me put in the ground. So far as he knows, my claim to the throne’s a lot stronger than his.”
“A goblin on the throne of the Marches?” Graymane burst out laughing, so hard that he leaned into the guards holding him for additional support. “The traditionalists would have seizures at the very idea!”
“Quite,” Ariella said, bitterly. “They objected strongly enough to me even opening negotiations with Gorash.”
“Including your brother?” Drago asked. He was beginning to piece the whole sordid story together, but his record of accurate deduction so far wasn’t all that encouraging—he wanted confirmation.
“Especially her brother,” Gorash said. “He’s about as traditional as an elf can get. So far as he’s concerned, anyone without pointed ears is just talking livestock.”
Drago thought of the Marchers he’d met on his way up the Geltwash, and nodded, recalling their arrogance and unshakable belief in their innate superiority. And those had been the ones willing to mingle with the other races; he could well believe the stay-at-homes were even worse.
“But he went along with it?” Graymane asked. The guards had let him go, at an almost imperceptible nod from the queen, and he seated himself, a little carefully, in one of the chairs. Still on the mend from a near-fatal choking himself, Drago couldn’t help but sympathize.
“Of course he did. I’m the queen.” Ariella smiled, without much discernible humor. “And so long as I allowed him enough money to indulge his little hobbies, he kept out of the way, and his opinions to himself. He never really wanted the throne; it’s too much like hard work.”
“Then why did he mount a coup d’état?” Drago asked, already sure of the answer.
For the first time, a faint frown of puzzlement appeared on the queen’s face. “I’m not really sure. The last time we spoke, I told him the negotiations were going well, that was all.”
“Very well,” Gorash agreed. “To be honest I never expected them to come to anything, let alone bring me the love of my life.” He smiled at his wife, in a manner which would have knocked a honey bee into a diabetic coma.
“Likewise.” Ariella returned the look, with a simper the like of which Drago had last seen on the face of a besotted adolescent.
“And did you mention the, ah, personal dimension to these negotiations?” he asked.
“Of course not.” Ariella shook her head emphatically. “That would have been playing right into the traditionalists’ hands. They’d say I’d made too many concessions because I was thinking with my heart instead of my head.”
Drago doubted that: in his experience people attributed what they saw as misjudgments of that kind to the influence of another organ entirely, although he didn’t think it would be tactful to mention it.
“And your marriage?” he asked, feeling as though he was treading on conversational eggshells. “When did that take place?”
“As soo
n as I returned to the Barrens,” Ariella said, looking even more puzzled than ever. “In the garrison temple.”
“In front of the whole camp?” Graymane shook his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t anyone mention it? The gossip would have spread like pox in a bawdy house.” His brain suddenly caught up with his tongue, and he shot an awkward glance at the queen. “Begging your pardon, yo—Ariella. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, it’s a good point.” She suppressed a smile, not altogether successfully. “But we married in secret. Only the priest and the witnesses knew. Then we set out for where Gorash was camped at the time, but a party of soldiers from the garrison ambushed us before we got there.”
“Luckily some of my own people were on their way to meet us,” Gorash added, “or it would have been all over. Her guard fought bravely, but we were outnumbered, and had already taken casualties before they turned up. Ariella was thrown from her horse in the confusion, and stunned.” His voice became momentarily choked. “I thought I’d lost her.”
“Luckily the traitors did too,” Ariella chimed in. “They pulled back when our friends arrived, so they couldn’t be sure, but Oaktwig confirmed the reports of my death as soon as he returned to the camp.”
“Oaktwig was with you?” Drago digested this. “And he knew about the marriage in advance?”
“Of course he did,” Ariella said, with a trace of impatience. “It’s his garrison. Who did you think made the arrangements?”
Drago nodded. As soon as she’d said it, it seemed obvious.
“He seemed pretty traditional to me,” Graymane said slowly, “and the traitors have left him in charge. How can you be sure he wasn’t the one who set you up?”
“Because he knows where we are, and the camp hasn’t been burned to the ground yet,” Gorash said. “Not to mention the fact that every piece of information he’s sent us has been accurate. He might not be completely comfortable with every decision she makes, but his loyalty’s entirely to the crown.” He grinned, with what seemed like genuine amusement. “And he’s just uneasy enough about the queen being married to a goblin to pass for a traditional Marcher.”
