by Ed Greenwood
Death of the Dragon
( Cormyr - 3 )
Ed Greenwood
Troy Denning
Ed Greenwood
Death of the Dragon
Troy Denning
Prologue
“I hate having to guess so boldly,” Alusair told the first clear hoof print she’d found in three days, “But these snortsnouts aren’t giving me much time to do it the proper way.”
Something dark moved on the crest of the ridge behind her. Alusair snarled an oath and trotted into the nearest copse of trees. Two days at least, now, the orcs had been following her. It had been two nights that she’d dared not sleep. She was talking to herself more to keep awake than to measure her weary thoughts.
Her bold guess as to which valley Rowen had chosen had been right again, but gods blast this, it was sloppy tracking. Rowen had ridden Cadimus here, or someone had. The marks of the hooves where the warhorse crossed soft mud were deep enough to tell the Steel Princess that Cadimus had willingly carried a rider, heading as straight north as the land allowed.
Three days had passed since Alusair had left her sister Tanalasta and the sage Alaphondar and set off to rescue-or learn the fate of-her scout Rowen. The scout-a Purple Dragon ranger-was an outlawed Cormaeril, but the father of Tanalasta’s unborn child. Cormaeril or not, the wedding was lawful. The babe, if it lived, would be the rightful heir to the throne of Cormyr.
“Gods above and below, but father will be furious,” she murmured, ducking her way through a stand of young shadowtops. “I don’t know which I’d rather not be-Tana or Rowen!”
A wry smile plucked at the corners of her mouth, then vanished in an instant as her eyes fell on the moss ahead.
There was a break in the trees, and Cadimus had passed through it. Tracks led up a mossy slope and away from the open valley floor, where in wet weather a creek meandered and the rest of the time open turf made for swift and easy mounted travel. Why leave that open ground? To camp?
Alusair caught herself yawning again. She slapped her own thigh with the flat of her sword to rouse herself. Gods damn these persistent orcs. The Steel Princess threw back her head and drew in a deep breath. She was too tired to do this properly, she was-suddenly very awake, with her skin crawling. She could feel the creeping, all over her, that meant her hair was rising. Something was wrong here, very wrong… but, by all the gods, what?
The trail went around the man-high, rotten stump of a long dead duskwood. She hefted her sword. From where she stood, as far as the eye could see, the trees ahead-an entire stand of them, dozens and dozens-were waiting. Silent, and yet not silent, there was a menacing, watchful heaviness hanging in the air.
Alusair peered grimly up into still branches and past mighty trunks, seeking a living, lurking foe but seeing nothing. The trees stood thick enough that there could well be a beast larger than a man-or even a score of such-ahead, where she could not see. The Steel Princess cast a quick glance behind her, listening intently for sounds of orcs scrabbling up the trail, but heard nothing. Her pursuers had never bothered to strive for stealth in their gloating eagerness.
After a moment, she shrugged and strode forward, sword tip tracing a ready circle at her feet, half-expecting a root to leap up and try to ensnare her. There was something unhealthy about the trees.
Alusair stopped again and studied the nearest one, almost fancying that it had moved slightly, but no. Her weary eyes were playing tricks on her.
It was a duskwood, and an old one. Some long ago lightning had left it misshapen, as gray and as gnarled as the convulsed gauntlet of a buried giant, its bark scaled where there should be no scales. No, not scales… runes.
The bark was engraved with a spiral of sinuous, somehow menacing glyphs. The runes seemed new, powerful, and-not good. The roots of the tree were exposed in all their tangles by a crude and recently dug burrow. The loose earth was simply flung aside as if a huge dog or hunting cat had dug swift but clumsy paws into the soil and torn at it. The hole was a ragged oval, just large enough for a man to crawl down. Alusair stepped back, then to one side, peering in. Every tree bore similar runes, and a hole had been dug under each of them.
Heavy breathing and the scrape of boots came at last. Orcs were ascending the mossy trail behind her. Alusair rolled her eyes and strode quickly forward, following the clear path Cadimus had left for her.
The trail continued to climb and the dark, recently disturbed earth now began to display strange treasures for her inspection. There was a metal scepter of swirling, clearly elven design, yet dead and dark as no elf would have made it. Stones that should have been gleaming gems were dingy and clouded, and the metal itself was as dull and gray as forge lead. Beyond the scepter was a sword, also of splendid shape. It too seemed somehow… drained.
That was it. There were more blades beyond, and a coffer and a quiver, then something that must have been a staff of great magical power or ornate ceremonial significance. Everything was gray, dull, and lifeless, as if all power and beauty had been stolen out of them.
The Steel Princess frowned down at them as she hurried on. Had this been an elven burial ground or a treasure cache? What manner of creature would know where to find, or dare to despoil, either?
“Gods,” she whispered aloud to herself, “Cormyr was such a simple place when I was a child. When did it grow so many unfolding mysteries?”
As if in reply, and startling her with its suddenness, a voice sang out of the trees ahead. Haunting and mournful, the liquid but sometimes harsh song was that of an elf maiden who was neither friendly nor gentle as she shaped words Alusair could not understand.
If there’d been no orcs right behind her, the Steel Princess would have backed swiftly away from that sound. As it was, the iron taste of fear was suddenly in her mouth, and she felt again that eerie stirring of hair rising all over her body. Well, at least she was fully awake now.
The song swelled, and she made out a few of its words. There was the name Iliphar, then the word shessepra, which humans had mangled into “scepter” and something that sounded like haereeunmn, which was in several old elven ballads sung by master bards when they visited the court, and meant, more or less, “all things of elves.”
It was repeated. Something of a refrain, then, about Iliphar’s scepter giving him power over all things elven. The voice was unearthly, achingly beautiful, yet as menacing as the hiss of a serpent. Alusair found herself shivering in time to its soaring.
Her hurrying feet brought her around a bend, and face-to-face with more than a hundred orcs. These were black, hulking snortsnouts of the most powerful sort, with battle-rings on their tusks and a cruel welcome glittering in their porcine eyes.
Their leader, a mighty orc almost twice as tall as the sort of tusker Alusair was used to slaying in the Stonelands, whose much-battered breastplate was studded with grinning human skulls, was grinning at her as one large, grubby finger rubbed along the glyphs of the largest tainted tree Alusair had yet seen. The song was coming from the runes the orc was touching, each one flickering ever so slightly at the chieftain’s touch.
“Well met, Princess,” the orc hissed. The scuffle of boots told Alusair that her pursuers were coming up behind her. “Or should I say, my next meal!”
The orc chieftain’s roar of laughter rose to join the eerie song as the Steel Princess snarled and sprang to one side, snatching at the magic she carried at her belt. She was going to die here, horribly, if she didn’t-
Almost lazily the orc chieftain moved one arm, dark muscles rippling, and a blade as long as Alusair stood tall flashed end over end across the space between them.
Alusair ducked away, but the blade seemed to follow, curving down
.
A sudden sharp, clear pain pierced her shoulder like fire. She’d taken an arrow in that shoulder once and had managed to forget just how sickening it had felt. This was worse. She set her teeth and twisted away from the tree the orc’s foul blade had pinned her to. Alusair staggered away, retching.
Behind her, the pierced tree was making horrible gurgling sounds, as if it were choking around the orc’s blade. Alusair stared at it, wondering what new horrors her next breath could bring.
“Come, Alusair Nacacia Obarskyr,” the orc crooned, matching the cadence of the song rising behind him. “Be my bride before you become my meal. I will do you that honor!”
The orc chieftain’s laughter rose like roaring thunder around her, and Alusair reeled, hoping she’d have enough strength left to run. Perhaps after she screamed.
1
The world vanished, and Tanalasta’s stomach rose into her chest. A sudden chill bit at her flesh, and there was a dark eternity of falling. She grew queasy and weak and heard nothing but the beating of her own heart. Her head reeled, a thousand worried thoughts shot through her mind, then she was simply someplace else. She was standing on the parapets of a castle wall, choking on some impossibly acrid stench and trying to recall where in the Nine Hells she was.
“Teleporter!” yelled a gruff voice. “Our corner!”
Tanalasta glanced over her shoulder and saw a small corner tower. In the arrow loops appeared the tips of four crossbow quarrels.
“Loose at will!” yelled the gruff voice.
As the weapons clacked, Tanalasta threw herself headlong down onto the wall walk. The quarrels hissed past and clanged off the stones around her, then ricocheted into the smoke-filled courtyard below.
She looked after them and found the enclave filled with kettles of boiling oil, barrels packed with crossbow bolts, fire tubs brimming with water. At the far end of the enclosure stood a sturdy oak gate, booming loudly under the regular crash of a battering ram. A constant stream of women and children ran up one set of stairs and down another, ferrying buckets of crossbow bolts and pots of boiling oil to the warriors gathered along the front wall. Though a few of the men wore only the flimsy leather jerkins of honest woodsmen, most were armored in the chain mail hauberks and steel basinets of Cormyrean dragoneers.
The sight of royal soldiers finally cleared the teleport afterdaze from Tanalasta’s mind, and she recalled that she was in the Cormyrean citadel at Goblin Mountain. She would have preferred to enter by the main gate, but there happened to be a host of orcs hammering at the portcullis with an iron-headed ram.
Behind her, the tower sergeant’s gruff voice called, “Ready your bolts!”
“Wait!” Tanalasta fished her signet ring from her pocket and spun toward her attackers, holding the amethyst dragon high above her. “In the name of the Obarskyrs, stay your fire!”
There was a pause, then the tower sergeant hissed, “By the Black Sword! That’s a woman-in a war wizard’s cloak!”
“It is.” Tanalasta dared to raise her head and saw a heavy-browed dragoneer peering out of an arrow loop. “And that woman is Crown Princess Tanalasta Obarskyr.”
The sergeant narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look like any portraits I’ve seen, Princess.” He spoke to someone inside the tower, and a freshly loaded crossbow appeared in the arrow loop next to him. He turned back to Tanalasta. “You won’t mind if we come down for a closer look?”
“Of course not,” Tanalasta replied. “And bring some ropes-long ones.”
“One thing at a time,” the sergeant said. “Until then, don’t move. We wouldn’t want Magri here to spike the crown princess, would we?”
Tanalasta nodded and remained motionless, though doing so made her fume inside. The sergeant was right to be cautious, but she had more than a dozen companions rushing across the valley toward the citadel. If she did not have ropes waiting when the haggard band arrived, the orcs would see them and trap them against the rear wall.
The tower door opened, and three dragoneers in full battle armor stepped out. Two of the soldiers flanked Tanalasta and leveled their halberds at her, while their heavy-chinned sergeant took the signet ring from her hand.
He eyed the amethyst dragon and its white gold mounting for a moment, then hissed a curse in the name of Tempus. “Where did you come by this?”
“My father gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday.” Tanalasta craned her neck back so she could glare into the soldier’s eyes. “According to Lord Bhereu’s Manual of Standards and Procedure, part the fourth, item two, I believe the proper procedure now is for the sentry to demand the royal code word.”
The sergeant’s face paled, for Tanalasta’s command of anything written in a book was well known throughout the kingdom. “M-may I have the code word please?”
Tanalasta snatched her signet back and said, “Damask Dragon.”
The dragoneer paled, then stooped down to take Tanalasta’s arm. “Highness, forgive me!” He pulled her to her feet without awaiting permission, then remembered himself and turned the color of rubies. “Your face… er, I, uh, didn’t recognize you. I beg your forgiveness.”
Tanalasta grimaced at the thought of what she must look like. She had been traveling hard for nearly two months now, and the last few hours had been the most difficult by far.
“No offense taken, Sergeant,” she said. “I must look a fright.”
Along with her companions, she had crawled the last mile with her face pressed into the mud to avoid being stung by wasps.
“Now fetch those ropes, and some strong fellows to man them. My company is in a dire state, and there’s a ghazneth close on our heels.”
At the mention of a ghazneth, the dragoneer’s face went from pale to white. He spat a series of orders to his subordinates, then all three men rushed off to do the princess’s bidding.
The orcs continued to batter the portcullis, and an iron bar finally gave way with a deep clang. The sound was answered by an astonishing flurry of crackles and sizzles from the war wizards in the small gatehouse. The tempo of the pounding slackened.
Tanalasta stepped over to battlements and peered through an embrasure into the valley behind the castle. Below was a vast wooded glen with a broad, meandering river and precipitous granite walls. The princess needed several moments to locate the line of figures scrambling through the trees toward the citadel. She could glimpse no more than two or three men at a time, some limping and some struggling to carry wounded fellows, but her heart fell. No matter how patiently she watched, she never counted more than ten forms, and there should have been fifteen.
The jangle of approaching soldiers rang along the rampart, and Tanalasta turned to find a sturdy officer of about forty winters leading a dozen dragoneers toward her. Four of the warriors carried a large iron box. The rest were armed with crossbows and iron swords. A pair of anxious war wizards accompanied the group, one at each end of the iron box.
The officer stopped before Tanalasta and bowed deeply. “If I may present myself, Highness,” he said. “I am Filmore, Lionar of the Goblin Mountain Outpost.” He motioned to the eldest wizard. “And this is Sarmon the Spectacular, master of the war wizards King Azoun sent to meet you.”
Sarmon stepped forward and also bowed. Though his weathered face looked far older than the lionar’s, his hair and long beard remained as dark as that of a youth of twenty. “At your service, Highness. We have been expecting you for the past several days.” He extended a hand to her and said, “The king has commanded that we teleport you to Arabel the instant of your arrival.”
“When my friends are safe.” Tanalasta ignored the wizard’s hand and pointed into the valley, where her companions were now struggling up the wooded hillside below the citadel. Several hundred paces behind them, a hazy cloud of insects was drifting across the river after them. “Alaphondar Emmarask and High Harvestmaster Foley are still out there, and the ghazneth is close upon them, as you can see.”
Sarmon and Filmore peered over the w
all, then arched their brows in concern. The wizard turned back to Tanalasta and said, “Truly, Princess, the citadel is in enough peril from the orcs alone.” He reached for her arm. “My assistant will see to the safety of the Royal Sage Most Learned and your friend from Huthduth, but I dare not let you risk your life-“
Tanalasta pulled away before he could touch her. “You are not risking it-and don’t you dare teleport me without my permission. You have told me what the king commanded, but there are things he doesn’t know.”
Sarmon’s eyes betrayed his surprise at her commanding tone, but he nodded and said, “Of course, Majesty.”
The tower guards returned with four long ropes. Tanalasta instructed the sergeant to secure the lines to the merlons and drape the ends over the wall, then appointed four of Filmore’s burliest dragoneers to help the tower guards hoist her companions. The lionar assigned the rest of the company to battle the ghazneth when it came over the wall.
A loud crack sounded from the gate, followed by a muffled round of guttural cheers. The wizards in the gatehouse unleashed a tempest of lightning bolts and blasts of fire even greater than before, and again the tempo of the battering ram slowed. Tanalasta glanced over and wondered if her friends would be any safer inside the citadel. A large vertical split had appeared in the gate, and even Sarmon’s war wizards seemed unable to repel the attack.
An anxious murmur broke out beside Tanalasta. She turned to find the cloud of insects swirling up the slope behind her companions, who were finally breaking into the cleared area near the rear wall. There were only ten of them, and three of those were being carried by others. At least Owden and Alaphondar seemed to be all right.
As Tanalasta watched, one man stopped and kneeled at the edge of the woods. He placed the man he was carrying on the ground, then pulled off his black cloak and slipped it over the fellow’s shoulders. A second man stopped beside them. He placed a second figure in the arms of the first and pointed toward the corner where Tanalasta stood. The man in the cloak managed a weak nod, then he and his companion simply vanished.
