by Ed Greenwood
The wizards flipped the top off the desk, exposing the large iron box that had been concealed beneath the walnut veneer, and shoved the heavy crate toward the hole. In the room below, Luthax finally seemed to realize even he could not regenerate his wounds as fast as his attackers were inflicting them. He stop struggling and closed his eyes in concentration. A low rumble shook the tower. The wall tapestries began to undulate rhythmically, and tiny bits of mortar started to drop from the seams between the stones.
“Move!” Tanalasta ordered, waving the wizards and their box toward the hole.
Owden slapped the crown into her hand, then hurled his shoulder into the iron box. The heavy crate slid forward, then tumbled over the edge and crashed onto the top of Luthax’s skull. The ghazneth went limp and fell to his back, the box resting atop his chest, the crown of his head smashed flat.
The shaking ceased and the smoke started to clear, then the dent in Luthax’s skull began to pop back to normal. Tanalasta pulled her weathercloak off Korvarr’s charred form and used it to dampen the flames at the edge of the hole. She swung her legs over the side and raised an arm to Owden.
“Lower me down.”
Owden’s eyes grew wide. “That must be fifteen feet.”
“Which is too far to jump,” she said, “but I will if I must.”
“Not necessary.” Owden clasped her wrist and dropped to his belly, then lowered her over the edge. “A little help below!”
Several pairs of hands reached up and caught hold of Tanalasta’s legs, then gently set her on the floor below. Though the whole process took no more than thirty seconds, by the time she stepped around the iron box to kneel at Luthax’s side, his smashed skull had returned to normal.
Tanalasta held the ancient crown over his black, bald pate. “Luthax the Mighty, High Castellan of the War Wizards, as a true Obarskyr and heir to the Dragon Throne, I grant you the thing you most desire, the desire that made you betray what you loved most.” As the princess spoke, Luthax’s eyes shot open. She slapped the crown on his head, then finished the speech Alaphondar had written for her. “The Crown of Draxius Obarskyr is yours.”
“No!” Luthax’s hand shot up and caught the princess on the side of the head.
Her ear exploded with pain and everything went black. For a moment she thought Alaphondar must have been wrong, then her vision cleared and she saw the fire leave Luthax’s eyes. The shadow lifted from his face, and Tanalasta found herself looking into the bitter eyes of a hateful, power-mad old wizard.
Luthax’s arm came up again, but this time a dragoneer blocked it in mid swing. The wizard’s eyes widened in shock. He jerked his hand free and began to scratch at the crown, trying in vain to slip a finger beneath the circlet and fling it away. He succeeded only in tearing four bloody furrows down the side of his head.
Tanalasta sighed in relief. “It’s no use, Luthax.” She raised a hand and let out a weary groan as someone pulled her to feet. “You wanted that crown, and now it’s yours.”
“Yes, so I did.” His voice sound brittle and petty. “But what do you want? I have it, I think.”
Luthax’s gaze dropped to his flabby chest, where Tanalasta was surprised to see a silver chain supporting a silver belt buckle shaped like a budding sunflower.
The buckle was as familiar to her as the holy symbol she wore around her own neck. It was the same buckle Rowen Cormaeril had worn on his leather scout’s belt, the same buckle that she had caught herself watching a hundred times on her journey through the Stonelands with the quiet ranger, the same buckle she had worked so hard to unfasten on her wedding night.
Tanalasta jerked it off Luthax’s neck. “Where did you get this?”
The old man smiled. “So you are interested,” he said. “Funny, I can’t seem to recall with this crown on my head..
“Never.” Wondering what sort of wife would refuse the bargain Luthax offered, Tanalasta kicked the old man in the ribs and stepped away. “Lock this monster in his box.”
Owden stuck his head down through the ceiling. “And be certain that he can cast no spells!”
“Yes,” said Tanalasta. “We must be certain of that. See to it that his hands and jaw are broken-and broken well.”
30
“Loose!” The arrowmaster’s voice was level and calm, his eyes on the river below. The third volley of shafts he’d ordered hissed into the air, briefly sought the sun, then fell in a deadly rain on the orcs struggling below.
Tuskers staggered and fell in water that was already dark with their blood. The heaped bodies of those who’d fallen earlier rose out of the river like a dozen grotesque islets, so choking the Starwater that it was threatening to spill beyond its banks into the mud the orcs were advancing through.
They’d not even reached the front rank of Purple Dragons yet-a bristling line of lowered pikes and bills halfway up the hill that fell away to the river, fangs ready to greet their foe-so the archers of Cormyr could fire freely, raining their shafts on anything in or near the river. Hundreds of tuskers were already down, and still they came on, more afraid of the dragon behind them than the humans before them.
Even the arrowmaster winced at the sight of blinded, maddened orcs striking out at their fellows around them, snorting and squealing like gigantic hogs, with arrows that hadn’t yet slain them jutting out of their eyes. Those who hadn’t been hit lumbered ahead tirelessly, a few of them having wits enough to pluck up the dead and hold them over their heads and shoulders as meat shields against the hungrily hissing shafts.
“How fare you?” a self-important swordlord coming along the line shouted into the whistling din of arrows.
The arrowmaster did not-quite-smile as he replied, “Still standing, sir. No losses yet, and we’ve plenty of shafts still.”
“Why’re those men doing nothing?” the officer snapped, pointing with his drawn sword.
“They’re not doing nothing, sir. They’re waiting, shafts at the ready, you see?”
The swordlord blinked at the silence that followed the question, not realizing an answer was expected, and after a moment asked flatly, “Why?”
“They’re waiting to defend the bridge.”
The swordlord frowned like a lost thundercloud. “But we’re holding the bridge untouched! The tuskers haven’t even reached it yet, thanks to our bowmen down there-bowmen who, I might add, are fighting hard whilst these stand idle.”
The arrowmaster nodded. “Indeed, sir. My eyes have actually revealed that to me, too, sir.”
The swordlord drew back as if he’d been slapped, then thrust his face up against that of the archer, nose to nose. “Are you mocking me, soldier?” he snarled. “Explain why they’re waiting, this instant.”
Without bothering to turn his head, the arrowmaster bellowed, “Loose!”
As the swordlord flinched back with a snarl, another hissing volley of death leaped into the sky.
The arrowmaster gestured after it, to where dozens of orcs were falling, clutching at the shafts that had transfixed them. “This slaughter can’t go on, sir, without something more from the foe.”
” ‘Something more’? What, man?”
“The dragon, sir. If we keep this up much longer, she’ll come, sir. She’ll strike at the bridge first, where men are crowded in and can’t run from her. When it’s clear, the tuskers’ll be across it and up here for us, sir.”
The swordlord swallowed and stared at the arrowmaster’s calm face, then he looked back down at the bridge, and back again at the arrowmaster. Along the way, his face went slowly white.
“Ah, carry on,” he choked out, and stumbled away down the line. The arrowmaster did not bother to watch him go.
His eyes were on the unfolding attack he’d been expecting-and fearing.
The beast the soldiers were calling the “Devil Dragon” was every bit as huge as the talk over the fires had painted it. It was a red dragon larger than any living wyrm the arrowmaster had ever seen, yet as menacingly graceful in the air as a f
alcon.
It soared into view around the flank of a hill, banked over the killing ground where the archers of Cormyr were working butchery on the orcs, and swooped down on the bridge. The arrowmaster could see the men there cowering as the dragon’s jaws opened.
“At the jaws-loose!” he shouted, but the order was hardly necessary. He’d made his own walk along the line earlier, explaining to each man and maid that the battle could well depend on their bows-at the moment the dragon opened its mouth.
“I want all your shafts down its throat,” he repeated his order grimly, as bows twanged all around him. The hand that could no longer hold a bow itched and ached at his side the way it always did when there was a crucial shot to be made. “Tempus, be with us,” he breathed, clenching his fist around the sharp flint in his palm, to make the blood flow and take his prayer to the war god.
His mouth fell open in astonishment.
The dragon was flying into a hail of arrows, aye, shuddering as many shafts went home in its tender maw, but it was committed. Its wings were folded back to let it glide, its claws out, gushing a flood of flame before it that even now was splashing on and around tall shields that would not be able to stand against dragonfire and were beginning to waver.
Behind those shields, however, men were heaving and shoving as if demented, hurling aside what the arrowmaster had thought were full crates of arrows and shoving other crates in and under what had been hidden under those crates. It was a battering ram that had lain in an armory vault for as long as the arrowmaster could remember. Its rear end had been sharpened, the axe blows so recent that the wood was still bright. The sharp end was now rearing up, as the grunting warriors thrust crates filled with rocks under it as wedges.
Lost in the lust to rend, the dragon saw its peril only at the last instant. It flung itself aside, roaring. The old ram, tipped with ancient, gem-edged dwarven axe blades from the Royal Armory, failed to pierce its breast, but merely gouged open the dragon’s belly. Scales flew away in the dragon’s wake like clay jugs crashing down from a merchant’s bouncing cart.
Screaming, the dragon twisted away, so low that had the Starwater not been there, it would have crashed into the ground. Smoking dragon blood showered down on the Purple Dragons waiting there, open-mouthed in awe, as the dragon turned almost over on its back and fled back north over the forest. The beast trailed a long cry that might almost have been a scream. It crashed through several treetops before it disappeared from view.
Moans and cries arose from the orcs and goblins north of the river, and there was much milling about, snarling, and cracking of whips.
From a little above the arrowmaster, King Azoun looked down on the confusion with satisfaction.
“This is our chance,” he said to the Steel Princess as he turned, eyes flashing. “I’ll lead a foray across the bridge, offering ourself to the goblinkin as if overbold. You take your bladesmen across the river down there-beyond that fire, where its smoke will cloak you-and advance inside the forest. I’ll charge the main orc camp like an idiot swordswinger, and they’ll have to abandon it or stand up and fight me.”
Alusair nodded. “They’re orcs,” she said simply, “They’ll fight.”
Her father nodded. “At the horn call, you bring your blades out to take the orcs from behind. We should be able to slaughter them. If they flee east, our archers can feather them for a good two miles ere they can find cover enough to escape. We can be rid of the orcs by nightfall-and win this war yet.”
Alusair knew her face was wearing a broadening grin to match his. As he took her by the shoulders and shook her exultantly, one warrior to another, she shook her head warningly and reminded him, “We’re gambling on the dragon not returning.”
Azoun nodded, more soberly, then his eyes flashed again and he barked, “Well? Isn’t it a gamble we have to take?”
The Steel Princess nodded. “Of course,” she said, then acquired the ghost of a smile and added in a voice of mock doom, “but your majesty forgets the goblins.”
Azoun grabbed her shoulders again and drew her close. He kissed her fiercely on the forehead, dealt her shoulders a roundhouse slap, and growled, “Get gone with you, and win this thing!”
Alusair knelt, murmuring in flawless mimicry of a courtier’s most fluting and insincere singsong voice, “By your command, O Lion Among Kings.”
She bounded to her feet, whirled, and was gone before the king could cuff her again. His laughter rolled out after her like a warm benediction.
31
“Concentrate.”
The silver bud began to swing back and forth, and Tanalasta’s eyes followed it.
“Picture his face.”
Tanalasta tried to recall her husband’s face and found it anguishingly difficult. She had been with him barely a month, and now it had been fully seven times that long since she last saw him. She still possessed an almost tangible sense of him, but his face had become a nebulous thing with a cleft chin and dark eyes, surrounded by an even darker mane of unruly hair. How could she lose his face? A good wife knew what her husband looked like, but so much had happened in the last seven months. Their marriage seemed a lifetime ago, and she had good reason for wondering if she were even the same person.
Tanalasta had signed the execution order for Orvendel Rallyhorn just that morning. As she had promised, the boy’s death would be both quick and honorable. He was to be smothered in his sleep, then mourned across the land as the brave soul who had shown the Purple Dragons how to capture ghazneths. As badly as she had wanted to commute the sentence, she could not-not in Time of War. The boy’s treason had cost too many people their lives and had very nearly cost her father Cormyr itself. Some acts simply could not be forgiven.
“Can you see him?” Owden asked.
Tanalasta raised a finger. “One moment.” She glanced around the spacious dining room of the Crownsilver country manor, which the family matriarch had graciously consented to lend the crown for the expected battle. “Is everyone ready?”
As during the capture of Luthax, an entire company of Purple Dragons stood in ambush, with a dozen war wizards and several priests of Tempus in ready reserve. Her “coffin” stood open nearby, as did an iron prison box for each ghazneth. The princess did not expect all five phantoms to arrive at once-at least she hoped they would not-but only the gods knew what would happen when Owden cast his spell. Her magic ban had driven the ghazneths into such a frenzy they had begun to attack noble patrols in the hope of causing a panicked war wizard to fling a spell at them. The tactic worked just often enough to make the phantoms continue, which was as Tanalasta wished. Better to keep them in southern Cormyr and control the magic they received than to let them fly off and seek it elsewhere.
“Do you want to find Rowen or not, Princess?” asked Owden. “I didn’t spend half a tenday meditating on this new spell as a leisuretime activity.”
Tanalasta returned her attention to the harvestmaster. “I know.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I’m having trouble remembering his face.”
Owden’s scowl softened. “Perhaps you’re afraid to know.”
“No.” Tanalasta shook her head harshly. “If he’s dead, I want to know. It’s better that than to think of him in some orc slave camp-or worse.”
Owden nodded, then reached across the small distance between them and tapped her brow. “You’re trying too hard. He’s still in there. Remember something you did together. Relax, and let his face come to you.”
Tanalasta thought of their first kiss. They had been in the shadow of Anauroch’s great dunes, about to distract a ghazneth that had Alusair’s company trapped in the ruins of an old goblin keep. Tanalasta started to step through the gate to attract the phantom’s attention but was seized by a sudden urge to kiss the handsome scout. She grabbed him by the lapels and pressed her lips to his, and he pressed back and wrapped her in his arms. Such a godsent hunger ran through her that she had nearly forgotten about her imperiled sister.
Owden began to swing Rowen’s holy symbol back and forth, and Tanalasta’s eyes followed it. She had begun to run her hands over Rowen’s body, and he had done the same to her, sliding his palm up to cup the softness of her breast..
His face returned her, handsome and swarthy and chiseled, with a gentle smile and brown eyes as deep as the forest. A rush of relief rose up inside her, and Tanalasta said, “I have him.”
“Good. Now keep watching his holy symbol. It is the trail that will lead you to him. Keep watching
Owden broke into the deep chant of his spell, calling upon Chauntea’s godly power to reforge the mystical link between Rowen and what Luthax had taken from him. Tanalasta continued to watch the swinging symbol, holding her husband’s face in mind and praying to the goddess to answer Owden’s plea. Rowen’s image melded into the silver bud and became one with it, and there was just her husband’s head, sweeping back and forth in front of her. The room vanished around Tanalasta. She had the sense of plunging down a dark tunnel into a blackness as vast as the Abyss itself.
An inky shadow fell across the face before her, and its features became gaunt and harsh. The brow grew heavy and sinister, hanging over a pair of luminous white eyes as round and lustrous as pearls, and the nose swelled into a brutish, hooked thing as sharp as a hawk’s beak. Only the chin remained the same, square, strong, and cleft.
“Rowen?” Tanalasta gasped.
The white eyes brightened and looked away, vanishing into a misty gray cloud. For a moment, Tanalasta did not understand what she was seeing, then a fork of lightning danced across her view and she realized it was rain.
“Rowen?” she called again.
A different face appeared, just as gaunt but bushybrowed and cob-nosed, with sunken gray eyes and a bushy black beard that covered it from the hollow cheeks down. An iron circlet ringed the figure’s filthy mop of hair, with bare patches of scalp and red scratches along the temples where the wearer had tried to tear off his crude crown.
