Tamlin realized it was a good question. He could tell from the noise that the battle still raged outside, and it would be perfectly reasonable for him to chop an exit in the rear wall and avoid the rest of it. He doubted anyone would blame him. As he'd already observed to himself, when necessary, retainers were supposed to sacrifice themselves to cover their lord's retreat. Still, now that he finally had a weapon, he found he couldn't quite bring himself to decamp.
"I have to go help Escevar," he said.
He noticed that the gelding was still present. He'd always heard that horses were rather stupid beasts, and perhaps the palfrey had lacked the wit to find its way back out the exit, or perhaps it had been as afraid of the commotion outside the shop as of the troll within. Whatever the reason, Tamlin was glad the steed was still available for his use. He crossed the room, grabbed the balky animal by the halter, and dragged it toward the exit.
"Who's going to pay for all this damage?" the hatter called after him.
*****
Scrambling backward, wishing fervently that he hadn't squandered his ball of flame on the wizard atop the roof, Brom snatched two small vials and a tiny speaking trumpet fashioned from the tip of a ram's horn out of his pockets. He anointed the horn with the contents of the vials, swirled it through an intricate mystic pass, lifted it to its lips, and shouted.
The blast of sound that erupted from the trumpet's bell was far louder than any voice augmented by mere mechanical means. It jabbed painfully into Brom's ears, and the troll that was scuttling after him, and at which he had aimed the magical noise, fared worse. The creature clutched at its ears, swayed, and collapsed.
Mystra grant the ugly thing would stay down for a minute or two before rising to menace him anew. Wheezing, mentally reviewing which of the spells he'd prepared had already been cast and which were still available, Brom surveyed the battlefield.
One troll, its upper body crisscrossed by long cuts presumably delivered by Vox's bastard sword, lay crumpled in the snow, and the black-bearded bodyguard was furiously battling another.
His chest and thigh bloody, Escevar strove to defend himself from half a dozen bravos. Evidently some of the ruffians had overcome their wariness of the trolls and advanced up the street to reinforce them.
Tamlin was nowhere to be seen.
Moving in a leisurely way, the masked wizard raised his arms to commence another spell.
Brom suspected that if he and his companions didn't escape this trap before the enemy wizard completed his next conjuration, they were going to die. Which meant he had to create a way out. It took priority over everything, even locating Lord Uskevren's missing heir or assisting the hard-pressed Escevar.
He turned his back on the battle to face the wall of gleaming, translucent ice. He was half deaf from the shouting magic, and now he was glad, for with the clamor of the battle muted, he would find it that much easier to concentrate.
It had become apparent early on that the man in blue was an accomplished wizard, and nothing he'd created would be easily dispelled. But, Brom told himself, if he performed the abjuration perfectly, it could be done. Refusing to hurry, he stood tall, recited the incantation with impeccable clarity and cadence, and swung his arms apart with perfect timing.
The ice vanished.
"Run! This way!" Brom called.
Vox drove his troll back with a two-handed sweep of his sword, then wheeled his destrier and rode for the open path. Escevar looked as if he understood and was likewise trying to break free, but the bravos kept him hemmed in.
Intending to cast a spell to help his fellow retainer, Brom reached into his mantle for a small iron bar. Before he could fish it out, Tamlin led his horse out of a shop entrance, looked wildly about, and swung himself into the saddle. Shouting a war cry, the young aristocrat charged his friend's assailants and scattered them with strokes from a gory axe. Tamlin, Escevar, and Vox raced on out of the broken killing box toward safety. Leaving Brom afoot and alone.
As the enemy advanced on him, he wondered if any of his companions had even realized he was still alive, his horse was dead, and they were abandoning him to die. With his most potent magic already spent, he couldn't fend off all these attackers alone. He preferred to believe that none of them had known, although Vox and Escevar might well have felt that their first duty was to escort their master safely away, while Tamlin, Brom suspected, was rather too fond of himself to risk his skin for a retainer whom he'd only known a short time.
A grinning troll slunk toward him, claws poised to rip. Bubbles of violet light swelled as the masked wizard summoned new minions, though Brom couldn't believe that the conjuror truly thought he needed them. Then, though with his abused ears, he couldn't hear it, through the soles of his buskins he felt the rhythmic shocks of something pounding up behind him.
Brom spun around. Tamlin was racing toward him, evidently guiding his mount with his knees, for he had one hand outstretched and the woodcutter's axe grasped in the other. The dappled gelding's flanks were bloody from his spurs, and its hooves threw up puffs of snow.
The nobleman wheeled the horse, slowing of necessity, but not stopping. Brom scrambled forward, clutched at Tamlin's hand and the tooled red leather saddle, and tried to hoist himself up onto the moving animal. His right hand fumbled and slipped away from the pommel, and he felt himself begin to fall. Grunting with the strain, Tamlin held him in place until he achieved a firm grip. The gelding ran back up the street with the wizard half draped across its neck and half dangling beside its shoulder.
Brom looked back. Their enemies were sprinting after them, and the troll in the lead was nearly close enough to reach out and grab the palfrey's streaming tail. Certain the pursuers were going to catch up, the wizard wondered if he could possibly cast a spell from his present precarious position, and whether he should drop back into the street and let the gelding race on unencumbered by his awkward and unbalanced weight. Then Tamlin dug in the spurs, shouted encouragement, and somehow the horse found the strength to gallop even faster than before, leaving their foes behind.
They rounded a corner and almost collided with Vox and Escevar hurtling back in the other direction. "I've got him!" Tamlin cried. "Follow me!" The retainers turned their steeds around.
They kept galloping until, Brom judged, there was no danger of their adversaries catching up with them, at which point Tamlin called for a stop in a spacious plaza. At the other end of the square, urchins were flinging snowballs at one another and any passersby unwary enough to wander into range.
Brom gratefully abandoned his uncomfortable perch and peered up at his companions. Though a troll's claws had twice shredded his armor and lightly scored the flesh beneath, Vox was as stolid as ever. The more seriously wounded Escevar, however, was pale and shaky, in marked contrast to his exuberance earlier on. Ruddy-faced and breathing heavily, Tamlin was clearly having difficulty calming down, although whether he was seething with anger or fear, Brom couldn't tell. Probably a mixture of the two.
"I didn't mean to abandon you," said Tamlin to the wizard. "I just lost track of you in all the chaos. I rode back as soon as I realized you weren't with us."
Or else you did intend to forsake me, but had a change of heart, thought Brom, but even if that was true, he wasn't inclined to hold it against Tamlin. In the end, the aristocrat had risked his own life to rescue him, and that was all that mattered. "Thank you," the wizard said.
Vox tapped his massive chest with his forefinger.
"I know," Tamlin said, "I should have told you to go. But I was excited, and I figured every second counted. Are you all right, Escevar?"
The redhead gave him a jerky nod. "We'll get you to a healer as soon as the horses have had a moment to rest," Tamlin said, and then a quaver of agitation entered his voice. "Ilmater's tears, it just came home to me that Honeylass is dead! The other birds are lost. And the poor greyhounds! I forgot all about them until this second. Did anyone see what happened to the dogs?"
"No," said Brom
. "As you said, all was confusion. I'm afraid it's likely they're slain or run away for good."
"Curse it!" With trembling hands, Tamlin extricated his glass blade from the loops on his golden sword belt. The ornament had miraculously emerged unscathed from the battle, but now its owner lashed it against the wall of a vendor's kiosk, shattering it into tiny fragments. "Did that make you feel better?" Brom asked. Tamlin smiled. "A little."
"Then we'd better think about what just happened," the spellcaster said. "Obviously, that ambuscade was no haphazard affair with robbers assaulting the first gentleman who happened along. That was a carefully planned attempt to assassinate the heir to the House of Uskevren, and I daresay it's no coincidence that it happened the morning after your parents vanished."
TamUn grimaced. "I hate to admit it, but you're probably right. Damn my father for disappearing! It's his province to deal with this sort of unpleasantness, not mine. But since he's gone, I suppose we'd better get back to Stormweather Towers and confer with the others."
Chapter 10
It was Larajin who'd come to the library to inform Talbot of the conclave, and she opted to walk along with him to the great hall as well. Ordinarily, he would have taken pleasure in her company, for he and the willowy maid with the rust-colored hair and striking hazel eyes had been friends for as long as he could remember. At present, however, he was frustrated at his lack of progress in the researches that he had prayed would provide a cure for his affliction, and, their futility notwithstanding, equally vexed at being summoned away.
"Why is Tamlin, of all people, calling a family meeting?" he grumbled. "What does he want to talk about, brandy and lace?"
"I don't know," Larajin said, the silver bells on her golden turban chiming as she moved. The turban was a part of her maidservant's livery, devised to warn her masters, who might desire privacy, of her approach. "But it was Master Gale who bade me pass the word to you, and he said the matter is urgent."
"Ordinarily, that would be good enough for me," Talbot conceded. "But-"
One of the household pets, a fawn-colored mastiff, wandered out of a doorway just ahead. It gave the humans an incurious glance, turned, started to amble away from them, then suddenly spun back around. Crouching, the fur standing up on its back, the dog bared its teeth and growled.
Talbot winced. He understood what was happening, for he'd experienced it on various occasions since the calamity that had befallen him just over a year ago. For the most part, animals responded to him the same as they had before, but periodically, they sensed the wolf-thing that lurked inside him and wrested control of his body at every full moon. He suspected it was more likely to happen at moments like this, when he was angry.
"Brownie!" Larajin said. "What's gotten into you?" Heedless of the mastiffs menacing demeanor, she advanced and slapped her thigh. "Heel!"
Brownie slunk to her side, and Talbot wasn't altogether surprised. Larajin had always had a way with animals, and for some reason, over the past several months or so, the rapport had deepened to the point that she rarely experienced any difficulty inducing any of the various beasts inhabiting Stormweather Towers to do her bidding.
"I'll take him back in here and calm him down," said the maid, taking hold of the mastiffs leather collar. "You go on." She led the now-docile animal back through the doorway. Talbot trudged on to the conclave alone, his mood even more sour than before.
The feast hall was a large chamber adorned with marble-sheathed pillars and lamps of brown iridescent glass. In fact, Talbot reflected as he entered, it was so spacious that it was ridiculous for a mere six people to use it for a meeting. They would have been just as comfortable, possibly more so, in a smaller room, and then the servants wouldn't have been inconvenienced when they had to trek from one end of the mansion to the other. As it was, the help would have to avoid both the centrally located feast hall and the galleries overlooking it, lest they overhear a confidential discussion. Talbot supposed that it had never occurred to his preening peacock of a brother to preside over a conference anywhere except in the grandest setting available.
Talbot saw that all the others had arrived before him. Jander Orvist, the captain of the household guard, gave him a terse nod. Jander was a lean, middle-aged man with a thin, humorless trap of a mouth, fierce silvery eyes, and a pronounced gray widow's peak. No matter how innocent or festive the occasion, Talbot had never known the grizzled warrior to wear anything but the blue tunic of the Uskevren's soldiery, nor seen him without a long sword ready to hand.
Clad in a decollete emerald caffa gown her mother hated, Tazi sat glowering, impatient for the meeting to commence and probably to end, until she gave her younger brother a welcoming smile. Erevis in his ill-fitting doublet looked somber as ever. His polished oak staff leaning against the arm of his chair, Brom seemed equally grave, but then, eager to impress, he tended to appear that way even when performing the most trivial duty.
It was Tamlin, who had of course usurped Father's seat at the head of the long inlaid table, who gave Talbot his first intimation that he ought to take this meeting seriously. Not simply because he was frowning. Tamlin occasionally adopted a serious manner, and it was usually over something utterly trivial. But today the heir had a bruise coming up on the left side of his face, and although he was dressed as gorgeously as ever, in a sky-blue outfit that made Talbot unpleasantly conscious of his own uncombed hair, lack of a doublet, and stale, half open shirt, he had, as was rare of late, added a businesslike long sword and poniard to his ensemble. The hilts were excessively ornate, made of gold adorned with sapphires, but to Talbot's knowledgeable eye, the weapons looked as if they'd serve well in a melee even so. Even more curiously, an axe, a simple laborer's tool, lay on the table before him.
"You took your time getting here," said Tamlin, a little petulantly, "Sorry," Talbot grunted, flinging himself into the empty seat beside Tazi. "What's going on?"
"Mother and Father are missing," Tamlin said, milking the announcement for all the drama it was worth, "and not two hours ago, someone tried to assassinate me."
"What?" Talbot exclaimed, while Tazi's sea-green eyes widened. In contrast, the retainers didn't look surprised, merely concerned. Plainly, they'd heard the news already.
Tell it all from the beginning," Jander suggested.
"That way, we'll have it clear in our heads."
"I-" said Brom and Erevis in unison, then the gangling wizard waved his hand, deferring to the steward.
"I can tell about Lord and Lady Uskevren's departure," said Erevis, who proceeded to do so. Talbot knew his parents had ridden out, but this was the first he'd heard of the retainers' misgivings.
"We could dispatch search parties," Tazi said when the bald major-domo finished.
"We will," Erevis replied, "but first, let's try to discern exactly what's going on. Master Tamlin, please, tell us about the ambuscade."
Tamlin nodded and gave them the tale. Talbot assumed it was factual in its essence, though embellished to make the teller seem more of a hero. For could his self-centered popinjay of a brother truly have slain a troll single-handed, or, when already free of the trap, ridden back into dire peril to rescue a retainer? To say the least, it was unlikely. At one point, Talbot elbowed Tazi, and the pair exchanged ironic, skeptical glances. Still, there were weightier matters to consider than their elder brother's mendacity, and their shared amusement lasted only an instant.
"It's far from certain that these two situations actually have anything to do with one another," observed Talbot at the story's conclusion. "Mother and Father left the mansion of their own volition, they haven't been gone that long, and there are any number of reasons why they might be slow in returning."
"With all due respect," said Brom, "as I mentioned before, Lady Uskevren's manner seemed odd."
"Still-" Talbot began.
Tazi lifted her hand. "There's something about Mother that none of the rest of you knows. A little over a year ago, when she and I went to hear the Hulorn's
opera-"
"There was harmful magic woven into the music," said Tamlin, impatiently, "and you and Mother had to snatch away the conductor's baton or something to halt the performance and break the spell. We do know. We've heard the story."
Tazi glared at him. "You haven't heard all of it. Stopping the opera was more difficult than anyone knows, and in the course of it, Mother took up a sword and battled statues come to life, fighting as well as anyone in this room. She also scaled a wall, jumped off a roof into a tree, then climbed through the branches nimbly as a squirrel. Through it all, she was grinning and joking like a different person, an adventurer who relished risk and didn't care a rotten apple about decorum."
Tamlin snorted. "That's absurd. Mother doesn't like weapons. I doubt she ever handled any implement more formidable than an embroidery needle in her entire life."
"I swear to you, it happened," the black-haired girl retorted, her level tone so convincing that Talbot realized that, although her assertion was indeed "absurd," he believed her. Apparently everyone else did as well, for the hall fell silent for a moment as they tried to assimilate what they'd heard.
Erevis gazed at Tazi. "You might have told someone before today," he said, a hint of reproach in his voice.
To Talbot's surprise, his sister, who never accepted blame or rebuke from anyone, flushed and lowered her eyes. "She asked me to keep her secret."
But why would you, Talbot silently wondered, when you and she were always at one another's throats? Then he realized that his mother had probably been in a position to reveal some secret of Thazienne's as well.
As if he'd arrived at a similar inference, Jander scowled and said, "There have always been too cursed many secrets in this household. I don't know what most of them are, but I sense they exist, and I always feared one of them would rear up and bite us on the arse someday."
"If this one has," Tamlin said. "I'm not certain it did. How is it Mother knew how to fight, and what has it got to do with what's happening now?"
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