by Ed Greenwood
“No,” he said soothingly, “you were just being… what you thought nobles should behave like. And you may have done so very properly; you’re the first noble I’ve ever met.”
Narantha shook her head, smiling ruefully. “No, we don’t all have my temper. If we did, there’d be very few nobles left in the realm now. Just a lot of crypts full of nobles who killed each other.”
“Oh?” Florin gave her an innocent look, but arched a by-now-familiar eyebrow. “I thought there were lots of crypts full of-”
She dealt his arm a friendly blow, her smile going wry, and said, “ Please don’t make this harder for me. I–I’m not good at apologies; I’ve had little practice.” She drew in a deep breath, and pulled Florin to a halt, to look up at him squarely.
“And… and I find I very much want to apologize to you.”
He looked down at her in grave silence, and she added in a rush, “I’m sure my tongue will get the better of me again, but I see you as a friend now, not a servant-and I want to have you as a friend.”
Florin started to smile, and Narantha swallowed again and asked, “Please? May I?”
“If you’ll trust me,” he told her, raising her hand in his grasp to his lips, “I’ll trust you-and if we do that, we’ll be better friends than many who hail, jest, and gossip together.”
Narantha blinked, then whispered slowly, “I have never trusted anyone, in all my life.”
It was Florin’s turn to blink. “Gods above and below,” he murmured. “No wonder all nobles are mad.”
He put his arms around her, and Narantha hugged him tight. A few breaths later, Florin realized the noble lass in his arms was crying against his chest. He stroked her hair and rocked her in his arms, looking warily about at the darkening forest.
Overhead, in the reddening sky, the stars began to come out.
Tathanter Doarmond happened to be one of the most handsome Wizards of War in all the realm, blessed by the gods with an impressive, mellifluous voice. It was for that reason that, despite his junior standing and comparatively paltry mastery of the Art, he was often called upon to speak for the war wizards when old Thunderspells wanted a courtier impressed-or a citizen scared right down to the soles of his boots.
Just now, he was busily frowning his best “I fear you’re in serious trouble” frown as he stared again at the two letters lying on his desk. They contradicted each other so flatly that even a child would have been forced to conclude that one of these two merchants was lying.
Yet was this a matter for the Wizards of War, or merely a trader-perhaps both-saving himself a few coins in taxes? Not that even a single deception should pass unchallenged in the Forest Kingdom, but among merchants there were so many thousands upon thousands of them that no mage could hope to catch every last one. Moreover, Tathanter had been instructed to consult War Wizard Ghoruld Applethorn whenever he found himself uncertain… and Tathanter was more than a little afraid of coldly smiling, dagger-eyed Applethorn, master of wards and crystals. Perhaps His office door squealed open and his closest friend and fellow war wizard Malvert burst in, bending close to his ear to hiss, “Tath! Remember you Garrlatus? And Sonthur, the one who was blasted to bits in his first tenday as a war wizard? Well, old Thunderspells thinks he knows what they were killed with now!”
“Oh? Killed by whom?”
“ That he doesn’t know-or if he does, isn’t saying. Garrlatus and Sonthur were both spell-blasted when seemingly alone in warded chambers, studying their spells. Apparently whatever felled them was the same thing. Well, Thunderspells got to thinking what it might have been, and remembered the Arcrown did that sort of slaying. He thought he’d better try its powers to make sure, went to get it, and sure enough: the Arcrown’s been stolen!”
“The Iron War Crown? From the vaults?”
“The vaults. They say Vangey’s frothing, for to get it out of there without triggering all of his personal warning-wards, the thief must be one of the Obarskyrs-or one of us. ”
Tathanter whistled. “Oh, that’s going to be sweet! Tantrums of Mystra, if he’s going to be mind-reaming every last one of us, the kingdom’ll go to the rutting dogs!”
“Pretty much,” Malvert agreed bitterly. “I caught just a touch-a stray edge-of one of his mind-probes once, that time he came after Talarla to find out who she’d been sneaking out at night to kiss and cuddle-remember? — and I thought I was going mad. My head hurt for days, and every few paces I took, memories kept tumbling out of nowhere and flooding my eyes. All I could see was them, not what was really around me. Couldn’t sleep, kept seeing Vangerdahast smiling, skeletons tumbling out of shadows or reaching for me, their grinning skulls always looking like Vangerdahast…”
“Mal! Enough! Say his name that often and you’ll have him down here reaming us for real!”
Malvert nodded quickly. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have… you really have no idea how horrible it was. I only have to think of it… Now, after all this time…” He clawed the air in a great sweeping away of something unseen, and added briskly, “So, would your wagered coins be on one of us, a bored Obarskyr playing at pranks or a parlor cult for nobles… or a sinister Obarskyr?”
“One of us, I’m afraid-though any of your royal alternatives sound far more entertaining.”
“Huh. No disagreement here. Remember the last scandal? Queen Fee’s mysterious stalker?”
Tathanter chuckled. “Aye, and I remember who it was, too. Alusair the toddler, spying on Mummy to learn how to be a queen! How humiliating for our Imperious Leader! I thought he was going to vomit up a litter of kittens on the spot, all down his royal magicianly robes!”
“Well, Vangey evidently remembers that too. For now, he’s not mindbursting all of us, but setting us all to hunt for the Arcrown. He seems to think it may have found its way to Arabel, so accordingly, I bring you your bright new orders.”
“The Dragon you do! What about our morrow-night card game?”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll be playing it with the Acting Captain of the Watch of Arabel, a-”
“A watch officer? They’ve got us working with guilty-if-I-don’t-like-you watch stoneheads now?”
“Well, he’s really a Purple Dragon ranker: the king gave secret orders a few years back, it seems, that thanks to the everlastingly rebellious tendencies in Arabel, all watch officers in that fair city be Purple Dragons, and so right under his thumb-”
“Huh. And we know which cunning royal magician was behind that, don’t we?”
“Aye, I doubt not. But Vangey’s cunning hand or not, this acting captain’s hight Taltar Dahauntul, and I’m told he-”
“Ah, yes, the stalwart Dauntless!”
“Hey?”
“ ‘Dauntless,’ everyone calls him. He seems to like it, and uses it himself now, too. Duke Bhereu once called him that: ‘dauntless in pursuit’ or some such thing, and the name stuck. He’s all right. A little grim and ‘it be against my sworn duty to laugh at anything,’ but then they all are. Old Thunderspell’s orders say anything about what wands and such we’re supposed to take?”
“No,” the inkwell under Tathanter’s nose said with some asperity, in a voice that made both war wizards freeze into instant gape-mouthed silence, their faces going pale, “but I’m on my way down to you two mirthful gossipers, to rectify that. Remain right where you are, though if you feel the need to wet yourselves, the potted plant by the window is quite dead; you can use its pot. Oh, and Doarmond: both merchants penned untruths into their little missives to you, but Harmantle is the one who should see a dungeon cell before the night is over. I’ll see to that. Both of you are going to be rather busy.”
“Sometimes it seems as if I’ve been walking in the forest with you forever,” Narantha mused, “yet it’s been just a few days. And this is our last? I don’t want it to end, now.”
“I’m afraid this must be our last,” Florin said. “Delbossan will be mad with worry-he’s probably been searching day and night since he lost you, and must be rav
ing and reeling by now for lack of sleep. If he’s dared to tell Lord Hezom, there’ll be scores of men out searching for you, and if he hasn’t, Hezom will probably have sent riders south to see what’s delayed Delbossan. And if any war wizard has got wind of what’s befallen, your parents will know by now, and they’ll be tearing the Royal Court apart chamber by chamber getting Purple Dragons out of their barracks and onto horses and up here at fast gallop!”
Narantha made a face. “I don’t want Lord Hezom’s teachings. I want… oh, I don’t know what I want. I-”
Florin whirled and put two fingers over her mouth. “Be silent,” he whispered, and cocked his head to listen.
“Wha-” Narantha shut herself up and strained to hear whatever Florin was so intent on hearing. They were in deep forest, carpeted in dead leaves and great green ferns, with the huge trunks of shadowtops and duskwoods soaring up all around them like dark columns. There were ridges ahead, and beyond them the forest seemed lighter, as if more sun reached down through the trees there.
There came a very faint clink of metal on metal, and Florin turned to Narantha with a fierce warning to keep utterly silent blazing in his eyes. Then there came a slightly louder, lower rattling and whirring noise. Florin sank down to his knees, drawing the noble lass with him.
“Hear that?” he whispered into her ear, his breath as warm as a candle flame. “That’s a windlass: a crossbow is being winched ready to fire. No forester around here uses crossbows, nor do Purple Dragons.”
“Outlaws?”
Florin nodded grimly. “Most likely. Yon sunlight ahead is Hunter’s Hollow, where the Way of the Dragon runs through the forest, ’twixt Espar and Tyrluk. Well suited for an ambush.” He wagged a stern finger in her face. “Stay here and keep quiet. No screaming, unless someone or something is rearing over you, about to take your life.”
“You’ll leave me undefended?”
Florin slapped a dagger into Narantha’s palm, his eyes as iron-hard as its steel, and said grimly, “I must. This is what it means to love Cormyr. Above all else, serving the realm before oneself…”
And with that fierce whisper trailing behind him, Florin crawled ahead, swift and nigh-soundless on his hands and knees. Trotting, then slinking, then trotting again. Just like the panthers Lord Huntsilver liked to loose in his gardens, to keep thieves away from his revels-and to keep his guests inside his mansion, rather than slinking out into the night to tryst and make shady trade deals, or depart early with some of his more handsome candlesticks and painted cameos. Narantha stared open-mouthed at Florin; he seemed, right now, more beast than man.
She watched him rise up like a vengeful shadow on her side of a tree, just this side of the first ridge, and peer cautiously around it in the lee of a low, leaf-laden branch. At that moment there was a sharp snap, then another. A horse screamed. There were shouts of angry alarm, the ring of swords being drawn in scabbard-nicking haste-and Florin took off around the tree like an arrow, sword in one hand and dagger in the other, all stealth abandoned.
Narantha stared at where he’d vanished, over the lip of the ridge, then hefted the dagger he’d put into her hand, set her mouth in a determined line-and hurried after him.
Chapter 8
BLOOD AND GLORY
Glory always has a price, and that cost is almost always paid in copiously spilled blood.
Harbunk Jhelliko
One Halfling’s Wisdom published in the Year of the Wanderer
N arantha ran hard. Outlaws. Gods above, she and Florin might both be dead a few breaths from now!
“Mother,” she gasped aloud, “Father… forgive me for all the upsets I’ve caused you, all the disappointments I’ve occasioned, all-”
A stone turned under her foot, she slipped wildly, and her chin glanced off her knee, cutting short her speech and coming within a painful instant of biting off her own tongue. She winced, spat blood, and ran on, saying no more.
A thunderous rumbling-a coach or wagon, moving in dangerous haste-rose ahead, moving to the left and dying away into distance, only to end in a thunderous crash, and more screams, this time of horses in pain.
Panting, Narantha reached the crest of the ridge in time to see Florin, almost at the lip of the second and last ridge before the sunlight, fling himself flat on his face to avoid eating a war-quarrel.
Almost before the bolt passed over him to hum harmlessly off into the trees, he was up again in a sprinting charge, the crossbowman cursing and snatching out the longest dagger Narantha had ever seen-a knife as long as her own forearm. Two other crossbowmen in dark and tattered leathers were clustered at the ridge-lip with the one who’d just fired. The tallest was grimly advancing on Florin with one of those overlong daggers in each hand and his crossbow lying in the leaves behind him, and the last was working his windlass like a madman, glancing betimes over his shoulder at Florin but keeping most of his attention on the unseen road beyond.
Unseen crossbows snapped, farther away-probably across the hollow-and there were more shouts.
Narantha started to sprint in earnest, sobbing for breath, as the forester reached the three outlaws. His sword rang off the long knife of the one who’d fired at him, driving the man back on his heels-and Florin sprang aside from him to confront the man with two fangs, leaping high.
The man stabbed with one, raising the other as a guard-but gutted only air as Florin came down into a froglike crouch and launched himself like a hurled hammer at the man’s ankles.
The outlaw toppled helplessly face-first into the leaves, burying one of his blades almost hilt-deep in forest loam. On the far side of him Florin rolled over and up and slashed at the third man, taking him in the back of the neck as he was still crouched over his bow.
The bowman fell sideways, head jerking loosely as blood spurted, but Florin had no time to even look at what his blade had done; he was whirling to slash the outlaw he’d toppled, moving almost as frantically as that man rolled and twisted around to face him.
One-Knife was hurrying around his fallen comrade to get at Florin. Running hard, Narantha shrieked, “In the name of the king! ”
Her cry brought One-Knife’s head snapping around to look at her, as Florin slashed the downed outlaw across the chest. His sword skirled across unseen armor there, and its owner hacked viciously at Florin’s swordarm with his remaining knife. Florin let go his sword to avoid losing his arm at the elbow-and crashed down on that knife arm with both knees, driving his own dagger into the man’s throat.
Narantha threw her dagger at One-Knife’s face. It whipped past his cheek harmlessly, but kept him staring at her long enough to give Florin time to roll aside and out of reach.
Giving Narantha a sneer, the last outlaw turned and raced after the forester, stumbling across the bodies of his comrades as Florin wisely gave up trying to scoop up his sword and kept on rolling, hard and fast, to find his feet among the roots of a duskwood.
The outlaw’s charge came with lightning-swift back and forth slashes of his knife at the fore, and Florin ducked behind the tree to use its trunk as a shield.
The outlaw stumbled on roots in his haste and Florin raced around the tree and tackled him from behind, the pair of them crashing and bouncing in wet leaves as Florin drove his dagger home again and again.
Into unyielding mail. Narantha was almost upon them now, winded and panting, but she started the raw, strangled beginnings of a scream as she saw One-Knife twist around and drive his long knife backhand at Florin’s shoulder The young forester flung himself away, off the outlaw, who rolled over with a triumphant snarl and scrambled to get up. Whereupon Florin arched, shoulders on the ground, and lashed out at the man with both boots, catching him just at that crouching moment when the forester’s feet were gathered under him and his balance was shifting. The man flew backward and sat on roots, bouncing and cursing-as Narantha ran up, scooped up a fallen knife, and stabbed clumsily at the nearest part of him she could reach, his shin, right above his boot.
The da
gger spun out of her hand, not seeming to do much harm, but One-Knife roared in pain-and Florin landed on him hard, stabbing ruthlessly. The outlaw’s cry sank into a long groan that trailed into silence.
Florin whirled around, letting the dying man slump against the tree. “I gave you a command! ” he snarled at Narantha, eyes ablaze and bloody dagger in hand.
“I don’t take orders from you!” she hissed back just as fiercely.
They glared at each other, breathing hard. Then Florin whirled away from her, jaw set, and ran to retrieve his sword.
Without another word he plucked it up and raced over the ridge, down into the sunlight beyond.
Leaving Narantha standing over three very dead men, sprawled on the leaves in their blood. She could see bright new mail through the slashes Florin’s steel had cut in their leathers; where would outlaws get such?
A matter for later. If, when “later” came, they were still alive to ponder outlaws who were not outlaws…
The fair flower of the Crownsilvers snatched up the only long knife she could see that wasn’t spattered with blood and ran after Florin, plunging down a tree-girt bank into the narrow vale beyond.
Hunter’s Hollow was a battlefield.
It was a pretty place where the forest rose in two tree-cloaked hills, and in the space between them curved the king’s road-a wide and high-crowned dirt way flanked by ditches. As Florin had said, a superb place for an ambush.
Two horses were lying dead in the road, and a man was lying in the dust where he’d been flung off the saddle of one of them, a heavy war-quarrel through his body and his face white and staring fixedly at nothing. There was astonishment on his frozen face-and it was an expression he’d worn often enough while Narantha was cursing Master Delbossan that she recognized him right away: the taller and quieter of the two guards Lord Hezom had sent to escort her to his home.
