by Ed Greenwood
“One evidently doomed to chase cowards who won’t cross blades with me,” came her terse reply. “Who are you?”
“One who doesn’t want to fight any stranger for a reason he understands not,” Florin replied, “and would much prefer to be allowed to continue the king’s business without being attacked in his very Palace!”
“Do you dare to accuse me of disloyalty to Cormyr?” Her voice sharpened into real anger. “Know, man, that I am a Highknight, personally sworn to King Azoun himself, and am accounted one of the deadliest blades in all the realm.”
She lunged, and Florin sidestepped and backed away again, without replying. With a hiss of exasperation she pursued him, adding, “The king creates very few female Highknights. I am one of them.”
Florin bowed his head. “Well met.”
“Do you mock me?” she snarled, gliding forward to launch a flurry of thrusts and slashes. He fell back again, parrying energetically, and as she pressed him, worked his steel faster and faster, until sparks were raining down.
He was stronger, and the weight he was putting behind his sword swings must be numbing her arms. Yes, her attack was lessening. He gave ground more slowly now, and there came a time when her arm grew tired and her attack openly faltered.
He listened to her swift breathing, stepping back again. Her pursuit this time was plodding, no longer a furious whirlwind.
“No,” Florin replied, his voice low and respectful. “I do not desire to mock you or give offense. I, too, have been honored by the Purple Dragon. King Azoun himself sponsored our adventuring charter, after I saved his life in the forest.”
“Ah. Then you would be… Florin Falconhand. Ranger of Espar. So why this treason, Florin?”
“No traitor am I,” Florin told her, “nor are any of us Knights. We’re here to protect the king and queen-and the Royal Magician, too-from a plot to slay them all, this day!”
“Ah, no, that’s our task and duty,” she replied, the sneer loud and clear in her voice. “Anyone running around down here with weapons, who I don’t know about, is a traitor.”
She lunged at him again and, when he parried, mounted another furious whirlwind of cuts and thrusts, pressing him back once more, the glow of her blade mounting to a white brightness. Their blades rang numbingly as the Highknight threw all of her strength behind her blade, starting to trust in his defensive bladework that never thrust back at her, nor offered her the slightest menace of steel.
Florin stood his ground, this time, and after a while the fury of her attack faded again, and he found himself listening once more to her swift breathing. The Doorwarden loomed right behind her, now, like a patient mountain.
When she spoke this time, her words came in rushes, between gasps. “However, just for purposes of entertainment, why don’t you tell me a little more about this plot?”
“No, Lady Highknight, I fear not,” Florin told her. “Treason among war wizards is involved, and I know not how far it spreads. I will speak with Vangerdahast and no other-or if I reach the king or queen, I will defend them with my body.”
The Highknight sighed then, and murmured, “I weary of this.”
As Florin backed away from her again, she undid a pouch at her belt, plucked out a large chestnut, and threw it at him.
The previously cracked-open nutshell fell apart in flight, to let a delicate glass vial tumble out. Florin sprang at it desperately, caught it a fist-width above the stone passage floor that would have shattered it, and hurled it back in her face.
She closed her eyes as it shattered across her nose, and then chuckled as its tiny shards fell away. “It doesn’t affect we Highknights, fool, but it will affect you, if I-”
She struck his blade aside with a deft strike of her own and leaned close to him, grinning mirthlessly.
Trying not to breathe, Florin punched her as hard as he dared, spinning her head around and hurling her limply back into the armored shins of the Doorwarden. Then he turned and ran.
He didn’t risk a look back until his outstretched blade found a doorframe too narrow for the Doorwarden to pass through. Her blade was still bright, but Lady Highknight was sprawled senseless on the passage floor, with the man-mountain of a guardian frowningly poking her with his fingers and growling at her to “Wake! The man flees! Wake, stlarn ye!”
Florin shook his head, stepped through the doorframe-there seemed to be no door, any more, just the marks of abandoned hinges-and cautiously went on into ever-deeper darkness, feeling along the stone passage wall to his left with his fingertips, and keeping his sword raised and thrust out before him in his other hand.
His fingers found a door, and it proved to be unlocked. He opened it and felt cautiously into the utter darkness it opened into. Nothing met his timidly reaching fingertips, but when he used his sword more boldly, it immediately struck smooth metal. Florin tapped and probed cautiously forward and then up and down, and discovered that the door seemed to open into a laundry shaft. There was no floor and no ceiling, but merely smooth metal walls with holes in them that seemed to be grab-holds. They had metal a little way within them, and more than one had what felt and smelled like sweat-reeking underthings-dethmas and clouts-caught on its lip.
Eventually he dared to sheathe his sword and reach out a hand to one of these unseen openings. He took hold of it-a rolled lip, seemingly meant for human hands to grasp-felt for another, and then bent down and felt for lower openings to thrust his boots into.
He found them, and a breath later was climbing the chute, going up in the darkness and feeling warm air coming down into his face from above. After only a little climbing the chute started to bend, becoming a nigh-horizontal slope that ended suddenly in a room where three descending chutes met, and there was an access door with handholds beside it-and a spyhole in it!
The door had no lock that he could see. It was held shut by a small metal drop-bar latch, on his side. The bar dropped into an angled metal iron against the wall. He must be a floor higher in the Palace.
Florin peered through the spyhole, and found himself looking into a little room crammed with a table piled with linens, and two men. One held a glowstone and wore the barrel-chested jacket and livery of a Palace courtier, an anxious expression, and copious sweat. The other wore the grand robes and sashes of a Turmish envoy, and looked furious.
“You weren’t supposed to get anywhere near me!” the Turmishman was snarling. “What’re you doing, fool?”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to follow Blacksilver around like a dog, always six paces right behind him. If all of the courtiers in my passage noticed-and they did! — the war wizards certainly noticed.”
“ Listen, ” the Turmishman hissed, and then uttered words that made cold black rage blossom in Florin, so suddenly and strongly that he almost whimpered. “The mindworm has eaten a lot of his brain. There’s not much left to control him with. I have to stay close, or he becomes little better than a striding zombie. They’ll notice that, to be sure.”
The courtier was trembling violently now. “I-uh-ah-yes,” he stammered. “Of course.”
“Good,” the Turmishman snarled. “Now get back to your post or to doing whatever it is that you’re supposed to do, and leave me be. As it is, I’ll have to chase down Blacksilver and not be seen doing it! Go! ”
The courtier bolted out of the room, and the seething Turmishman pounded his fist into his palm and growled, “ Hrast that Merendil bitch and her blood-bond! Without that, I’d slip away now and let that idiot puppy rush to his doom all by himself! This is going to be messy! So messy!”
“You bet it is,” Florin whispered to himself, face white and eyes blazing, as he flipped up the drop-bar, wrenched the door open, and flung himself through it, sword and dagger singing out.
Striding out of the linen room, the Turmishman reached a dimly lit passage beyond, and spun around.
Florin charged, roaring, “For Narantha! You bloody murderer! For Narantha Crownsilver!”
The man paled a
nd stepped back, raising one hand like a claw. From his fingers streaked the bright magical missiles of a battlestrike, lancing into Florin almost before they had time to fly.
Florin groaned at their searing pain, staggered, and struggled on despite rising agony. Reaching the Turmishman, he started hacking.
The man struggled to draw a dagger and to spit out an incantation, but Florin cared not. He sliced and chopped and hewed ruthlessly until fountaining blood stung his eyes and blinded him. Then he went on hacking until there was nothing still standing in the slippery passage but himself.
Panting above a heap of what looked like clumsily butchered meat, in a passage now awash with blood, Florin burst into tears.
“Narantha!” he wept. “This won’t bring you back, but I avenged you! I avenged you! ”
The ready-room had been crowded not so long ago, but all the guards were out at their posts now, leaving behind two bored Purple Dragon lionars.
They were bent over their littered desks, rather wearily writing out duty rosters for when this cursed-by-all-the-gods revel was over, when Florin’s distant shouts arose. The older one looked up and frowned at the din. “Are they letting the madwits out to join the revel too?”
The other lionar shook his head, flung down his quill, and drew his sword. Together they hastened out into the passage.
Amarauna Telfalcon knew two things: she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life before, and she couldn’t run much farther. She suspected one thing more: that her magical Yassandra the war wizard guise must have melted away. Surely there was no way Terentane could maintain the spell, gasping as they both were, pounding along Palace passages and hallways, running hard past the occasional startled servant.
They’d begun by racing up a long staircase. It alone had left Amarauna’s chest burning, and that had been a long time ago.
Or so it seemed. “Just a little farther, ‘Rauna!” Terentane gasped, from close behind her. “Keep going!”
They were heading for a room he knew, where he could cast a teleportation unobserved, and whisk them back to Marsember. Yet every corner could bring them face to face with Purple Dragons, or a real war wizard, and “Turn here! ’Tis just ahead!”
Blindly Amarauna Telfalcon obeyed, racing past a tapestry with her lover right behind her.
Neither of them noticed the eyeholes in that tapestry, nor the eyes behind them that watched them run past.
And neither of them heard the voice from behind that tapestry that then sneered, “Bumbling novices.”
Chapter 22
TAKE HER ALIVE
Among the orders we hated most
As they always meant greater peril
And more of our blood spilled,
Was any command of, “Take her alive.”
In my years, I learned hard, sharp, and often
That no woman wants to be taken alive.
Onstable Halvurr,Twenty Summers A Purple Dragon: One Soldier’s Life published in the Year of the Crown
Pennae staggered, sobbing with pain, and one of the Purple Dragons laughed, “Ha! This shouldn’t take long.”
The oldest of the three shook his head, and waved his sword at his fellows, directing them to spread out, to come at the wounded woman from three sides. “None of that! Disarm her, Strelgar! I want to know just what a lass is doing running around down here half-naked, felling war wizards! A hired slayer, or did we just interrupt a love-quarrel? Or something in between? I want some answers from this one, and so will Vangerdahast, so take her alive!”
Strelgar growled, obviously not liking these orders-and he liked them even less a breath later, when Pennae raced at him, hurled herself at the floor when he slashed viciously at her, rolled in against his shins, and stabbed upward. Hard.
Her blade darted under the edge of his chain mail shirt, up through the leathers beneath, into Strelgar’s belly and the hairy chest above it ere it flashed away again. He shrieked, writhed in pain, and staggered forward, getting in the way of the other two Dragon’s blades as they thrust at Pennae-who’d spun around against Strelgar’s ankles and past him, out of the trap closing in on her.
Both of those Dragons fully expected her to flee, and jostled their ways past Strelgar to give chase, but Pennae whirled around behind Strelgar to stab him low on the seat of his leather pants, and sprang sideways across the path of the rushing Dragon commander, parrying his reaching blade.
Their swords tangled together as he charged on, but Pennae trailed one leg rigidly behind her, catching his running feet at just the right height to collect some severe bruises, and to send him sprawling.
The third Purple Dragon, also running too fast to do anything adroit, ran right over him, tripping and swearing and ending up hopping and staggering awkwardly. Which gave Pennae time enough to land with both knees on the commander’s back and slash his neck open, and then spring up again to deal with the moaning, doubled-over Strelgar. She dealt his temples two furious blows with her sword hilt, and watched him sag senseless to the floor over her shoulder as she finally did what was expected of her: turned and ran down the passage, not taking the time to try to retrieve her leathers from beneath the Dragon commander-and his slowly spreading pool of blood.
The last Dragon gave pursuit, smiling as he saw the running lass ahead of him falter, put a hand to her side, and bring it away dripping with blood. She’d not last long, and then the glory of her capture would be his.
Ahead, she turned a corner, reeling now as if she could barely keep her feet. His grin widened, and he started to hurry.
Aye, Telsword Bareskar of the Palace Guard would win the day! Recognition at last! Recognition finally beyond mere war wizards’ disapproving looks whenever he slouched at a post, or traded saucy words with a passing maid. Oh, this would be Rushing around the corner, his ankles met something hard, thin, and sharp, that shrieked against his metal-shod boots as he toppled helplessly into…
A bone-jarringly hard meeting with the passage floor, bouncing with the wind slammed out of him and his helm tumbling away across the floor. He fought to keep hold of his sword, suddenly aware-with deepening fear-that the wench must have tripped him with her sword, and would probably be coming at him right now! He hoped not; he hoped she’d broken her stlarning arm trying that trick on him, but somehow the gods would have to smile on him far more widely than they’d been doing lately before he’d expect Hoy! Desperately he flung up his sword and struck away the blade reaching for him. She was trying to slay him, and if he didn’t move right swift-like-!
That blade came at him again. He parried desperately, staggering rather dazedly to his feet and discovering his left ankle hurt like tomb-fire, trying to beat back this lass while he got his wits and balance back.
Steel met steel again, right in front of his eyes, and his parry was a shade too slow. Her sword leaped over his to slice along his forehead like real fire.
Bareskar roared in startled pain; he’d made telsword without ever suffering so much as a scratch, let alone That cursed sword was coming at him again!
Dripping his blood, too, it was! He struck it aside savagely and backed away, suddenly blind. Something wet and stinging was in his eyes, was-he wiped at it, desperately, and found himself looking at blood, running from his fingers. Tluining hrast!
A door banged, nearby, and then another. Bareskar wiped the back of his hand across his brows, to try to see what She’d slashed open his forehead, stlarning near blinding him, and now she was tearing open door after door along the passage! What by all the Watching Gods was she doing?
She rushed at him again, bare chest bobbing distractingly. Bareskar wiped at his forehead again so he could see it-uh, her-better, hefted his sword, and prepared to meet her charge.
He parried her first thrust with surprising ease, grinned at her shocked expression, and thrust back at her. She gave ground, one arm waving wildly as she fought for balance, and Bareskar’s grin widened as he pressed her, striking her sword aside once-twice.
Aye, this was it! Bareskar blinked away stinging blood again, wiped his face frantically, and charged at her, hacking and chopping as she staggered back. They were hard by the doors she’d been opening, now; she’d strike the passage wall if she retreated farther. He knew he was grinning as he wiped at his forehead again, then lunged Suddenly there was no half-naked lass in front of him, only darkness, and there was no floor under his right boot.
Pennae shook her head as she kicked the Purple Dragon’s backside as hard as she knew how, and watched him plunge helplessly down out of sight with a shout of fear and pain, riding the laundry chute she’d found down into deeper cellars.
Such an overconfident dolt, to swallow her sudden oh-so-wounded act, and believe his bladework was suddenly so superior, after she’d just wounded him at will. Some fools will believe anything.
Yet there was a kingdom to save, and she would fall over if she went on running around and bleeding for long enough. She had to get gone, now.
None of these doors had held stairs leading upward, but there were a lot of doors she hadn’t tried yet.
Pennae sprinted down the passage to the next few. Darkness. Locked. Locked. Darkness; crowded room, not stairs. Locked. Locked.
She ran out of doors, flung up her hands in exasperation, and ran on, around another corner, seeking more doors. Not that she expected to discover any shortage. They seemed to positively love doors in this Palace. Locked ones, in particular.
“I should just run away,” Bravran Merendil sobbed to himself, cowering in the darkness of another Palace linen cupboard. “Just run from all this, and let Yarl get himself killed and Blacksilver get hacked down while I’m far away-and then go back to Mother and tell her it all failed. At least I’ll still be alive.”