by Ed Greenwood
Motes of light appeared in a swift, rushing circle in the wake of his nimble fingers, rushed together into a single pulsing light that flared into a cone of what seemed to be bright sunlight, and caught Targrael full in the face.
When it struck her sword, the blade shattered with an ear-splitting shriek, bursting into deadly shards that flew in all directions. One of them spun right across Targrael’s face, and another laid open her shoulder.
She howled in anguish and staggered back.
Snatch up thy sword and run her through. Take care to keep hold of it—she won’t fall or seem to be hurt much.
Arclath obeyed and did almost lose his sword as the death knight roared and spun away from him in a frenzy of pain, lashing out blindly with the twisted stump of her sword.
Now run, lad. Don’t play hero. Get in among the Dragons.
Arclath obeyed happily this time, and pulling back his weapon, sprinted into a knot of soldiers, most of whom seemed to be glaring at him, their swords drawn.
A handful of reinforcements trudged down the street from the direction of the Eastgate—more Dragons, but not fresh ones. The new arrivals looked exhausted, travel-stained, and far less grandly armored than the palace guardsmen. Some of these new arrivals were behind Arclath, milling around between him and the snarling, shuddering Targrael.
Ahead, Arclath saw his Rune staring anxiously over Storm’s shoulder at him. Even as he gave her a reassuring smile and espied Mirt arguing with a Dragon who had grabbed hold of his shoulder, he saw a man whose stern face he remembered from around the palace. At the same time, Storm greeted the man, “Well met again, Sir Starbridge. Will you be needing to see my chest again?”
“You handed us a merry journey back from Shadowdale,” he growled. “We’ve just walked the last leg, from Jester’s Green. What’s all this? What mischief are you up to now?”
“Trying to keep from being cut down in the street,” Storm replied—a moment before Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle thrust her head out of the gap where the door had been, saw Storm and then the others, and snapped, “You! Men, arrest these people! Her, and her, and the fat man there, and Lord Delcastle yonder!”
Mirt shook off the Dragon he’d been arguing with as if the man were a straw doll, and roared, “Fat man? Who’re ye calling a fat man, Shrewjaws?”
Whatever reply the blazing-eyed Glathra might have made was lost in her sudden jaw-drop of astonishment, as a Purple Dragon far across the Promenade was flung into the air to crash down among his fellows, and another man screamed in agony.
Heads turned, men gaped—and more Purple Dragons were hurled aside, streaming blood.
Lady Targrael was back on her feet and swinging two swords whose owners wouldn’t be needing them anymore. She was really angry now, and coming through anyone in her way.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
BATTLES INSIDE AND OUT
Just one? We face just one?” a gruff Purple Dragon lionar demanded disbelievingly. “Well, why haven’t you jacks downed her by now? What by the Rampant Dragon is—”
He broke off to gape as a severed head flew past him to bounce off the shoulder plates of a swordcaptain nearby, drenching the man in blood ere it tumbled down to be lost to sight underfoot. It had been wearing a Dragon helm.
“Sabruin!” he gasped in disbelief. “What manner of—”
Another Dragon fell, and his slayer ran along his toppling body, swinging swords in both hands against the soldiers now crowding around her and hacking at her almost desperately.
The lionar gaped again. She looked dead, this lone woman butchering her way through palace guards who should have been able to withstand a thousand women with ease.
“Sir Eskrel Starbridge,” the lionar heard the sharp voice of the Lady Glathra rising from behind him, “attend me. You and two of your Highknights. Tell the others to arrest and imprison the four persons I identified, in our dungeons, and quell this disturbance. They may call on the services of all the wizards of war who are here—it seems whoever is attacking, yonder, bears heavy magical protections. I have far more pressing matters to attend to right now than street butchery. Our oh-so-loyal nobles are gathering forces under arms all over the city, and Larak Dardulkyn may be involved.”
“Just what else befell here, while I was out hunting a false Elminster?” Starbridge demanded.
“Later, Highknight,” Glathra replied crisply. “Later.”
Lips set in a thin and furious line, Manshoon hissed out the short incantation and sat back to watch what befell in the shifting glows of his scrying eyes.
The blast was sudden and terrible, destroying the wagon and everyone close to it. Knowing what was coming, the future emperor of Cormyr had darkened that particular sphere almost to black, to avoid being blinded; the moment the flash had passed its height, he rekindled it, and was in time to watch the dung wagon spread itself and its contents in a thin, wet layer over the walls of the buildings at the far end of the street.
Of his wagon, the eye tyrant within it, the horses and Purple Dragons and war wizards—with any luck, every last person who might have seen the smallest glimpse of what the wagon was carrying—there was no sign.
Except for a red fog in the air and bedewing the street, not to mention the wide but shallow pit that had replaced the sweep of worn cobbles where the wagon had been standing.
Manshoon watched shards of glass fall in a gentle rain out of the sky, looking for any larger movements that might mean a warrior had survived or a Crown mage had shielded himself somehow.
Nothing. He’d gazed longer, now, than a wounded man could hold his breath. Still nothing.
He’d managed it. Kept his secret, and done it far enough from the mansion that Dardulkyn couldn’t be blamed outright.
Not that he considered the reckoning even, between himself and Cormyr. A dozen-some magelings, perhaps twice that many Dragons …
The Forest Kingdom still owed him four senior war wizards, or more. Beholders didn’t come cheap.
Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, the future Emperor of Cormyr and Beyond looked one last time at the blood-drenched street, reflected that it was high time to check on the other two wagons, and—
Something caught his eye, in another glowing scene. Or rather, a lot of somethings: Purple Dragons, their swords out and gleaming back reflections from some lanterns in a Suzailan street, and a bright and steady conjured glow that showed him the familiar façade of the palace behind it.
They were gathering around a lone, embattled figure, swords rising and falling, rising and fall …
Targrael!
In the street outside the palace, taking on a good third of the Crown soldiers in Suzail who were awake at this hour.
Manshoon stared at the battle for a moment more, seeing wizards of war, the hole in the palace wall where a door ought to be, and … was that Amarune Whitewave? Elminster?
He sprang from the chair, landing at a full sprint, heading for another of his beholders.
A living eye tyrant at the height of its powers should make for a dandy battle. After he made utterly stone-cold certain of his foe, this time.
Nay, lad, no more heroics. Not yet.
“So when, Old Mage?” Arclath snapped, seeing hard-faced Highknights shouldering their way through the Dragons toward him. “They’ll have Rune in a moment or two!”
Not in this fray, they won’t. Head up the street toward Eastgate a bit, then turn in toward the palace. Don’t run, or the Dragons will key on ye. Brisk and purposeful—stride like a lionar or an ornrion. That’s the way of it, aye.
Arclath held his sword low but ready, staring down soldiers rather than offering them battle, and won his way past more and more of them.
A flash of light reflected off their helms and faces, from behind his left shoulder.
Then another, amid shouts of anger and pain.
Arclath risked a look. Crown mages had tried to fell Targrael with spells, but failed to strik
e her down as she battled in the midst of so many Purple Dragons. Soldiers had paid the price of those magics, and were less than happy. Their comrades, around them, were angry, too.
Arclath had barely managed to sigh and take another step before he saw something that snatched away his breath and made him freeze where he stood, in one heart-fisting moment.
Out of the nightgloom over the tall buildings facing the palace across the wide Promenade, something as large as a coach was gliding.
Something spherical, with a huge fanged maw surmounted by a lone, malevolent eye the size of a table. Around the sphere curled ten long and flexible eyestalks that were moving into a staring halo of ten gleaming eyes, all of them glaring down at the mailed men in the street.
Rays of magic lanced out from those eyes, rays of ruby and ale-brown, dead white and fell, sickly yellow-green.
And Dragons died. Those who didn’t were left to shriek, try to flee, writhe in wild pain, or turn madwits upon their fellows, hacking and crying out in wordless despair.
Save for the small knot of soldiers battling the death knight. The beholder swept over them and left them untouched, in its eagerness to get at the Cormyreans near the doorway.
In its racing, gleefully burbling hunger to get at Rune.
The street rocked under the most foolish of the Crown mage–hurled spells, a blast that flung some Dragons off their feet and forced the rest into ducking and dancing for balance.
At the heart of the frenzy, one sword thrust into the throat of a swordcaptain and the other hacking hard at a desperately parrying telsword, Targrael grinned mirthlessly and went on slaying, never slowing in her endless dance of lunging, slashing, parrying, and spinning around to gut or hurl aside the inevitable clever fools trying to take her from behind.
Something caught her eye, up high behind her right shoulder.
She risked a swift glance at it as she turned that way, taking advantage of the fading aftershocks of that last spell to stab at the faces of men still fighting for balance. A man blinded by a forehead cut is a poor fighter, and she needed as many poor fighters around her as she could acquire, to keep them from overwhelming her with sheer weight and numbers, holding her down, and dismembering her.
As she slew and slew, wondering how long it would take a Dragon officer to summon up wits enough to think of just such a strategy, Lady Targrael took a second look at the movements and revealed light she’d glimpsed a moment ago, high up on the dark front of one of the tall buildings that faced the palace across the Promenade.
Curtains were being pulled aside and tied back up there, revealing the low light and dark fineries of one of the exclusive upper-floor clubs that overlooked this stretch of the Promenade. Faces were eagerly crowding the windows, peering down at the fray.
Well, now. It seemed even drunken, dunderheaded nobles could notice shouts and swordclangs and the street-shaking blasts of reckless spells if such tumult went on long enough. No doubt they were deeming this battle grand and exciting entertainment, and taking bets on who would down whom, and how soon and how bloodily—
Then there were screams from the street around her, and the eager watchers at the windows started to cower back.
Targrael saw by the reactions that the cause had to be overhead, and approaching in silence from behind her, but she dared look no longer, as Dragon swords came at her face and throat from three sides.
When she was done hacking her way out of that particular doom, the eye tyrant had already passed over her and was dealing death to the Dragons beyond.
Could this be Manshoon? There were other eye tyrants in the world, and even men who strove to control them, but—
Gazing up, Targrael caught sight of the answer to her question.
On the roof of the club of screaming, fleeing nobles crouched a dark figure, head forward and peering intently down into the mob of Cormyreans.
Talane. Yes, the tyrant almost had to be Manshoon, and this was another of his obedient mind-thralls.
As I once was and never shall be again, she promised herself.
Targrael slashed open the throat of one last Dragon and spun away to sprint toward that club. There would be stairs around the back, and she should get off the open street where Manshoon’s pet beholder could easily turn and lash her with its magics, anyhail.
“Talane, I’m coming for you,” Targrael whispered as tenderly as any lover, and started running hard.
Behind her, the boots of pursuing Purple Dragons rose in a wild thunder that made Targrael laugh aloud.
Mirt fought for his breath, laying out in all directions with his fists and one of his daggers, as grim-faced Purple Dragons thrust swords or spears or just themselves at him.
Thus far he was winning, if “winning” meant staying alive, on yer feet, an’ without too many large holes in yer hide. Tempus and Tymora be with me!
Aye, both of ye. I’ll need ye and more, what with all the new war wizards and Dragons streaming out of the doorway in the palace wall. Sent by Glathra or farspoken by their fellows, no doubt, to come rushing to join the fun.
Fighting a stlarning beholder, mind ye!
That death knight was still back there, too, hewing her way through a small army of Dragons like a butcher on market day, trying to catch up to him. Oh, and El and Storm, too, of course, but it was he an’ his little liberated Obarskyr treasure as had imprisoned her just now, an’ if he knew enraged women …
Speaking of whom …
“This is one of them,” a deep-voiced Dragon bellowed, pointing at Mirt. “To be taken and chained in the dungeons, by order of the Lady Glathra! So slay him not!”
“Oh, that’s nice of ye,” Mirt wheezed, punching aside a sword and shoving the man who’d swung it into his neighbor, so they both went over in a ringing and skirling of clashing armor plates. “Keep me alive for the mind-reaming, hey? Nice little kingdom ye have here, thick-necked barbariaaaugh!”
A swordcaptain had leaped at the back of his neck and brought both forearms crashing down on it as he fell past, at the same time as a snarling telsword swung the butt of his spear ruthlessly through Mirt’s fingers, to slam it into Mirt’s throat.
Gurgling, Mirt went down.
And promptly got buried under a dozen hard, heavy, and none-too-gentle loyal soldiers of Cormyr. Two of whom then became very heavy as the beholder’s grayest ray swept along the Promenade, leaving a path of men turned to stone.
Snarling fearful curses, the rest of the Dragons dragged Mirt roughly out from under their transformed fellows and raced for the gaping palace doorway in such frenzied haste that Mirt had time neither to breathe nor to touch even one boot down before he was inside and being hustled along dark passages by hard-breathing, incoherently cursing men of Cormyr.
He let them take him around the first corner before he elbowed one man in the ear, kicked off him to slam the man on his other side into the wall with good, solid, rib-shattering force, and took advantage of his firmly held arms to deliver a crotch-lifting triumph of a kick to the Dragon who turned to confront him—and he broke free.
He wasn’t foolish enough to try to get back out of the palace past them. Not when there was a table right handy that could be swept up and used to brain his closest pursuer, then tossed under the knees of those following, to take them down groaning among impaling splinters.
An instant before a deathly white ray stabbed into the palace from the beholder somewhere near, outside—and the doorway became a huge hole in the palace wall that claimed the floor of a stone chamber above and the bodies of at least three Dragons who’d been running after him in one sighing moment.
A fourth soldier, who’d been just about to drop two hairy hands onto Mirt’s shoulders to drag the fleeing miscreant down, shrieked as one foot foot vanished in the ray, leaving behind a spurting stump—and fell.
Yelling out unthinking curses of fear, and running as fast as he could wheeze, Mirt of Waterdeep raced deeper into the palace.
“Spread out!” a war wi
zard was yelling, his voice high with fear and excitement. “Wide apart, so it can’t easily get all of us! Hurry!”
Now. Elminster’s voice was fiercely insistent. Get to Storm. In by the walls, tell them you’re surrendering, act like the beholder has you so scared you’ll surrender quietly, sheathe your sword, and get ye to Storm, to touch and hold onto her, just as fast as ye can.
Arclath slammed his blade back into its scabbard and hastened toward the palace, bowing his head as he stepped around Dragons. “Sorry, can’t stop. I’m busy surrendering,” he said to the owner of the one hand that grabbed at him, and hurried on.
“Well, I’ll be so bold if you really insist,” he joked aloud to the heavy presence in his head, “but among politely reared folk, those who rush to touch and hold expect to pay for the privilege, in establishments that exclusively cater to such behavior.”
Oh? Since when have nobles of Cormyr been politely reared folk?
Arclath laughed aloud at that and caught a “You’re madwits, you are!” stare from a Dragon right in front of him.
By way of reply, as the beholder turned overhead and let fly with more rays, and men shouted and fled, he spread his empty hands and offered hastily, “I’m surrendering, and spell-talking with a friend of mine, a wizard of war who’s with the king right now—and who’s guiding me where I should go.”
The Dragon gave him another strange look then fled. Half a breath before the soldiers beyond him and a good bit of the palace wall beyond them vanished in a flash of eye-tyrant magic, enlarging the open doorway to a gaping hole.
Leaving Storm and Arclath staring at each other across suddenly open street cobbles, with devastation on one side of them and frantically fleeing Purple Dragons and war wizards on the other.