by Ed Greenwood
A sharp noise sounded between the princess and Sarmon, and in the next instant two men, stinking of blood and gore, appeared. The pair collapsed in a heap of flesh and armor and lay groaning on the stones, their faces so swollen and blotchy that Tanalasta recognized only the one in the cloak-and even then only by the sacred sunburst hanging around his neck.
“Owden!”
Tanalasta dropped to her friend’s side. The man in his arms was already dead, his throat ripped out and his steel breastplate dented by the ghazneth’s claws. Owden himself was in little better condition, with a fist-sized wound in his left side and two ribs protruding from the hole. One elbow was coiled around his burden’s leg so that he could reach the weathercloak’s magic escape pocket. Tanalasta pulled the arm free, then allowed a dragoneer to drag the dead man from the priest’s arms.
“Owden, can you hear me?”
The priest’s only reply was a muffled groan.
Tanalasta motioned to Sarmon’s assistant and said, “Teleport this man to Arabel at once. His life is to be saved, and I don’t care if the queen must order the High Hand of Tymora himself to resurrect him.” When the wizard hesitated, Tanalasta added, “I think you should hurry. This was the last man to see Vangerdahast alive.”
“Alive?” demanded Sarmon. “What do you mean?”
“I thought you would have heard by now,” Tanalasta said. “After the loss at the Farsea Marsh, the royal magician vanished.”
Sarmon eyed Tanalasta as though she had been trying to besmirch Vangerdahast’s reputation. “There was nothing in Her Majesty’s message to imply Vangerdahast might be dead. The queen said only that he had disappeared while giving chase to one of the Cormaeril traitors.”
Tanalasta felt the heat rise to her face but resisted the urge to make a sharp reply. “Not all Cormaerils are traitors,” she said mildly. The wizard could hardly have meant to offend her, for he could not have known about her recent marriage to Rowen Cormaeril. The ceremony had been performed deep in the Stonelands, and so far her trail companions were the only ones she had told. “But when Vangerdahast disappeared, he was chasing Xanthon Cormaeril. Now Xanthon is chasing us.”
Sarmon’s face fell at the implications-both for Vangerdahast and for the citadel itself-then he gave his assistant a curt nod. “Take the good harvestmaster to the palace at once.”
The wizard nodded his obedience, then took Owden in his arms and uttered a single mystic word. The pair vanished with a distinct pop, leaving a huge pool of crimson blood where the harvestmaster had been lying. Tanalasta stared at the blood for a long time until Sarmon stepped to the wall beside her and peered over the side. Too exhausted to run even in such desperate circumstances, the rest of her companions were plodding up the steep slope toward the rocky cliff upon which the citadel sat. Behind them, the insect swarm was beginning to boil out of the woods and drone after the haggard company.
“If Xanthon is chasing you, am I to take it he is also a ghazneth?” asked Sarmon. “I thought the ghazneths were supposed to rise from the spirits of ancient traitors to Cormyr.”
“In most cases, yes,” said Tanalasta. “Xanthon is the one who dug them out of their graves. He also seems to have found a way to become one.”
The insect cloud began to obscure the men below. They broke into a weary trot and started to slap and curse. The one in the magic weathercloak pulled the hood over his head and looked up at the citadel. Tanalasta caught a brief glimpse of white hair and pale skin, then the figure raised a hand to his throat clasp.
The wrinkled face of Alaphondar Emmarask appeared in Tanalasta’s mind. With sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, the old man looked almost mad. He scowled angrily, then his rasping voice sounded inside her head.
Tanalasta! You’re smarter than that. Go to Arabel this instant! You carry Cormyr’s future in your belly.
Tanalasta started to bristle at the sharp tone, then realized the Royal Sage Most Learned was right, as always. Though she was barely a month pregnant, that did not diminish the importance of the child growing inside her. With the realm on the brink of war and King Azoun IV a few winters beyond sixty, the worst thing a crown princess could do was risk her life or that of her baby. In such precarious times, either of their deaths might well mean the end of the Obarskyr dynasty-and perhaps of the kingdom itself.
I’ll wait down in the bailey, Tanalasta replied, speaking to Alaphondar with her thoughts. Don’t be long!
As soon as she finished, the sage’s image vanished from her mind. There was no chance for him to argue. A weathercloak’s throat clasp allowed the user to exchange only one set of thoughts per day, and even then the messages had to be brief.
Tanalasta stepped away from the wall, then turned to Sarmon and said, “Filmore and his men seem to have matters well in hand. I’ll wait for you in the bailey.”
Sarmon’s brow rose. “Of course, Princess,” he replied. “There is no sense putting yourself at any greater risk.” A hint of disdainful smile danced at the corners of his mouth, and he pointed across the courtyard at the door of the opposite rear corner tower. “That will be a safe place to hide.”
“I will not be hiding, Sarmon,” Tanalasta said. “I will be staying out of the way.”
The wizard’s expression turned unreadable. “Of course, Highness. Do not take offense at my poor choice of words.”
Though the insincere apology galled her, Tanalasta bit her tongue and descended the corner tower’s musty stone stairs. The comment irked her only because of the truth in it. No matter the reason, she was retreating to safety while Alaphondar and her other companions remained in danger, and that made her feel like a coward.
Tanalasta stepped out of the tower into a smoky miasma of acrid odors and coppery-smelling blood. Several dozen wounded dragoneers lay in a groaning row along the back wall, attended by two grim-faced clerics and a dozen qualmish women. Apparently, word of Tanalasta’s presence had already spread through the citadel, for the soldiers saluted as she passed and the women curtsied. One of the priests went so far as to offer a healing spell for her face. She sent the persistent little man away, telling him graciously but firmly that he had better things to do with his prayers.
By the time Tanalasta reached her assigned place and turned back toward the rampart, Filmore’s men were already hauling four of her companions through the embrasures. Exhausted, bloody, and groaning, the men were in little better condition than Owden had been. Even from down in the bailey, she could see their armor hanging in tatters and their tunics dripping blood. As the rescuers untied the knots around their chests, Tanalasta began to feel hollow and guilty inside. Those men had risked their lives that she might escape.
A cloud of insects came boiling over the battlements. Filmore’s dragoneers began to curse and slap at their faces, and several soldiers leaned through embrasures to fire their crossbows down the cliff face. The bolts were answered by a mad cackle of laughter, then the air blackened with insects. The men howled, dropped their weapons, and stumbled back from the wall.
Sarmon was the first to recover his wits. The wizard raised his hands and bellowed out a spell, calling up a steady wind that tore across the courtyard and swept the insect cloud out across the forest. As soon as the swarm was gone, the soldiers began to reload their weapons, the rope haulers tossed their lines back over the side, and Filmore shouted orders.
At the front of the castle, the head of the orcish battering ram began to show through a split in the heavy oak. A company of purple-clad dragoneers poured down from the wall to gather in front of the widening breach.
The rope haulers pulled another of Tanalasta’s companions through an embrasure. Though battered and bloody, the man was strong enough to stand by himself. He freed himself from the ropes with a quick slash of his dagger, then began to drag his wounded fellows out of harm’s way.
Sarmon’s wind spell faded abruptly, and again insects started to pour over the battlements. One of Tanalasta’s companions screamed, then his rope went sl
ack. Half a dozen dragoneers leaned out through embrasures to fire down along the wall. Whirling spheres of wasps gathered around their heads, stinging them in the eyes and ears, making it impossible to fire their weapons. They stumbled back from the wall, screaming, and in their agony began to batter themselves about their own heads.
A second shriek echoed up the wall, and another rope went slack. Tanalasta’s heart fell. Though Alaphondar’s voice had not been one of those that screamed, she could not help fearing that he was already dead. Only one line remained over the side, and the rope haulers were not even pulling it up. She could only hope that the old sage did not need the rope. He had obviously been wearing one of the magic weathercloaks when he sent the thought message to Tanalasta, and if he was wearing a cloak, he could simply teleport into the castle.
Filmore leaned out to shout an order. His head disappeared into a black swarming cloud, then he screamed once and vanished over the wall. His men began to rush back and forth, stretching through the embrasures to hack at something with their iron swords. The cloud of insects grew so thick Tanalasta could barely see what was happening.
The orcs’ battering ram finally splintered the gate with a tremendous crash. A deafening chorus of guttural cheers reverberated through the citadel, then the ram withdrew.
A stoop-shouldered orc stepped into the breach and was met by a hail of crossbow bolts. He died standing in the hole.
In the rear of the citadel, Sarmon cried out suddenly and stumbled back from the wall. A tall, gangly silhouette scrambled onto the merlon beside him. The figure was naked and gaunt, with a ragged tuft of beard and a cloud of insects whirling about his body. Tanalasta needed no more to identify him as Xanthon Cormaeril, youngest of the ghazneths and cousin to her husband, Rowen. He had been hounding their trail for several days now, and she had seen more than enough of him to know him by sight.
Xanthon dropped into a crouch and lashed out with one hand after the other, catching a pair of dragoneers by their throats. There were two sickening pops, then the soldiers’ heads simply came off in his hands, leaving their bodies to take one last step before collapsing in limp heaps.
Sarmon pointed at the intruder and began a long incantation. The ghazneth spun off his merlon, turning his back on the wizard and spreading a pair of rudimentary wings across his shoulders. The appendages were thin and square, with ragged edges and a dusty gray color that gave them a distinctly mothlike appearance. As soon as Xanthon landed on the wall, he backed toward the wizard, taking care to keep his wings between him and his foe. The cloud of insects moved with him, giving him a vaguely ghostlike appearance. Sarmon’s voice cracked and rose an octave, but he continued his spell at the same droning tempo.
A trio of brave dragoneers leaped to the attack, their iron swords arcing toward the ghazneth’s back from three different angles. Xanthon’s foot shot up behind him, crumpling the steel breastplate of one soldier and sending another man tumbling off the rampart with a lightning fast hook kick to the head. He stopped the third attack with a simple wrist block that snapped the poor fellow’s arm and sent him spinning over the battlements.
Sarmon’s voice finally fell silent, and a bolt of gray nothingness shot through the insect cloud to strike Xanthon square in one wing. The ghazneth stumbled forward and dropped to one knee, head shaking and wing glowing brilliant silver. Sarmon’s jaw fell, and a croak of astonishment rose from his throat-as well it should have. Tanalasta had recognized the spell as a bolt of disintegration, one of the most powerful in the arsenal of Cormyr’s war wizards, and it had done little more than stun the ghazneth.
The tower sergeant barked an order. Half a dozen dragoneers rushed forward and surrounded the ghazneth, their swords falling in a flurry of hacking iron. Xanthon let out a raspy snarl and exploded into a flurry of slashing claws and thrashing feet. He ripped the first soldier’s leg off at the knee, then hooked the dismembered ankle behind the man’s remaining foot and jerked it out from under him. The second and third dragoneers screamed and went down when he smashed the gruesome club into the side of their knees. Xanthon was up, driving his naked claws through a fourth man’s throat and shouldering a fifth off the rampart.
Sarmon raised his hand and uttered a single mystic syllable, blasting a fist-sized meteor into the side of the ghazneth’s head. The impact sent Xanthon cartwheeling down the rampart, spraying blood and bone everywhere. A dozen paces later, he finally tumbled over the edge and crashed into courtyard below, his ever-present cloud of insects trailing down behind him.
When the ghazneth showed no sign of rising, Sarmon waved the surviving dragoneers over the edge and shouted, “Do you want him to kill the rest of us? Get him in the box!”
The tower sergeant enlisted the aid of two more dragoneers and shoved the box off the rampart onto the ghazneth’s motionless body, then lowered himself over the edge after it. Sarmon simply stepped off the rampart, relying on the magic of his war wizard’s weathercloak to lower him gently into the insect cloud.
As the wizard descended, Alaphondar’s bony shape appeared on the carnage strewn walkway. The old man was clutching his side with one bloody hand and slapping at his wasp-stung face with the other, shaking his head in confusion as he tried to overcome his teleport afterdaze.
“Sarmon, above you!” Tanalasta yelled. “Alaphondar!”
The princess could not make herself heard above the clamor at the front gate, where a hundred orcs were squealing in agony as they poured through the splintered gates. Despite the rain of death pouring down on them through the gatehouse’s murder holes, the orcs were slowly forcing their way forward, and Tanalasta knew it would not be long before they came pouring across the courtyard. She closed her weathercloak’s magic throat clasp and pictured Sarmon’s face in her mind.
The wizard’s brow rose, and she spoke to him with her thoughts. Alaphondar is on the rampart above you. Get him, and let’s go to Arabel.
Sarmon glanced up, then looked across the bailey and nodded. As soon as we box the ghazneth. Perhaps we can learn of Vangerdahast’s fate.
“Box it?” Tanalasta cried, too astonished to care that her clasp’s magic was gone for the day and Sarmon could no longer hear her. “Have you lost your wits?”
Heart rising into her throat, Tanalasta opened her throat clasp to deactivate the weathercloak’s magic, then pulled her battle bracers from her pocket. She stopped short of slipping the bands onto her wrists. Putting them on would activate their magic, and the last thing she wanted when Xanthon recovered was an aura of magic. Ghazneths absorbed magic the way plants absorbed sunlight, and they could detect dweomer for miles around.
To Tanalasta’s astonishment, the dragoneers were able to do as the war wizard asked, scooping Xanthon into the box and slamming the lid before he recovered. Sarmon stepped over to the box and reached for the iron bolting bar.
A muffled squeaking erupted from the rear corner tower, and the wizard glanced reflexively over his shoulder. That was all the opportunity Xanthon needed. The box lid flew open, slamming Sarmon so hard that he fell and tumbled backward across the courtyard. The ghazneth sat up, his arm flashing up to swat aside the iron sword of an alert dragoneer, then looked across the courtyard toward Tanalasta. Through the swirling cloud of insects, she saw a strange wedge-shaped face and a pair of red, oval eyes, then a dragoneer blocked her view.
The man’s sword slashed down once, then he screamed and clutched at his belly. In the next instant, a dark hand wrapped itself around his neck and gave a sharp twist.
Holding her battle bracers ready, Tanalasta backed toward the corner tower behind her. Though she had not yet spoken with Xanthon Cormaeril face to face, she knew of his hatred for the Obarskyrs and had no doubts about what he would do to her-and her unborn child-if he caught her alive. With Sarmon still lying in a heap where Xanthon had knocked him, she would have to climb up to the rampart and flee to the gatehouse, where there would be no shortage of war wizards ready to teleport her back to Arabel.
&nbs
p; As Tanalasta stepped through the door, she was greeted by the same squeaking sound that had distracted Sarmon earlier. Something scratchy brushed past her ankle, and she looked down to see a blanket of rats pouring across the floor beneath her. One stopped to sniff at her leg.
Tanalasta bit back a scream and started up the stairs, then heard a pair of feet whispering across the stony floor behind her. A powerful hand grabbed her by the hair, snapping her head back and jerking her off her feet. She landed flat on her back, still clutching her battle bracers in one hand. When she raised her hand to slip the bands on, she found a beady-eyed rat clinging to the cuff of her cloak. This time she did scream.
A naked black foot swung across her body, pinning her arm to the floor and trapping the bracers in her hand.
“I think not, Princess.”
Above Tanalasta appeared a black, chitinous face that seemed more insect than human. The brow was broad and smooth, the nose long and slender, the mouth lined by a ridge of jagged cartilage. Though Sarmon’s spell had left a fist-sized crater in the side of the thing’s head, the edges of the wound were already closing.
Little clawed feet started to tug at Tanalasta’s weathercloak, and the rats swarmed over her body, gnawing her clothes, hair, and flesh. Xanthon reached out with a spindly arm and slammed the tower door shut, then slipped the heavy lock bar into place as though it were a mere stick.
“Sentries!” Tanalasta yelled. “Down here!”
The ghazneth smiled. “So it is you, Highness.” With his northern accent and dry huskiness, Xanthon sounded so much like Rowen that Tanalasta could have sworn it was her husband talking. The ghazneth chuckled brutally, then said, “I fear your face is so swollen that you are no longer recognizable to your loyal subjects.”
“Swollen as it is, at least it remains human,” Tanalasta said. “Whatever you have made of yourself, it was a poor trade.”