by Ed Greenwood
“You chided the Steel Princess?” someone muttered, just loudly enough for Alusair to hear as she turned to stride after her father. “Man, are your wits addled at last?”
A smile almost rose to the lips of the princess at that, as she hastened down loose rocks and slippery tussocks of clingvine and grass to where Dauneth Marliir was kneeling before his king.
“All is as you requested, Your Majesty,” the High Warden of the Eastern Marches was saying earnestly. “The poles-crew await your orders. The mages stand there, with the cage. As you can see it is wrapped to hide its true nature, just as you instructed.”
“Wrapped to hide-?” Alusair murmured, coming up to stand beside her father’s shoulder. “What by all the unslain orcs of the Stonelands is..
“Tell me now,” Azoun was asking, “what was the look on Elemander’s face when you brought him my orders, and showed him the royal ring?”
“Total astonishment,” Dauneth said with a smile, “but it soon slipped into disgust about the time I began describing the massive cold iron bars. ‘Beneath my skills,’ he sniffed, and snatched the ring from my fingers to make sure I wasn’t playing him false. He cursed-I can’t remember all the words even if Your Majesty cared to hear such foulness, and I doubt there even is such a thing as the ‘blind-flying spawn of a love-slave-slapped, dung-sucking donkey’-then he took the suit of armor he’d been working on from its stand and hurled it the length of his shop.”
The king exploded in laughter, slapping his thighs then dealing Dauneth a blow across the back that sent the young warden staggering. “Wonderful!”
“Will someone,” Alusair asked with silken politeness, “kindly tell me what this matter of royal armorers fashioning crude cold iron cages is all about?”
“Lass,” her father said jovially, indicating the hilltop and giving Dauneth a nod to tell him to send the poles-crew on its way, “we’re going to catch ourselves a ghazneth-and if need be, trade its freedom in exchange for our lost royal magician!”
“Oh,” Alusair replied with deceptive mildness, “Just like that? Well, now that you’ve told me, I’m sure everything’s going to go off without a hitch. It certainly sounds plausible enough, hmm?”
Azoun lifted an eyebrow at her tone, murmured something under his breath that might have been, “Just like your mother,” and swung around to point back behind them. “Surely you’ve had enough of fleeing from floods of orcs?”
“Gods, yes,” Alusair growled as fervently as any Purple Dragon veteran sick of long marches and given a chance at sitting idle instead might.
“Well, with Dauneth’s reinforcements guarding our flanks, we’re going to turn around and strike right back at them. They’ve been howling at our heels for long enough now that they don’t expect anything else from us except grim retreat. We’re giving them a despairing last stand right now, on the other side of that last hill behind us. The moment that tent is up, we’re going to break ranks and run back here. They’ll pour after us to enjoy the rout and slaughter, and we’ll send Dauneth’s troops looping out and around them like a long arm, taking them from behind while the war wizards Dauneth’s also brought with him hurl spells at them from the tent.”
“So the slaughterers will become the slaughtered,” Alusair said calmly. “I’m with you so far. Just how, exactly, are we to deal with the ghazneths who’ll inevitably come soaring in at us when we start this hurling of spells?”
“Wizards will cast visible defensive magics-harmless faerie fires-on the tent,” the king told her, “then scuttle inside when the ghazneths swoop down. The cage will be lined up with the tent mouth, and Purple Dragons will be standing inside with weapons of cold iron raised and ready to transfix any ghazneth bursting in.”
Alusair shook her head, then suddenly shrugged and grinned. “In other words, you’re just pitching in, running wild, and hoping,” she said. “Well, why not? We’ve tried everything else.”
“I knew you’d be ready for a little striking back,” her father replied, “because, by all the sheep who’ve ever drunk from the Wyvernwater, I certainly am!”
Three young war wizards stood in the dark mouth of the tent on the hill, their faces tight and pale with fear. Fireballs and lightning bolts streamed from their hands, flashing into the heart of the howling orcs surging up the slope then recoiling from the line of hard-thrusting Purple Dragon spearmen. Orc bodies arched in agony or were flung, broken, through the air only to be caught in the blast of the next spell and hurled anew.
It took only the space of a few breaths for the first of the expected ghazneths to streak in, flying low and hard from the south.
“Gods above, but they’re fast,” Alusair murmured at the king’s shoulder. She glanced over at the three war wizards-Stormshoulder, Gaundolonn, and Starlaggar, that was his name, Mavelar Starlaggar-and saw them, to a man, pale-faced and trembling with fear. “Are you sure our war wizards are up to this?”
Azoun followed her quizzical glance in time to see one of the young mages convulsively lose his last meal onto the ground. The king lifted his shoulders in a shrug and said, “We all have to face our first battle sometime, and I can’t hold the realm if only old, grizzled veterans know how to stand and fight for Cormyr.”
“Old, grizzled veterans like the king?” Alusair said with a smile.
“Exactly,” Azoun snarled back, and sprang forward. “Here comes a bolder bird now…”
The second ghazneth to appear over the hilltop wasted no time in the circling and shrieking that its fellow was engaged in. Without pause it swooped at the tent.
One war wizard moaned in fear and fell over his nearest fellow mage in his haste to escape, causing them both to topple over into the tent. The third one stood desperately trying to roll them out of the way as the ghazneth-a large, powerful one with a bald head and the shoulders of a large and imposing man-plunged down at it.
With seconds to spare, War Wizard Lharyder Gaundolonn got his two companions out of the way and threw himself over their bodies into the dim interior of the tent. The ghazneth raced in behind them like a laughing bolt of black lightning whose swift flight ended in a crash of splintering bones and reluctantly rolling cage that shook the entire hilltop.
A swordlord threw the slide that locked the cage, thrust the two iron spikes that would hold it from moving into place, and waved forward the spearmen whose weapons would keep the captured ghazneth away from them. “Well, majesty,” the swordlord said, “you’ve got your caged bird-faster and cleaner than I’d feared it’d come to us, too and now?”
The king shrugged and said, “We only have the one cage.”
He looked out over the tumult of bloody battle where Purple Dragons were slowly advancing to meet each other, hacking down the orcs trapped between them, then up at the-three, by now-ghazneths who were swooping down to claw off a head here, and rake open a face there.
“Enough,” he said. “Dauneth, is the senior war wizard ready?”
“Majesty, he is,” the warden replied, and gave a chopping hand signal to a man the Obarskyrs couldn’t see.
A long moment later, a small foundry of cold iron daggers, arrowheads, and spear points appeared as a midair cloud above the nearest swooping ghazneth and fell on it like pelting rain.
Its shriek was raw and deafening as it fell helplessly into the heart of the hacking fray. Long before it rose, flying raggedly, and fled low over the raging battle, the other two ghazneths had flown away.
“That worked well,” Alusair said admiringly. “Now all we have to do is hold off another few thousand orcs while you go and horse trade with a wounded, furious ghazneth. Blood of Tempus, look at them coming down the hills. How can any orc tribe feed so many mouths?”
“Horse trade indeed,” the king said with a smile. “By the looks of him, we’ve landed the worst of them after Boldovar, too. It’ll be Luthax, I’ve no doubt, once second only to Amedahast among the war wizards of his day.”
Alusair shook her head ruefully and said, “
You never did believe in doing things the easy way, did you?”
Azoun’s grinning reply was lost in the fresh howls of orcs, charging furiously up the hill on all sides.
5
The rat bites had withered to little red puckers, leaving Tanalasta’s pale breasts and belly strewn with star-shaped scars and oozing abscesses. Though her head throbbed and her joints ached with the remnant of a fever, she felt remarkably alert and rested and-finally-safe. Owden Foley, looking pale and battered but alive, sat at the edge of her bed. His eyes were closed in concentration and a healing hand was pressed over her womb. The corridors outside her chambers were guarded by an entire troop of dragoneers. Two war wizards sat in her anteroom, just a short yell away. Even her windows had been double-secured, being both barred by iron and sealed with mortar and stone.
Owden opened his eyes, but left his hand pressed to Tanalasta’s naked abdomen. She could feel the goddess’s mending heat flowing into her womb, making her loins tingle and ache in way that was not entirely unfamiliar and a little bit embarrassing. Tanalasta let the sensations wash over her and tried to accept what she felt with no shame. Such stirrings were a gift from Chauntea, and private though they were, no worshiper of the Great Mother should deny them.
By the time the High Harvestmaster’s gaze finally drifted toward Tanalasta’s face, she could bear the suspense no longer. “What of the child, Owden?” The princess found it difficult to speak. Though a healer had obviously worked his magic on her broken jaw, it was sore, stiff, and bound by a silken scarf. “Has it been injured?”
Owden’s eyes flickered away before answering. “You have had no pain or bleeding?”
Icy fingers of panic began to work up through Tanalasta’s chest. “What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know that anything is,” Owden said. He did not remove his hand from Tanalasta’s abdomen. “It’s only a question.”
“One you must know I can’t answer.” Tanalasta had awakened only a short time earlier, and the first thing she had done was send for Owden. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Half a tenday… or so they tell me.” Owden raised his free hand and absentmindedly rubbed the cloth over his own wound. “I awoke only yesterday myself.”
“And Alaphondar?”
“In the palace library. Seaburt and Othram are also here, but I’m afraid the others…” He shook his head, then said, “The orcs came in too fast.”
Tanalasta closed her eyes. “May their bodies feed the land and their souls blossom again,” she whispered.
“The goddess will tend them.” Owden clasped her arm. “They were brave men.”
“That they were.” Tanalasta glanced down between her bare breasts to the harvestmaster’s other hand, still pouring its healing warmth into her womb and asked, “Now, what of the child? I trust you are not just enjoying yourself.”
The joke drew a forced smile from the normally jovial priest. “With all those guards out there? I think not.” He glanced toward the anteroom door, then shook his head and told her, “The truth is, I have no way of knowing. I could ask the royal healers if there have been any signs, but they’d know at once my reason for asking.”
Tanalasta considered this, then shook her head. “Let’s avoid that. We need no rumors sweeping the realm, at least not until the nobles have accepted that I am married.”
“And to whom,” Owden added pointedly.
Tanalasta flashed him a frown of irritation, one of those rare glowers she reserved for the few people who would not interpret them as some subtle message by which whole families were made and unmade.
“Would knowing the signs make any difference to the child?”
Owden thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Either you are still with child or you aren’t,” he said simply. “If you are, all we can do is keep pouring Chauntea’s blessings into your womb and pray they are enough to counter the corrupting influences of your association with the ghazneth.”
“Would you please call it a fight?” Tanalasta asked dryly. “‘Association’ makes it sound like we were… trysting.”
Owden winced at her objection, but the anteroom door banged open before he could apologize. Jerking her bed gown down over her breasts, Tanalasta looked over with an angry rebuke on her tongue and found her mother striding into the room.
Queen Filfaeril was, as always, strikingly beautiful. Tresses of honey blonde hair streamed behind her, and blue eyes glared at Owden’s hand, which continued to rest over Tanalasta’s womb. If the harvestmaster felt any embarrassment, his face did not betray it.
“Mother,” Tanalasta mumbled, so surprised that she strained her aching jaw. “You might have had someone announce you.”
Filfaeril continued toward the bed, her stride growing more assertive and forceful. “I came as soon as I heard you had awakened.” She stopped at the base of the bed and continued to glare at Owden’s hand. “I’m glad to see you feeling so well.”
Tanalasta felt the heat rising to her cheeks, but took her cue from Owden and refused to take the bait. “To be truthful, I’m not quite sure how I feel.” She waved at Owden and said, “You remember Harvestmaster Foley?”
“How could I forget?”
The expression in Filfaeril’s eyes would have wilted a lesser man, but Owden merely stood and bowed without removing his hand from Tanalasta’s abdomen. “As radiant as ever, your majesty.”
Having failed to intimidate Owden, Filfaeril turned to Tanalasta and said, “A bit old for you, don’t you think?”
“That is hardly to the point, Mother,” said Tanalasta. “Harvestmaster Foley is tending to my health-as I am sure you know.”
Filfaeril’s expression remained icy. “The royal healers are not to your satisfaction?”
“I prefer Owden.” Though her feelings were fast growing as icy as her mother’s glare, Tanalasta forced herself to smile. “Surely, even a princess may choose who lays hands on her own body without the matter becoming the latest political crisis?”
A hint of shame flashed through Filfaeril’s eyes, but she quickly regained control of her expression. In a slightly warmer voice, she said, “I suppose that is hardly too much to ask, and I really did not come here to discuss the matter of your royal temple anyway.” She turned to Owden and graced him with a queenly smile. “So, how does our patient fare? I wasn’t aware that she had suffered any injuries so far… south.”
“She is a hale woman, majesty.” Owden raised a querying eyebrow at Tanalasta-ever so slightly-and received the merest shake of a head in response, then continued without missing a beat. “She had some pain in her intestines, but I’m sure it is merely a matter of lying in bed too long… nothing a long walk won’t cure.”
As subtle as the signals between Tanalasta and Owden had been, they did not escape Filfaeril’s notice. Her queenly smile grew cold enough to freeze a bonfire. “A walk, you say?” the queen asked. “Your Chauntean remedies are certainly more forward than those of our royal healers. They have warned me not to let her leave bed for the next tenday.”
“A tenday!” Tanalasta pushed herself up. “Not on their-“
Owden motioned her back down and said, “The royal healers have not had occasion to observe the princess as closely as I over the past year. Trust me, the exercise will do her more good.”
“I trust you,” said Tanalasta. “That’s all that matters.”
Thankfully, Owden’s healing hand finally cooled against her skin. He withdrew it, allowing her to lower her bed gown the rest of the way.
Filfaeril continued to glare at the priest so icily that even he began to grow uncomfortable.
He turned to Tanalasta and said, “If you are feeling well enough, perhaps I will withdraw and see to my own wounds.”
“Of course, Owden, and thank you-for everything.”
Owden bowed to her and the queen, then left. As soon as the anteroom door closed, the queen’s attitude softened. She took the priest’s place on the edge of the bed.
> “I really didn’t mean to intrude, my dear.” She took Tanalasta’s hand. “It’s just that when I heard you were awake, I couldn’t wait a moment longer to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Tanalasta regarded her mother warily, as surprised now as at their parting less than two months earlier, when the queen had berated her so ferociously for wanting to establish the Royal Temple of Chauntea. “Truly?”
Tanalasta’s astonishment seemed to take Filfaeril aback. The queen looked confused for a moment, then let slip an uncharacteristic snort of laughter.
“Not about the temple, my dear! You’re still going to have to forget that idea before your father will feel comfortable dying and leaving the throne to you.” Filfaeril tried a diplomatic smile and saw it fail, but continued unabashed. “What I am sorry about is the way I handled you.”
“Handled me, Mother?”
“Yes, Tanalasta, handled you.” Filfaeril’s voice had grown stern. “We are both women of the palace, and the time has come to acknowledge that. It doesn’t mean that we don’t love each other, or Azoun and Alusair-“
“Or even Vangey,” Tanalasta added.
The queen’s eyes darkened noticeably, but she nodded. “Even Vangerdahast-and he is the worst handler of any of us. We all have our own aims that inevitably set us against each other, and the only way to stay a family is to acknowledge the fact.”
Tanalasta regarded her mother as though meeting her for the first time. “All right…”
“So what I am sorry about is misjudging you. I was frightened by the change in you after Huthduth, and I thought you weren’t ready to be queen.” Filfaeril paused to blink away the tears welling in her eyes, then continued, “I thought you never would be, and I told your father to name Alusair in your place. I did everything I could to persuade him, but Vangerdahast wouldn’t have it.”
“Vangerdahast?” Tanalasta began to wonder what her mother was playing at. Vangerdahast had made a living hell of her life over the last year, constantly trying to bully her into becoming the kind of queen he expected to sit on the throne of Cormyr. Finally, the situation had grown so bad that Tanalasta had rebelled and told him to take what she was or start bullying Alusair into shape. “You aren’t saying that just because he’s gone, are you?”