by Ed Greenwood
So polite were the goblins that Vangerdahast suspected he might win a dinner invitation simply by casting a comprehend languages spell and introducing himself. With a somewhat smaller mouth than the hosts, however, he suspected his manners would not measure up to their standards, and he really did not fancy eating his crow off the floor. In fact, he had never liked the idea of eating crow at all, and he was not about to start now-not when there was tasty, whole-roasted mephitis mephitis to be had instead. Vangerdahast raised an invisible hand toward the nearest skunk, then turned his palm up and made a lifting motion.
As he whispered his incantation, a soft rustle sounded from the head of the great staircase. He spun around and thought he glimpsed a pair of pearly dots at the mouth of the corridor. The goblins broke into a cacophony of astonished chitters and alarmed snarls. He looked back into the banquet hall and found his skunk hovering just above his invisible hand, filling his nostrils with an aroma that, if it was a hallucination, was at least the sweetest hallucination he had ever experienced.
The goblins were staring at the floating skunk less in fear than wide-eyed amazement, as though waiting for the fang-filled mouth of some unseen god to materialize out of the darkness and gulp the thing down whole. Happy to oblige them in the best way possible, Vangerdahast pulled his invisible dagger from its sheath and cut a morsel off the carcass, then popped it into his mouth. It certainly tasted real. In fact, he could not remember ever before enjoying a piece of meat so much, not even from the kitchens of Suzail Palace.
The banquet room erupted into a tumult of chattering and chiming as the goblins jumped up and began drawing little iron swords from their little bronze scabbards. Vangerdahast reached into his pocket and tossed a pinch of diamond dust into the doorway, booming out an incantation even as they turned to rush him. A shimmering curtain of force flickered into existence across the cockeyed portal. The first goblins slammed into it at a dead sprint and bounced back into their companions.
Vangerdahast broke a length of rib bone off the skunk carcass, then illuminated it with a quick spell of light and tossed it down the corridor. A tall, manlike silhouette ducked quietly down the great staircase, and a chill ran down the wizard’s spine. The thing looked far too robust and human to be Xanthon, but there had been no hint of a tunic or cloak covering the smooth outline of its shoulders-and the wizard was all too certain of what that meant. Ghazneths could not wear clothes, for their bodies caused fabric to rot almost instantly.
The skunk suddenly lost its taste, but Vangerdahast forced himself to cut another piece and eat it. He was going to need his strength.
The goblins hurled themselves at the wall of force for only a few moments before concluding they could not get at their invisible thief through the doorway. They posted four guards in front of the portal and retreated to their table, then fell into a heated discussion. Keeping a watchful eye in both directions, Vangerdahast remained where he was and cast a spell to eavesdrop on their conversation. With a ghazneth lurking somewhere in the palace, he did not want to move until he had eaten his fill and recovered some of his energy.
“This thief we must find,” rasped one goblin, a particularly broad fellow in a crimson loincloth. “The Grodd Palace he must not have the run of.”
To Vangerdahast’s great dismay, it sounded to him as though the goblins were speaking some corrupted dialect of the same ancient Elvish in which Nalavara had spoken her name.
“One jill it is only,” said another. “Let the sneak have it and choke. Later we will smell him out.”
“Nay, later there will be more.” This speaker seemed to be female, and the others remained respectfully silent when she spoke. “Has the Iron One not spoken of these human things? If one is abided, a thousand come. We must smell him out before others follow, or the way of Cormanthor will we Grodd go.”
“As Otka commands.” The male who had spoken pointed toward a door in the back of the room. “Ghislan and Hardy, through the kitchen with your companies, and the alarm sound. Pepin and Rord, at the wall with yours.”
With chilling efficiency, Pepin and Rord gathered twenty of the diners and began to chink at the powdery mortar in the walls. Ghislan and Hardy took the rest and rushed off through the kitchen, leaving only Otka and the white-cloaked servers standing alone in the center of the banquet hall. Vangerdahast had no idea whether Ghislan and Hardy or Pepin and Rord or their subordinates were male or female. The only hint of their sexes he had been able to identify was their voices, and now they were too busy working to talk.
Vangerdahast managed to wolf down only half of the skunk before he heard the companies of Ghislan and Hardy charging up the great staircase. Deciding this particular tribe of goblins was too efficient to toy with, he wrapped the remaining carcass in its fur and stuffed it inside his cloak, then cast a spell to help him see in the dark and scuttled away down the corridor.
At the first intersection, Vangerdahast turned down a small side passage, circling toward a secondary staircase he had seen at the rear of the palace’s great foyer. The skunk meat sat in his belly like lead, though he suspected this had more to do with the condition of his neglected stomach than the Grodds’ skills as chefs. This particular tribe was unlike any he had ever seen before, being much more organized and-it made him shudder to think such a thing-civilized. His thoughts leaped to the forlorn keeps scattered throughout the Goblin Marches, but he could not see how the Grodd were related to those ancient structures, which had stood abandoned long before there was a Cormyr. Of course, he did not see how he had failed to notice Otka and her band earlier, and yet here they were in the grand goblin palace. Both mysteries, he suspected, had more to do with Nalavarauthatoryl the Red than he would have liked.
When Vangerdahast finally started down the final passage toward the stairs, he was dismayed to find a reddish, manlike silhouette crouching atop the landing. The head and body remained distinctly human, but the thing’s pearly gaze shone with the same faint light the wizard had seen in the eyes of Xanthon Cormaeril and the other ghazneths. Moreover, the figure was definitely naked, and he was peering across the foyer toward the skunk bone Vangerdahast had illuminated earlier. Though only a few minutes had passed since the spell was cast, all that remained of the magic was a faint yellow aura.
Vangerdahast cursed silently, then burped under his breath and retreated back up the corridor. He was already feeling stronger-but not yet strong enough to battle a ghazneth. It would be better to take his chances with the goblins.
He had scuttled nearly to the front of the palace when the soft hiss of sniffing goblins sounded around the next corner. Quietly, he retreated to the previous corner and started up another passage. This corridor was the smallest yet, so cramped he had to crawl on hands and knees. Had his life depended on it, he could not have turned around. The first goblins, silent save for the snuffle of their noses, passed the corner behind him. When none of them sounded the alarm, Vangerdahast breathed a silent sigh of relief and kneeled on his haunches, peering back beneath an arm to watch the rest of the group pass.
The sigh came too soon. The line had almost passed when a goblin stopped and squinted into the cramped passage, then chittered in excitement. With a sinking feeling, Vangerdahast dropped a shoulder and craned his neck to look down along his back. Where he should have seen nothing but darkness, he glimpsed a faint patch of blue. Like all magic he cast in the city of the Grodd, his spell of invisibility was wearing off prematurely.
Vangerdahast started to reach for a fire wand, then had a terrible thought. If his magic was not lasting as long as it should (and it was not), perhaps that meant something was draining it. If that something was what he feared, the last thing he wanted was to start spraying magic bolts around like arrows. Deciding his brain was starting to work again now that he had something in his stomach, he shoved the wand back in its sleeve and scurried down the passage as fast as his hands and knees would carry him.
The goblins quickly began to close the gap. Given the ch
oice of being spitted on an iron sword or using another small bit of magic, the wizard allowed himself a single wall of stone. The goblins hit the barrier at a sprint, then bounced away into the murky warrens to find another route to their quarry.
They must have known the labyrinth far better than Vangerdahast. It was all he could do to reach the front of the palace and crawl out onto a tiny balcony before the little warriors caught up. The first one rushed out after him, nearly piercing a kidney before the wizard hurled himself over the balustrade into the darkness.
Vangerdahast experienced a flash of pain as his weathercloak’s magic triggered itself, and he began to flutter toward the ground as slowly as a feather. The wizard allowed himself to descend slowly, secure in the knowledge that there had been no time for the goblins to fetch crossbows, then he felt his stomach rise as he began to fall faster.
He rubbed the commander’s ring on his finger and said, “King’s light.”
A sphere of purple light sprang up around Vangerdahast, revealing the startling fact that he was not only picking up speed, he was drifting away from the Grodd Palace. He twisted around to look toward the center plaza and was even more startled to find Nalavara’s huge eye rearing up before him, slowly blinking and still bearing a strong semblance to the dark basin it had been when Vangerdahast arrived in this strange city.
The spell failed entirely then. The wizard plummeted to the ground and hit hard, then rolled to his knees and found himself looking up at Nalavara’s reptilian jaw. As he shook his head clear, the dragon pulled another two neck scales out of the ground, and Vangerdahast knew he had guessed right about what was happening to his magic.
“Shrew!” he yelled, furious at being used in such a manner. “I’ll die in hell before I free you!”
“As you like.” Nalavara’s voice seethed from her throat like hissing steam. “But were I you, I would mind my wishes. Remember the ring.”
A terrific chittering broke out in the entrance to the Grodd Palace. Vangerdahast looked up and saw a company of goblins starting to spill down the stairs. He hoisted himself to his feet, but when he turned to run, his ribs were too sore and his legs too weary.
“Even strong and fresh, you are too old for that,” Nalavara chuckled. She raised her head far above, her horns gouging great tufts of spongy substance out of the city’s dark ceiling. “You have only the choices I give: die by the hands of my goblins, or take up their iron crown and rule in my name.”
Vangerdahast glanced up toward the palace and saw how right Nalavara was. The leading goblins were already halfway down the stairs, with more than a hundred of their fellows close behind. It would have been an easy matter for a wizard of his power to slay them all, of course-but only with a lot of magic, and he could see for himself what that would mean to Nalavara. The dragon’s head was already free, and every spell he cast only liberated more of her.
Better to die, then-save that the goblins would capture his magic and no doubt turn it over to Nalavara, all of the wands, rings, clasps, and amulets he carried hidden inside his secret pockets-not to mention the weathercloak itself, and even his tiny traveling spellbook, which relied on magic of its own to enlarge itself whenever he needed to read it. Dying would be worse than fighting. Dying would instantly give her all the magic she needed to free herself.
Vangerdahast did not even consider the iron crown, of course. Quite aside from any mystic powers Nalavara might have instilled into the circlet, to don the crown would be to declare himself a subject of the dragon herself, and he knew better than to think she would lack the means to enforce his liege duties. That left him with only one choice.
The goblins reached the bottom of the palace stairs and started across the plaza. Vangerdahast pulled a dove’s feather from his cloak and tossed it into the air.
“This is it,” he swore, spewing out the incantation of a flying spell. “This is the last magic you get from me!”
8
“Are you hurt, your majesty?” several warriors growled in rough unison, charging forward with swords raised.
Azoun gave them a mirthless smile and said, “Not unless my men refuse to follow me. Lass, have you chosen?”
“These who stand with me,” Alusair replied, spreading her hands to indicate a burly swordlord, a lancelord, a war wizard, a dozen or so noble blades and dragoneers, and the lords Braerwinter and Tolon.
“We’ve left a command here in the field?” the King of Cormyr asked, indicating the army spread out around them.
Alusair gave her father what some were wont to call a “dirty look.”
Azoun grinned openly before turning his head to watch the ghazneth who’d once been a lord among war wizards streak away into the sky. “Then let us be away,” he said calmly.
“You go to try to recapture the escaped darkwings?” a swordcaptain asked excitedly. “Take me!”
The king spun around. “No, loyal warrior. A few only are needed for this foray. The ghazneth did not escape-we let him go, that he might lead us to its lair.”
“But… he’s gone, beyond our sight.”
“The royal magician gifted me with a magical trick,” the king explained, raising his voice so that many could hear. “It’s a dust I used to taint that which the ghazneth snatched. I can trace it for some days-which I hope will not be needed. Expect our return forthwith, but do not hesitate to move on from here if battle demands it. We go!” Without further ado, the small force went, shaping itself around the king like a gigantic, wary shield. Azoun seemed sure of the ghazneth’s direction and led them without pause over a hill into a place of stony slopes.
“Think you there’re orcs ahead?” a Purple Dragon growled to his companion.
“Undoubtedly,” that veteran warrior replied, hefting his sword. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“Why is it,” Lancelord Raddlesar inquired of the world at large, “that so much of fighting consists of hurrying through the wilderlands, chasing something that’s well beyond the ends of our swords-and possibly beyond our powers to slay?”
“That’s not just fighting, warrior,” the war wizard told him quietly. “That’s life.”
Some stealthy things that might have been orcs scurried out from behind rocks and away as the king led his small strike force over several hills into an area where the land was riddled with breakneck gullies and rock outcrops, cloaked in stunted trees. They were probably only a few miles from the main army, but they might as well have been several kingdoms away, in land that-save for the occasional sheep’s skull-looked like men had never set foot on it.
A shrill cry rang out from a ridge ahead as they struggled up a thorny slope to a knife-edged crest.
“A sentinel,” Alusair said warningly. “Expect trouble ahead, and keep low-beware of arrows.”
Trouble was indeed waiting for them when they reached the ridge. A line of impassive, hulking orcs in black leather armor with well-used axes and swords in their hands stood ready.
“Strike, then withdraw at my horn call,” Alusair snapped. Men looked to the king for guidance. He merely nodded and indicated the Steel Princess, so they inclined their heads to her and made ready their swords.
The fray was brief and brutal, the king’s men keeping close together so that two or three of them could face-and swiftly fell-a single orc. With the safety of both the king and a royal heir at stake, there was no “fairness” to hold to. Two dragoneers fell before Alusair sounded her horn and the panting Cormyreans drew back, leaving behind twice their number of twitching or motionless orcs to the flies.
“Did you see-?” the lancelord gasped.
“Not yet,” the Steel Princess snapped, “but I’m watching. Look there.” A dozen orcs-no more-came up the hill to join the few survivors along the ridge. “If there are many more ahead, they want us to advance. I see no messengers hastening away to call any others.”
The king nodded. “So into the waiting jaws we’ll go,” he said. “I’m tired of wandering around these hills waiting to
be attacked by a foe who seems to dwell or rest nowhere. It’s time, and past time, to lash out.”
Heads nodded agreement as the Steel Princess raised her hand and looked around. “Ready all?” she asked.
A breath or two later, she brought her hand chopping down. “Then forward!”
The orcs seemed to melt away like smoke before the wind of their charge. The Cormyreans broke through a small thicket onto a ridge that overlooked a small, deep bowl valley. Its depths held a mud castle akin to the ones many in the force had seen before.
“Gods!” one of them swore. “How is it that these things can be built in our own marches, and us not know?”
“A fortress!” another growled in disbelief. “A bloody tusker castle!”
Orcs in plenty could be seen on the slopes of the valley and on the spiraling ramparts of the mud tower, which was gray wherever it wasn’t a sickly fresh dung color. It rose untidily out of a muddy moat, rock rubble strewn around it. The tower might have been raised the day before, or might have been older than the king.
“Has anyone among us traveled these hills before?” Azoun asked, almost absently.