Death of the Dragon

1

The world vanished, and Tanalasta’s stomach rose into her chest. A sudden chill bit at her flesh, and there was a dark eternity of falling. She grew queasy and weak and heard nothing but the beating of her own heart. Her head reeled, a thousand worried thoughts shot through her mind, then she was simply someplace else. She was standing on the parapets of a castle wall, choking on some impossibly acrid stench and trying to recall where in the Nine Hells she was.

“Teleporter!” yelled a gruff voice. “Our corner!”

Tanalasta glanced over her shoulder and saw a small corner tower. In the arrow loops appeared the tips of four crossbow quarrels.

“Loose at will!” yelled the gruff voice.

As the weapons clacked, Tanalasta threw herself headlong down onto the wall walk. The quarrels hissed past and clanged off the stones around her, then ricocheted into the smoke-filled courtyard below.

She looked after them and found the enclave filled with kettles of boiling oil, barrels packed with crossbow bolts, fire tubs brimming with water. At the far end of the enclosure stood a sturdy oak gate, booming loudly under the regular crash of a battering ram. A constant stream of women and children ran up one set of stairs and down another, ferrying buckets of crossbow bolts and pots of boiling oil to the warriors gathered along the front wall. Though a few of the men wore only the flimsy leather jerkins of honest woodsmen, most were armored in the chain mail hauberks and steel basinets of Cormyrean dragoneers.

The sight of royal soldiers finally cleared the teleport afterdaze from Tanalasta’s mind, and she recalled that she was in the Cormyrean citadel at Goblin Mountain. She would have preferred to enter by the main gate, but there happened to be a host of orcs hammering at the portcullis with an iron-headed ram.

Behind her, the tower sergeant’s gruff voice called, “Ready your bolts!”

“Wait!” Tanalasta fished her signet ring from her pocket and spun toward her attackers, holding the amethyst dragon high above her. “In the name of the Obarskyrs, stay your fire!”

There was a pause, then the tower sergeant hissed, “By the Black Sword! That’s a woman-in a war wizard’s cloak!”

“It is.” Tanalasta dared to raise her head and saw a heavy-browed dragoneer peering out of an arrow loop. “And that woman is Crown Princess Tanalasta Obarskyr.”

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look like any portraits I’ve seen, Princess.” He spoke to someone inside the tower, and a freshly loaded crossbow appeared in the arrow loop next to him. He turned back to Tanalasta. “You won’t mind if we come down for a closer look?”

“Of course not,” Tanalasta replied. “And bring some ropes-long ones.”

“One thing at a time,” the sergeant said. “Until then, don’t move. We wouldn’t want Magri here to spike the crown princess, would we?”

Tanalasta nodded and remained motionless, though doing so made her fume inside. The sergeant was right to be cautious, but she had more than a dozen companions rushing across the valley toward the citadel. If she did not have ropes waiting when the haggard band arrived, the orcs would see them and trap them against the rear wall.

The tower door opened, and three dragoneers in full battle armor stepped out. Two of the soldiers flanked Tanalasta and leveled their halberds at her, while their heavy-chinned sergeant took the signet ring from her hand.

He eyed the amethyst dragon and its white gold mounting for a moment, then hissed a curse in the name of Tempus. “Where did you come by this?”

“My father gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday.” Tanalasta craned her neck back so she could glare into the soldier’s eyes. “According to Lord Bhereu’s Manual of Standards and Procedure, part the fourth, item two, I believe the proper procedure now is for the sentry to demand the royal code word.”

The sergeant’s face paled, for Tanalasta’s command of anything written in a book was well known throughout the kingdom. “M-may I have the code word please?”

Tanalasta snatched her signet back and said, “Damask Dragon.”

The dragoneer paled, then stooped down to take Tanalasta’s arm. “Highness, forgive me!” He pulled her to her feet without awaiting permission, then remembered himself and turned the color of rubies. “Your face… er, I, uh, didn’t recognize you. I beg your forgiveness.”

Tanalasta grimaced at the thought of what she must look like. She had been traveling hard for nearly two months now, and the last few hours had been the most difficult by far.

“No offense taken, Sergeant,” she said. “I must look a fright.”

Along with her companions, she had crawled the last mile with her face pressed into the mud to avoid being stung by wasps.

“Now fetch those ropes, and some strong fellows to man them. My company is in a dire state, and there’s a ghazneth close on our heels.”

At the mention of a ghazneth, the dragoneer’s face went from pale to white. He spat a series of orders to his subordinates, then all three men rushed off to do the princess’s bidding.

The orcs continued to batter the portcullis, and an iron bar finally gave way with a deep clang. The sound was answered by an astonishing flurry of crackles and sizzles from the war wizards in the small gatehouse. The tempo of the pounding slackened.

Tanalasta stepped over to battlements and peered through an embrasure into the valley behind the castle. Below was a vast wooded glen with a broad, meandering river and precipitous granite walls. The princess needed several moments to locate the line of figures scrambling through the trees toward the citadel. She could glimpse no more than two or three men at a time, some limping and some struggling to carry wounded fellows, but her heart fell. No matter how patiently she watched, she never counted more than ten forms, and there should have been fifteen.

The jangle of approaching soldiers rang along the rampart, and Tanalasta turned to find a sturdy officer of about forty winters leading a dozen dragoneers toward her. Four of the warriors carried a large iron box. The rest were armed with crossbows and iron swords. A pair of anxious war wizards accompanied the group, one at each end of the iron box.

The officer stopped before Tanalasta and bowed deeply. “If I may present myself, Highness,” he said. “I am Filmore, Lionar of the Goblin Mountain Outpost.” He motioned to the eldest wizard. “And this is Sarmon the Spectacular, master of the war wizards King Azoun sent to meet you.”

Sarmon stepped forward and also bowed. Though his weathered face looked far older than the lionar’s, his hair and long beard remained as dark as that of a youth of twenty. “At your service, Highness. We have been expecting you for the past several days.” He extended a hand to her and said, “The king has commanded that we teleport you to Arabel the instant of your arrival.”

“When my friends are safe.” Tanalasta ignored the wizard’s hand and pointed into the valley, where her companions were now struggling up the wooded hillside below the citadel. Several hundred paces behind them, a hazy cloud of insects was drifting across the river after them. “Alaphondar Emmarask and High Harvestmaster Foley are still out there, and the ghazneth is close upon them, as you can see.”

Sarmon and Filmore peered over the wall, then arched their brows in concern. The wizard turned back to Tanalasta and said, “Truly, Princess, the citadel is in enough peril from the orcs alone.” He reached for her arm. “My assistant will see to the safety of the Royal Sage Most Learned and your friend from Huthduth, but I dare not let you risk your life-“

Tanalasta pulled away before he could touch her. “You are not risking it-and don’t you dare teleport me without my permission. You have told me what the king commanded, but there are things he doesn’t know.”

Sarmon’s eyes betrayed his surprise at her commanding tone, but he nodded and said, “Of course, Majesty.”

The tower guards returned with four long ropes. Tanalasta instructed the sergeant to secure the lines to the merlons and drape the ends over the wall, then appointed four of Filmore’s burliest dragoneers to help the tower guards hoist her companions. The lionar assigned the rest of the company to battle the ghazneth when it came over the wall.

A loud crack sounded from the gate, followed by a muffled round of guttural cheers. The wizards in the gatehouse unleashed a tempest of lightning bolts and blasts of fire even greater than before, and again the tempo of the battering ram slowed. Tanalasta glanced over and wondered if her friends would be any safer inside the citadel. A large vertical split had appeared in the gate, and even Sarmon’s war wizards seemed unable to repel the attack.

An anxious murmur broke out beside Tanalasta. She turned to find the cloud of insects swirling up the slope behind her companions, who were finally breaking into the cleared area near the rear wall. There were only ten of them, and three of those were being carried by others. At least Owden and Alaphondar seemed to be all right.

As Tanalasta watched, one man stopped and kneeled at the edge of the woods. He placed the man he was carrying on the ground, then pulled off his black cloak and slipped it over the fellow’s shoulders. A second man stopped beside them. He placed a second figure in the arms of the first and pointed toward the corner where Tanalasta stood. The man in the cloak managed a weak nod, then he and his companion simply vanished.

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 slack. 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.

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.”

A metallic clamor began to echo down the stairs. Xanthon glanced toward the sound, and the rat swarm poured up the stone steps. The men started to curse and yell, then one screamed and a tremendous crash reverberated down the spiraling passage.

Hoping to take advantage of the distraction, Tanalasta screamed for help, then shot her free hand across her body and slipped a bracer onto her wrist.

Before she could put on the second, Xanthon caught her arm and plucked the bracer from her grasp. “You are too kind, Princess.”

The luster of the metal faded at once, and the gruesome wound in Xanthon’s head healed before Tanalasta’s eyes. He discarded the band and grabbed the other one. As he pulled it off, he gave Tanalasta’s arm a vicious twist. She felt the bone snap, but heard only the briefest crack before her scream drowned out the sound.

A pair of guards stumbled out of the stairwell cursing and trying to kick the rats off their legs. The first lowered his halberd and drove it into Xanthon’s ribs, pushing the ghazneth off Tanalasta and pinning him against the wall. The blade did not penetrate, however, for it was made of steel and only weapons of cold-forged iron could wound a ghazneth.

Xanthon slapped the halberd aside, then grabbed the dragoneer by the back of the helmet and smashed his unarmored forehead into the tower’s stone wall. There was a sickening crack, and the man went limp. Xanthon finished the second soldier with even less trouble, blocking the attack with one arm, then catching the man beneath the chin and simply tearing his jaw off.

Tanalasta’s gorge rose with pain and revulsion. Clutching her broken arm to her chest, she pushed her way through the rat swarm and braced herself against the wall. A series of deep thumps reverberated through the tower as warriors outside began to hammer at the door, but Tanalasta knew better than to think they would break through the thick oak. She thrust her good hand into her cloak, trying desperately to slip her shaking finger into her commander’s ring.

Xanthon ignored the hammering at the door and stepped across the room. He squatted and pulled her hand from her pocket, then plucked the ring from her grasp. The wound in his head was almost completely healed now, and the scalp grew back as he drained the magic from her ring.

“Do you know who is doing this to you?” he asked. “It is important that you know who is killing you.”

Tanalasta nodded. “Xanthon Cormaeril.” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice. Whether or not she was going to die, she did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her terror. “I know. Your cousin was a traitor, and you are too. May the both of you rot in the nine-hundredth pit of the Abyss.”

Xanthon grabbed her jaw. “I was no traitor until your father stole our lands.” He squeezed until a bone snapped, and Tanalasta nearly fainted from the pain. “But we Cormaerils have never been ones to hold grudges. Vengeance is so much sweeter.”

Something cracked in the door, and the hammering began to intensify. Xanthon glanced over his shoulder, then pulled Tanalasta up by her broken jaw. He reached around to grab the back of her neck with his free hand, and she realized he meant to rip her head from her shoulders.

A loud crack reverberated through the room, and the hammering at the door grew louder and faster. Xanthon’s fingers dug into Tanalasta’s neck, and she knew she would never survive until the thick oak splintered. A sudden calm came over her. She closed her eyes and began to pray, begging the Great Mother to watch over her soul and that of her unborn child.

“Open them!” Xanthon hissed.

Tanalasta croaked out something she meant to be What?, then was struck by the irony of Xanthon’s vengeance. Bitter laughter began to boil up from deep within her, racking her battered body and grating at the ends of her broken jaw. The pain flowed through her like water. Her mouth fell open, and she laughed in Xanthon’s face, fully and hysterically. His grasp tightened until Tanalasta thought her neck would snap, but still she laughed. She could not stop.

“No!” Xanthon shook her, and the pain meant nothing to Tanalasta. “Stop!”

“How can I?” she mumbled. “You’re killing a Cormaeril!”

“Liar!” Xanthon squeezed so hard that his fingers broke her skin. “You’re no Cormaeril.”

Tanalasta shook her head. “I’m not, but Rowen is.” She managed to stop laughing, then added, “I’m carrying his baby.”

“Never!” Despite his reaction, Xanthon’s jaw fell, and his gaze dropped to her stomach. “He’s a low-born dog, hardly worthy of the Cormaeril name.”

“Still my husband-still your cousin.” Tanalasta mumbled only the words she needed to. Now that her hysterics were passing, she saw a slim hope of forestalling her death, and with that hope came pain. “A Cormaeril could sit on the throne… could have not only your lands, but all of Cormyr.”

The gamble failed. Xanthon’s eyes flashed crimson, and the sinews of his dark arms rippled as he jerked on Tanalasta’s jaw. A terrible aching pain filled her head, but she fought to stay conscious, determined to defy her enemy until the end.

But her head did not come free. Despite the pain it caused, her neck remained solidly intact, and Tanalasta found herself staggering from one side of the room to another as the ghazneth tried to pull her head off her shoulders.

Xanthon’s ovoid eyes grew wide and scarlet. “Liar!”

He forced her to kneel and tried again. Tanalasta’s hearing faded and her vision narrowed to a mere tunnel, but the ghazneth’s doubt seemed to have sapped his strength. To keep from losing consciousness, she opened her mangled mouth and screamed.

The pounding at the door stopped, and a muffled voice began a spell. Xanthon glanced over his shoulder. For a moment his fading humanity was visible in the profile of his heavy brow and long nose, then he looked back to Tanalasta with a hatred more human than ghazneth burning in his eyes.

Tanalasta tried to say it was true, that if he killed her he would be robbing the Cormaerils of the first Cormyrean monarch to bear their blood, but she was too weak-and in too much pain.

All she could manage was a pompous smile and a short nod.

That was enough. In Tanalasta’s delirium, the shadow seemed to leave Xanthon’s body. Suddenly, he began to resemble little more than a naked man with hate-filled eyes and a bitter soul.

“Harlot!” Xanthon spat, and reached down for the sword of a dead guard.

Before he could pull it, Sarmon’s muffled voice fell silent. A loud boom reverberated through the tiny room, and the tower door came apart in a spray of shattered planks and twisted hinges. The explosion caught Xanthon full in the back, hurling him across the chamber but shielding Tanalasta from the worst of the blast. Armored soldiers came clanging through the door instantly, coughing and choking on sulfurous fumes.

Xanthon rolled to his feet and hurled himself down the stairs, disappearing into the musty depths beneath the tower before the dragoneers had taken two steps. A moment later, Alaphondar rushed through the door, Sarmon the Spectacular close on his heels.

“Tanalasta!” cried Alaphondar. “In the name of the Binder! No!”

The old sage collapsed to his knees and cradled her head in his lap. He started weep and rock to and fro, causing the ends of Tanalasta’s broken jaw to rub against each other. She moaned and reached up, clamping her fingers onto his arm to make him stop.

“By the quill! She’s alive!” Alaphondar pulled her higher into his lap, wrenching her broken arm around painfully, and waved Sarmon over. “Teleport us to Arabel-now!”