Death of the Dragon

33

The rain fell in sheets, pounding down on the iron canopy with such a roar Vangerdahast could hardly hear himself think. Peals of thunder rolled sporadically across the low ceiling, loosening tiny flakes of ancient Grodd fresco and sending them fluttering to the watery floor. Another lightning bolt lanced across the room and shattered a stubby little pillar. Chips of marble sprayed out like shrapnel, shredding the faces of half a dozen goblin courtiers and compelling them to run for the door, lest they insult their king by bleeding in his presence.

Vangerdahast sat at the edge of the Iron Throne, peering up at Rowen from the shelter of its small canopy. “You are making me reluctant to give you any more magic.”

“You know I can’t stop it,” Rowen said. He seemed a mere silhouette of man-shaped darkness against a torrent of gray rain. “And I am upset. Tanalasta saw me.”

“But only for an instant.” Vangerdahast had to shout to make himself heard above the storm. “And she didn’t know it was you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Had she thought you were standing here beside me, do you think I could have changed the subject?”

The thunder did not rumble quite so loudly. “Good. How did she seem?”

“Surprised.” Vangerdahast kept his answer short and tried to sound irritated. He had actually come to like Rowen-perhaps even admire him-and the last thing the wizard wanted was to discuss the telltale shadow on the princess’s lip. Queen Filfaeril’s lip had grown similarly dark during all three of her pregnancies. “She was expecting to reach you.”

“And she did, but how?”

Vangerdahast barely heard the question, for it had just occurred to him he finally had at least a vague time reference. Tanalasta’s face had seemed weary and tired, but also much rounder than he remembered, with a certain heaviness below the jawline that bespoke a considerable weight gain. She had to be near the end of her pregnancy. For her to have met an eligible young noble, been properly courted, wed, and now be close to childbirth… it had to have been at least a year-and that only if she had given up the silly notion of marrying for love.

“What’s wrong?” asked Rowen. “Why do you look so pale?”

The wizard waved the questions off, pretending to be preoccupied until he could think of a plausible answer, but his preoccupation was no act. His thoughts returned to Tanalasta at once. She had seemed very firm in her decision to marry for love (Vangerdahast recalled something about a vision from Chauntea), so the time had to be closer to two years-at a minimum. She would have needed time to forget Rowen, then there were the mere odds of meeting and falling in love with someone else. The process had taken twenty years the first time.

Then Vangerdahast understood. Had the princess fallen in love with somebody else, she would not have been looking for Rowen several years later. He glared up the ghazneth.

“Did you sleep with the princess?”

Rowen’s pearly eyes brightened, then he looked away. “That is hardly any business of yours.”

“Of course it is!” Vangerdahast snapped. “Do you not think it the business of the Royal Magician of Cormyr when a low-born, scurrilous dog takes advantage of the crown princess?”

“Takes advantage?” Rowen echoed. The room erupted into a tempest of crackling lightning, compelling the goblin courtiers to withdraw to the corners of the room. “If the princess must tell you everything, I am sure she also told you she was as eager as I was-though I still fail to see how what a wife does with her husband is any business of the royal magician’s.”

“Husband?” Vangerdahast’s head began to feel like it was filled with wool. “I thought you two never left the Stonelands. When did you have time for a wedding? How did you get the king’s approval?”

“A marriage is between two people,” Rowen said. The lightning ceased. “We had Chauntea’s blessing, and that was enough. Tanalasta did not tell you?”

“No.” Vangerdahast sank back in his throne and shook his head, trying to work through the ramifications and guess how the news had been received in Cormyr. “Actually, she didn’t need to tell me anything. I saw it for myself.”

“Saw it? How could you…” Rowen let the question trail off, then his jaw dropped and the throne room grew very still. “I’m going to be a father?”

Even after the dead and wounded had been removed to the kitchen, the Crownsilver dining room looked more like a charnel house than the banquet hall of a great manor. Spattered crescents of crimson arced across the silken draperies and masterful wall murals. Claw marks and blade gouges furrowed the rosewood table. Glittering shards of crystal chandelier lay strewn across the floor, and the stench of blood and sickness hung in the air like smoke over a fire.

A fresh company of warriors, this one composed of the finest knights from the loyal noble houses, stood between the high windows along the exterior wall. They held their weapons high and ready but seemed unable to take their eyes off the chair where Tanalasta sat, still oozing blood from the gashes in her face. The tale of how she had grabbed a halberd and split open Melineth Turcasson’s chest had spread across the estate like wildfire, growing in the telling as it passed from one building to the next. By the time the account reached the stables where the knights were waiting as a mounted reserve, the story had her destroying the ghazneth single-handedly, hacking him apart piecemeal as she chased him across the chamber. It was not an account any sensible man would believe when he saw how hugely pregnant she was, but the princess let the tale stand without comment. Having won fame for her ruthlessness, she thought it wise to earn a reputation for bravery as well.

Seeing that all was ready, Tanalasta nodded to Owden.

The harvestmaster removed Chauntea’s sacred amulet from around his neck, then asked, “Are you sure you’re ready to do this again so soon?”

Tanalasta nodded. “The king must hear what Vangerdahast said. I am ready.” She looked across the room to the company of knights she would be relying upon. “Are you?”

“We are,” answered Korvarr Rallyhorn.

It had taken seven priests of three different faiths nearly four days to put Korvarr together again after the battle with Luthax. As soon as he could stand again he rejoined his family retainers and promptly found himself elected captain of a company mustered from several loyal households. Few of those who had chosen him knew of his loose tongue with Orvendel, but Tanalasta doubted he would make such an error again and had gladly asked to have him assigned to her in reserve.

Owden gave the knights a few moments to prepare themselves, then kissed Chauntea’s amulet and stooped down to touch it to the inflamed gashes Melineth had opened across Tanalasta’s cheek. He spoke a prayer asking the goddess’s blessing, then intoned the words of his spell. Chauntea’s healing magic flowed into Tanalasta’s face, and she felt the inflammation and poison leaving her.

The lookout’s voice echoed down the stairs. “Ghazneth on the horizon!”

Owden uttered another spell, and Tanalasta felt the edges of the wound close.

“Shape now visible,” called the lookout.

Another voice echoed down the stairs after the first. “We’ve got one to the east, too! Still a fleck.”

Continuing to hold his holy symbol to her face, Owden paled. “Given what we’ve been through-“

“We’ll take them both!” Tanalasta commanded, speaking over Owden. “Send the reserves upstairs. Have their war wizard cast a false aura as the second one approaches, then hold until we finish the first.”

Owden finished his spell and removed his hand from Tanalasta’s face, then muttered under his breath, “And pray there are no more.”

“And that neither of these is Boldovar,” Tanalasta added under her own breath. They had prepared enfeebling artifacts for every ghazneth except the Mad King. As of yet, no one had thought of a way to betoken what he desired. She leaned her head back over her chair and called, “Status!”

“To the west, wings and feet clearly visible. No hint of identity.”

“To the east, cross shape just visible. It’s hazy.”

“Xanthon,” Tanalasta said to Owden. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Remember, you must forgive him.”

“I must absolve him,” Tanalasta corrected. “Besides, that’s one ghazneth I’d like keeping locked in an iron box in the dungeon.”

“That would be a big risk,” Owden said warily.

“I know.” Tanalasta had hardly been able to sleep since locking Luthax in the dungeon, and she had assigned fifty men to stand a constant guard over him. “But even princesses have dreams.”

“They also have the power to make their dreams come true.” Owden stepped back and motioned to her weathercloak’s throat clasp. “So they must be careful.”

Tanalasta sighed, then closed her throat clasp and pictured her father’s stately face. When the piercing brown eyes began to look sunken and the dignified bearing seemed to grow weary, she spoke to him in her thoughts.

Vangerdahast trapped somewhere strange. He has Scepter of Lords. You need to destroy dragon, which is Lorelei Alavara. Who’s that?

The look of guilty fear that flashed across the king’s face made Tanalasta wish she had not asked.

You wouldn’t know, came the king’s reply. Lorelei not in history books, and no time to explain. Thanks, and all luck with the ghazneths.

The king’s face vanished as the throat clasp’s magic faded, and Tanalasta found herself looking at a room full of nervous knights.

“The king is well and sends his wishes for a successful battle.” Tanalasta raised a hand and allowed Owden to pull her weary bulk out of the chair. “What of the ghazneths?”

“The first is almost here, Highness,” said Owden. “The lookout thinks it is Lady Merendil. It has a narrow waist and waspish wings.”

“It is,” Tanalasta confirmed. She glanced over at the nervous looking knights. “I have faced Lady Merendil before. She’s the Scourge of War, and you will find yourselves consumed by a mad bloodlust. You mustn’t yield to it. Pray to your gods and keep your head about you. Remember who the enemy is, and we will do well.”

The voice of experience seemed to comfort the knights. The doubt vanished from their faces, and they began to finger their holy symbols and utter prayers for strength. Tanalasta allowed Owden to help her toward her hiding box, at the same time summoning a pale-looking dragoneer who had been assigned to stand in the doorway as a messenger.

“Is the second ghazneth still trailing a hazy tail?”

“He is.”

“Good. That will be Xanthon Cormaeril.” She gestured through the door toward a hallway on the far side of the sweeping staircase. “Tell your war wizards to hide in there. On my command, one after the other, they are to blast him with their quickest, most powerful magic.”

“Magic, Highness?” gasped the dragoneer. “On a ghazneth?”

“He is the youngest,” Tanalasta explained. “I’ve seen him stunned by powerful spells.”

“True,” said Owden, “but if you don’t get to him-“

“I think it is time for us to go to our place,” Tanalasta said, cutting off the protest. “It cannot be long before Lady Merendil arrives.”

The princess’s words were truer than she would have liked. They had barely reached her hiding box before Lady Merendil’s waspish form streaked through the window Melineth Turcasson had smashed open earlier. A tempest of clacking echoed off the walls as the knights fired their crossbows. Merendil shrieked in pain and fell from the air, bouncing off the banquet table and still somehow managing to angle toward Tanalasta.

Realizing that the thing was coming for her, Tanalasta was seized by a terrible blind fury. She found herself pushing the door of her hiding box open and pulling her iron dagger. Owden caught her by the hair and jerked her back inside.

“Have you gone mad?” He slammed the locking bar down, sealing them inside the dark box, then grasped Rowen’s holy symbol and thrust it into her hands. “Calm down. Take your own advice and pray to the goddess.”

The ghazneth hit the door with a deafening clang, then tried to rip it open and toppled the box over instead. Tanalasta landed on her stomach with a painful whumpf. The dark interior erupted into a cacophony of thunderous booms as Lady Merendil tried to tear the iron box open, then the crate suddenly rose on end and toppled over backward. Tanalasta’s head sank through the leather padding and struck the iron beneath.

She thought for a moment that the muffled ringing in her ears was from a cracked skull, then she heard the dull thud of iron biting bone and the sharp crack of snapping limbs and the anguished howls of dying men, and she knew the knights were carrying the battle to the ghazneth. Tanalasta reached across Owden and felt for the locking bar.

The harvestmaster caught her by the wrist. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve got to get out there!” she said. “They need my leadership.”

“They need you alive, or all is for naught.” Owden shoved her arm back. “Say your prayers-now!”

Though she was fuming inwardly, Tanalasta clasped Rowen’s amulet and did as the priest instructed. A sense of calm came over her almost at once, and she realized Owden was right. She had fallen victim to the very bloodlust she had warned Korvarr’s knights against. Continuing to hold the silver holy symbol in her hands, she listened to the muted battle sounds and waited for the proper moment to show herself again. If her own experience was anything to go by, the men outside hardly needed inspiration, and getting herself killed for no reason would do nothing to destroy the ghazneths.

The box began to vibrate with a muffled drone, and tiny insect wings began to brush past Tanalasta’s face. “By the plow! Xanthon’s here already.”

Owden laid a hand on Tanalasta’s wrist-whether to comfort her or restrain her, she did not know. “Patience. We have heard no sign that he is downstairs.”

Something stung Tanalasta behind the ear, then something else bit her below the eye. She cursed and tried to swat the insects away, but in the dark tight quarters, it was difficult work. The princess managed to keep the things more or less off her face, but they crawled up beneath her hairline and down her collar and into her sleeves, stinging and biting and driving her mad. She killed the ones she could and tried to tolerate the rest, and finally the battle outside seemed to drift away.

Tanalasta was in no hurry to release the locking bar, for she knew the insect cloud would only grow thicker when they opened the box.

A sharp rap sounded on the door. “Princess, we’re ready.” It was Korvarr. “Open up!”

“Now?” Tanalasta asked.

“It would seem so.” Owden released the locking bar.

The lid flew open, and a gauze-like fog of buzzing wasps descended into the box. Owden began a prayer to disperse the insects. Squinting and gritting her teeth against the stinging cloud, Tanalasta raised an arm toward Korvarr.

“Help me up.”

“With pleasure, Princess.”

A hard hand grasped her by the wrist and jerked her to her feet, and she found herself looking into the bloodied, deranged face of Korvarr Rallyhorn.

“Korvarr?”

“Killer!” Korvarr released Tanalasta’s arm and backhanded her across the mouth, then reached awkwardly across his body for his dagger. “This is for Orvendel!”

For a moment, Tanalasta thought Korvarr had actually betrayed her. She stepped forward, pinning his arm against his chest and brought her knee up between his legs. He let out a horrid groan and doubled over, and it was then the princess noticed the finger bruises on his forearm and the impossible bend of the bone and realized what had happened. She lashed out with one hand and caught him by the ear, then brought her opposite elbow around and smashed it into the opposite side of the head, throwing her entire pregnant weight into the attack.

Her self-defense instructors had taught her well. Had she struck four inches higher, the blow would have shattered Korvarr’s temple and killed him instantly. As it was, the strike merely dislocated his jaw and left him unconscious at her feet.

Owden finished his spell, filling the room with pale, cedar-sharp smoke that sent the insects droning for the exits.

Astonished, Tanalasta turned and cocked her brow. “I am being attacked, and you are worried about wasps?”

“It was only Korvarr,” Owden replied. “If you can’t handle one man, what business have you trafficking in ghazneths?”

A ringing clamor echoed through the door behind them, and they turned to see a dozen dragoneers tumbling into the foyer beyond.

“That would be Xanthon now. Stall him.”

Tanalasta pushed Owden toward the steel tangle, then turned back to the dining room. A whirling knot of darkness and iron was slowly drifting away from her, moving toward an ancient throne at the far end of the room. Though the churning mass contained at least fifty knights, it almost looked as though they were loosing the battle. Plate-armored bodies came flying out at regular intervals, helmets staved in or breastplates cleaved open or truncated limbs flinging crimson arcs through the air. Had the ghazneth not been weak and slow with magic starvation, Tanalasta could not imagine what the battle would have been like.

A steel clamor sounded from the main stairwell, and Owden called, “Tanalasta, he’s coming!”

“When he reaches the bottom of the stairs-tell the wizards then!” Without waiting to see whether the harvestmaster understood, Tanalasta rushed into the steel tangle before her. “Stand aside! Let me at her!”

The knights, consumed as they were by bloodlust, paid her no attention. She barreled into the tangle from behind, forcing it toward the throne and tearing battle-crazed warriors out of her way. Several times, the princess was forced to duck the wild swing of a mailed hand or parry a low dagger, but she had practiced such drills often enough to understand the principle of redirection and always managed to steer these attacks toward others blocking her way. Furious knights began to spin off in groups of four and five, battering one another with their iron weapons and doing far more damage to each other than Lady Merendil had caused.

A fiery roar rumbled through the doorway as the war wizards unleashed their spells. Realizing she had no more than a minute before Xanthon recovered and began to convert the magic into a catastrophe for her, she grabbed a knight by the back of the helmet and shoved forward, using him like a battering ram to clear her path.

“Out of the way!” she screamed. “By royal command, stand aside!”

The tangle never parted, but she pushed into a region of hacking iron and flying black gore. The whole snarl seemed to lunge forward, and she found herself peering over an armored shoulder at a shadowy, mangled figure that could only be what remained of Lady Merendil. Tanalasta grabbed hold of the shoulder in front of her and raised her leg, thrusting her heel into the thing’s chest.

“Lady Ryndala Merendil, as a true Obarskyr and heir to the Dragon Throne, I grant you the thing you most desire, the thing for which you betrayed your liege duty and your loyalty to Cormyr, the throne of Azoun the First!” Tanalasta kicked outward, knocking Lady Merendil’s butchered form back into the burnished walnut throne behind her. “And as heir to the crown and a direct descendant of Azoun the First, I forgive your betrayal and absolve you of all crimes against Cormyr.”

Lady Merendil’s mouth opened in a black, silent shriek, but Tanalasta was already backing out of the crowd and rushing toward the door.

“Again!” she cried. “Hit him again!”

Tanalasta left the dining room to find the entire foyer filled with slashing iron blades. The blood-smeared floor was littered with naked rat tails, long-whiskered mouse snouts, and scaly-headed snake pieces.

Coughing, stumbling dragoneers ran in every direction, hacking at anything that moved on the floor. The ceiling was alive with spiders and the walls were crawling with scorpions. Men lay everywhere clutching twisted black hands and arms swollen to the size of thighs.

Tanalasta smacked a dragoneer in the side of the helmet. “Where’s the ghazneth?”

“There.” The warrior pointed to a mass of mangled flesh surrounded by chopping blades, then grabbed Tanalasta’s hand and shouldered his way forward. “Make way for the princess!”

The disciplined dragoneers immediately opened a path. By the time Tanalasta had pulled the signet off her finger, she was standing over Xanthon’s butchered figure, watching in horror as the wounds on his dark body closed faster than they could be opened.

Tanalasta kneeled at his side and grasped the flayed remains of a hand. There were only two fingers left, and she chose the largest.

“Xanthon Cormaeril, first cousin to my husband Rowen and second cousin to the next heir of the Dragon Throne, I give you the thing you desire most, the prestige and honor of the Obarskyr name.”

Before she could slip the ring onto his finger, Xanthon jerked free of her grasp. “Trollop!” he hissed. “You would sleep with any traitor among us. Rowen is one of-“

An iron halberd came down across his mouth, cleaving his jaw off and pinning his head to the floor. An armored foot secured his arm alongside it, then the tip of an iron sword unfurled the remaining two fingers.

“Perhaps the princess should try again,” said a gruff voice.

“In a moment,” Tanalasta said. “What is this about Rowen?”

Xanthon’s jaw drew back toward the rest of his head, healing before the princess’s eyes. He smiled and said, “He’s a Cormaeril. Do you really need to ask?”

Again, the halberd came down across Xanthon’s mouth, and the gruff voice said, “Pay him no attention, Princess. He’s only trying to buy time to save himself.”

Tanalasta nodded. “Of course.” Though she did not quite believe the dragoneer, she knew better than to think Rowen would ever have betrayed Cormyr-or her. She grabbed Xanthon’s black hand and shoved the signet ring onto his finger. “Xanthon Cormaeril, I name you royal cousin

The shadow did not fade from Xanthon’s body so much as simply vanish. In the next instant there was a man, horribly mutilated and screaming in agony, lying on the ground with Tanalasta’s signet ring on his finger. Content to have him thrown in an iron box and left that way, she rose and turned away-only to find herself looking at Owden Foley.

“I believe you have forgotten something,” the priest said. “The ghazneth cannot be destroyed until you forgive it.”

“Absolve it,” Tanalasta corrected. She turned and looked down at the screaming thing on the floor. Now that she had placed her ring on its finger, its wounds were no longer healing and it looked like no more than it was-a tormented traitor screaming for mercy. “He doesn’t deserve it. You heard what he said about Rowen.”

“What he said about Rowen does not matter.” Owden tapped her over the heart, pushing his finger into the soft swell of her upper breast. “How you react does.”

Tanalasta considered the priest’s words, then kneeled at Xanthon’s side. “I will give one more chance to clear your conscience, cousin. Tell me what became of Rowen.”

“I… told… you,” Xanthon gasped. “He’s one of… us.”

“Liar!” Tanalasta took a deep breath, then reluctantly clasped the ghazneth’s wrist. “As an heir to the Obarskyr throne and daughter to King Azoun IV, I… absolve you of your crime.”

“And forgive your betrayal,” added Owden.

Tanalasta waited to see if Xanthon would perish. When he did not, she added, “And forgive your betrayal.”

The pain seemed to leave Xanthon’s face. “Now it is you who are lying.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “Cousin.”