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
