Behind her, the pierced tree was making horrible gurgling sounds, as if it were choking around the orc’s blade. Alusair stared at it, wondering what new horrors her next breath could bring.
“Come, Alusair Nacacia Obarskyr,” the orc crooned, matching the cadence of the song rising behind him. “Be my bride before you become my meal. I will do you that honor!”
The orc chieftain’s laughter rose like roaring thunder around her, and Alusair reeled, hoping she’d have enough strength left to run. Perhaps after she screamed.
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-“
