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
