Elminster Enraged

tluin.”

Curses weren’t going to help in the slightest, so he repeated them all several times, as defiantly as if he’d been a young boy.

Sometimes, when the world was falling apart all around you, until you thought of something better, cursing was all you could really do.

“The mountains,” Amarune said softly, “are a lot higher than I’d thought they’d be.”

Arclath nodded, but before he could say anything the nearest Dragon told her, “Most folk we bring along this road say that. If yon peaks weren’t so tall, they’d not be the wall that keeps out Sembia.”

“Save, of course, for its gold,” Arclath murmured, causing two Dragons to lean in sharply, to try to hear.

They’d been riding the Orondstars Road, winding along the western flanks of the Thunder Peaks, for much of a day. Irlingstar couldn’t be far off now.

Rune and Arclath rode in manacles, under a heavy guard of veteran Purple Dragons riding in a tight group around them. The plate-armored, heavily armed Dragons obviously had orders to try to overhear everything a prisoner said.

To better fool everyone in the prison castle, none of their escort knew the young lord and untitled lass in chains were secret Crown agents rather than real prisoners. Officially, they were both “under the displeasure of the Crown,” which was polite court speech for “imprisoned thanks to being caught at something not quite bad enough for death or exile-or not proven well enough, yet, for you to receive the death or exile you’ve earned.”

Their escorts had been told that Lord Arclath Delcastle had spoken and plotted treason against the Crown with the commoner Amarune Whitewave. Who had now been revealed to the guards and shortly to the inhabitants of Irlingstar as both an agent of an “outland power” plotting against the realm, and the bastard offspring of no less than four noble families-and so, for the security of Cormyr, best locked up. The identities of those four high houses and of the outland power were officially “mysterious,” and Rune had been warned to keep them so.

She recalled that warning, now, as Arclath gave her a glance that concealed a reassuring grin very well. All that held his mirth was a wayward twinkle in one of his eyes. Meeting it, she widened her own eyes rather than winking, by way of reply, well aware of the steady stares of the surrounding Purple Dragons. And recalled the last time she’d received that hidden grin from him …

Amarune had been more excited than she could ever remember being.

She’d been beaming at everyone. After the king and the two wizards of war had departed the feasting room in Delcastle Manor, and Lady Marantine serenely began fetching out the sugar tarts that she’d somehow neglected to offer her unexpected court guests. Rune almost starting singing. Her heart was that high and soaring.

Even with the money belts hard and heavy in her hands, she could scarcely believe what had just happened.

“The king wanted my service-the king!”

As Lady Delcastle served Rune a dainty little plate of tarts, her little frown gave way to a rather grandmotherly smile.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, dear,” the noblewoman had said gently, “but the ranks of the loyal are rather thin, just now. When a ship is foundering, any bailing bucket will do.”

“Fornrar? Dagnan? Leave those quivers here. All but the prisoners will be in heavy armor, and I don’t want you wasting dread arrows. That poison’s expensive.”

“We heard your orders, Broadshield,” Dagnan replied sullenly. He was lowering the quiver from his shoulder very slowly.

“I know you did. I also know you,” their leader replied. “Put ’em down.”

He stayed to watch until the heavy quivers-twenty-one long-feather shafts weigh far more than most folk suspect-were down and hidden, wrapped in cloaks and with a goodly covering of the dead leaves that carpet every forest floor raked over them. Fornrar peered up to get a good look at the surrounding trees so as to be able to find the cached shafts later, then set off without a word, up and over the brow of the wooded hill, past the cluster of boulders where they’d hidden the axes.

That had been done under Broadshield’s orders, too. Otherwise, too many of the lads were apt to get overenthusiastic and start swinging axes at horses-and the dragon, who liked its prey whole and able to flee, to give it sport, wouldn’t like that.

Broadshield took care to keep his Beasts afraid of the great black wyrm. It reminded them of the perils of disloyalty toward their leader, the notorious Broadshield-the only one of them who’d befriended Alorglauvenemaus.

After all, some of these lads hadn’t been part of his band the last time the dragon had swooped down and devoured the three Beasts who’d been bold enough to disagree with their leader about anything.

“Remember,” Broadshield told Dagnan, as they followed after Fornrar. “We want the prisoners unharmed, not wearing arrows. The Delcastles will have our hides if we harm their heir.”

Dagnan grunted reluctant assent, spat on a long-fallen log, and asked sidelong, “They know about this, then?”

“No. Nor will they, until both prisoners are safe in the lodge in Sembia. They’re always happier to pay the ransom when they know their loved ones are out of Cormyr, and no appeal to Foril is going to result in any daring rescue.”

Dagnan nodded. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “if King Foril regards us as … useful.”

Beside him, Broadshield smiled in satisfaction. “Ah,” he said. “You begin to see.”

Rune found it hard to keep from laughing aloud. The expressions adorning the faces of every Dragon she glanced at were hilarious to behold.

“The Orondstars Road,” Arclath told her airily, playing the proud and effete dandy to the hilt, “began as a mining and settlement road in the latter days of the reign of King Duar Obarskyr. It departs the Thunder Way- forgive the repetition in the local nomenclature, but imagination is always in short supply among officialdom, and once they seize upon a halfway grand or decent name, in this case ‘Thunder,’ they simply cannot resist doing it to death-in Thunderstone, hard by the bridge over the Thunderflow, and winds its way north, clinging as closely to the westernmost Thunder Peaks as it can. The Orondstars themselves-just “Oronds” to most locals-are a stand of smallish mountains that resemble nothing so much as a handful of knife-edged serving platters, sunk half-deep in the ground, still more or less in the stack they started out in. Which is to say, they all stand parallel to each other, and are much thinner and sharper than your average mountain. The rest of the Thunder Peaks, for example.”

“Ohhh,” Rune answered him, playing an impressed and empty-headed young lass to the hilt. If the faces of their escort were anything to go by, the Dragons had swallowed this unsubtle act of hers almost a day ago.

The road ahead was rising, a thin wild forest cloaking the mountainsides on their right-the Thunder Peaks- and a thick, tangled wood looming on their left, on land Rune could see became several higher knife-edged ridges, ahead. Winding this way and that like a snake, the road climbed on, out of sight, into the trees.

“The Oronds, now …,” Arclath continued brightly, seeming not to see several Dragons rolling their eyes. “We’ve not quite reached them yet, and we’re headed for the next to last Orond, the northwestern-most one. It’s called Irlingmount, and Castle Irlingstar-the ‘star’ bit derives from archaic local dialect, and means ‘of’ or ‘pertaining to’ or something of the sort-perches atop a western arm of Irlingmount. The Orondstars-there’s that ‘star,’ again, you’ll note-stand just a tad northwest of halfway between the Realm of Wailing Fog and the flourishing settlement of Thunderholme. I’m sure they’ll have maps we can consult in the castle, but until we get there-”

The Dragon riding at Arclath’s shoulder looked like he was going to explode, and he was clutching a mace that looked quite capable of dashing out any Delcastle brains that came within reach, so Rune interrupted hastily, “What’s this ‘Realm of Wailing Fog,’ anyhail? I keep hearing it mentioned, but no one ever says anything about it! It sounds as if it’s-”

“Something that’s not to be talked about, by any of us or either of you,” the oldest Dragon said gruffly, in a voice so firm and raw that it was almost a roar. “Now keep talk to a minimum, prisoners!