For good men go down in smoke and ash
When tempers fail and commands clash
Waving his gigantic, roiling-with-fat forearms about as wildly as any juggler, his face growing redder and redder, Master of the Kitchens Braerast Sklaenton looked more than ever like a gigantic, angry flameshell crab standing on its hind legs.
“No! Not a goblet goes out of this room that I don’t see put on a tray! And not a tray gets out that door without its carrier submitting to the spells of our war wizards! Can’t you dolts remember simple orders for longer than it takes you to say your own names? Darthin! Harlaw! Get back here! ”
Jowls quivering, the head cook pointed the two serving-jacks across the busy kitchen to its far doors, where already-exhausted war wizards were slumped in chairs, their pale faces showing the sweating strain of mind- probing every passing servant to seek out would-be poisoners and assassins. “March your lasses yonder! And mind they stop in front of the spellhurlers and get themselves checked, good and proper!”
The way to those mages was an everchanging tangle of rushing, shouting scullery maids, cellarers, and carvers rushing this way and that with steaming dishes and various sharp forks, cleavers, and knives in their hands, too busy to even notice that the highfront black gowns of the serving-lasses proceeding so deftly among them went clear down to halfway along the upper curves of what Master Sklaenton would have called their “carvable rumps.”
The war wizards noticed, though, and managed faint smiles of appreciation that made the young lass of a mage who was Vangerdahast’s designate as their superior for this task frown disapprovingly, and tap the wand in her hand into her palm in irritation. A moment later, she flinched so wildly, it could almost have been termed a jump.
The cause was a sudden bellow from Master Sklaenton, almost in her ear. “Lankel! Where are the cakes?”
“Here, Master!” The faint shout came from an adjoining kitchen.
“Well, what good are they in there? They need to be here, right now, in the hands of these wenches!”
Undercook Lankel was seven summers beyond learning better than to argue or explain. “Yes, Master!” he cried, sounding eager.
The Master of the Kitchens nodded in broadly smiling satisfaction-ah, but they still jumped when he ordered them to-and turned away, ignoring War Wizard Varrauna Tarlyon’s glare. Sixteen thousand tarts awaited his attention, and he wasn’t moving as fast as he once did…
There was a brief commotion, then, as one of the servers stiffened and reared back from War Wizard Markel Dauren in his chair, hurling her tray of drinks into his face and spinning around to flee.
Only to halt in an instant as the wand in Varrauna’s hand clapped across her throat and paralyzed her. Markel shook his head to rid himself of some of the wine streaming down his face, but old Brasker in the chair beside him went right on probing serving-wenches as if trays of wine goblets were often hurled around.
Standing beside the quivering, wild-eyed lass in the backless gown, Varrauna touched the buckle of her belt and murmured, “We’ve found one, Lord Vangerdahast. Markel hasn’t had a chance to say much, through the wine she threw over him, but he said something like ‘Urlusk.’ ”
“The Merlusks,” the grim voice arising from her belt replied. “Never numerous, exiled by King Duar, quiet for years-and since the ascension of King Azoun, they’ve become nigh the most energetic patrons of slayers-for-hire east of Amn. They send someone to almost every large Court event. I’m amazed they haven’t run out of suicidal fools by now.”
The blood was still welling out of her. More slowly, now, but that was probably because she’d lost so much already.
Grimly Pennae jerked open her thirty-fourth door, wondering how long she’d still have strength enough to open anything.
It swung open to reveal heat, the crackling of a fire-and two startled, sweating young men clad only in sweat, boots, and clouts.
They had long, heavy iron tongs and pokers as long as spears in their hands, as they straightened up to gape at her from busily rolling logs into place. They’d been feeding fires under the blackened flanks of what looked like huge water boilers. Now, however, they were staring in utter astonishment at Pennae, wavering weakly against the doorframe. A lass bare above the belt of her breeches, who held a bloody sword in her hand as if she knew how to use it.
Smiles of delighted disbelief broke across their faces, and they turned to look at each other, as if to seek reassurance that they were indeed both seeing the same thing.
Which was when Pennae exploded forward, her sword ready to ward away the nearest lad’s poker-and slammed the hilt of her dagger against the side of his head with all the force she could still manage.
He fell, slack-jawed, but the pain of that jarring blow made her sob and stagger, blood pouring out of her sliced side with renewed vigor.
“What’re you-?” The second lad was still so startled by her revealed upperworks that he could barely do more than stare.
“Like them?” Pennae gasped, to set him nodding.
He did, obligingly, and she struck him senseless the same way she’d served his fellow, falling atop him and riding his sweaty bulk down to the floor.
Well, not every Cormyrean is bred for his brains.
Their clouts were none too clean, but knotted together they were just long enough to go around her ribs, to try to hold her wound closed.
Wincing, Pennae reeled back out of that room leaning on a long poker-and, when she had to, on her sword, too.
Gods, but she was as weak as a bird.
A child’s toy bird, made of glued-together feathers…
Rellond Blacksilver staggered stiffly along a back hall of the Palace, clutching his ornamental court sword as if it reassured him.
In truth, it did. For a long time now his mind had been a wallowing, swirling fog, betimes crushed beneath great cataclysms of bright lights and roaring sounds, but now… now bedeviled only by unsettling gnawing feelings… through which he fought to fling to the one thought that had been his for as long as his faltering memory served him.
He was here to kill King Azoun on sight.
“Highknight,” a familiar voice rumbled, as a hand the size of a shovel shook her. “Lady Highknight.”
Her jaw and neck ached horribly, and her head rang like a temple bell. That stlarning, grauling brute Falconhand! How dare he?
This was what came of Azoun’s willful generosity. Though she’d benefited from it greatly-from that first tryst across his saddle to the training he’d made sure she got to the rank she now held-she’d warned him of it.
When he aided the disloyal, dangerous, and unsuitable, it was a weakness that could bring down the Dragon Throne.
Some backcountry thickneck of a ranger saves his life in a sword-brawl, and he gives the lad a charter, and a free hand at gathering the dregs of the countryside to go rampaging around with drawn swords, lording it over the law-abiding! Well, she’d put paid to that soon enough. Rangers tracked poorly when beheaded.
“Highknight?” the Doorwarden rumbled again, his shaking making her jaw shriek its pain through her skull. It must be broken.
She put a hand up to it to keep her talking from doing worse damage-could her jaw fall off, if she opened it too wide? — and managed to mumble, “My thanks, Baerem. Let me lie still for a bit. I must rise in my own way.”
“Lady Tarlgrael, are you hurt?”
