“No,” she snapped, “I’m… all right, yes, I’m hurt.”
It galled her to waste a precious healing potion on a broken jaw, but gods above, this hurt! Not that she’d felt pain all that often, since her training had ended. She was too good with a blade for that.
She fumbled at her belt, found the vial she’d need, teased it forth, and almost spewed her guts with agony when she momentarily forgot her injury enough to try to do as she always did: pull the cork with her teeth.
Fighting down nausea in a red mist of pain that had her curled up and mewing like a cat, and hulking Baerem rumbling anxiously over her, she managed to twist the cork off with her fingers and let cool, soothing relief trickle down her throat.
Almost immediately she felt better, good enough to sit up-gaining an approving roar from Baerem, bless him-and rekindle her anger.
She was going to have that ranger’s neck-right now, not even taking the time to comfort Baerem or work with him at the winch to raise the dungeon door again.
The great iron barrier had split up the intruders but, so far as she could tell, crushed none of them, and its raising could wait until she’d downed Florin Falconhand and some or all of his Knights of Myth Drannor. She’d been told once which king had caused the barrier to be built, to wall off the lone way down into the Palace dungeons and prevent prison breaks, but there were no prisoners to keep safely penned up anymore.
There were just intruders stalking around the cellars of the Palace who should be prisoners, forthwith-or corpses.
Smiling, utterly unharmed now, the Lady Tarlgrael opened her eyes and held out her arms to Baerem, who reached down with that gentle deftness that still surprised her, to cradle her shoulders and ask anxiously, “Are you well again, Highknight?”
“I am, Dread Doorwarden of the Palace of the Dragon,” she told him formally, eyes flashing fire as she stood up, stretched like a cat in her dark leathers, and added, “And I will be even better when I’ve slain the man who escaped us both. Florin Falconhand must die.”
War wizards were apt to be a snappish, sour lot, but this one was worse than most. The young wenches generally were; they all seemed to think they had to prove their cods larger than any man’s.
First Sword Brelketh Velkrorn was interrupted in this less than happy thinking when the very war wizard he was measuring turned and glared back over her shoulder at him, fair tresses swirling. “Dragons,” she snapped, beckoning imperiously. “To me!”
The trio of Purple Dragons kept their faces carefully impassive as they trotted forward, all of them privately wondering just what, here in the back halls of the Palace, could be so stlarned exciting that their presence was so urgently required-and why War Wizard Tarlauma Hallowhar felt the need order them around so dramatically.
“That man! He imperils the Crown! Look you, how he clutches his sword, his strange demeanor? Take him! I want him alive, mind!”
The veteran Purple Dragons looked along the line of her lancelike pointing arm at a lone man stumbling slowly toward them, down an otherwise deserted passage.
“Yon’s Rellond the Roughshod!” Telsword Briarhult told her. “A peril to every lass who catches his eye, yes, but not to the king or Vangey-and I think even he has wits enough not to lay lecherous hands upon Queen Filfaeril!”
He shook his head, the three Dragons turning away as one, but Hallowhar put a firm hand on his shoulder and hissed, “ Look! Look now!”
The Dragons sighed, turned, and beheld a courtier rushing up behind Blacksilver, calling softly, “Rellond! Rellond, there’s a room I wanted you to see, remember? And I promised to polish your sword. Give it here and I’ll get started on it, the moment we’re settled.”
Bravran Merendil’s voice trembled. He hoped that’s how a courtier would talk, because that war wizard and no fewer than three Purple Dragons were standing farther along the passage staring right at him. Somehow, he had to get Blacksilver-gods, the man must be little better than the shuffling undead by now, with the mindworms gnawing away but no one using them to compel him-turned around and locked in a storeroom somewhere until the revel was done. Thank the gods he hadn’t gotten around to poisoning Blacksilver’s sword yet.
“ You, ” Blacksilver grunted, recalling Merendil befriending him and buying him drinks in a tavern. Drinks he was now certain-as much as this haze drifting through his head would let him be certain about anything-had been drugged. He drew his sword to give this Merendil pup what he deserved.
Bravran sprang back, plucking forth a dagger from within his jacket, and called, “Help!”
The three Purple Dragons exchanged weary looks and strode forward, War Wizard Hallowhar right behind them. Blacksilver stalked after the courtier, who was backing away, his face frightened and pale.
“Blacksilver!” Telsword Briarhult barked. “Sheathe steel, or face arrest!”
Rellond Blacksilver lurched around to face the Dragons, growling in anger.
“ Enough, Blacksilver,” the young mage said crisply, the self-important arrogance in her tone making the Dragons wince-and Rellond Blacksilver charge, sword sweeping up to hack and hew.
“Still no Florin,” Jhessail said, clawing open yet another door. Darkness behind it; the silent dead darkness that meant a room that held no life.
“Not even a pinch of Florin here, either,” Semoor said, letting his door swing shut. “Have you found any, Doust? Even a little piece?”
“ Enough sour jesting, Wolftooth,” Islif growled, from ahead. She was tirelessly plucking open doors and peering at the rooms beyond, while muttering more and more angrily about how much time was passing.
Doust considered a thought, and then shook his head and kept silent, judging it an inauspicious moment to remind Islif that each passing breath brought every mortal a breath nearer their last, and the inevitable waiting grave.
With the unspoken ease of long experience, the three Dragons drew their swords and spread out, to face the enraged noble with a wall of parrying war-steel. They didn’t expect War Wizard Hallowhar, having goaded Blacksilver into this, to do anything useful about dealing with him-wherefore they weren’t disappointed.
As the fray of furiously clashing steel began, Tarlauma Hallowhar stood staring thoughtfully past it at the courtier, who had backed well away and was now sheathing his dagger inside his jacket, looking up at her rather guiltily as he did so.
Tarlauma frowned. Many courtiers openly bore small belt-knives, and were allowed to do so, but a dagger like that? Carried in concealment?
Shaking her head, she spread her hands and carefully started to cast a spell on the distant man, who had started to turn away. When he saw what she was doing, his eyes blazed-and then he launched himself down the passage at her, running hard.
Telsword Briarhult calmly stepped back and away from his parrying of Blacksilver, to stand between the war wizard and this onrushing madwits of a courtier, his sword raised and ready.
War Wizard Hallowhar finished her spell-a mindwalk, aimed at this courtier with the knife-and stared into the man’s eyes to begin her plunge into his mind.
He seemed wild with terror, almost frothing as he sprinted down the passage, right at Briarhult’s waiting blade. At the last moment he plucked and threw something else from within his jacket-a little cloth finger-bag, thongs dancing wide open the way he’d just pulled them-right into the Purple Dragon’s face.
It burst on the bridge of Briarhult’s nose, flooding the air with a cloud of black dust that had the familiar acrid smell of darkrun pepper.
Briarhult slashed blindly at empty air. The courtier flung himself aside, shoulders bouncing hard off the passage wall, and then stepped forward in the lee of the swinging sword and slashed at Briarhult’s face, just catching his cheek.
Telsword Chorn Briarhult slumped bonelessly to the floor in an instant.
War Wizard Hallowhar gaped in astonishment at what she had just started to perceive of Bravran Merendil’s racing thoughts: treason, on the part of this heir of an exiled noble house, with his mother smiling behind him…
That was as far as she got ere Merendil’s knife slid hilt-deep between her ribs, and Faerun whirled away forever.
Lady Tarlgrael idly sliced empty air with her sword as she stalked along yet another passage. She liked the heft and feel of favorite war-steel in her hand, and she was looking forward to using it. Soon.
