Roel Uskevren bounced. The armsman convulsed, then sagged and fell still. Thamalon's great-uncle never lost his one-handed grip on his reins. He was one of the few men in all Sembia with the strength to hold a snorting, frightened stallion from running away whilst wallowing on the ground. Roel found his feet with a bark of laughter, hauled hard on the reins to drag his horse back to him, and at the sounds made by a man charging up behind him, turned and struck the man's spear aside with a deftly timed slap of one great hand.
The bearlike Uskevren was swift enough to turn that slap into a punch-and the armsman ran right into his fist.
The armsman's helmed head snapped back, and his armored body ran on for a few loose-limbed paces, arched over backward, and collapsed. Roel saw one of the men he'd felled earlier scrambling to turn over and get up, so he hauled his horse back a few deliberate paces more until he could land a solid kick to the man's snarling face.
The man lost all interest in rising or battles or creeping fires for that matter, and Roel threw back his head and bellowed with laughter again. Teskra covered the last few running strides to him and bounded up to scissor her legs around his belly and cling to him, covering his face with eager kisses.
Thamalon stared at her open-mouthed for a moment, until Roel caught sight of him and let out a fresh roar of laughter. 'Gods above, boy, have you never seen lovers together before? Your face!'
Teskra turned her head, not releasing herself from her perch, and called, 'Thamalon, take Roel's reins and get gone!'
'No need, Tessie,' Roel drawled. 'There's horses for all back that way.'
'The Soargyl and the Talendar-' she protested.
'All the ones who were guarding our horses are dead now. They emptied the stables before they attacked, I think, to stop you folks from departing in haste once the festivities began. I broke a sword doing it, but there's a dozen or so back there that won't be cooking any morning feast over this fire.'
The bearlike eldest Uskevren jerked his head at Stormweather Towers. The roaring was relentless now, and tongues of flame were leaping higher than some of the turrets.
'Thamalon, get a horse. We'll take Tessie here to visit her kin at Sundolphin House for the day. Don't know how those old leather-nosed Baerent witches'll take to her knives and the blood and all, but I don't much care, either. They'll want to gossip, you can be sure. Be nice to 'em, Tessie, will you? Not even the Talendars will dare to wade into that house with swords drawn. Run, now, lad-run! I see more Soargyl scum headed this way!'
'By all the gods,' Thamalon muttered aloud. 'He sounds almost happy at the prospect!'
As he trotted past, Teskra gave him a grin that told him she'd heard his words. She'd taken hold of the reins, so Roel could keep a blade ready in one hand, and apply the other to somewhere far more interesting. The Lady Ilrilteska threw back her head and gave the smoking sky a long, shuddering gasp as Thamalon ran on through thinning smoke. It was not a gasp of pain.
He found the horses snorting and stamping in fear at the fire and the human bodies sprawled in blood all around them. They were saddled and bridled, and their reins were all tied to the gate that led to the garden wall. He chose one he'd ridden before, grimly fought down its attempt to break free of him, and rode it back into the smoke. He had to whack its rump with the flat of his blade and saw at the reins to make it go into the smoke. Thamalon hardly blamed the beast for its reluctance, especially when he heard the clang of steel on steel from just ahead.
Smoke eddied once more, sliding away like a snatched cloak to reveal Roel and Teskra fencing with five-no, six Soargyl swordsmen. As Thamalon rode up, one of them screamed, threw up his arms, and fell over, his guts laid open.
That was enough for Thamalon's horse-even before the blazing ember fell out of the smoke and landed on its withers.
The beast bugled and bucked wildly, stumbling to one side and nearly beheading a Soargyl with its hooves. Someone shouted and swung a sword at it, and it shied away so violently that it tripped on bodies and fell heavily. Thamalon kicked his legs clear just in time.
He clung to his saddle's high cantle as the scorched horse rolled, thrashing and shrieking in fear. By sheer strength he hauled himself into the saddle again as the horse found footing for a wild gallop.
From nowhere, a laughing Roel cut in front of Thamalon's horse, waving cheerfully with Teskra clinging to his back.
'Away!' he cried. 'For other days, and glory then!'
He clapped his boots to his mount's flanks, and raced away into the smoke. Thamalon's terrified mount followed the stallion it knew, and they tore through smoke and toppling rubble together, plunging through streamers of flame to skirt the worst of the roaring pyre that had begun the day as the proud mansion of Stormweather Towers.
They came to a place where blazing beams were toppling and lightning was flashing forth. A sweat-soaked and bleeding Perivel was dodging and parrying with gasping speed and skill, in a room wreathed in flames. He held a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other, and needed both to hold Marklon, Ereldel, and Lord Rajeldus Talendar at bay.
Roel drew a sword from its scabbard and threw it, hard. End over end it flashed, to take Ereldel Talendar in the side of the head, biting deep.
Ereldel toppled slowly, like a reluctantly felled tree, as Roel bellowed, 'I'll be back, Lord Uskevren! Save me some fun!'
Perivel managed a fierce grin in reply-an instant before Marklon Talendar delivered a two-handed cut that had all his strength behind it, and the aged sword in Perivel's hand broke amid a flood of blue lightning that sent all of the combatants staggering back.
'I'll… be here!' Perivel cried, gasping for breath and snatching a sword up from a sprawled body. He waved it in the air and cried, 'For Uskevren-forever!'
Rajeldus and Marklon Talendar recovered themselves, traded glances, and advanced in grim unison on the Lord of House Uskevren. Even as Thamalon leaned back dangerously in the saddle of his racing mount to shout a warning, the blazing beams above Perivel Uskevren groaned and began to fall. The subsequent crash, and the roar of bright flame that went up in its wake, was the last of Stormweather that Thamalon saw that day. His terrified mount carried him through a choking billow of smoke, and away.
The star-adorned hilt of the knife in his sleeve was as smooth as ever. Thamalon let them all wait and wonder what was behind the gentle, wry beginnings of a smile that he'd left on his face, and went striding down the shadowed halls of reverie once more.
His mount had thrown him in its frantic gallop across Selgaunt, dashing him senseless until the sun was well up the next day. Roel went back to the fire in a vain attempt to drag forth anyone still living, and emerged from its searing flames so badly burned that he looked more like a monster than a man.
The man the Uskevren servants called the Great Bear never regained his health and seldom left his bed as that terrible year dragged on. On more than one night Thamalon found proud Teskra weeping alone in one of the turret rooms, emptying a decanter without bothering with a goblet, and staring out over the lamplit streets of cruel Selgaunt.
He never spoke a word of reproof to her but instead sat with her. Usually she said nothing, but simply offered him the decanter-and usually he accepted it for a swig or two. He sat with her until morning, cradling her against his chest if sleep claimed her. For such a small, dainty thing-she always seemed more a little sister to him than a second mother-she snored like a horse.
After Roel went to his grave, she did not tarry long before following.
Thamalon tried not to look at the pity in the eyes of the few servants who stayed with him, as he grimly began the long task of picking up the pieces. He left Selgaunt for some years, leaving Stormweather in ashes, to trade in Sembia's humbler ports and even into the neighboring kingdom of Cormyr. Slowly he rebuilt the family fortune, but it was work he might have abandoned in despair had he not met and wed Shamur, and found her fierce temper, wiles, and battle-boldness awakening something warm in him again.
Uskevren shipping fleets meant piracy in the eyes of Selgauntans, so Thamalon avoided the traditional work
