as bad as seeing Myrmeen Lhal, the Lady Lord of Arabel, lying white-faced and near death on a litter made of shields that were swimming with her spilled blood. She’d held off dozens of snortsnouts before falling under three black, hacking blades. Those blades had done cruel work before the nearest Purple Dragons could fight their way near enough to protect her… or what was left of her.
“Father,” Alusair said at last, her voice quavering in anger, “let me say jus-“
“No,” the king said flatly. “Words said cannot be unsaid. We lack the time right now for Alusair’s temper, just as we can’t spare it for many other things. Flay my ears later, lass, but for now, be as sensible, prudent, and calm as I hear you always are in battle.”
Alusair’s gasp of rage was almost a sob.
“Give me your wisdom,” the king continued. “You alone know which of your men we can best put to defending this lane here or that section of the ramparts there. I need to know who the hotheaded heroes are so I can throw their lives away fighting in the streets, and who knows how to tend the sick, or remember fire buckets, or how to anticipate where orcs’ll try to sneak to. Do you understand, girl?”
Dauneth clenched his fists until the knuckles went white, wishing he was anywhere but there. The silence stretched, and it seemed a very long time-until it ended, he didn’t realize he was holding his breath-before Alusair said calmly, almost meekly, “Very well. You’re right, Father. Turn around, Dauneth, and help us with these maps.”
The High Warden of the Eastern Marches plucked an old mace and an even older shield down off the wall- almost every one of these older rooms in the Citadel boasted a dozen such relics, or more-as he turned around. He put on the shield, presented the mace to the princess, and said gently, “If you’ll feel better after hitting someone…”
Alusair’s eyes widened, something like savage glee leaping in her eyes. She hefted the mace and, to Dauneth’s surprise, the Steel Princess threw back her head and laughed-as loud and as hearty a guffaw as any man’s. Dauneth stood in confusion for a moment, noting the smile that rose to touch Azoun’s lips, before Alusair returned the mace gently into his waiting hands.
“Well done, Warden,” she said wryly. “Dense you’re certainly not.” She sighed and added, “But Arabel is still doomed.”
“Your Highness,” Dauneth murmured with a courtier’s smooth half bow, “your eloquence has quite convinced me.”
It was Azoun who snorted in involuntary mirth this time. “Enough sport,” he growled a moment later. “Purple Dragons are dying out there.” He strode to the barred doors that opened onto a balcony, and threw aside the bar.
“The maps?” Alusair ventured, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m through with maps for the moment,” the king said shortly, laying his hands on the great wrought-iron door latch.
“Your Majesty,” Dauneth cried warningly, “if there’re ghazneths waiting out-“
“I believe I’d welcome a ghazneth about now,” Azoun snarled over his shoulder, flinging the doors wide.
Nothing dark and powerful flapped at him, or reached out with claws for any of them, as the King of Cormyr strode out onto the old stone balcony to gaze out grimly over the Caravan City.
The balcony was high on the frowning west wall of the citadel. From the citadel to the western end of the city Arabel was either a battlefield or already in orc hands.
Orcish hoots and howls rose above the dirgelike drumbeats that seemed to accompany tuskers everywhere into war. The steady thudding could be heard even above the roaring of flames from the worst fires, and the clash and clang of steel as Purple Dragons waged a valiant house-by-house defense-or, to be a trifle more accurate, a fighting retreat.
Smoke hung heavy over the city. Perhaps it was keeping the dragon away. At least for this they owed some thanks to the stupidity of the orcs, who always seemed to feel the need to burn immediately after the joy of destruction and looting was spent. The orcs were coming on in waves.
“Gods,” Dauneth groaned, coming up beside the king, “is there no end to them?”
“That’s always the problem with goblinkin,”Azoun said with dark irony. “Your scribes are always too busy fighting-and dying-to get accurate counts. Afterward, of course, it no longer matters.”
“I find this inspiring,” Alusair said bitterly, gripping the stone balcony rail as if it was a squalling orc’s throat. “It makes me want to get down there and kill!” She flung her head around to regard her father so sharply that her hair cascaded down over the rail, making her look momentarily like a young lass trying to be seductive, and asked, “So why exactly are we standing up here when we could be of more use down there?”
“Steady,” Azoun said reprovingly, then threw back his head and drew in a deep breath. “Dauneth,” he said to the dark, dripping ceiling formed by the balcony above, “do you concede that Arabel is lost?”
The High Warden of the Eastern Marches cast a regretful look down over the rail, then said firmly, “Majesty, I do.”
“Then we must think on how to get our people out as safely as we can. That means south, one way or another, and I hate the thought of long columns of trudging folk going down the Way. Even if we could spare the men to guide, feed, shelter, and guard them, all my mind shows me is the dragon swooping down at will to pounce and rend and roll and… play, forcing us to fare forth and fight her in ones and twos… and die in ones and twos.”
Dauneth nodded grimly. “And so?” he almost whispered.
“I’ve some measure now of just who we’re defending,” the king said, waving his hand at the floor to indicate the families who’d been gathered into the citadel all the day before and this morning, “and I think we can house them in the Citadel of the Purple Dragons in Suzail, and in the palace, if need be. The women and children, at least, each with a carry-chest of family valuables and our oldest warriors to guard them. The men and boys hungry for blood and glory can stay here and fight alongside the rest of us.”
“You’re thinking of some sort of magic, to whisk folk from here to there,” Alusair murmured. “Might I remind you that any sorcery will swiftly bring down these magic-drinking ghazneths?”
Azoun’s jaw set in a line like the blade of a drawn sword. “I’m thinking of the war wizards of the realm working their mightiest magic ever, because the realm has great need of it,” he said curtly. “Standing in the face of charging foes like any warrior without a hope of ever casting a spell does leaping in to keep the magic working when a fellow mage falls on his face in exhaustion… there is no difference. A portal like the mages of old spun, a door in one citadel that opens into a door in the other, so that all of Arabel can step through it, is what we need. A single step that takes them from here to Suzail, spanning all the miles between, is all that might save them.”
Dauneth’s eyes widened, but the king’s gaze never left the carnage below and his hand never unclenched from its ready grip on the hilt of his sword. “And if the ghazneths come,” he added grimly, “we’ll just have to deal with them. We’ll crush them under iron ingots, dice them with iron blades… whatever it takes.”
Dauneth’s heart leaped at the king’s resolve and stirring words, but he felt moved to ask, albeit tentatively, “What if we can’t stop them?”
“Then,” Azoun said softly, looking at him with something like fire leaping in his eyes, “the strongest Purple Dragons will stand in a human shield around the gate to keep ghazneths away while we get the women out. They are the future of the realm. Our war wizards will scatter, heading to Waterdeep and Shadowdale and Silverymoon and Berdusk-and, by the gods, Halruaa!-and wherever else we can find powerful mages who’ll agree to help in return for a good share of our treasury. After all, if the ghazneths aren’t stopped, no wizard will be safe, anywhere in Faerun.”
Dauneth shivered. “You would really do that?”
Azoun spread his hands. “You can see another choice?”
He let the silence stretch-a silence in which the warden opened his mouth thrice to speak, then frowned and shut it again. A silence broken by a long, despairing scream from the streets below, and a horrific crashing sound as flames ate away support beams, and three floors above a shop collapsed and fell into the street in front of it with a roar.
All three of the people on the balcony turned their heads and watched the first of the flames lick up from the tall, arched windows of the nearby palace, creeping like dark tongues up the ornately carved stone.
Azoun watched the first of its painted glass windows explode into the street in molten tears before he added bleakly, “This is what it is to be a king, Dauneth. You might tell your more rebellious kin that.”
