She raised her hand to make another signal, but Swordlord Glammerhand was already sending two kadrathen of Purple Dragons through the ranks of the bowmen to cut down the last of the goblins and sounding the horn that would bring the bowmen back to a steady march.
The envoy proved to be no excited young soldier or war wizard cloaked in his own importance, but one of the veteran King’s Messengers from the palace. He was a sleek man, Bayruce by name, known well to both king and princess.
He bowed his head formally as he brought his horse to a weary walk, and said, “From Queen Filfaeril, glad greeting and good news. The crown princess prevails at court, and our loyal nobles whelm many swords in good array, north to meet with you and fight for you. Such is the whole of my message.”
Azoun inclined his head in formal thanks and asked, “So, Bayruce, if we were but two carters in a tavern over tankards and I asked you, ‘Pray, how many of our nobles be loyal to the crown enough to whelm swords for war?’ how would you answer?”
The messenger did not bother to hide his smile. “Majesty, I cannot say.” His smile fled again before he added, “If you faced no dragon nor these dark flying things that eat magic, the men I saw in my ride would be more than enough… but then, you do face those foes, and these goblins would not have reached beyond Arabel without them, no?”
Alusair and Azoun nodded in grim unison. “No,” they agreed. The king did not pause, but added, “Sir Messenger, rest your horse. We shall tarry here for a time, while the Princess Alusair essays an attack, planned yestereve, on those who harry us.”
The Steel Princess turned her head, jaw dropping in astonishment. As her eyes met those of the king, her father winked and said simply, “Do it.”
Alusair clapped her hand to her shoulder in a smart salute, spurred her horse away, and shouted back, “Redhorn’s riders carry the best wine, Bayruce. Mind you get to it before His Majesty, if you want any!”
“This dragondew is good,” Azoun agreed, wiping his mouth. “How did I sire such a daughter?”
“Do you desire me to say innocently, ‘In the usual way, Your Majesty’?” Bayruce asked the sky smoothly.
Azoun gave him a chuckle and turned his head back to the battle. Alusair had done just as he would have. Two arms of men were flung out like the arms of a crab, behind hills, bills and spears to the front and archers behind, to fire when their fellows were forced to retreat. Alusair had placed herself with the largest, strongest men in the center, to take a stand against the main company of goblins while the two hidden arms reached around to strike.
A brief struggle, then horns would sound the retreat and they’d flee south again, probably to the Starwater, and make a stand there. Giogi would just have to lose a year’s grapes and the good wine that came from them.
The goblins came over a rise and roared with excited fury when they saw their foes standing ready for them. They lumbered into a charge without a one of them looking up or to either side. Yes, goblins loved to fight. “Glath!” they called. “Glaaath!”
“Blood!” that was, in Common. Azoun smiled thinly. Let it be goblin blood. The goblins struck the line where his daughter was standing with a crash that made him wince, and he and the messenger watched intently as the charge drove Purple Dragons helplessly back. Those long hacking swords were busy now.
Alusair’s hair was streaming about her shoulders. “Gods above, girl, they don’t care how beautiful you look!” Azoun roared, standing up in his stirrups. “Put your damned helm back on!”
Alusair never turned her head, but both men thought that her long warsword thrust up at them in a rather rude gesture. Archers were lying on their bellies behind the fray, firing arrows point-blank up at any goblin they could get a clear shot at. At such close range, the shafts were tearing clear through screaming goblin bodies or plucking their victims up into the air and hurling them well back among their fellows.
They saw Alusair step forward to face a goblin who stood half a head taller than all the rest and saw her shudder and stagger under the shock of their blades meeting. Sparks flew around her as the Steel Princess struck back, their blades meeting again. She threw herself onto her back, hauling hard on their locked swords and driving a boot into the goblin’s belly. He hurtled over her to crash helplessly on his face and die under the daggers of half a dozen enthusiastic archers.
“Well, now,” Bayruce said in soft admiration. “Well, now…”
Alusair was up again, hand dipping to her belt. A moment later, the clear horn call went up, and the Cormyreans fell back. Both of the pincer-arms came into view over the rise as they rushed to take the last few goblins from behind, their bills dipping in deadly unison.
“Well hammered,” Azoun agreed in satisfaction. “We can’t afford to lose many men, so she’s nursing them like a mother. A born battlemaster!”
With one accord, the king and his messenger reached for more dragondew. The wineskin was almost empty.
“There are more orcs than you can count two or three hills back, but that’s most of the goblins,” Alusair said in satisfaction, as she reined in her mount. She was spattered from head to boots with black goblin blood.
Azoun leaned over in his saddle to embrace her and growled, “Have you forgotten what helms are for, young lady?”
His wayward daughter’s eyes danced as she laughingly replied, “Ah, but it’s good to fight alongside you, Father!”
“Sure you don’t prefer scores of ardent young noblemen?” Azoun asked teasingly.
“Well, their pratfalls to impress me do provide more unintentional entertainment than you do,” the Steel Princess told him, “but as steady feast-fare, even pratfalls can bring on yawns.”
Azoun chuckled, then a sound caught his ear. He looked to the south and his face changed.
“More messengers,” Bayruce said for him. “Riding hard.”
“Trouble, Father?” Alusair asked quietly, reaching for her sword.
Azoun shrugged. “I know not-but I do know that this would not be a good time to have to fight any traitors among the nobles.”
Alusair lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “They’d be fools enough to stab at our backsides with dragon-led goblinkin sweeping down the realm to their very gates?”
“Larger, grander pratfalls,” Azoun replied in dry tones.
The messengers proved to bear good news. Well-armed forces had indeed been whelmed by many nobles and now awaited the king’s pleasure near Jester’s Green under the command of Battlemaster Haliver Ilnbright, an old, grizzled Purple Dragon respected by many nobles who’d fought alongside him down the years.
“We’ll make a stand at Calantar’s Bridge,” Azoun decided, turning in his saddle, “then fall back into the hill farms when we must.”
Everyone fell silent and grim then as the dark form of the great red dragon rose into the sky, silhouetted against the setting sun, and flew leisurely back and forth over the Heartlands of Cormyr.
After a few breaths, the tiny silhouettes of six ghazneths could be seen rising to meet it. Alusair shivered, and Azoun reached over wordlessly to hold her hand.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be,” he muttered back. His hand tightened, warm and reassuring.
“Seven scourges,” she murmured. “So who and where is the last one?”
“Don’t ask me,” her father growled. “I’m just a king.” Suddenly, Alusair found herself shrieking with laughter.
29
Like everything else about the betrayal, Tanalasta found the summoning signal complicated, juvenile, and utterly disheartening. She was atop Rallyhorn Tower, watching from the darkness as Orvendel ran the crudely sewn standard of a ghazneth up the family flagpole. The banner depicted a broad-shouldered male with upraised wings and huge crimson eyes. It clutched the Royal Tricrown of Cormyr in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other.
