Which one of them had the Pendant? As he'd expected, his spell had found nothing, which meant he had to get closer to either spot it by chance-if one of them was foolish enough to wear it openly-or spell-see it at close range.
Drathar skulked closer, wincing as the render's rumblings rose into sharp shrieks. The night was dark, the Knights apparently had no lanterns lit.
Well, that just might seal their doom. They couldn't' Haaaa!' That deep, hoarse, triumphant roar out of the night had sounded right behind him!
Drathar hurled himself forward, right through a viciously sharp thornbush that was thankfully half-dead, and so collapsed with a crackle. Who-?
A morningstar crashed down right beside him, flaring momentarily into ruby radiance as it struck his feeble shielding spell.
Drathar rolled, becoming aware of a large, looming figure, a choking stink of unwashed, filthy flesh, and two tusked heads. A second morningstar whistled past his head to thud heavily into a treetrunk and rebound.
Drathar scrambled to his feet then ducked away, seeking to put several trees between himself and this… ettin?
Aye, it was a two-headed giant, and it was striding angrily around the trees, looking nothing like the stumbling dunderheads most bardic tales insisted ettin were. It looked to have just awakened, probably roused by the render's screams, and its every stride was faster and more purposeful as it rose to full alertness.
Which meant he had to act right now-or never.
Drathar planted his feet despite the wildly rising urge to flee, stared at the ettin lurching menacingly nearer, and carefully cast his last coercion spell. Whatever they'd managed to do to the gray render, the Knights of Myth Drannor had to be wounded and weary.
Which meant, against an ettin, they hadn't a chance. ***** 'What was that magic?'
Boarblade was in no mood for Klarn's truculent questions just now. 'Something the same man who contacted each of you gave me, to use once we were together, riding on an open road. I don't know its name. You saw what it did to the horses, and it's done now. So leave them-they're too exhausted to stray, and the hargaunt can smell them well enough to guide us back to them, aftet. Come!'
'Come where?'
'Into the woods, toward all that shrieking. Before we're too late. You to the fore with me. Glays, rearguard. All the shrieking may bring other things hunting. Thorm and Darratur, keep blades sheathed for now. I want none of us running onto each other's steel in the dark. Quick and quier, quick and quiet.'
'To do what, exactly?'
Glays was always calm and the only one Boarblade judged competent to obey orders and avoid utter dundetheadedness. So he answered the man.
'To go and see if this racket is linked to the Knights we're looking for. It sounds like a forest beast might just have done our work for us-and if it has we need to get to the bodies before it mauls their faces too badly and to find that Pendant before it's down some monster's gullet. If it hasn't, but the Knights are sore wounded or worn out, we watch and choose our best moment to rush them. They've got a wizard and some priests, remember? No better time and place to face down spells than the dark, in a thick forest, where they can't see who they're hurling magic at. If, that is, they've got any magic left!'
That set Klarn, Thorm, and Darratur all to nodding and chuckling. Boarblade used his drawn sword to wave Klarn forward, gave them all a gtin, then turned away before they could see it fall right off his chin. Idiots.
In the dootway the Royal Magician of Cormyr came to an abrupt halt and blinked.
Sage Royal Alaphondar looked up from his uncomfortable, high-backed chair and sighed. There were more subtle ways of making it clear you were surprised-and disapprovingly so-to see someone in attendance at a secret meeting in the Queen's Retiring Room, but then Vangerdahast seldom saw any need to be all that subtle.
King Azoun and Queen Filfaeril were there, of course, crowns off on the table before them and arms around each other like lovers, as a clear signal that royal protocol was suspended for the nonce. Laspeera of the Wizards of War sat near them on a maid's ready chair.
The two whose presence seemed to discomfit Vangey were the War Wizard Lorbryn Deltalon and the man sitting quietly next to him in drab and well-worn trail leathers on the couch. It was the Harper. Dalonder Ree, and he was giving the simmering wizard in the doorway a knowing smile and the words, 'I'm sorry to announce that Dove can't be with us. She's off on one of her jaunts. Harper work.'
'What Harper work?' Vangerdahast almost snarled, striding into the room and making for the comfortable armchair that had been left for him.
Ree shrugged. 'What I know not, I cannot be made to say.' 'Hah! You expect me to believe that?'
'Yes, 'King Azoun said from where he sat, the word so sudden and steely that Vangerdahast blinked again, halted, and waited for more. Anticipated words that did not come.
After a breath or two, the Royal Magician continued to his seat and told the ceiling as he turned to sit, 'Word came to me that the Dragon Queen had need of my presence at a moot, wherefore I am here. Do we await later arrivals, or-?'
'We do not, Vangey. Your grand entrance is unmarred.' Filfaeril's tone was as dry as the sands of a deserr. 'If you're sitting comfortably enough, we can begin.'
'I am. The purpose of this little conclave?'
'Thrust to the heart, thrust to the heart,' Dalonder Ree murmured. The Royal Magician did not deign to look in his direction, but Laspeera and Filfaeril both gave him sly little smiles.
'It appears,' the King of Cormyr said calmly, 'that the Knights of Myth Drannor continue to be embroiled in some manner of violence in the wilderlands along the Moonsea Ride, beyond our present borders but in territory we customarily patrol and secure so that no menace may gather there for forays into our fair realm. The identities of their foes are a matter of some conjecture and dispute. I would hear your honest and informal counsel, everyone, on what we should now do about this.'
'Nothing,' Vangerdahast said, as Deltalon and the Harper started to speak. 'They are adventurers, and they have departed the realm. Let them adventure and taste whatever fates the gods see fit to hand them. We cannot be forever reaching out our hands across Faerun to meddle in the affairs of others.'
'No, of course not,' Dalonder Ree told the ceiling. 'Only twice or thrice a day, when we want to-if we happen to be, say, a Royal Magician.'
Two royal snorts of mirth quelled the icy rejoinder Vangerdahast had turned his head to deliver. He satisfied himself by ignoring the Harper's comment and said, 'In this room we can only concern ourselves with Cormyrean interests and policies. As this is an informal discussion, let me express myself bluntly: I am very strongly of the opinion that no further aid of any sort should be rendered to the chartered adventurers known as the Knights of Myth Drannor. If they establish themselves in Shadowdale, as certain parties obviously intend that they do, we shall then extend the hand of diplomacy-'
'Envoys in the front door, spies through the back,' Ree murmured.
'— as usual,' Vangerdahast said, giving the Harper a glare. 'For one thing, I want to keep Wizards of War clear of that atea just now for quite another reason.'
Into the little silence that followed, Queen Filfaeril asked quietly, 'And that reason would be?'
Vangerdahast looked at her a little beseechingly and murmured, 'It touches on the royal family, and I would prefer not to speak openly in present company.'
'That's difficult, Vangey,' King Azoun said, 'because I would very much prefer that you do.'
The Royal Magician did not trouble to- hide his shrug or his sigh. 'Very well. There is peril to the Princess Tanalasta, owing to a magical link between her mind and a Wizard of War who has now become a renegade and a fugitive, whom I believe to currently be in the same area as the Knights.'
'Ruldroun,' Laspeera murmured.
Vangerdahast gave her a glare. 'If we're laying bare every last secret of the realm for no good reason, aye. Ruldroun is the mage I speak of. I don't know of any connection at all between him and the Knights, but if we flood that stretch of forest with war wizards and spells get hurled… well, what happens to his mind could harm the princess, no matter what safeguards I weave around her here.'
