Crusade

women checked and rechecked the palisades and ditches. 'They're all good soldiers,' he said.

'Idiots, you mean,' Vangerdahast corrected sharply. He looked away, still shaking his head. 'I'm going to review the War Wizards.'

Alusair looked up from the parchment. 'None of the wizards left either,' she reminded the mage. 'Does that make them idiots, too?'

Vangerdahast stopped short and wheeled around. 'Having your father needle me is enough,' he snapped. He shook a finger at the princess, then his features softened. 'Gods, your whole family exists only to shorten my life. Anyway, I never even bothered to count the War Wizards,' he noted as he turned away again.

'Wait, Vangy,' Azoun said, taking a few steps forward. 'Why not?'

Without turning around again, Vangy held up his palsied left hand. 'They know that I'd come back from the grave to haunt them all if they left me here to fight the Tuigan alone.' He shuffled past the barricades and disappeared into the western army.

'I believe he might,' Alusair said to herself. She rolled the parchment up and stuffed it into her belt. 'I'll give the numbers to Thom for the chronicles, Father.'

The king was still looking in the direction where Vangerdahast had disappeared. 'I couldn't make him stay in Cormyr, you know,' he said absently.

'Who?' Alusair asked, moving to her father's side. 'Vangy?'

Azoun nodded. 'I wanted him to stay in Suzail in case there was trouble. Someone else could have commanded the War Wizards.' The king shook his head as he remembered the mage's vehement defense of his position as general. 'Sometimes I don't understand why.'

'Because he's your friend,' Alusair offered.

'He's been like a father to me, too,' noted Azoun. He looked out across the Golden Way. 'Gods, how he didn't want me to lead this crusade. He was so unreasonable.'

Alusair laughed. 'Fathers are like that,' she said and headed off to find Thom Reaverson.

The king, who was already wearing the padded doublet and chain mail coif that went under his plate armor, decided it was time to fully arm himself. As he donned the rest of his shining silver armor, Azoun took reports from returning scouts. At first they had little to tell, but soon it became clear that the Tuigan were on the move again.

'Send for Vrakk and Torg,' Azoun told one messenger. He slipped his surcoat over his breastplate so that the purple dragon reared squarely on his chest. Finally, he looked to the standard-bearer. 'Signal the troops into position.'

The king's standard rose high into the air. The effect the purple dragon symbol had on the army was astonishing. A murmur ran over the mass of troops, and those still sleeping were quickly roused. Armor was donned and weapons gathered. Archers planted their bunches of arrows point first in the ground at their feet, making them easy to pick up in battle. Wizards reviewed spells in their minds, and soldiers softly recited prayers to their gods. The men who hadn't eaten morningfeast grabbed their meals of hard biscuits and dried meat and rushed to their place in line. Captains and sergeants began to prowl the ranks, shouting orders and arranging the troops in the strongest formations possible.

The dwarven king appeared at Azoun's side. Like Azoun, Torg was dressed in his full plate armor. Whereas the Cormyrian monarch's short beard was tucked into the chin of his mail coif, the ironlord's hung down across his chest, bound as always in gold chain. The finely polished metal of the dwarf's armor and the gold entwined in his beard gave off a dull reflection of the morning sunlight.

'By your request, Azoun,' Torg rumbled happily. 'I'm ready for battle.' As if to prove it, the ironlord drew his beautifully crafted sword and waved it in front of him. 'Let the Tuigan come.'

A few moments later, Vrakk, commander of the Zhentish orcs, arrived. 'Good-morning, Ak-soon,' he said sleepily in his usual belabored Common. 'My soldiers protecting archers, like you say.' He unslung his black leather armor from his shoulder and dropped it onto the ground. In a rather haphazard manner, the orc fitted himself for battle.

Regret instantly colored Azoun's thoughts. The night before, Vrakk had requested that he leave command of his army to another so he could serve in the king's guard. The orc had been an able soldier and had kept his troops in line, so Azoun was happy to agree. How Torg had heard of the matter so quickly the king couldn't guess, but within an hour, the ironlord had demanded similar honors. Wanting to avoid an incident so close to the time of battle, Azoun had also appointed Torg to serve in his bodyguard.

Now the tension between the two commanders only added to the anticipation of conflict.

Alusair and Vangerdahast had also joined the king at his standard by the time the scouts reported the Tuigan to be less than three miles away. A cloud of dust hovering on the eastern horizon told the king that the seventy thousand enemy riders were fast approaching.

While Vangerdahast still wore a brown robe, much like the ones he wore every day at the castle in Suzail, the princess was girded in her ornately engraved plate mail. The bright metal was dented in a few more places than when Azoun had first seen it, but it looked as if it had passed through the first battle without much damage. Silently, Alusair's father hoped the dwarven plate would protect his daughter as well in the battle to come.

'Cast the illusion whenever you're ready, Vangy,' the king said as a squire rechecked the last straps on his armor. Azoun flexed his left leg and grimaced slightly. The left cuisse had been repaired since the first battle, the arrow hole filled and hammered smooth, so that wasn't the problem. From the pain he felt, the king knew that his wound was going to trouble him, despite the attentions it had received from the clerics earlier in the day.

As the king considered this, Vangerdahast had the standard-bearer signal the War Wizards. Then the royal mage faced the battlefield and started a low, musical chant. He swayed slightly and moved his hands in a complicated arcane pattern. Trembling, Vangerdahast cast the components of the spell-a stone, a twig, and a bit of grass from the battlefield-into the air.

No one saw the spell components disappear, for all eyes had turned to the field itself. There, the handiwork of the dwarves lay exposed in the weak sunlight. Thousands of holes littered the field, stretching in a semicircle from the woods on the army's flanks. But as Vangerdahast and the wizards he had signaled completed their incantations, the holes disappeared. More precisely, the illusion of a rolling, grass-covered field split by a trade road hid the ravaged ground.

'Excellent,' Azoun said and clapped his friend and tutor on the shoulder.

Vangerdahast wobbled slightly. The spell weakened him far more than it would have before the magic-dead area sapped his strength. Still, the wizard puffed out his chest a bit. 'Precise down to the type of grass,' he said proudly. 'The Tuigan will never know what they hit.'

Turning to Alusair, the king said, 'Your turn.'

Beneath the dwarven plate armor, the princess still wore the bracelet the centaur chieftain had given her. She used the magical device now and summoned the hawk from the trees nearby. The bird quickly took flight and soared out over the western lines. Concentrating, Alusair could see the Tuigan horde through the falcon's eyes, spread out in a wide line, closing in on the Alliance. The bird swooped nearer, and the princess caught sight of the object of her search. There, in the center of the massive Tuigan army, was a yak-tail banner, the war standard of Yamun Khahan.

The falcon caught an updraft and soared higher, out of the range of the Tuigan bows. Circling behind the enemy line, the bird followed it for another mile or so. After Alusair was sure that the khahan's banner wasn't going to shift places in line, she pulled her mind back from the falcon.

'The banner you described is in the center of the Tuigan line, Father.' Alusair shook her head to clear it. Using the centaur's magical bracelet always left her feeling a little drained.

Torg and Vrakk both looked at Azoun, an unspoken question evident on their faces. 'I saw the khahan's banner when I was in their camp,' the king said. 'He had it planted outside his tent.'

Grinning, the ironlord grabbed his helmet and dropped it into place. He lifted the visor and said, 'Now we know who to aim for.'

The dust cloud grew larger and larger, until it seemed to cover the entire horizon. Azoun signaled the army to ready its weapons, and the anxiety that gripped the troops pulled their muscles a little tighter, forced their hearts to beat a little quicker. In the center of the first rank, the king and his guard put on their helmets and drew their weapons. Unlike the last battle, the entire army was going to fight on foot this time. If the Tuigan were routed again, Azoun didn't want anyone pursuing them the way the cavalry had. Knowing that no soldier was foolish