Artus, shocked out of his frightened stupor, looked up to find the prince bracing one dragonhide boot on the corpse. He was trying to wrench his sword free. The blade had gone right through the assassin, pinning it to the ground. Now it wouldn't budge.
A shriek reverberated eerily from the depths of the burrow. It was the animalistic cry of a groundling, and from the angry snarls that followed it, Artus was fairly certain the remaining pair of assassins had discovered their mistake in grabbing the Shadowhawk.
As the angry cacocophy in the burrow grew louder, the prince grasped the sword more tightly and pulled with all his strength-to no avail. He'd simply struck the beast too hard.
'Brute force causes as many difficulties as it solves,' he said bitterly, repeating a maxim favored by Vangerdahast, his royal tutor. As with most of the wizard's sage advice, though, its true meaning had come to Azoun just a little too late.
When he saw Artus still standing at the edge of the burrow, staring mutely at the corpse, the prince released his grip on the trapped sword. Grabbing the boy by the arm, he bolted through the hedgerow and ran toward the hillside beyond. They stopped at the nearest tree with branches low enough and sturdy enough for them to climb.
'Go as high as you can,' Azoun said as he boosted Artus onto a gnarled limb. 'Then take out that gem again and hold it tight.'
The boy moved tentatively into the lower branches. He wasn't afraid of heights; it was just that he'd never climbed a tree before. After all, he'd had few chances to do so in Suzail, since only noble estates and small, well- patrolled public parks held any greenery at all. And the Shadowhawk frowned upon hiding in trees during a jaunt, since a robber was just as likely to hurt himself by leaping on a victim.
'The only time a proper scamp's found in a tree is when 'e's dangling from it,' was one of his favorite sayings.
To counter the fear welling inside him, Artus tried to picture himself climbing up to the second story of the ruined tavern where he had his secret library. By scaling a flight of rickety stairs and pushing through a hole in the upper floor, he would come to his treasure trove of books. He'd stolen most of them from scribes' stalls in the marketplace, but a few proclamations had come to him from the rubbish heaps outside the city walls. Scaling the tree wasn't so different from getting up to the loft, he decided, and the climb became less of a struggle.
When at last he reached a safe vantage, high in the tree, Artus looked down to find Azoun struggling along behind him. The prince's cloak snagged branches with each move he made, and his chain mail shirt hung heavily on his shoulders. Azoun settled on a thick limb below the boy. Only then did he begin to undo the elaborate clasp holding his cloak closed.
'That was a brave thing you did,' the prince noted. He puffed out a breath of relief as he slid the cloak from his shoulders. 'Put this around you. It'll get cold up here fast, once the fright lets go of you.'
Artus took the cloak with a softly murmured thanks. 'What about my fa-uh, the Shadowhawk?' he asked.
The prince paused. 'The Shadowhawk, eh? At least I was waylaid by the best.' Forcing a grim smile, he added, 'Don't worry. The groundlings are professional assassins. They won't harm your father-the Shadowhawk, I mean. He's got my gloves, I suppose. That's why they went after him-they could pick up even that much of my scent on him as he moved. But, like I said, they won't hurt him. Their contract is for my death. To kill someone else would be against guild rules. Do you understand?'
The boy nodded, and the cloud of concern passed from his brown eyes. If the creatures were sentient enough to follow the rules of the Assassins Guild, perhaps his father could fast-talk his way free. 'Will they let him go when they figure out he's not the one they want?'
'Not right away. At least not until they've got me. Right now, the groundlings-'
A scraping noise drew Azoun's attention back to the road. There, the assassin's corpse was slowly sliding into the burrow. The sword point jutting from its chest cut through the ground like a plow blade as the groundlings dragged their dead fellow deeper into the earth. Soon, the corpse and the sword were gone.
Azoun sighed. 'Right now, the groundlings are building a warren, an underground camp. They must realize they have us trapped, since nothing is moving on the ground. They'll do all they can to bleed us out of weapons, food, and hope, then wait for us to come down.' Scowling, he noted, 'Especially food. They'll eat almost anything. I managed to escape them outside of Waymoot by dumping my rations onto the road-that and being lucky enough to have a very fast mount with enchanted horseshoes.'
'I have some bread!' Artus offered brightly, gesturing to his pack. 'I mean, if you can think of a way to use it against the groundlings …'
'Well, at least we won't starve,' the prince said, trying not to be patronizing, but failing badly. 'But since we don't have a horse or any way of escaping, tossing it to the assassins won't do us much good right now.'
Clouds slid over the moon once more, blanketing the hillside in a more profound darkness. A cold breeze made the branches creak and sway. The boy was glad for the prince's cloak then, for his shabby clothes gave little protection from the wind. 'I'm Artus,' he began softly.
The words jolted Azoun out of some intense reverie. 'Eh? Well, Artus, you can call me Balin.'
The boy paused, then pulled the gem from his pocket. Its blue light cast strange shadows over Azoun's face. He stared at the young man for a moment, openly sizing him up. 'But that's not your name,' Artus said at last.
'Of course it is,' Azoun began, but he saw the frown on Artus's lips, the look of distrust stealing over his eyes. He looked down at his hands, to the indentation on his finger left by his missing wedding band. His purse was gone, too. 'Was it the princess's name on the wedding ring or the signet ring in my purse that gave me away?'
'Kinda both,' Artus replied. He dug the gold band out of his pocket and returned it to the prince. 'And the tabard, too. Not many sell-swords would wear the king's symbol like that.'
Azoun looked down at the torn and grimy Purple Dragon. 'My tutor always said this was rather silly, to wear the family crest on a disguise. Still, it fooled men a lot older than you.'
'People don't look for the obvious. Do you want me to call you Your Holiness?'
'No,' Azoun said, trying not to smile at the boy's blunt-ness. 'We're fighting together now, and brothers-in- arms need not bow to courtly manners. Besides, you call clerics Your Holiness, not princes.'
'Sorry. I never met a prince before.'
'So how do you know so much about me?'
The boy fidgeted uncomfortably with the cloak's fur collar. 'Well, I've read about King Rhigaerd and about you on the royal proclamations posted around Suzail. And I saw you on your wedding day, when your carriage went down the Promenade. Well, I was too far away to see you, but I saw your carriage. And then there's the stories they tell in the Thieves Guild about you-how you dress up in disguises and play like you're a knight They say-'
'All right,' Azoun said, holding up a hand to stop the torrent. It was his turn to study his unwilling companion, to size up this worldly child-robber. Most children grew up quickly in Cormyr, especially poor children from the city. But this boy was more than world-wise. He was obviously clever. Moreover, he could read, a skill confined mostly to the nobility, the priesthood, and a few wealthy merchant families. 'Your father taught you to read, did he?'
Artus laughed with surprising bitterness. 'He doesn't like me to read. A priest of Oghma taught me on the sly, until Father found out, that is. It didn't matter, though. By the time he told me to stop I already knew how.' He gripped the gem tightly, cutting off most of the light. Still, Azoun could see the angry look in the boy's eyes as he said, 'I don't want to be a scamp like him.'
The prince held his hand up to the boy. 'If you don't want to be a highwayman, how about giving me your mask? I could use it right about now.'
For a moment Artus thought the prince was going to try to fit the dirty strip over his face, but he began to tie it over his forehead. Then the boy noticed the gash on Azoun's head was leaking blood into his brown hair, staining it dark and masking the strands of gray already taking hold there. 'So what's your ambition then-a priest, perhaps? Maybe a bard? You seem to remember stories pretty well.'
A smile crept across Artus's features. 'I like stories a lot. I-' He cast his eyes down at the glowing gem and paused. 'I know some about you. The men at the guildhall told me about the King's Men. They say you won't be a good king, you know, that you'll be wandering off to rescue people and fight dragons.'
'Indeed,' Azoun said flatly. 'Maybe they're right. We'll find out soon enough, though, won't we?'
