Loroun knew a lot-but much of it was hints, gossip, and reports from men he paid to spy but trusted little. Suzail could be a seething snakepit of men just aching to erupt into widespread treason… or it could be a nobles’ den of arrogant malcontents, a few of whom had dreams and a few more of whom had loud, unguarded tongues.
Which made it not much different from anywhere else that had nobles.
Westgate, Zhentil Keep, Sembia… he’d tasted them all and found them very much the same in this respect. True traitors seldom made much noise. Those too fearful to ever do anything, unless carried away in the heat and blood of someone else’s tumult, did most of the blustering and taunting and making of grand doom promises. Loroun was at least shrewd enough to know he was dealing with shadows more than things that could be held and trusted, which put him above many of the young fools Manshoon had encountered in this city these last two nights, as nobles gathered to attend this Council.
“I have a question or two, Lord Manshoon,” Loroun said, his voice polite, “and I believe that in a world that knows any shred of fairness, it is more than my turn for answers, if you have them.”
Surprised, Manshoon unfolded one hand palm upward, in a silent signal to proceed.
“What’s become of these blueflame ghosts? Are they a war-wizard weapon, soon to be sent out to hunt down nobles? Or, are they a sword wielded by a noble? Or, do they instead obey a Sembian or some other outlander foe of Cormyr? Or, are they the tools of someone who wants to be noble and is determined to butcher lords until so many titles and holdings are vacant that the Crown may well ennoble him seeking to fill them?”
“Good questions, all,” Manshoon replied. “So good that I can answer none of them.” He raised a swift forefinger and added soothingly, “Yet I am trying to find out.”
Whereupon Loroun glared at him with narrowing eyes and demanded, “Or is it you?”
Manshoon shook his head. “If it were, Loroun, do you think I’d waste my time befriending you? Hmmm?”
“We are… serving the Crown in a matter we cannot discuss,” Arclath improvised, glancing at Storm to see if she approved. She gave him a solemn wink, strolled over to Amarune, and put her arm around the dancer’s shoulders.
“El?” Rune whispered.
“Not yet,” Storm murmured. “Only if need be.”
The foresters had been cautiously drawing closer and peering closely at the three by the fire.
“No axes,” one reported.
“Nor snares,” said another.
“I give you my word,” Storm told the oldest forester, “that we have no intention of hunting, woodcutting, or setting fires outside this firepit. We are traveling, no more and no less. We are not fugitives from justice.”
The oldest forester nodded. “I believe you. Yet one matter remains that I find most curious of all: Lord Delcastle, why aren’t you at the Council?”
Arclath opened his mouth slowly, not knowing what to say-and heard Storm reply smoothly, “The elder Lord Delcastle is attending Council, as head of House Delcastle. He instructed his son here to take the two of us”-her arm tightened around Amarune’s shoulders-“well away from the roving eyes of, ah, certain nobles to avoid any unpleasantness arising. Due to past entanglements.”
Several foresters nodded, and something that might have been the beginnings of a grin rose onto the oldest forester’s face-until his head snapped around, just an instant after Storm turned hers.
Then everyone heard it: the faint, irregular thunder of hooves from the north. Many horses, ridden hard.
Conversation and confrontation forgotten, everyone hastened to the road.
They reached the near ditch beside the Way of the Dragon in time to see many coach lamps bobbing in the distance. This was unheard of in deep night, when coaches so often overturned or slid off roads. All the foresters readied bows, except the oldest, who flung out both arms to bar anyone from stepping up onto the road.
What came sweeping down on them was a contingent of two dozen riders or more, galloping south as fast as their snorting, half-frightened horses could take them.
Purple Dragons in full armor-though lacking the banners and spears of a formal ride-swept past, three abreast and filling the road, hard-eyed and intent.
Then the watchers in the ditch caught sight of wizards bouncing uncomfortably on saddles in the midst of the soldiers. Wizards of war, being escorted south at speed, almost certainly traveling from Arabel to Suzail.
They could see the rear of the hurrying force, or thought they could. There were no coaches or wagons; the lights they’d taken for coach lamps were torches on poles, guttering wildly in glass spark shields. This was truly out of character. Such contrivances were used only in slow, stately wedding and funeral processions. What was going on?
Arclath and Storm were frowning openly in concern, and the oldest forester had seen enough. He scrambled up the bank with astonishing speed for a man of his years, flung up his arms, and cried, “What news?”
Horses shied and reared, riders cursed and fought with reins to keep their seats and lessen the inevitable collisions, and one of the wizards promptly fell off.
Some of the rearguard Dragons slowed their mounts and made for the forester, drawing their swords-as all the rest thundered on past, heading south and leaving only road dust and the fading din of their passage behind.
“Who are you?” a Dragon officer demanded, drawing a blade that shone with light, and pointing it so its glowing beam played across the foresters and Storm, Arclath, and Amarune. Seeing all the ready bows, he cursed under his breath and barked, “King’s men?”
“Of course,” the head forester replied gruffly, bending to help the groaning wizard to his feet. A Dragon had caught the riderless horse a little ways along the road and was calming the snorting, stamping gelding to bring it back.
“Got any fresh horses we can have?” the Dragon constal asked, not too hopefully.
The oldest forester shook his head. “No, I walk my patrols. As for yours-where to, in such haste?”
The wincing and bruised wizard under his hands growled grimly, “The Council down in Suzail has been disrupted; there’s uproar in the city, and some are saying it even looks like war, and-”
Arclath turned to Storm, towing Amarune like a startled pet. “I must return there. Take Rune to Eveningstar; there’s a barrelwright there who owes the Delcastles a lot of coin. Keep her safe until I retur-”
“Oh, no,” Storm and Amarune both snapped back at him, in unintended unison. “We’re coming with you!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I n front of Burrath, his master stopped and peered up past the gate of watchful stone lion head, to the tiers of lit, many-paned windows rising into the night above.
“This is our destination?” he asked quietly.
The guide Glarvreth had sent to fetch his exalted guest merely nodded and rapped a complicated rhythm on a little panel in a recess set into the stone just beside the gate doors.
Lord Oldbridle stepped back, giving Burrath a swift “be ready” glance. Nothing in his master’s face suggested that Olgarth Oldbridle was impressed in the slightest by the Suzailan mansion of Andranth Glarvreth, wealthy and successful ironmongery and glasspane merchant-but then, these days, the jaded and cynical head of House Oldbridle was very seldom impressed by anything.
Inside Burrath’s quivering and defeated mind, Manshoon smiled, awaiting the entertainment soon to come. If anything in this part of the world was more haughtily ridiculous than a Cormyrean noble, it was a rising newcoin personage who hungrily sought to join the ranks of that nobility.
Like this man Glarvreth, who’d invited Oldbridle to dinner. Seeking his support, no doubt, which meant this meal should be an enjoyable feed rather than an agonized and ultimately fatal nightmare of poisoning.
