Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [183]
Tanalasta was dodging around the altar, dragging behind her a mace she obviously found too heavy to use, with a snarling noble in hot pursuit. Even as Gwennath cried out in alarm and raised her hand to hurl the dagger she still held, someone else-a merchant in battered boots, who was waving the longest knife she'd ever seen-vaulted the altar and crashed solidly into the noble. The knife flashed once as they went down together, and there was a short, wet gurgling sound from behind the holy table. She wasn't surprised to see that only one man rose again-and that it wasn't the one who wore the mask and fine clothes.
The last of the nobles-the one Gwennath had struck in a sensitive place-had risen behind the priestess, sword up and red rage for the Tymoran in his eyes. Gwennath did not see him, but Emthrara did. The lady Harper shouted a warning, but nothing was going to be able to stop that blade in time…
And then Emthrara saw another figure rise up behind the noble, the altar stool raised in one trembling hand. White to the lips, Crown Princess Tanalasta of Cormyr brought her improvised weapon down with all her strength.
The noble's sword went one way and his head snapped to the other, blood spraying from the force of the blow. The impact left the noble's head no longer round, but it managed to make a rattling noise before plunging heavily to the floor with the noble's dead body.
The princess stared down at what she'd done, gasped, arid promptly emptied her stomach in revulsion.
Her shoulders were still shaking as more armed men, priests of Tyr and Purple Dragons, all waving ready weapons and glaring around at the carnage, burst into the room.
"What happened?" one of the guards demanded and strode forward with one hand out to roughly grasp and spin about the sobbing woman in front of him.
He stopped abruptly when she turned of her own accord and he recognized her face. White it might be, and blue about the lips, but he could not mistake the face of the heir to the throne. The eyes in that famous face were wet with unshed tears.
"We-I was attacked by these… traitors," the princess, said, her breathing suddenly fast, "and all of these other folk slew them for me."
"Other folk, High Lady?"
Tanalasta glanced around. The merchant and the woman with the sword had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, only the priestess of Tymora stood with her. The grim-looking priestess now stepped forward and said firmly, "Her Highness prevailed against these men, blade to blade and eye to eye. Let word of this travel throughout the realm, that justice and right have made the crown princess victorious in battle against five experienced fighting men… who also happened to be foolish nobles. They found the fate that awaits all traitors."
The eyes of the guards and priests looked at Gwennath and then turned back to the princess.
"What really befell here?" a grizzled Purple Dragon asked bluntly, rising from the blood-smeared flagstones where he'd been examining the man Emthrara had run through.
Tanalasta gave him a wintry glare. "It was just as the holy lady has said," she snapped, and she turned away to kneel before the altar. "Now, if you gentle sirs will clear away that carrion, my prayers are unfinished…"
"Well said, Your Highness," Gwennath whispered as she knelt beside the royal supplicant.
Tanalasta surveyed her with a sidelong glance and whispered back fiercely, "When I rise from here, I'm going to expect some answers! Go nowhere until I give you leave."
Gwennath smiled and bowed her head. "Of course," she murmured, and she lifted her voice to sing the first call to the Lady of Fortune.
* * * * *
The eyes behind the azure mask almost seemed to glow with interest. "And what else did Bleth propose?"
Dauneth Marliir shrugged. It had been a long, cramped day for him, skulking in this hiding place or that in the palace, and the mage seemed serenely unconcerned with the palpable villainy of the Royal Magician. "I've told you all," he said, a trifle sharply. "He made it