Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [30]
"… they'll think worse beasts lurk in its depths. To some, this might be a peril to eradicate at all costs, but any man going near the forest will be so busy fighting the roaming beasts that very few humans will venture far inside the woods. And so you have-again-your unspoiled hunting preserve. One can't possibly kill all the humans, but one can steer them aside."
Alea managed a half-smile as she looked at the burning wreckage of the human camp. She felt the truth in his words warm her inwardly as much as the flaring flames heated her face.
Yes, Iliphar would raise bloody tumult over this when he found out, but this simple strategy, plus the returned ears, might buy her a little grace with the elders. And if she brought along the human mage as a prize…
"You'll come with us," she said flatly, then turned her head and shouted a command at her hunters, bidding them make ready to travel.
"Of course I shall," said the lanky human. Alea did not see the gleam in his eye and the widening smile on his lips, but she knew it was there.
Chapter 5: The Abraxus
Year of the Gauntlet
(1369 DR)
"You sent for me, lord wizard?" The fur-cloaked high priest's tones were barely respectful. Augrathar Buruin, High Huntmaster of Vaunted Malar for all Cormyr, wasn't used to answering any summons that did not come from the crown itself.
"I did," Vangerdahast told him gravely, "and I count your presence in Suzail at this time as a stroke of good fortune for the realm."
The huntmaster merely grunted, a sound of mingled disdain and disbelief, and swaggered past Vangerdahast, the many dangling claws on the pelts he wore dancing with the weight of his stride. He headed straight to a platter on a sideboard, where he tore a leg deftly from a roast mountain bustard and asked, "So where's the blood you want spilled? And in the meantime, what's happened to the wine cellars?"
The Royal Magician's eyes silently answered the query of the nearest belarjack, and the man scurried over to the cleric with a jack of wine and a goblet. The priest snatched the jack, leaving the startled servant holding the empty goblet, and Vangerdahast turned away before anyone could see him smile.
His movement brought him face to face with the next arrival: the battered old warrior Aldeth Ironsar, Faithful Hammer of Tyr, whose face was stiff with disapproval at the priest of Malar's manners and presence. The Royal Magician greeted Ironsar warmly, even as they clasped each other's upper arms, the Chamber of Crossed Dogs began to fill up rapidly. High Priest Manarech of Tymora, resplendent in vestments so new they seared the eye, nodded to Vangerdahast. Manarech smiled, seemingly bearing the High Wizard and the palace in general no ill will for being bathed in Bhereu's last breaths, and drifted to the sideboard. Junstal Halarn, ranking Visiting Songmaster at Suzail's shrine to Milil, was not far behind.
All of these good clerics were accompanied by their personal scribes, consecrated pages, and watchpriests. With glances and finger gestures rather than words, Vangerdahast saw to it that all of them were given wine and the small savory pastries that the kitchens of the court were justly famous for. Then he smiled and nodded, listening to their self-important chatter with every evidence of deep interest, hoping that the three men he was waiting for would not be too much longer.
As it happened, they arrived together. The sage Alaphondar and Erdreth Halansalim, a gaunt, no-nonsense senior war wizard, crept in unobtrusively through a side door, while Runelord Thaun Khelbor, Loremaster of Deneir, swept in through the main door. The loremaster bore a tall rune-graven staff of darkest ebony, and small lightning bolts crackled around the staff's tip.
Vangerdahast fought the urge to smile again at the sight of the loremaster and his portable lightning storm, and he was careful not to raise his eyes in a patronizing glance. The loremaster was the oldest and most gentle of the