Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [110]
Owden took Tanalasta by the arm. "I know you feel ill…"
"I can do it." She allowed Owden to help her to the prison box, then grabbed a handful of coins and dumped them onto Melineth's forehead. "Melineth Turcasson, father of Queen Daverna and Lord Mayor of Suzail and the Southern Shore, as a true Obarskyr and heir to the Dragon Throne, I grant you the thing you most desire, the thing for which you betrayed your daughter and the sacred trust of your king. I grant you gold."
The strength left Melineth all at once, and the foul blackness bubbling up from his chest became frothy red blood. The shadow lifted from his body, then his face screwed into a mask of horrid pain. He began to scream and flail about in his gold-filled coffin, flinging coins in every direction.
Then, recalling what Vangerdahast had told her only a few moments earlier, Tanalasta touched her hand to the ghazneth's brow and spoke again. "As heir to the crown and a direct descendant of King Duar, I forgive your betrayal of Cormyr, Melineth Turcasson. I absolve you of all crimes against the crown."
Tanalasta had hardly spoken the last word before Melineth's flailing arms fell motionless. His eyes rolled up to meet hers. She thought for a moment that he would speak, but his eyes merely filled with black fume and dissolved into nothingness.
32
"Quietly" Alusair growled in a half whisper, for perhaps the fortieth time. "There'll be plenty of time, if we stay unseen."
She shook the shield she was crouching beneath, reminding the excited nobles behind her to keep their own cloak-shrouded shields raised, and crept forward a few cautious paces more.
It wasn't easy trying to simultaneously find safe, quiet footing in the tangle of wet moss, mud, and old fallen branches, and to peer ahead for lurking goblins or forest menaces-owlbears, for instance-that might have been drawn near by the bloody smell of the battle. The cloak-wrapped shields were to keep any sun-flash from blades or armor from alerting orcs. This had to be a hammerstroke no tusker expected.
If the dragon only stayed away to nurse its wounds long enough, she could outflank the orcs, Cormyr could strike at the snortsnouts from both sides, and with the very slimmest shard of Tymora's luck they'd shatter the goblin-kin army. The realm could at last turn to do battle with the ghazneths then-and the Devil Dragon-and perhaps end this madness once and for all.
Her father deserved that much. He deserved a few last years of peace-or what passed for peace in intrigue-ridden Cormyr, with every third noble ready to serve the king with either a dagger or a flagon of poison-before his old bones failed him and he was laid to rest in the land he'd served so long.
Gods, but she'd miss Azoun the Great when he was gone-not just as a father, but as the strength so alert and sure upon the throne that Sembia and Zhentil Keep and Hillsfar and half a hundred treacherous nobles could spend years plotting the downfall of the Dragon Throne, and so rarely dare to do anything to bring their dark dreams even a step nearer reality.
There wasn't another man on a throne anywhere on the face of Toril to equal him, not a man to stand up against him who didn't have spells spilling from his fingertips or scores of wizards to stand at his back, hurling lightning upon command. Or a woman, for that matter. They were all spellhurlers or anointed-of-gods or ruled hard and cruel with spells and swords aplenty. No land but Cormyr could afford so many contrary and plotting nobles. No realm had a king strong enough to let them behave so.
Azoun IV was a hero among kings. A man, yes, she was proud to serve.
But she'd miss more than that. Yes, Alusair the Steel Princess, scourge of a thousand brigands and beasts,