Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [118]
The king had long since sent scouts to find Princess Alusair and order her to rally her men back to the royal standard. Three veteran rangers-each alone so one at least should escape ill-Randaeron, Pauldimun, and Yarvel, good men all, had gone out. Either they had found ill or not found the princess. How long must it take to travel a mile or two? Less long than they'd already taken, surely.
"Back to the river, or make camp here?" the battlemaster asked gently, mindful of the royal mood.
"Here," Azoun said, the word clear and cold. A long breath of silence passed before he added, "I'd not welcome fighting my way back across the bridge next morn, just to reach this height again."
Ilnbright turned and gestured. Men who'd been watching for it reached with swift, practiced speed for the first poles that would soon become the royal tent.
The guards standing close around the king were weather-beaten, eagle-eyed veterans. Gaerymm and Teithluddree had the better sight, still able to outshoot many of the arrowmasters, but the hulking bannerguard, Kolmin Stagblade (no one ever seemed to use just one of his names, perhaps because of his mountainous, inexorable bulk) stood a good two heads taller than either, so it was he who said suddenly, "Randaeron Farlokkeir returns. Alone, but laden."
In silence the other men stepped aside to allow Azoun to stride forward and peer along the bannerguard's pointing arm.
After a moment, Azoun turned away. His voice was almost gentle as he said to the nearest messenger, "Wine. Flamekiss. Just the flask."
That flask was empty by the time the scout trotted around the men driving home the last lines of the royal tent. He went to his knees before Azoun, stretching his arms forth in silence to place a scorched helm and a half-melted, twisted shield on the trampled turf. A sharp burnt smell came to the hilltop with him-the smell of cooked flesh.
The helm might have belonged to any Purple Dragon but for the battered cheek guard. All of the men standing on the hill knew a certain scar and bend in it. The shield, too, might have belonged to a hundred hundred soldiers of Cormyr-but its unblemished upper corner bore a device that was Alusair's alone, a steel-gray falcon leaping up from the palm of a war gauntlet.
"Majesty," Randaeron murmured, "these were all I could find that I could be sure were the princess's, in a place of many bones and bodies." He spread his hands helplessly, and added, "The dragon…"
"Everyone slain?" Azoun asked, in apparent calm. "Torn apart or… cooked?"
"There were signs of many men in boots fleeing into the forest, each by his own path rather than together or along a trail. I searched the remains a long time, while Paulder and Yar followed the signs into the forest, but I cannot say that I found her highness… or know that I did not. So many were… bones."
The ranger's voice broke, then, and it seemed for a moment that the hands of the king trembled. When he reached down to put a hand on the scout's shoulder and to take up the ashen helm, however, they seemed steady enough.
"My thanks, Randaeron,"Azoun said quietly. "Tarry here in camp, at least until your fellow scouts return. I am sure no man could find more among the dead than you did."
Without another word to anyone the king walked away. Down the hillside he went, his steps slow and aimless, looking at the helm in his hands as if it held his daughter's face.
Not a man moved to follow, though all of his bodyguards shifted to where they could clearly see where Azoun went, and the hillside below him. They saw the Old Blade of the Obarskyrs walk ever more slowly, until he entered a little hollow where he sat down as wearily as any overweight pike-dragoneer.
"Is she dead, d'you think?" a lancelord standing by the tent muttered to his superior. Keldyn Raddlesar was too young to know when to keep quiet.
"Lad," Ethin Glammerhand