Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [2]
Behind her, the pierced tree was making horrible gurgling sounds, as if it were choking around the orc's blade. Alusair stared at it, wondering what new horrors her next breath could bring.
"Come, Alusair Nacacia Obarskyr," the orc crooned, matching the cadence of the song rising behind him. "Be my bride before you become my meal. I will do you that honor!"
The orc chieftain's laughter rose like roaring thunder around her, and Alusair reeled, hoping she'd have enough strength left to run. Perhaps after she screamed.
1
The world vanished, and Tanalasta's stomach rose into her chest. A sudden chill bit at her flesh, and there was a dark eternity of falling. She grew queasy and weak and heard nothing but the beating of her own heart. Her head reeled, a thousand worried thoughts shot through her mind, then she was simply someplace else. She was standing on the parapets of a castle wall, choking on some impossibly acrid stench and trying to recall where in the Nine Hells she was.
"Teleporter!" yelled a gruff voice. "Our corner!"
Tanalasta glanced over her shoulder and saw a small corner tower. In the arrow loops appeared the tips of four crossbow quarrels.
"Loose at will!" yelled the gruff voice.
As the weapons clacked, Tanalasta threw herself headlong down onto the wall walk. The quarrels hissed past and clanged off the stones around her, then ricocheted into the smoke-filled courtyard below. She looked after them and found the enclave filled with kettles of boiling oil, barrels packed with crossbow bolts, fire tubs brimming with water. At the far end of the enclosure stood a sturdy oak gate, booming loudly under the regular crash of a battering ram. A constant stream of women and children ran up one set of stairs and down another, ferrying buckets of crossbow bolts and pots of boiling oil to the warriors gathered along the front wall. Though a few of the men wore only the flimsy leather jerkins of honest woodsmen, most were armored in the chain mail hauberks and steel basinets of Cormyrean dragoneers.
The sight of royal soldiers finally cleared the teleport afterdaze from Tanalasta's mind, and she recalled that she was in the Cormyrean citadel at Goblin Mountain. She would have preferred to enter by the main gate, but there happened to be a host of orcs hammering at the portcullis with an iron-headed ram.
Behind her, the tower sergeant's gruff voice called, "Ready your bolts!"
"Wait!" Tanalasta fished her signet ring from her pocket and spun toward her attackers, holding the amethyst dragon high above her. "In the name of the Obarskyrs, stay your fire!"
There was a pause, then the tower sergeant hissed, "By the Black Sword! That's a woman-in a war wizard's cloak!"
"It is." Tanalasta dared to raise her head and saw a heavy-browed dragoneer peering out of an arrow loop. "And that woman is Crown Princess Tanalasta Obarskyr."
The sergeant narrowed his eyes. "You don't look like any portraits I've seen, Princess." He spoke to someone inside the tower, and a freshly loaded crossbow appeared in the arrow loop next to him. He turned back to Tanalasta. "You won't mind if we come down for a closer look?"
"Of course not," Tanalasta replied. "And bring some ropes-long ones."
"One thing at a time," the sergeant said. "Until then, don't move. We wouldn't want Magri here to spike the crown princess, would we?"
Tanalasta nodded and remained motionless, though doing so made her fume inside. The sergeant was right to be cautious, but she had more than a dozen companions rushing across the valley toward the citadel. If she did not have ropes waiting when the haggard band arrived, the orcs would see them and trap them against the rear wall.
The tower door opened, and three dragoneers in full battle armor stepped out. Two of the soldiers flanked Tanalasta and leveled their halberds at her, while their heavy-chinned sergeant