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"Die, tuskers!" Swordlord Glammerhand shouted, almost beheading an orc with a terrific cut. "Get thee to death and save us this trouble!"

Azoun's eyes narrowed as he caught sight of dark limbs and wings waving almost tauntingly in the shadows beyond the orcs. A few more desperate thrusts and slashes brought him to where he could stand over the shuddering Alusair. He slapped a vial of healing elixir into her hand and growled, "Drink, reckless idiot!"

Alusair coughed, on her knees in the mud between two sprawled bodies, neither of them an orc. "Th-thanks, father," she said thickly, spitting blood. "Always there when I need you."

"Get up, lass," he snapped. "I need your thoughts now, not your blade."

"How so?" she gasped, reeling to her feet as the lords Braerwinter and Tolon took up stances on one side of the royal pair, blades raised and ready, and Swordlord Glammerhand and Lancelord Raddlesar stood guard on the other.

"Look you," Azoun gasped, pointing through the slaughter with his blade. "We chase and chase this ghazneth, and it retreats, never crossing claws with us-is this the usual way these beasts war with us? And all we ever see is one and the same ghazneth. Where are the others?"

"We've been lured away," Alusair said quietly, holding her side where the orc blade had bitten into her, and bringing her fingers away sticky with her own blood. She lifted her head and shot glances like arrows around the fray, stopping when she found the war wizard who was never far from the king. Arkenfrost was the mightiest mage out in the field with the royal army. "How many of your fellow wizards remain with the troops, Lord Mage?"

"Eight or so, if one counts untried apprentices," Arkenfrost replied calmly through the tumult, "and three who've spells enough to make a difference in battle."

"If they try," Azoun snarled, "ghazneths galore will be down on them like hungry vultures. We've been duped-again!" Gods, he missed Vangerdahast's foresight and sarcastic calm… but this was one war the King of Cormyr was just going to have to win without his royal magician.

He looked around at Purple Dragons heartily hacking down orcs, then back at Arkenfrost. "If we leave you, can you bring these men out into the sunlight again and back to rejoin us?"

Arkenfrost shrugged. "We fought our way in here, Majesty," he replied calmly. "I daresay we can fight our way out."

The king nodded curtly, caught hold of Alusair's hand, and snapped, "We go. Guard yourselves."

Alusair opened her mouth to say something, but Azoun made no move to halt his will. His ring flashed once as the vast blue falling seized them both-and when it cleared they were out under the sun again, the royal standard Azoun had sought to return to was fluttering beside their ears, and they were staring into the frightened eyes of three men in robes whose hands were leveled at the Obarskyrs, and whose wrists were crackling with the awakened lightning of battle magic.

"Strike not your king!" Alusair roared, her voice as deep a snarl as any swordcaptain's. "How goes the battle? Did you face any ghazneths?"

The foremost man sketched the briefest of bows and stammered, "N-none, Royal Lady. Ah, Eareagle Stormshoulder, loyal mage of the Crown, at your service. Uh, your majesties." He drew in an unhappy breath, and said stiffly, "We face a sea of orcs-tuskers everywhere, like a cloak on the hillsides all around. We dare not use much magic, for fear of the darkwi-the ghazneths."

"Prudent," the king said, nodding, "but use what magic you must. To let men die while you stand idle is to give a ghazneth a victory it hasn't even taken the field to earn." He shot the other two mages a steely glance. "Has Stormshoulder seen the fray correctly?"

"Ah, he has, your majesty," one wizard said awkwardly, while the other stammered, "He has." Then they both seemed to remember whom they were addressing, and found their knees with almost comical haste.

"Loyal Mage Lharyder Gaundolonn, O