Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [41]
"Loyal Mage Mavelar Starlaggar at your service, Crowned Lord of Cormyr."
Azoun waved these formalities aside with a growl that became the command, "Follow me! I'll have these orcs swept from my land even if I have to slay each and every last one of them myself! For Cormyr and victory!"
Holding high his warsword as if it were a flaming brand sent down by the gods, the king charged forward. Alusair snatched up the royal standard and followed, snapping a quiet, "Come!" to the open-mouthed war wizards.
Helmed heads were turning to look at them as they trotted forward. The king's army was facing a host of orcs that covered the hills ahead for as far as they could see, but a great shout went up as the Obarskyrs surged forward to the line where men and orcs were hacking at each other in the sunlight with a sort of grim resignation.
"For Cormyr and victory!" a thousand throats shouted in unison.
"Death to all orcs!" a swordcaptain called back, and the reply rolled out deafeningly, "For CORMYR AND VICTORY!"
And as the royal army raced forward with renewed vigor to hew down orcs, slipping and sliding in the black blood of the tuskers who'd already fallen, not a man there spared a glance into the sky for a ghazneth. There were orcs to kill, and too little daylight left to down them all.
"For Cormyr," Azoun shouted happily, shouldering his way past a startled lancelord to lay open the face of a snarling orc, "forever!"
"Gods, yes," Alusair murmured, from somewhere near his left shoulder, "let it be forever."
12
Tanalasta stood on the Amethyst Dais of the Royal Audience Hall, feeling small and lost in the soaring grandeur of the golden chamber, yet also very glad for the concealing bulk of her Purple Robe of State. She was beginning to thicken around the middle, and it wouldn't do to have this particular pack of wolves speculating over the cause. There were nearly two hundred of them clustered at the base of the stairs, droning quietly in their little cliques even as Lord Emlar Goldsword addressed the crown.
"These ghazneths are proving a nuisance, Highness. Already, a rather stubborn blight has taken hold in my vineyard, the flies have made a maggot barn of my stables, and I have had to dismiss several servants who spoke harshly to Lady Radalard."
The complaints differed only in detail from the litany of grievances to which Tanalasta had been listening all morning. A fissure of molten rock had run down the middle of the Huntcrown country estate, swallowing the mansion, Lord Tabart's favorite stallion, and a dozen good gardeners. A quarter of the ships in the Dauntinghorn merchant fleet had developed sudden cases of dry rot, forcing the family to leave whole shiploads of foodstuffs moldering on the docks. For no reason anyone could name, the young men of the prolific Silverhorn family had developed a sudden hatred of the Hornholds and initiated a deadly blood feud that had already cost both families their firstborn heirs.
Most of the speakers were united in implying that Tanalasta had brought this plague of calamities with her when she came down from the north, and in suggesting that had she had the foresight to seek refuge elsewhere, perhaps they would not have been so inconvenienced. She listened to each lord politely, interrupting only to clarify a point or to ask a description in the rare event that the speaker had actually joined his guards and gone out to do battle when the ghazneth came. What the princess heard convinced her that all six of the creatures were now plaguing southern Cormyr.
It also convinced her that most of the nobles before her were not worthy of the name. Why was it, she wondered, that the highborn of a family so often turned out to be selfish cowards, while the lesser cousins proved true and brave? That had certainly been so among the Cormaerils. She could easily picture Gaspar or Xanthon there before her, complaining about the inconvenience of having the kingdom assaulted by the scourges of Alaundo's prophecy while their lesser cousin Rowen was off actually trying to do something about