Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [54]
"Then before all the gods, the goblins just aren't there," Azoun completed the sentence calmly. "Or at least they dare not attack or despoil save by royal leave."
Feldon nodded, and Azoun smiled slowly and said, "Fetch them both." Before Feldon could more than open his mouth to reply, something occurred to the king. "Bid the warden bring his family. Let the ladies be ready to march-without two warrior-loads of jewels and finery each."
As Warden, Maestoon Huntsilver saw to the state of all the game in the King's Forest, and all of the royal foresters, too. He was one of the few Huntsilvers capable of doing the crown so useful a service as guiding the royal army through the heart of the forest. Moreover, he was one of the few who probably would want to.
There had been many marriages between the Huntsilvers and the Obarskyrs down the years, but there were Huntsilvers who'd probably laugh to see Azoun IV laid in his grave. Maestoon's last surviving son, Cordryn, was one of those nobles exiled and disinherited for conspiring with Gaspar Cormaeril in his plot to seize the throne.
Maestoon himself, however-or so Vangerdahast had sworn, after a little covert magical spying-was genuinely ashamed of that, and anxious to return to the royal good graces. Soft-spoken and even effeminate, he was that rare thing: a forester who knew wildlife and how to encourage their breeding. He was also a courtier so skilled with his tongue and so watchful as to always say the right thing in any awkward situation at court.
Maestoon had at least two more troubles than the tendency of his sons to get themselves killed or mired in treason. He had a wife and a daughter.
His lady Elanna, much younger than her husband and a Dauntinghorn by birth, was an ash blonde of thin, sleek, devastating beauty whose dancing had been known to make watching men growl with lust-and who knew her powers only too well. She amused herself by toying with almost every noble she met, setting some against others and all to doing ridiculous tasks and pranks, purely in hopes of tasting her favors.
Maestoon's daughter Shalanna was a very different bad apple. She played her own pranks, knowing just enough magic to be malicious and dangerous to those she dared to turn it against. That one was fat and sullen, resenting her mother for being beautiful and the war wizards for not making fat Shalanna the beauty she deserved to be, and all young noblemen for courting her for her riches and standing when she knew she disgusted them… and every one else, Azoun supposed, for seeing her as she truly was, both inside and out. Azoun didn't know which she-viper was worse.
Half his kingdom was under the sway of folk worse than these-the kingdom he was fighting to preserve and would someday die fighting for. Yet it was the only realm he had, and his home, and Azoun knew he'd not trade it for another if his own queen and all the other women in it were Elannas and Shalannas.
Right now, he wished Maestoon joy of them, and hoped he'd not have their blood on his hands a few days from now. He'd hate to give that sort of cold reward to so good and loyal a man.
There came the warden now, smiling eagerly at his king and bustling in his haste to serve.
Azoun watched him come and drew in a deep breath. Yes, there were a lot of good and loyal men in Cormyr he'd not want to hand the cold reward of death to, in the days ahead.
And a few others who must be stone cold insane to want the Dragon Throne for themselves.
16
Though the summit of Jhondyl's Ridge stood well hidden beneath an ancient forest of giant hawthorn and oak, the west side fell away in a steep scarp that overlooked all Cormyr south of Gray Oaks. From her camp table beneath the spreading boughs of an old ironbark, Tanalasta could mark the location of each ghazneth by the particular devastation following in its wake. Luthax's wildfires gushed smoke along the Starwater, Suzara's blight browned the fields between Calantar's Bridge and Marsember, and Xanthon's locusts boiled