Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [99]
Azoun leaned over in his saddle to embrace her and growled, "Have you forgotten what helms are for, young lady?"
His wayward daughter's eyes danced as she laughingly replied, "Ah, but it's good to fight alongside you, Father!"
"Sure you don't prefer scores of ardent young noblemen?" Azoun asked teasingly.
"Well, their pratfalls to impress me do provide more unintentional entertainment than you do," the Steel Princess told him, "but as steady feast-fare, even pratfalls can bring on yawns."
Azoun chuckled, then a sound caught his ear. He looked to the south and his face changed.
"More messengers," Bayruce said for him. "Riding hard."
"Trouble, Father?" Alusair asked quietly, reaching for her sword.
Azoun shrugged. "I know not-but I do know that this would not be a good time to have to fight any traitors among the nobles."
Alusair lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "They'd be fools enough to stab at our backsides with dragon-led goblinkin sweeping down the realm to their very gates?"
"Larger, grander pratfalls," Azoun replied in dry tones.
* * * * *
The messengers proved to bear good news. Well-armed forces had indeed been whelmed by many nobles and now awaited the king's pleasure near Jester's Green under the command of Battlemaster Haliver Ilnbright, an old, grizzled Purple Dragon respected by many nobles who'd fought alongside him down the years.
"We'll make a stand at Calantar's Bridge," Azoun decided, turning in his saddle, "then fall back into the hill farms when we must."
Everyone fell silent and grim then as the dark form of the great red dragon rose into the sky, silhouetted against the setting sun, and flew leisurely back and forth over the Heartlands of Cormyr.
After a few breaths, the tiny silhouettes of six ghazneths could be seen rising to meet it. Alusair shivered, and Azoun reached over wordlessly to hold her hand.
"Sorry," she murmured.
"Don't be," he muttered back. His hand tightened, warm and reassuring.
"Seven scourges," she murmured. "So who and where is the last one?"
"Don't ask me," her father growled. "I'm just a king." Suddenly, Alusair found herself shrieking with laughter.
29
Like everything else about the betrayal, Tanalasta found the summoning signal complicated, juvenile, and utterly disheartening. She was atop Rallyhorn Tower, watching from the darkness as Orvendel ran the crudely sewn standard of a ghazneth up the family flagpole. The banner depicted a broad-shouldered male with upraised wings and huge crimson eyes. It clutched the Royal Tricrown of Cormyr in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other. One foot rested on the chest of dying man, the other on the blocky ruins of a noble tower.
"The sick little bastard," hissed Korvarr. "I had no idea."
"Obviously," Tanalasta replied.
After hearing Orvendel describe almost proudly how he had played on Korvarr's emotions to learn Tanalasta's plans, the lionar had resigned his commission and asked to share Orvendel's punishment. Tanalasta had accepted the resignation but declared Korvarr's contrition punishment enough. According to the elder Rallyhorn, Orvendel's poor eyesight and studious habits had made him something of a laughingstock growing up. In the wild days of his youth, Korvarr and his friends had delighted in playing practical jokes on the gullible boy. Early in the ghazneth invasion, however, the lionar had momentarily fallen under the sway of Mad King Boldovar's delusions and came to appreciate how damaging those hoaxes could be. Vowing to change his cruel ways, he immediately sent his brother several apologies.
All of the messages were rebuffed, for Orvendel's resentment had already blossomed into a festering rage-and not only for his brother. Lord Rallyhorn had also earned the hatred of his youngest son by not bothering to conceal his disappointment in the boy's physical awkwardness and lack of strength. So did the rest of Cormyrean society, which followed the lead of the brother and father in treating