Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [27]
Elminster turned to look for the wand—and another dagger came whirling out of the darkness to strike and rebound off the one he’d just purloined, so hard that it numbed his fingers and made a sound like a bell.
“Hold, intruder!”
That new voice belonged to another highknight—or at least a knight—at the head of four or five heavily armored fellows. They had another wizard of war with them, too. Safely at the back of the group, of course.
Elminster sighed. If he turned back, they’d have the gods alone knew what sort of guards and traps and wards waiting to greet him, the next time he tried.
The knights rushed forward, swords out and spreading out as they came. A telltale glow moved with them, a starlight sheen in the darkness that warned any mage they were magically protected.
El sighed again. If, that is, there was a next time.
One spell would have to do it, then he’d be scrabbling in his pouches for the last few Harper tricks. If he was still alive enough to do anything.
“Hold, men of Cormyr! Down steel, all! Wizards of war, stay your spells! This is a royal command!”
That voice was as hard as swung steel and as cold as the winter wind, and it came from behind the highknights, who swung their heads around to see whence those orders had come.
A pale glow lit the darkness of the cellars, a cold and flickering halo around a striding woman in full plate armor. Helmless and wild-haired she came, with eyes like two dark flames and arms flung wide.
The Steel Regent, looking for all the realm like her huge portrait in the Hall of Approach before the Throne Chamber; Princess Alusair Obarskyr, as she’d been in the prime of her life, long before.
She was dead, of course—must be—and a moment later the knights realized they could see through her in places, as she strode toward them.
“ ’Tis a trick!” one of them snarled. “A false seeming, cast by yon villain!” He pointed one gauntleted finger at Elminster and turned to resume his charge at the old man.
“Highknight Morlen Askalan,” the princess snapped, still striding hard and fast, “are you loyal to the Dragon Throne or not? You heard me! Throw down your weapon, and stand where you are!”
“You’re a ghost or a spell cast by this enemy mage!” the knight growled, waving his sword at her. “My oath is to the king!”
“Do none of you know me?” the apparition demanded, striding among them. A highknight swung his sword through her; it passed through her arm and breast as if through empty air, earning him only her scowl.
“You’re Alusair, you are,” another knight muttered. “Bedder of nobles, war-leader of the realm, fiery daughter of the Purple Dragon himself.”
“And you’re a ghost,” Highknight Askalan repeated. “You wander the haunted wing of the palace, and moan how the realm has fallen since your day!”
Alusair strode right up to him, a bitter smile twisting her lips. Despite himself, Askalan flinched back from her dark gaze.
“My, my,” she remarked. “Overheard and spied upon, as usual—what must a girl do to get a little privacy around here?”
And she strode right through him. In her wake he toppled to the passage floor with a crash, numbed and helpless, sword skittering away across the stones.
Alusair never slowed but stepped right through the weakly struggling Lorton Ironstone—who collapsed onto his face with a sigh and lay still—and walked on to Hawkblade. His struggles, too, ceased, and she dealt with the war wizard who’d come at Elminster from behind, ere she turned back to the thoroughly cowed highknights and said quietly, “I gave an order. Swords down, men. Now.”
One highknight hesitated, and another burst forward to swing his blade at Elminster.
Alusair became a rushing wind that met him half a pace away from the Old Mage and sent him face-first to the floor, white-faced and shivering uncontrollably.
Stepping away from his twitching limbs, she faced