Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [79]
When at last it faded, Swordcaptain Vandurn lay senseless on his back, his sweat-drenched face staring at nothing. Around him, most of his Dragons were the same, sprawled and motionless; the remainder were curled up and sobbing or groaning, spears fallen and forgotten.
Elminster and Storm stared at each other, their own faces wet and wild.
“Well?” Storm panted, bosom heaving; her Vainrence guise was melting away with every sobbing breath.
“Go to her,” Elminster snapped, snatching things of magic from inside his robes and pouches at his belt in almost feverish haste. “As fast as you can, and feed her everything you have to! Then get back here!”
“But, El—”
“Go! I’ll be fine here. Something’s happened to her, and we must find out what. Go! Use the Dalestride; the time for stealth is past.”
“It’ll be guarded,” Storm warned breathlessly. The Dalestride was a portal linking the Room of the Watchful Sentinel with a certain glade just west of Mistledale. Reinforced by Caladnei, it had survived the Spellplague, and King Foril and his wizards of war and highknights knew all about it; it was never unguarded.
“Good.” Elminster’s sudden smile was as ruthless as that of an old and hungry wolf. “I’m glad of that.” Almost hungrily he added, “I’ll go with you to open the way.”
“If they stand against us—Alusair and Foril, Ganrahast and Vainrence—”
“The wise ones will stand aside and live,” the Sage of Shadowdale told her grimly, snatching her hand and starting to stride back down the passage. “The fools will taste consequences … and Cormyr will be the stronger.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
TALONS AND PEACOCKS AND WORSE
Marlin Stormserpent loved the Old King’s Favorite. Oh, it was stiffly expensive, even to a wealthy noble heir, but it was also one of the most glittering lounges on the promenade, a place to see and be seen in. Not to mention that the food was good, the wine even better.
Moreover, it had been a very useful place to dine in, down the years. Upper-rung courtiers frequented such eateries—fattening themselves on the public purse, stlarn them—and by listening to the excited converse going on around him without seeming to do so, he learned a lot about what was currently afoot in Crown matters. Without all those expensive bribes and even-more-costly spies.
So the younger Lord Stormserpent had made it his custom to take highsunfeast at the Favorite most days, despite the cost. It wasn’t as exclusive as, say, Darcleir’s, derided by the lowborn as “the House of Peacocks” for all the flamboyantly dressed nobility to be found there daily, but the gossip of courtiers tended to be more intriguing than the usual airily empty boasting—or endless complaining about new ways and those who forged them—of nobles. Even when House Stormserpent couldn’t profit from what its heir overheard, Marlin learned a lot of interesting things.
Just now, for instance, word was spreading like wildfire around Suzail of some mysterious invading army that had been slaughtering people in the palace. Parts of which—the table to his right was whispering loudly enough to be heard down the far end of the room—had been, as a result, sealed off to everyone.
“Filled with scores of dismembered corpses,” an underclerk of protocol hissed excitedly.
“The floors ankle deep in pools of congealing blood!” a gentleman usher hissed back.
Not to be outdone, the two cellarers at the table to Marlin’s immediate left wanted most of the room to overhear just how upset Understeward Corleth Fentable was. The man was driving them—to say nothing of the high chatelaine