The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [77]
Ilgrist lifted a fastidious foot to let it slide, blazing, past. "Are there any more heroes here today?" he asked mildly. "I've plenty more death in these hands."
As if that had been a signal, the air filled with hurled daggers and swords, spinning at the court mage from roaring men on all sides…only to ring off an invisible barrier, every last one of them, and fall away.
Ilgrist looked down at the body of Belundrar, which had broken his circle of fire and was busily being burnt in two by its flames, and murmured "Blasted to smoking ruin. A true patriot…and see how much he accomplished, in the end? Come, gentlesirs! Let us have your submission. I shall be the new king of…"
"Never!" Baron Hothal thundered. "I'll die before I'll allow su…"
Ilgrist's mouth crooked. "But of course," he said.
He made a tiny gesture with two of his fingers, and the air was suddenly full of the twang and hum of crossbows firing, from the throne guard up in the balconies, their faces white and blank, their movements mechanical.
Warriors groaned, clutched vainly at quarrels sprouting in their faces or throats, and fell. Hitherto-concealed crossbows spat an answer from many baronial armsmen around the chamber…and the helmless Hothal, his head transfixed by many bolts, staggered, then toppled onto his side.
Baron Maethor would have tasted as many flying deaths had he not possessed an unseen barrier of his own that kept both hurled daggers and crossbow bolts from him. Many of his unarmored men fell, but others surged forward to drive daggers into the faces of Hothal's armored guardsmen or raced up balcony stairs to carve out a bloody revenge on Galadorna's throne guard.
The chamber erupted in a flurry of hacking, stabbing steel, the thunder of armored men running, and screams…all too many screams. There was fresh commotion at two of the throne room doors, as royal soldiers with halberds in their hands elbowed ways into the room…then a bright flash and roar that shook the chamber even more than the lightning had and left dazzled men blinking.
Into the ringing echoes of the blast he'd caused, transforming a score of Baron Hothal's best knights into so many bloody scraps of armor embedded in riven paneling, the court mage shouted, "All of you…hold! Hold, I say!"
Commoners, throne guards, and the men of Maethor who were left, with their master in their midst, all turned to look at the wizard. The ring of fire around Ilgrist was gone, and the mage was pointing across the chamber, at…
The burned and broken body of Lord Tholone, now struggling jerkily to sit upright, its legs still much-twisted ruin. It turned sightless, despairing eyes to the watching men and worked jaws that had already drooled much blood for some time before trembling lips said the horribly flat and rattling words, "Pay homage to King Ilgrist of Galadorna, as I do."
Bonelessly the body slumped…an instant before it burst apart in a blast that spattered many of the surviving warriors. One of them snarled, "Magecraft said those words, not Tholone!"
"Oh?" Ilgrist asked softly, as the twisted, blackened crown of Galadorna flew smoothly out of the wreckage into his hand. "And if so, what will you do?"
He straightened the crown with a sudden show of strength, and unseen spell-hands lifted the mantle of court mage from his shoulders. It fell unheeded to the floor as he stepped forward, settled the battered crown upon his brow, and said loudly, "So let all Galadornans kneel before their new king. I shall rule over Galadorna as Nadrathen, a name I've known rather longer than 'Ilgrist.' Bow down!"
The shocked silence was broken by the rustlings and scrapings of several armsmen going clumsily to their knees. One or two of Maethor's men knelt, one was promptly knifed from behind by one of his fellows and fell on his face with a gurgling cry.
King Nadrathen regarded the knot of richly garbed men with a gentle smile and said to their midst, "Well, Maethor? Shall Galadorna lose all of its barons this day?"
There was a rustling from behind him. Nadrathen turned and stepped