The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [114]
And he closed the door on their ragings.
The slight tremor in his hands was gone. As he strode to the last set of heavy doors, the ones that opened into his private vaults, Ithclammert Cardassa found himself pleased at that.
He knew he was going to die here this night, without even a chance to hold Amanthala or Nreene or one of the Laranta girls again, bid them proper farewell with coins and thanks-and give them his fervent command to get well out of Cardassa and into hiding, to keep his unborn children safe until at least one could grow old enough to claim their heritage and rule in Cardassa again. At least he'd left instructions with Baerethos and Ubunter to watch over and aid his ladies… but the two old wizards were not exactly towers of strength or competence. Nor would they work together, even if all Aglirta and their own hides hung in the balance-to say nothing of a babe fathered by the man they'd served at first out of duty to his father, and then with increasing fear and hatred: the Crow of Cardassa.
Taurym would take his warning to Flowfoam, unbidden, if the good steward survived the bows of Adeln and the swords of Ornentar. He would have to. The Great Lord of Cardassa would never leave Tathcaladorn alive-yet if he bought his own death dearly enough, few of his slayers would survive, either, and another conspiracy would falter and fail before its fingers quite closed on the River Throne. The Risen King might have a time longer to force Aglirta into being a realm once more, and not a clutch of warring baronies and brigand-roamed wilderlands.
The most crucial men standing against him were Adeln and Ornentar. Adeln was the stronger, the true blade and backbone of the conspiracy-but because of the Serpents, Ornentar was the one who absolutely had to fall this night. If he could buy only one death with his own, Eldagh Ornentar, once the Face of Stone, had to be it.
Bodemmon Sarr, wherever he was, was the truly deadly threat to the Throne-as dangerous in his own way as the Priests of the Serpent-but like them, he'd draw back from this conspiracy, dropping it like a broken sword, and try another.
That could not be the concern of Ithclammert Cardassa. He was only Great Lord of one barony; he could only hope to bring down one conspiracy. "Remember me for this, Snowsar," he murmured, as he drew on some gauntlets he'd not used for decades, and watched the gems set into their knuckles wink into life. "And let it be with honor."
He flexed the armored gloves that could make him fly, and then reached down a helm whose enchantments were even stronger. As he settled it on his head and looked around at all the other enchanted weaponry he and his forefathers had gathered here, he hoped that when his foes washed his blood off them, they wouldn't use them a day later in an attack on the king.
"Remember me," he added, surprising himself with his own calmness, "because I could have joined against you and kept my hide if not my pride-and did not. I could have run… and did not."
He drew on a belt as wide as both his hands set together, buckled it up tight, and told the mirror that stood against the wall, hidden here and cracked across since his grandsire had been young, "I stood and fought, because there are still some men in Aglirta-some crazed few-who think this land, or the dream of it being a land once more, is worth fighting for."
He took a mace that glowed when he touched it into his left hand, and hefted it as he settled its wrist-chain around his forearm, humming a half-remembered song that his father had sung on the way to war.
Its tune was drowned out by the sudden thunder that fell upon the doors, and Cardassa stepped swiftly aside from them and caught up his sword again-before they burst into the room in a deafening spray of shards and boiling flame and spell-smokes.
"Surrender to us, Cardassa!" Adeln shouted, from somewhere behind a raging wall of flames. "Surrender to us this little arsenal, too-now that you've led us to it! The Spear of the Falcon, rightfully