The first wagon was only two streets away from the mansion, just coming into view in his newest scrying eye, the one he’d compelled Dardulkyn to cast before sending the man into slumber.
Coming into view but slowing, as a dung wagon came rumbling out of a side street to block its way.
Manshoon silently cursed all dung wagons and the idiot dungbucketeers who drove them, even as he reminded himself that doing anything to this one was out of the question…
The battered old dung wagon stopped right across the street, and men on foot appeared around either side of it. Far too many to be dung collectors or citizens bringing their nightsoil.
Not that citizens wore chainmail and the helms of Dragons, or were accompanied by wizards of war with wands ready in their hands.
Oh, naed. Naed naed naed naed!
Manshoon slammed clenched fists down on the arms of his chair and stared into the scrying spheres with blazing eyes.
Dardulkyn would still be blamed, yes, but they were going to find his death tyrant.
This first one, at least; he was already coercing the other drovers to turn aside and head toward the docks, the first leg of a long circuit that would bring the other two wagons separately back to Sraunter’s rear door.
Dragons shouted sharp orders at the two wagonmen. To halt-which they already had-and to climb down and stand away from their wagon. Soldiers were already holding the bridles of the foremost draft horses.
Manshoon fought down his anger, tried to ignore the sharper and rising pounding in his head, called the spell he needed to the forefront of his mind, worked it but held it firmly in abeyance-“hanging,” in the old parlance-and threw his mind from the suddenly stumbling drover to what awaited in the dark depths of the wagon.
A war wizard conjured bright light, harsh and white and flooding everywhere, making all the horses snort and stamp.
Dragons warily clambered up onto the back steps of the wagon, threw the latch on its doors, and hauled them open, jumping down. Then another pair of Dragons leaped up onto the steps and flung the tarps back.
Leaving his staring, rotting, gape-mawed, and ten-eyestalked secret floodlit, and a secret no longer.
“She’s free!” Mirt roared from behind them, obviously struggling to find breath enough to both shout and run. Inevitably he’d fallen behind in their trot to the palace. Not far ahead of him, Storm, Rune, and Arclath had burst out into the Promenade. They were swerving toward an area lit by both lanterns and conjured light around the fallen palace door that smiths and woodcarvers were examining, under the watchful eyes of Dragons.
“Try to get into the palace, or at least past as many Dragons as possible before we’re stopped,” Storm had just warned them, plucking the now-dark helm off Amarune’s head and tossing it to the cobbles behind them. “Targrael wants our blood.”
“Y-you surprise me,” Rune joked weakly.
Turn back, lad. Now we stand and fight.
The voice in Arclath’s head was firm, but no coercion came with it. Arclath nodded as if Elminster had spoken aloud, and whirled around, waving his sword. “Mirt!” he shouted. “I’ll stand rearguard! Run!”
Targrael was running hard down the street behind the lumbering Waterdhavian, overhauling him with frightening speed.
Run toward him, lad, and be ready to drop thy sword. I need to work a spell while we still can.
“We?” Arclath snapped.
We, as in ye and me. We’ll have time for only one, before there’re too many palace folk blundering around in the way. Swift, now!
Swallowing down his fear, Lord Delcastle obeyed the voice in his head, muttering, “This had better work, or…”
Or we’ll haunt each other. Aye.
Shaking his head, Arclath ran. Wheezing heavily, Mirt lurched past him in the other direction. Targrael was a balefully grinning figure some three wagon-lengths away, running closer fast.
Now stop. Right now. Try to go calm. Let me use thy arms.
“Yes, master,” Arclath said sarcastically but obeyed. His arms and shoulders moved seemingly of their own volition, a warm darkness that wasn’t him rising at the back of his mind, his body dropping into a lunge with sword raised.
Targrael swerved wide and then turned and lashed out with a slash from one side, of course-but Elminster had already cast Arclath’s good blade at the cobbles right in front of her racing feet. It clanged as it bounced; she stumbled over it; he sidestepped-and then, with a grace that Amarune might have envied if she hadn’t been busy screaming his name as Storm shoved her on into the alarmed Dragons-he cast a spell.
Motes of light appeared in a swift, rushing circle in the wake of his nimble fingers, rushed together into a single pulsing light that flared into a cone of what seemed to be bright sunlight, and caught Targrael full in the face.
When it struck her sword, the blade shattered with an ear-splitting shriek, bursting into deadly shards that flew in all directions. One of them spun right across Targrael’s face, and another laid open her shoulder.
She howled in anguish and staggered back.
Snatch up thy sword and run her through. Take care to keep hold of it-she won’t fall or seem to be hurt much.
Arclath obeyed and did almost lose his sword as the death knight roared and spun away from him in a frenzy of pain, lashing out blindly with the twisted stump of her sword.
Now run, lad. Don’t play hero. Get in among the Dragons.
Arclath obeyed happily this time, and pulling back his weapon, sprinted into a knot of soldiers, most of whom seemed to be glaring at him, their swords drawn.
A handful of reinforcements trudged down the street from the direction of the Eastgate-more Dragons, but not fresh ones. The new arrivals looked exhausted, travel-stained, and far less grandly armored than the palace guardsmen. Some of these new arrivals were behind Arclath, milling around between him and the snarling, shuddering Targrael.
Ahead, Arclath saw his Rune staring anxiously over Storm’s shoulder at him. Even as he gave her a reassuring smile and espied Mirt arguing with a Dragon who had grabbed hold of his shoulder, he saw a man whose stern face he remembered from around the palace. At the same time, Storm greeted the man, “Well met again, Sir Starbridge. Will you be needing to see my chest again?”
“You handed us a merry journey back from Shadowdale,” he growled. “We’ve just walked the last leg, from Jester’s Green. What’s all this? What mischief are you up to now?”
“Trying to keep from being cut down in the street,” Storm replied-a moment before Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle thrust her head out of the gap where the door had been, saw Storm and then the others, and snapped, “You! Men, arrest these people! Her, and her, and the fat man there, and Lord Delcastle yonder!”
Mirt shook off the Dragon he’d been arguing with as if the man were a straw doll, and roared, “Fat man? Who’re ye calling a fat man, Shrewjaws?”
Whatever reply the blazing-eyed Glathra might have made was lost in her sudden jaw-drop of astonishment, as a Purple Dragon far across the Promenade was flung into the air to crash down among his fellows, and another man screamed in agony.
Heads turned, men gaped-and more Purple Dragons were hurled aside, streaming blood.
Lady Targrael was back on her feet and swinging two swords whose owners wouldn’t be needing them anymore. She was really angry now, and coming through anyone in her way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
J ust one? We face just one?” a gruff Purple Dragon lionar demanded disbelievingly. “Well, why haven’t you jacks downed her by now? What by the Rampant Dragon is-”
He broke off to gape as a severed head flew past him to bounce off the shoulder plates of a swordcaptain nearby, drenching the man in blood ere it tumbled down to be lost to sight underfoot. It had been wearing a Dragon helm.