“And it’s very fresh. Killed moments ago, in fact. Chicken!”
“Did you see the way Lady Glathra was looking at us?” Amarune murmured. “I was hard put not to shiver. She doesn’t want us working for throne and king, to be sure. I think she’d be happiest if neither of us lived through this night.”
Arclath smiled. “You think it was an accident Ganrahast told her he needed to meet with her urgently and immediately, as they left? Or that the king seems to have left more than a dozen guards behind, to spend the night standing around outside our walls?”
Rune frowned. “You think she’d dare-?”
The heir of House Delcastle shrugged. “ ’Twouldn’t be the first time a wizard of war-or a high-ranking courtier-decided to ‘help’ the hand of Tymora. Or even the most likely unfolding of events, either. I doubt Glathra’s that bold, myself, but the prepared warrior is the less dismayed warrior, as they say.”
He paused at a particular door and knocked softly at it. It promptly opened, and an elderly servant stepped out of the room beyond it to bow deeply to Amarune and hand her a lit lantern.
“All ready, lord,” he murmured to Arclath, and he hastened off down the passage without another word.
Lord Delcastle ushered his lady love through the open door. “My mother chose this room for you because the door has stout bolts, here and here, so you can keep all Cormyr at bay, the night through. The window’s too small for most men to get through, and overlooks a long fall into the courtyard-where some of our men are always standing guard. Oh, and there’s no secret passage.”
They traded grins, ere Arclath added, “Above you is only roof, and beneath you the ceiling of the back feasting hall-a good twelve man-heights above its floor. We’ve only two ladders tall enough to reach it, and we could scarcely fail to notice anyone trying to sneak in here with a ladder that long …”
“But if she tries anything at all,” Amarune murmured, “she’ll use magic, not the swords of Purple Dragons storming your house, surely?”
Arclath shrugged. “We have wards. If they aren’t strong enough, well, I guess that’ll be that.” He grinned. “You really think one angry Crown mage will go to all that trouble to punish the notorious Silent Shadow?”
Rune did not smile back at him. “Arclath,” she whispered, “I wasn’t thinking about me. My worry is for you.”
The lord constable of Irlingstar stared down the passage, over the body of the fallen seneschal, at all the Purple Dragons he’d summoned. Every waking guard in the castle was here except for the on-duty door guards, the stair wardens, and of course the mages. They were all his to command.
The faces staring back at him were grim. The guards of Castle Irlingstar were upset, of course. They’d been more angry than fearful at first, but that had changed when they’d discovered the kitchen staff slaughtered, and much of the food in the castle pantries taken or deliberately tainted. They had been less than gentle while shoving the prisoners back into their cells and locking them in-and the lord constable had agreed wholeheartedly with that rough treatment. Sneering murderers.
“Dumped chamber pots into the open ale keg, they did,” one Dragon snapped indignantly, “and emptied their bladders all over the puddings.”
“The spitted birds? The sausages?”
“Gone,” was the bleak reply.
Lord Constable Farland wasted no effort on curses. He merely pointed at two men and commanded, “Stand guard over the kitchens. They’re not to be left unattended for as long as it takes you to blink, from now on. Choose two more to relieve you when you grow tired.”
Then he pointed at four more Dragons. “Search everything. The flues of every last chimney, all the spices in the pantry; the lot. Set aside everything that’s been spoiled or even possibly poisoned, and make very sure the chimneys haven’t been blocked and no little traps left waiting for anyone trying to use kitchens or larders. When done, one of you-you, Illowhond-report to me. In my office, where I’ll be conferring with both senior constables.”
Farland looked slowly around at all of the gathered guards, his face as calm and expressionless as he knew how to make it, and said curtly, “There will be goading. Pay careful attention to anything any prisoner might let slip, but keep a close rein over yourselves. I expect you to remain the professional veterans you all are. Return to your stations and duties.”
Collecting Traelshun and Delloak with stares and a jerk of his head, he turned on his heel and started the long trudge back to his office, not bothering to look down again at what was left of Seneschal Avathnar.
This was one more headache he didn’t need, but there was something fitting, even satisfying, when the gods saw to it that vain, thickheaded men reaped the rewards of their own stupidity. Now, if the gods could just see to it that Cormyr held a few more Traelshuns and Delloaks, and a lot less of the likes of Avathnars …
Not that he expected them to. The gods had a long, long list of things to see to, and some of them had been waiting for centuries.
Sixteen left.
Elminster nodded; she was panting too hard to answer Symrustar aloud. This new body was as agile and deft as it was lovely, and she’d managed to find a small stretch of level, smooth rock underfoot, hard against of the tunnel walls, but sorely outnumbered was … sorely outnumbered.
It had grown to more than thirty against one when the fray had begun, and at least one of those outcast drow males was a wizard who’d been casting spellstop after spellstop at El, while taking care to keep well out of reach behind the rest as they’d closed in, stabbing and hacking.
The ironguard was all that had kept her alive in those first frantic moments. The profanely shouted desire of some of El’s attackers to “Leave enough of her to enjoy!” had helped her kill a few as they’d hesitated to be really brutal to her torso, though most of her armor had been so viciously and repeatedly hacked that it flapped and dangled, protecting her against nothing.
Just once, they’d gained sense enough to all rush her together, trying not to slay but rather to catch hold of her arms and legs and bear her down onto the rocks, to hold her helpless by sheer weight of numbers and cruel strength. So someone could stab her or slice open her throat, and make an end of her. At last they’d taken her down. Spread-eagled and struggling vainly, El had seared those holding her closest with the tiniest outrush of silver fire, a deadly momentary spitting she hoped no one would recognize for what it was.
In an instant, those who’d tasted it most deeply were far too dead to bear witness to anything. Giving off wisps of smoke and the hearty smell of cooked flesh, they sagged and fell away, leaving the less injured to hiss curses and scramble clear as fast as they knew how. Leaving their lone quarry to struggle to her feet and face them, breathless and bleeding freely from the bites of enspelled blades the ironguard could only lessen. El stood alone, the cooked dead slumped around her in a blackened and smoking ring, watching the surviving drow draw back to mutter together.
Their mage was hissing something at them, probably about how he could work a spell to see that most of their bolts got through whatever defenses a lone spider priestess could manage, if they held back and all fired their handbows at her at once. El didn’t wait for them to ready such a volley, but ran at the nearest drow, swinging her hooked sword in a vicious slash. The dark elf parried it easily, deflecting her blade aside with a triumphant sneer-whereupon she brought it swinging around to bite into the handbow hooked to his belt, ruining it, before she sprang back and ran on.
The next drow had seen what she’d done, and turned to shield his bow from her with his body. She took advantage of that to rush past and around him in a tight circle, until in his turning to keep facing her he overbalanced. She promptly made the same slashing attack, but this time the parry sent her blade up through his throat.