A man had come into the room, walking alone, a stout man in a plain brown robe, bound about at the waist with a tasseled rope of the palest mauve. He looked about, his brown eyes almost stern, and Dauneth felt as if the man’s brief glance had named, measured, and taken inventory of all the clothing and gear of a certain young Marliir.
Though many would not have called the paunchy, bareheaded man in robes impressive, everyone in the Roving Dragon had fallen silent-and stayed that way as Vangerdahast, the Royal Magician of Cormyr, went to the table where the mercenary captain was sitting. They exchanged wordless nods, and the wizard sat down, favoring the room with a wry little smile as he did so. Abruptly the sounds of chatter, creaking cartwheels, and shouting street vendors filled the room. The sounds of the Promenade outside, somehow brought in to swirl about…
Magic. Of course. To keep others from overhearing. Dauneth gaped at the stout wizard, who was leaning forward, elbows on the mercenary’s table. They talked briefly and quietly, then nodded and rose together, striding out without looking around or acknowledging a tentative hail from Rhauligan. The sounds of the street went out with them, leaving the end room of the Roving Dragon silent again.
It was Tessara who broke the stillness, asking in a low voice, “Now, why does the Lord High Wizard of Cormyr need to hire mercenaries? To fight off rebellious nobles? Or Purple Dragons?”
“Yes… and Dragons loyal to whom?” Turlstars said grimly.
“We’ll know soon enough, I fear,” Rhauligan said almost wearily. He looked up at Dauneth. “You picked a bad time to come to Suzail, lad.”
The young noble shrugged, affecting a confidence he did not feel. “If the realm needs me..”
Tessara smiled suddenly. “It saves riding here, you mean?” She shook her head and added, “You may be called on all too soon. The realm needs strong, orderly rule, or your fellow nobles, locked in feuds and rivalries that go back past all our memories, will tear it apart like hungry wolves.”
“I’ve never seen darker days in Suzail,” Turlstars said heavily. “What I want to know most of all is how can the realm survive?”
Chapter 16: The King’s Touch
Year of the Sea Princes (432 DR)
It’s never been this bad, thought Elvarin Crownsilver in the darkness. How can the realm possibly survive?
She looked around the night-shadowed forest. Here were the last of the great House of Obarskyr, huddling in the dark, waiting for a traitor to bring them their first victory
Their first victory in three long years of being hunted through the king’s own forest. Or their final defeat.
It all had begun with Baerauble’s death, of course. Everything was always traced to the death of the original High Mage. Without his steadying hand, every wobble of fate seemed to bring the realm closer to its destruction. He seemed to be eternal, Cormyr’s protector forever… and then he was gone. Amedahast, his student, was the best mage Crownsilver knew, but she was a mere shadow of her mentor.
And how could they have known that their proud, prosperous kingdom was a merest soap bubble, which must be constantly protected from the harsh realities of the outside world lest it collapse and swallow them all?
A plague came first, borne by merchants from Marsember, decimating the folk of the countryside and turning bright Suzail into a charnel house where the dead lay in heaps on the streets. At first the priests fought it as best as they could, but when the sickness spread so fast and they had only so many healing spells and so many prayers left, the holy folk chose to keep their healings for themselves. A bad decision, since the city dwellers had more swords. When the dust cleared, there were no priests to be found save those of Talona, who spread the plague further.
Then dragons descended on Suzail and Arabel and every small encampment from the mountains to the sea. Great blues settled upon the fields and tore apart houses, and massive reds laid fiery waste to entire regions. Greens raided the few ships and caravans that sought to reach Cormyr. Even the mythical Purple Dragon was reported in an attack on the western settlements.
Arabel was gone in a night, this latest rebellion championed by a “Merchants’ Revolutionary Committee.” But now other holds and homesteads had risen and rebelled as well. It was hard to send men to aid the beleaguered crown when half the population was dying and the other half fighting dragons in the fields. Crown agents were killed, and government coffers looted.
Then the orcs arrived, driven south by some nasty battle in the Stonelands. Normally such a threat would bring Arabel back into the kingdom, but now there was little in the way of a Cormyrean army to send aid. The goblin-kin seized the heart of the King’s Forest.
And when King Duar set out to defeat the orcish army, his own father-in-law, Melineth Turcassan, sold the city of Suzail to the pirates for five hundred sacks of gold.
His Majesty destroyed the largest of the orcish armies, but returned to find his throne stolen and the gates of his city barred against him. Worse, the pirate lord, Magrath the Minotaur, kept the crippled city as his prize and plundered the treasury for mercenaries to expand his reach into the rest of Cormyr.
That was three years ago, and in three years, those loyal to the crown had seen their numbers ebb-from battle losses, from treachery, and from raw despair. Many of the nobles, Crownsilver included, had shipped their families north to the Dales or west to Waterdeep. The loyal nobles broke into smaller groups, and still smaller bands. Duar’s present band numbered only twenty.
Elvarin looked about the glade in the full moonlight. She and her cousin Glorin Truesilver. Jotor Turcassan, who had broken with the rest of his treacherous family, Omalra Dracohorn, and Dintheron Bleth. The men were the last of the Purple Dragons, their adventuring group from before everything collapsed. The rest of their ragged band were non-noble swordsmen and retainers. And King Duar, of course, and Amedahast.
Duar waited in the darkness, looking more like a funereal statue than a living soul. He was a giant even among Obarskyrs, but his great, muscular shoulders seemed weighed down by more than the crown he still wore. The betrayal of Melineth had almost broken him, and it would take a long time for him to truly recover. The death of the Turcassans later that year, at the hands of their treacherous allies, eased the pain only a little. He slept in his armor, and his tabard and robes were tattered and grimy. The only new item on his person was the sword Amedahast had crafted for him, Orbyn, the Edge of Justice, which slept for the moment in a battered sheath.
Duar had truly become King of the Forest Country, a refugee hiding in the broad expanse of the King’s Forest. The orcs and goblins soon learned that this was not a land to settle in and retreated to the north. The dragons, too, had gone, returning to whatever slumber engulfed them after a rampage. And while Magrath the Minotaur put a price on Duar’s head higher than what he’d paid for Suzail itself, he had few takers among the fearful common folk.
The common folk. Crownsilver shook her head at the thought. Entire hand counts of noble families switched sides at the drop of a crown. Cities like Arabel declared their independence with fickle regularity. But the common folk, the people in the farms and the villages and isolated homesteads, they always rallied around their king. Their group might be battered and beaten, looking little better than the brigands who now prowled the road from Suzail to Arabel. Yet one look at their grim king always brought out the best food and hidden weapons and the secret supplies. Despite threats and bribes, the common folk stood by their king.
And finally they heard some good news. Word came from her cousin, Agrast Huntsilver, that the High Horn had fallen into their hands, and the military units there were willing to throw in with the king. But only if Duar could produce a victory, and produce it fast. Crownsilver, His Majesty, and the mage frowned over the maps for all one long day before choosing the site of the attack. It was central to the kingdom, lightly guarded, and, most importantly, it was held by a noble family that had thrown in with Magrath’s pirates: House Dheolur.