The princess thought first of going north to assume command of the royal army “until her father recovered,” but-thankfully-the thought flashed from her mind as quickly as it appeared. Even were she as clever a tactician as Alusair (and she knew she was not), and even were her presence as inspiring as that of King Azoun (and she knew it was not), an immensely pregnant woman who could barely waddle-much less lead a charge into battle-would not inspire the royal army to stand firm against Nalavarauthatoryl and her orcs.
But she knew who could.
Tanalasta braced her hands on the arms of the chair. “Lord Longbrooke, I am sure that you and Lord Silversword would not be discussing calling for the aid of Sembian troops.” When the two men shook their heads, she pushed herself up. “Good. I doubt Vangerdahast would approve.”
“Vangerdahast?” gasped Roland Emmarask. “Then you know where he is?”
“Better than that. I think Harvestmaster Foley has determined a way to free him.” Tanalasta turned to the priest. “Isn’t that so, Owden?”
Owden smiled and inclined his head, a sure sign of his displeasure. “When was the princess suggesting? Given tonight to complete my studies, I could possibly be ready by dawn.”
“I was thinking sooner.” Tanalasta removed Rowen’s holy symbol from around her neck and passed it to the priest. “Perhaps now would be good.”
Owden was too subtle and loyal to let anyone but Tanalasta see the annoyance in his eyes. He had first proposed opening a gate into Vangerdahast’s prison with the understanding that he would trace the route by himself, so the princess would not be endangered by such an unpredictable spell. When it had grown apparent that Owden did not have a strong enough emotional connection to find Vangerdahast through Rowen’s holy symbol, however, Tanalasta had begun to press for her own involvement. So far, the priest had steadfastly refused, claiming she was as likely to be sucked into Vangerdahast’s dimension as the reverse. Until now, Tanalasta had acquiesced.
When Owden did not readily agree, Tanalasta turned to the door guard. “Send for Battlelord Steelhand.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Owden said. He motioned Tanalasta back to her chair. “The princess is right. The time has come to open the door and see what spills out.”
Owden dangled the holy symbol in front of Tanalasta’s eyes and began to swing it back and forth. “Concentrate. Picture Vangerdahast’s face.”
Tanalasta followed the silver amulet with her eyes and pictured Vangerdahast as she had last seen him, strangely young and haunted, with a bushy black beard and a crown of iron ringing his ragged mane of hair. The image melded with the symbol and began to swing back and forth, then the map room and the men in it vanished from sight, leaving only the face of the royal magician sweeping back and forth in front of her.
She had the sense of plunging down a long tunnel into a huge black vastness. An inky darkness fell across the amulet. Vangerdahast’s face vanished, replaced by the gaunt visage she had first glimpsed when she had tried to contact her husband. The stranger’s brow was heavy and sinister, the eyes white as pearls, the chin square and strong with a hint of cleft. This time, Tanalasta did not call out, and the pearly eyes stared at her for a moment, brimming with joy and sorrow and some unspeakable craving a thousand times more powerful than even the longing she felt for Rowen.
The air grew gray with rain, and the face vanished. An instant later Vangerdahast was there, scowling and impatient as ever.
It’s about time.
“I have him,” Tanalasta reported to Owden. To Vangerdahast, she said, “Do you have the scepter, Old Snoop?”
Vangerdahast frowned in confusion, but nodded and brought the amethyst pommel into view. I do.
“Good,” Tanalasta said. “Owden, we’re ready.”
The harvestmaster rattled off a long string of mystic syllables. The distance between Tanalasta and Vangerdahast seemed to vanish. The wizard’s eyes grew round. He let out a startled cry and seemed to fall toward the princess, arms windmilling and legs kicking. Behind him, she glimpsed an iron throne and a crescent of little green goblins, the flashing bolts of a thunderstorm and a dark figure scrambling back from the portal.
Then Vangerdahast was there on top of her, sprawled across her and hugging her like a mother, laughing, weeping, and screaming all at once, cold and clammy and wet, stinking like he had not bathed in months.
He kissed her full on the lips, then scrambled off her and stooped down to kiss her swollen belly, then planted the tip of the golden Scepter of Lords beside her chair and leaned down to kiss her on the mouth again.
Tanalasta pushed him off. “Vangerdahast!”
The wizard gave her a waggish grin. “Don’t tell me you’re not happy to see me!”
“I am.” Tanalasta wiped her face, less to rub off the dampness left by the wizard’s rain-soaked beard than to freshen her nostrils with the perfume on her cuff, “But we have work-“
Tanalasta was interrupted by the knelling of an alarm bell, and the map room broke into a tumult of voices and clattering boots. Vangerdahast turned slowly on his heel, watching in amazement as the nobles rushed off to join their companies.
“Are they running toward battle?”
“You might say that, old friend,” said Owden. He clapped a hand on Vangerdahast’s shoulder. “Or you might say they are fleeing what Tanalasta would do to them if they hesitated.”
“Is that so?” Vangerdahast cocked his brow at the princess. “I’ll be interested to hear how you did that.”
“And I have a few questions for you as well,” Tanalasta said. “But they will have to wait. We have a ghazneth coming.”
Vangerdahast’s brow rose in shock, then he looked around the map room as though confirming he was where he thought he was. “Coming here? To the Royal Castle?”
“So it seems.” Tanalasta struggled out of her chair and started for the door. “And let us pray it is not King Boldovar.”
36
“Is this all that’s left of us?” Kortyl Rowanmantle almost squeaked, looking around at the grim gaggle of men crowded among the trees. “Two hundred men, maybe less?”
At their center rose a great, gnarl-rooted stump, taller in its ruin than the tallest man there-and atop it stood the Steel Princess, her hands on her dragonfire-blackened hips, and most of her once-magnificent, unruly mane of hair now a scorched ruin.
“Evidently so, Kortyl,” she replied almost cheerfully. “All the more goblins for the rest of us.”
An uneasy silence greeted her words. Squalling earfangs were neither glamorous nor all that easy to slay, when they came rushing in their swarms-and come in swarms they did, endless streaming tides that overwhelmed weary sword arms and butchered all too well… leaving too few survivors here, panting, in the forest.
On the other hand, goblins weren’t nearly as glamorous-or as deadly-as the Devil Dragon. More than a few of the Cormyreans glanced up through the green gloom at the branches overhead, seeking a gap large enough for a huge red dragon-gliding along just above the treetops, as she’d met with them not so long ago-to see them through.
The wyrm had burst upon the nobles with such sudden fury that many had been scorched to ash before they’d had time to do more than see their doom, and scream. The trees around them had burned like torches, and not a few had toppled, crushing those beneath them and showering everyone else with sparks. The forest had been their cloak and salvation, though, the crackling topfires hiding the terrified men in their smoke. The deeper, unburnt green depths gave them a vast lair to scatter in and hide.