Boldovar tried again to rip the door open, then grew frustrated and simply slammed the iron box down on its face. Tanalasta took the impact entirely on her belly and felt her womb cramp in reaction. The spasm did not subside. A heavy thump sounded above their backs as Boldovar jumped on top of the box. He began to scratch his claws down the seams, looking for a weak point.
“You can hide, but you can’t hide,” chuckled Boldovar, making no sense at all. “I smell your magic… I smell you, and I’ll have both I will!”
The screeching sharpened to an abrupt ping and ceased, only to be replaced by a childish tempest of striking hands and feet. So thunderous was the pounding that Tanalasta thought the thick iron might split beneath the ghazneth’s blows. The cramping in her womb sharpened, growing so acute she wailed in shock.
“Princess? What’s…”
The rest of Clagi’s question was lost beneath the roar of Boldovar’s hammering fists, for the sound of Tanalasta’s pain seemed to have driven him into a frenzy. The pounding moved down toward their feet, then the box began to tip up on its head. The princess had just enough time to work her hands up above her shoulders before the box tumbled across the room, clanging and crashing.
They came to a rest against the opposite wall, resting upside down and at an angle, so that they were lying headdown on their backs. The pain in the princess’s womb had grown crushing, and she had to scream or burst. Something was wrong. Her water had barely broken, and labor was not supposed to come until hours later.
“Princess?” Clagi shook her arm. “What’s wrong?”
Tanalasta managed to wrest a scream into a word, “Baby!”
Clagi’s response was lost in the boom of Boldovar’s foot striking iron up near their feet. The box spun off the wall and crashed to the floor, then twirled across the room and smashed the legs from under a table. An eerie stillness followed, and Tanalasta felt as if someone had dropped a door on her stomach. There were no contractions, none of the rhythmic tightening her midwife had told her to expect. There was only steady, horrid pain growing worse each passing moment and a strange feeling of slackening everywhere below her waist.
Clagi laid a hand over her womb and began to gently feel around the underside of her belly. Tanalasta’s scream faded to a grunt, not because her pain had dwindled, but because she had run out of air. She heard her breath coming fast and shallow and knew she was starting to panic, and that knowledge only made her breathe faster.
A distant cacophony of muffled voices grew audible over Tanalasta’s low groans, and she knew Battlelord Steelhand’s men were in the street below the tower. Boldovar remained ominously silent, perhaps because he had gone to the window to investigate the noise. The princess certainly hoped that was what he was doing, and not thinking up some way to pry up the lid off her hiding place. Now, when she most needed to be strong for Cormyr and herself, she felt more vulnerable and helpless than she had at any time since the start of the crisis.
Finally, Clagi pulled his hand away. “I know it hurts, but there’s no need to be frightened. You’re only giving birth. Everything will be fine.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Tanalasta screamed the words, more to express her fear than her disbelief. “This isn’t labor. My midwife told me what to expect!”
“I’m sure she also told you every birth is different.” Clagi laid a reassuring hand on her arm. “The ghazneth seems to have hurried yours along a bit.”
“Then stop it!” How could her body do this to her? How could it pick this moment to betray her? “The baby can’t come now.”
“I’m afraid we have no choice in the matter,” whispered Clagi. “I’ll stay here and decoy the ghazneth. Perhaps you should use your escape pocket-“
The priest’s suggestion was interrupted by an anguished scream. This time it was not Tanalasta’s.
“Tanalasta… don’t lift the door.” The voice was husky and familiar, with a dry northern accent that the princess would recognize anywhere. “Whatever you do, stay-“
The muffled snap of a breaking bone brought the sentence to a screeching end.
“What say you, girl?” Boldovar cackled above them. “A husband for a couple of rings and a weathercloak?”
Another crack sounded above the box, and shot through Tanalasta’s heart.
Boldovar spoke again. “Decide quickly. You know how easily I grow bored.”
Tanalasta’s thoughts whirled in pain-addled confusion. Boldovar’s prisoner certainly sounded like Rowen, but that could not be. Rowen was a ghazneth, imprisoned in the same wet hell where Vangerdahast had been trapped-or was he? Owden had told her how Xanthon had impersonated her at the Battle of the Farsea Marsh. Perhaps the ghazneth in the cavern had not been Rowen after all. Perhaps Vangerdahast had been telling the truth all along.
Terrified at how events were slipping out of her control, Tanalasta unclasped her weathercloak and slipped off her commander’s ring. “You have… a bargain.” She forced the words out between clenched teeth. “Let him go.”
“Tanalasta, n-“
Rowen’s cry was cut short by the sharp clap of a hand striking flesh. A heavy body slammed into a set of bookshelves and thudded to the floor, then lay groaning on the floor behind them.
“He’s free,” said Boldovar. “Now throw out the magic, or I’ll finish what I started.”
Tanalasta reached over Clagi to undo the locking bar, but he caught her hand. “What are you doing?”
“I need Rowen!” she answered. If she had Rowen, she would be strong again, in control. “I can’t let him… kill Rowen.”
“You won’t.” Clagi pushed her hand toward the holy symbol hanging around her neck. “Say a prayer.”
“But he’ll-“
“Don’t let Boldovar trick you,” whispered Clagi. “Say a prayer, and you will see-or open the door and see your child killed.”
The priest released Tanalasta’s hand, and her hand hovered below the locking bar for a long moment.
“What is this?” called Boldovar. There was a loud thump and a pained groan, then he asked, “Am I growing bored?”
Tanalasta touched the holy symbol and whispered, “Chauntea, watch over me.”
And she instantly recognized the next thud as something more like a wing slapping the wall than a man being hurled into it. “Aaagggh!” The voice was mocking and snide and did not resemble Rowen’s at all. “Tanalasta, don’t! Stay in where you are safe!”
“I will!” Tanalasta called. She was still terrified, but she felt as though she had regained some measure of command over the situation… if only her body would cooperate. The belt of agony tightened around her middle, and she could feel the baby slipping out toward the world. Fighting to maintain control of her own emotions-if nothing else-she yelled, “I know who you are… you… sick… worm!”
There was a moment of stunned silence, then Boldovar broke into a mad cackle. “Ah, well I see that Rowen loved you more than you did him. He would rather have died himself than listen to you beg for death.”
“What?” Though her thoughts remained addled by pain and fear, the little control Tanalasta now had over the situation gave her the strength to grasp the ghazneth’s implication. “What did you do to him?”
“Oh, now you’re interested,” sneered Boldovar. “Throw me the rings, and I’ll tell.”
There was no need, for even without knowing the details, Tanalasta understood all too well how Boldovar had baited her husband into becoming a ghazneth-and why the ranger had been too ashamed to come through the gate. Only one thing that could cause Rowen to betray his duty to Cormyr: the fear of betraying Tanalasta.
The muffled drumming of boots began to rumble up the stairway, and the princess heard Boldovar’s claws clacking across the floor toward the window. She summoned to mind the incantation of her magic bolt spell and pointed her finger toward the seam of the door. She was not going to let the ghazneth escape, not after what he had done to Rowen.
“Clagi, give me a crack to fire through.” Knowing the priest would argue, she quickly added, “Now!”