The body of the king himself lay upon a high bier of solid gold just beyond the chariot. They came around the vehicle to see the form, still wrapped in the honored silks of his burial robes. A great axe, a longbow, a spear, and the empty scabbard of a sword rested across his chest, seeing him well armed on his journey into the world of death.
"The empty scabbard. ." said Alicia, awestruck, studying the sigils embroidered in golden thread on the ornate sheath. She couldn't read them, but the thing itself seemed of great portent-more for what it didn't contain than what it did. "A king, but his sword is lost. …"
"Indeed, a great king-the greatest of them all," agreed Tavish, her voice as hushed as Alicia's.
"Are you certain?" asked Keane of the bard.
But it was the princess who replied. "Yes-this barrow mound, the place where we now stand, is the tomb of Cymrych Hugh himself!"
Brandon watched in astonishment as the pack of huge, shaggy hounds raced at his men, disrupting the carefully laid ambush. The northmen would fight bravely against any foe they could understand, but there was something unworldly about this bizarre, sudden onrush. Unnerved, several bands of warriors broke from their cover and fled, while others chopped and hacked at the surrounding maelstrom of fangs and stiff-backed hackles.
Snarling and lunging, the dogs ran with their bellies low, their bodies elongated in liquid strides. Thick fur bristled along broad backs, and powerful jaws snapped around the men of Gnarhelm, a more frightening attack in its unnaturalness than any charge of human infantry.
But though they attacked with savage growls and barks, the hounds did not press closely. Several felt the bite of an axe blade or the sting of an arrow, but the dogs seemed content to circle out of reach of the humans' weapons, and their quickness and nimble maneuvering made them difficult targets for Brandon's archers.
Finally, after several minutes, the dogs broke away and vanished into the dips of the rolling highland, disappearing as mysteriously as they had arrived.
"Tempus curse you!" cried the prince of the northmen as those of his men who had fled came shamefacedly back to the band. In truth, he couldn't be terribly angry. This hadn't been the kind of battle for which his men had trained and readied themselves.
"This is an ill-omened march," growled Knaff the Elder, who had stood beside his prince throughout the strange encounter. "Arrows from an unseen foe … hounds that emerge from the mist to harry but not attack … a dragon that bursts from the ground. And now, see? Our quarry has evaded us."
"Aye," agreed Brandon, with a surly look toward the trail. He had watched with bitter anger the flight of the four Ffolk, first when the ambush had been revealed and then when the great serpent had chased them into the distance. The northmen column, on foot, stood little chance of catching the fleet riders. "Well, with any luck, they're dragon food by now."
He turned back to his old teacher. "Were any of our men hurt?" he asked.
"None." The veteran shook his head. "Mayhaps that's the strangest bit of all. These devil dogs swarm all around and make the noise of a pack on the blood trail, but then they leave us alone."
"What orders now?" inquired Knaff, fingering his huge double-bladed axe. Brandon knew the man still longed to avenge the death of his son.
"We'll scatter into small bands and scour the highlands before we go through the pass. It may be that we can meet some of those Ffolk-if any of them escaped the dragon, that is."
"I'm thinking that stranger things have happened," Knaff agreed sourly. "It wouldn't surprise me to find all four of them curled up as guests in the beast's lair!"
Brandon laughed. He realized it was for the first time since the ambush. But the humor died bitterly in his throat. Their mission was far from complete and even farther from success. Everything that had occurred merely added to the mysteries surrounding them.
Sometime soon, he knew, they would have to find some answers.
The High Queen of the Moonshaes looked like a pale shadow of herself. She lay in the great bed, buried beneath a mountain of quilts. Her long black hair sprawled across the downy pillows, tangled and thin and damp with perspiration. Above her hovered two clerics of Chauntea. They had worked their healing magic to no avail and now resorted to prayer.
But even these beseechments for divine intervention brought no succor to the Lady Robyn. Indeed, she scarcely had the strength to open her eyes for more than a few moments at a time, and she had not spoken for more than a day.
Abruptly the door burst open and the Princess Deirdre stalked into the room.
"Go, you charlatans! Leave my mother to herself for a few moments!" she snapped, her voice low but the anger in her tone still apparent. The two clerics scuttled from the door, their hands passing through rote gestures as if to ward away any insult to their deity.
"Mother.. can you hear me?" Deirdre sat on the bed and took her mother's hand, noting its cold, clammy feel.
Robyn's green eyes flickered open. For a moment, they held fast to her daughter's face and then widened in… what? Deirdre wondered. Was it concern? Fear?
Then the lids drooped, half-closing, and the princess didn't know if her mother remained conscious or not.
Once, two nights earlier, Robyn had shown an abrupt and dramatic recovery. She sat up and spoke with the cleric who had been tending her, and the High Queen had seemed in good spirits. But by the following morning, she had again lapsed into this profound lethargy.
Abruptly the daughter arose and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. She found the clerics and bade them keep watch outside of Robyn's door. Then Deirdre strode purposefully to the library that had become her nearly constant abode.
She felt a torrent of emotion at war within her. Guilt and anxiety were there, brought about by her mother's condition. But beyond these, dwarfing them in its all-consuming power, Deirdre felt the power of raw, unleashed ambition. All the years of striving in her sister's shadow, of dwelling in a castle where she was subject to the king and queen's wishes, welled up in an explosion of envy. And now no one could command her otherwise.
Once inside the library, she raised the wicks of several lamps, giving her bright light for her reading.
But Deirdre bypassed the musty tome-Azouns: the Kings of Cormyr-in which she had been immersed. Instead, she reached for a dark scroll tube, one that Malawar had indicated to her that she should approach with caution and respect. Indeed, her mysterious visitor had instructed her not to read it for some time, warning that although it contained the keys to great power, it also offered its user deadly risks.
Nevertheless, the time she desired such power was now. Callidyrr Castle sprawled around her, and within its walls, there was none to challenge her, to interfere with her pursuits. Could that power aid her mother? Perhaps. The fact that it could aid Deirdre herself was to the princess a more compelling motivation.
And the power she desired, Deirdre knew, lay in the hands of the gods. The scroll in her hands gave her the means to reach those gods.
Reverently she removed the tight leather cap from the end of the scroll's ivory container. Withdrawing many sheets of fine vellum, she spread the tissues on the table, between the flames of her bright lanterns.
She began to read. At first the words seemed to dance on the pages before her, swimming just beyond her grasp, always tantalizing her with the promise of knowledge and, more importantly, power.
But then she began to assert her mind, to seize each word, each phrase, and wrest from it the dark truth lying therein. One by one the sigils yielded to her tenacity, and slowly the web of might began to grow around her.