Two of the nobles who'd so excitedly put their heads together with him over steaming larrack wine in that upstairs club in Saerloon were dead already, in a trade dispute in Westgate that Rhallogant didn't think had anything at all to do with a few whispers of treason. The knives that had killed them, wielded by professionals of Westgate, had been poisoned, and Lord Eldarton Feathergate had happened to be aboard a ship just gliding into Westgate harbor when those knives had struck. He'd found the bodies and had disposed of them, before any war wizards could poke and pry them with spells and uncover things they shouldn't.
Which left, aside from Rhallogant himself, just one other conspirator in this particular sordid little conspiracy: Eldarton Feathergate.
Dearest Feathergate. LJseful, efficient Feathergate. Feathergate who knew far too much about Rhallogant's ambitions and current business. Tall, as swift-witted as a viper, and the sole son and heir of a highborn family just as minor-but far wealthier-than Rhallogant's own. Neither a fool nor an easy target, he.
Which is why only Rhallogant's most trusted bodyguard was good enough to kill Feathergate.
The bodyguard Rhallogant had just summoned with a firm, decisive tug on his private, personal bell pull. Boarblade would arrive in three breaths or less, as quiet and as impassive as always.
Not that it had been a bad plot, if he did say so himself. Frame Baron Thomdor Obarskyr, Warden of the Eastern Marches, as a traitor to the throne, portraying him as a jealous lout aided, goaded, and controlled by Vangerdahast. Set swords to swinging and nobles, Obarskyrs, and commoners alike to raging, with the intent of getting rid of Vangey and as many war wizards as possible. Many of those hated wizard spies would be butchered by common folk across Cormyr, led by one loyally outraged Rhallogant Caladanter, enthusiastically commanding his bodyguards to use their swords on these "traitors to the realm." He'd had those speeches written for months.
The third arrow glanced off Florin's shoulder as he was clawing at his shield buckles. It smashed the wind out of him and spun him around sideways, all in one whirling instant.
He reeled in his saddle, fighting to find breath enough to shout hoarsely, "Spread out, ride hard, and get down!"
Around him the Knights' horses were snorting and bucking, Pennae a gasping heap in the road dust under their dancing hooves.
The volley of a dozen or more arrows sleeted out of the trees, sending two of the horses down to join Pennae. Another bolted with Doust shouting and tugging vainly at it to stop-until he fell off. The rest reared, spilling their riders, and fled.
The Knights found themselves wallowing in the dust of the Moonsea Ride in the company of two very large and pain-wracked horses, who were wildly rolling, writhing, and kicking.
"Holy naed!" Semoor swore, skidding his chin along rather stony mud as an iron-shod hoof lashed the air just above his head. "Down on my tluining face eating dirt with some tluiner trying to kill me again!"
"You sound surprised," Islif grunted, rolling hard away from the horses in the opposite direction from where the arrows had come. "Really, holynose, you should be getting used to it by now!"
Florin staggered to his feet, clutching at the arrow standing out of his shoulder. His arm felt on fire, and he couldn't feel the hand at the end of it at all, even when he clenched his fingers into a fist. The shaft had struck his chest and glanced along the armor over his heart to go in under the edge of his shoulder plates. The fire seemed to grow hotter. He winced. At least it wasn't his sword arm.
Taking a few steps, as if he could walk away from the pain, he snarled defiance at the trees, hoping the sudden lack of arrows meant that the unseen archers had run out of them.
It seemed he was right, judging by the armed men who answered his snarl by bursting out of the trees with swords and daggers drawn and nary a bow in sight. Much good that it would do him.
"Up!" Florin barked to his fellow Knights. "Up and together!" He spared not a glance for them, his eyes never leaving the grim faces of the men charging at him. They were all in well-worn fighting leathers adorned with no hint of badges or house colors. Outlaws-or men trying to seem outlaws.
Movement to right and left; the ranger shot swift glances in both directions and saw Islif clambering to her feet, her sword singing out, and Doust limping back to rejoin the Knights, mace in hand.
From her knees, Jhessail snapped out a battlestrike, sending magical missiles streaking at the ambushers in a hungry swarm of glowing blue darts. Men stiffened and cursed as they were struck- Cormyreans, by their accents-but none fell or fled. There were more than twelve of them… a score or so.
Florin wrestled with the arrow in his shoulder, trying to snap off its shaft before an outlaw could reach him and grab hold of it, butHe was out of time. Swords came swinging at him in a steely rain.
He ducked away, parrying furiously, and heard ringing steel and Islif grunting as she did when putting real might behind a slash. More clanging and clashing of swords, then a shout of pain-an outlaw-and Jhessail unleashing another battlestrike. Semoor was casting something, too, calling on Lathander for aid in smiting.
Smiting was something Florin had to take care of himself. His blade bit deep into the side of a screaming outlaw's face, lodging in bone, and he couldn't-couldn'tThe swords that thrust into him then, under the edges of armor plates low on his side and high on his neck, burned like fire and chilled like a deluge of icy water.
Florin staggered back, dragging the man he'd slain with him- but the weight of that toppling body snatched his sword from his hand, leaving him with nothing to parry a grinning outlaw's wicked roundhouse slash.
"Die!" another outlaw shouted, hacking with the dagger Florin was trying to snatch out of his fingers. "For Cormyr and Yellander! Die!"
Those words echoed strangely around a rising, pounding dark flood that seemed to race through his ears, wash through his head, and back out to blind him as grinning men closed in, and fire and ice lashed Florin again… and again…
Not far away, Jhessail screamed as a hurled sword spun at her face. She ducked, and it tumbled through her hair, slicing open her cheek a,nd catching fast in the tree behind her, still tangled in her hair.
Clawing at the enemy steel to get it away from her eyes, she saw Islif beset by six outlaws. One staggered and went down, sobbing and spraying blood-but was followed by several of Islif's armor plates that went flying aside as she reeled and then toppled, two swords buried in her.
Islif down, a bare breath after Florin's fall…
Muttering words that sounded more like curses than prayers, Doust clawed aside a sword and bounced his mace off the face of the outlaw wielding it, hard.
That face exploded into a burst of teeth and gore. Doust slammed his mace into the throat beneath it before whirling to meet a one-eyed outlaw who'd come leaping from the fallen Islif to hunt red-haired spellhurlers.
Almost casually the outlaw hacked Doust aside, her lifelong friend crumpling and spitting blood, and came right for Jhessail, swinging back his sword to chop-Nothing at all, as Semoor swung away from busily battering an outlaw to the ground to bash in one side of the one-eyed outlaw's head. The man crashed to the ground, dashed senseless, his arms and legs jerking like fish flapping when pulled out of a river.
"Over here!" Semoor panted at Doust, who was still doubled up, one bloody hand clutching his stomach. "Over to Jhess, here, to stand over her, so she can either rescue us all with some bright spell or other… or we can at least die together. Tluining Vangerdahast! I'll bet he's behind this! Where's that Dragon patrol that was riding at our heels? Hey?"