Swords of Dragonfire

"I‘ve had about enough of this,” Jhessail snapped, and raised her hands to cast a spell.

Pennae whirled around and caught hold of her arm. “ No. Try this, first. The firing-word’s on the butt.”

She snatched a wand from Yassandra’s belt and slapped it into Jhessail’s palm.

The red-haired mage looked at it, and then back up at Pennae. “Just which wizard is missing this?”

“One who’s also missing her life-not my doing-and so won’t be showing up to complain. I hope. Yet tarry a moment, before you start blasting.” She lifted her head and snapped, “Knights, a ring around us both, please.”

“Done,” Florin and Islif said in perfect unison, steering the two priests by their elbows to form as much of a ring as four people could manage.

“Steady,” the Highknight ordered the Purple Dragons all around them, from only a few strides away. “Continue to advance slowly and in formation. The man who charges will face my wrath.”

“And my blade,” Islif added mildly, earning herself a glare from the bearded Cormyrean.

Pennae had plucked something small from one of the pouches on Yassandra’s belt, and hefted it in her hand. Now she held it up between thumb and forefinger-and threw it, hard.

It was a small black bead, and when it struck the Highknight’s nose, there was a flash of blue light-and the passage was suddenly blocked off, blotted out by a black sphere of shimmering force that filled it, flickering wildly as it tried to expand farther than the distance between the passage floor and ceiling would allow. Purple Dragons cried out and struggled in its thrall, many of them fighting to back away-and were suddenly swallowed up in or behind the blackness, as the magic gave up trying to expand as a sphere, and flooded in both directions to seal off the passage entirely.

Pennae took Jhessail by the arm again, turned her around to face the other way, and gestured as grandly as any servant. “ Now you may blast, please.”

The Purple Dragons who’d crowded in behind the Knights were relatively few, perhaps two dozen in all. They backed warily away now, frowning, into a three-rank-deep living barrier across the passage, and more than one man turned to the ornrion among them and asked, “Permission to go and fetch our shields, sir?”

Whatever the ornrion might have decided was left unsaid, as Jhessail gave the massed Dragons a sweet smile and announced clearly, “ Clarrdathenta. ”

The wand in her hand quivered-and then spat bright blue-white bolts of magic like four battlestrikes all being cast at once.

The magical missiles sped home, just as she’d wanted them to, striking at every Dragon. Twice.

The Dragons reeled, and Jhessail fed them from the wand again.

Men went from staggering to falling, this time, and there were only a few weakly sliding down the walls when Florin said, “Come. Back through them, then start opening doors. Before all the gods, we are going to find those hrasted stairs up!”

The Knights charged, and the lone Purple Dragon to try to stand against them-the ornrion-fell on his face when Islif simply struck aside his sword and ran right over him, Jhessail and Doust right behind her.

Everyone started wrenching open doors.

“You’d not think it too much to ask, would you, to build a door that has stairs behind it?” Islif growled in rising exasperation.

Pennae grinned. “Was that your seven-and-tenth door?”

“No; score-and-sixth,” Islif snapped. “Not that I’m counting.”

“Praise Lathander!” Semoor crowed at that very moment. “Behold! Stairs ascending!”

Islif raced to the opened door that the Anointed of Lathander was so grandly indicating-and charged right up the stairs without pause, the rest of the Knights racing after her.

There was a dimly lit servants’ passage running across the top of the stairs, and four guard-Dragons were standing in it, resplendent in large Purple Dragon tabards. They turned to peer at the Knights, frowning.

Islif and Florin ignored them, going straight to the two nearest doors in the passage wall.

“Hey! Halt! Halt and down arms, in the name of the king!” a telsword bellowed, from among the four Dragons.

Islif turned and snapped, “What room’s on the other side of this door?”

“I said halt!” the soldier shouted, running up the passage and reaching for his sword.

Islif let him get it halfway out before taking hold of his wrist, ramming the weapon back down into its scabbard, closing her hand around the telsword’s throat, and plucking him off his feet to touch noses with him and ask gently, “What room, valiant Dragon, lies on the other side of this door?”

There was a grunt and a crash from behind her, as another Dragon decided to turn and run to an alarm gong-and Doust threw his mace between the soldier’s hurrying ankles to lay him out, stunned, on the passage floor.

The telsword stared into Islif’s eyes, and she stared right back into his, putting a slow smile on her face. It was not a nice smile.

“Uh-ah-urkh,” the Purple Dragon strangled, as she shook him gently. When she loosened her grip a trifle, he gasped quickly, “A-Anglond’s Great Hall! W-where the revel-”

“ Thank you,” Islif said, dropping him to the floor. “And Vangey-pardon, Royal Magician Vangerdahast-would he be in that hall?”

“Y-yes,” the telsword managed to croak, rubbing his bruised throat and wincing as a shrewd mace-blow from Semoor sent another of his fellow guards reeling and then slumping to the floor.

When he grabbed for his dagger, the tall, horse-faced woman slapped it away, clouted him across the side of the head on the backhand of her blow, and snatched his tabard up and over his head, blinding him.

“Tabards-good thought!” Florin snapped. “Collect them all!”

The moment she’d settled the tabard she’d taken over her head, Islif flung the door wide and strode through into the terrific din beyond, the rest of the Knights right behind her. Jhessail looked like a small girl wearing her father’s borrowed tabard, Pennae’s was more than a little wrinkled, and the two priests had none to wear, but Florin and Islif looked as stern and loyal as any Purple Dragon ever had. Florin waved the priests to the rear as the Knights strode after Islif.

So Semoor ended up being the last Knight in line. He swept a low bow to the groaning telsword as he stepped across the threshold.

The stricken Dragon took one last look at him and fainted.

The heat and din of the press in the heart of the crowded hall were on the verge of overwhelming Ildaergra Steelcastle. Looking not at all her customary bright, sharp, social-climbing self, she winced and looked around worriedly. “The envoy-is she coming at all, do you think?”

From beside her, Ramurra Hornmantle smiled dismissively. “Don’t fret so, Ildaergra. Envoys always turn up late. It’s the only way they have to show kings and queens that they do possess some power, albeit puny. Just relax, enjoy the sweets and smallbites-you see, if she’d been early, we wouldn’t have been served these, now would we? And look at those heaped platters. We can gorge, my dear! — and this chance to get a good look at Anglond’s Great Hall, and enjoy the evening. After all, you weren’t going to hurry off anywhere, were you?”

Ildaergra sipped her latest flagon of firewine, smiled ruefully, and replied, “Hardly.”

“Well, then,” Ramurra said. “Just enjoy the company and the converse-look, there’s the Royal Magician himself, not six paces from us!”

“Surrounded by a dozen-some barely begowned ladies all so feeble-brained as to be smitten with nasty old rogues of mages, I see,” Ildaergra sniffed.

“I can get you through them to meet Vangerdahast himself, if you’d like.”

“Oh, would you?”

“Our grand entrance,” Semoor commented, “and we emerge behind a pillar. How fitting.”

“Still the tongue, holywits,” Jhessail said. “There are four tiers of balconies above us; they have to hold them up with something.”

They stood in shadows beneath the balcony, amid many servants deftly gliding here and there with decanters and platters of smallbites in their hands. A few gave the bloody, disheveled Knights sharp looks or frowns, but the Purple Dragon tabards and holy symbols seemed to reassure them. One hurrying maid plucked a polishing-towel from her hip and tossed it to them. Pennae deftly caught it with a smile of thanks.

“Crusted silverfin cheese,” Doust moaned from behind her, getting a whiff from some smallbites passing nearby. “In the name of Tymora, lass, feed a starving priest!”

The serving maid he’d called to turned with a grin. “There are no starving priests, saer, but by all means eat your fill.”

Doust swept the platter out of her hands, agreeing, “No starving priests any more!”

Before the maid could protest, Pennae had scooped an armful of the greasy, flaky-crusted smallbites off the platter and thrust them at her fellow Knights. Doust gave her a hurt look and turned away to shield what was left with his shoulder, but his protest was lost amid the rumbles of the Knights’ stomachs. They emptied Pennae’s hands in a single breath, Semoor bending forward to lick her fingers until she snatched them away and slapped him with them.

That made the serving maid grin, shrug, and depart for another platter.

“There!” Florin said suddenly, pointing out into the brightly lit center of the hall, over the heads of courtiers, nobles, and commoners in their brightly hued best, all standing talking with drinks in their hands.

Standing quite near, in the midst of a throng of daringly gowned ladies hanging on his every growled word, was Vangerdahast.

The Knights hurried toward him. At the sight of them, Purple Dragons clad in full shining armor, with halberds in their hands, stepped away from pillars they’d been stationed at, and trotted to intercept the intruders.

“Stand aside,” Florin murmured as the first guard moved to bar his way. The halberd came down to menace him, but the ranger slowed not a whit.

One of the ladies clustered around Vangerdahast saw the flash of the halberd descending as she glanced idly in that direction-and screamed.

As heads turned and guests started to stare and murmur, the Royal Magician of the Realm looked up, saw the Knights, and glared.

A guard thrust a halberd in Islif’s way. She ducked under its head, grasped its shaft, and heaved, hurling the man aside. Finding herself in possession of the polearm, she flicked its other end between the ankles of the next hurrying guard-and then lost the halberd as he crashed forward onto it, nose-first, and went on to find the floor, hard.

A halberd jabbed at Pennae from another direction. She dived under its thrust and rolled swiftly across the floor to crash under its wielder’s ankles, toppling him-into Florin’s arms.

The ranger plucked the guard off his feet and hurled him bodily into the two guards right behind him, sending them all crashing down in a welter of bouncing halberds.

Lady revelers shrieked and tried to flee-and a reeling, off-balance guard stepped on the trailing gown of one buxom lady merchant and bared her to dethma and elegantly jeweled clout as her low-backed, lower-fronted gown tore from top to bottom. There were cries of both glee and rage at that-and Vangerdahast swept grandly out of his ring of admirers and spread his hands, rings catching fire on all of his fingers, to blast the Knights.

Florin desperately swept Pennae up off her feet, boosted her upright to his shoulder, and threw her forward and high into the air-as the Royal Magician’s spell-blast slammed into the Knights, hurling them back. Pennae, aloft, escaped that roaring magic, but it flattened guards, servants, and guests alike, sweeping them all, bone-shakingly, past pillars to the back wall, to end up with the Knights in a chaos of bruised, interlocked, writhing folk.

Guests screamed, and their cries brought every head in the hall around and an astonished silence to the scene.

Ramurra Hornmantle and Ildaergra Steelcastle hastily drained their flagons, not taking their eyes off what was unfolding for an instant.

They saw Pennae land, drop into a crouch, and without pause spring up again like an acrobat, to deftly avoid the emerald beams of Vangerdahast’s next magic-which struck plumes of smoke from the polished floor.

Pennae came crashing down into the Royal Magician’s arms, bearing him to the floor and entwining herself around him to hiss into his startled face, “There’s a conspiracy to kill you, Wizard! Don’t look into or go near any crystal balls! Any moment now, word will come that both princesses are endangered-that’s the signal!”

As Vangey blinked at her, Lord Maniol Crownsilver cried despairingly from halfway down the hall, “Lord Vangerdahast! Royal Magician! A rescue! A rescue! Ghoruld Applethorn told me to tell you I’ve-he’s-captured the princesses! Gloating, that’s it! Then he vanished right in front of my eyes, and I don’t know where he’s gone!”

“Oh, tluin, ” Vangerdahast groaned, and took hold of Pennae’s wrist in a grip of iron. “Go nowhere, little thief. You are going to explain all of this to me.”

“Gladly, my lord,” Pennae breathed in lavish imitation of an ardent, smitten lady.

The stout, bearded mage underneath her gave her a glare and growled, “Adventurers! Now get off my bladder and let me up. ”

Wizard of War Beldos Margaster was, as usual, in his chambers. When events as large as this revel were unfolding, his scrying involved more than a dozen hovering-in-air crystal balls, and he preferred quiet solitude and room to work ordered as he saw fit, to use them in.

Wherefore he looked up, blinking, as the War Wizards Tathanter Doarmond and Malvert Lulleer bustled into his chambers at the head of a dozen Purple Dragons, who bore the bodies of Lady Laspeera and an ornrion of the Dragons on great decorative shields obviously torn down off the Palace walls.

“I’ve purge-poisoned the Lady Laspeera, and she’s waking,” Tathanter explained excitedly, without even a greeting, “but that’s my one such spell. Can you see to this ornrion? We found them in the Long Passage. Its Palace-end guards were served the same way; all but two who came to us, warning of adventurers who must be in the Palace right now!”

Beldos Margaster frowned. “How so, when they’d have to wade through scores of other Dragons, on guard all over the cellars?”

“That’s just what they’ve done,” one of the Purple Dragons growled.

Margaster crooked a disbelieving eyebrow, then got a good look at the face of the ornrion on the shield, and hurried to a cabinet to pluck forth a vial.

“For this,” he said, waving at both of the stricken, “potions are more reliable than the purge spell. That’s why I’ve no such spell ready to cast.”

He forced open the ornrion’s mouth, emptied the vial into it, and held those slack lips together with his hand.

Almost instantly, Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul’s still face creased, he started to cough, and then his eyes flew open.

They met Margaster’s gaze a moment later, as the mage hastily took his fingers away, and Dauntless growled, “Gaster! Wanted to tell you, next I saw you: we left the Dragonfire swords behind us, in Halfhap! They’re real after all! Flying and glowing, right enough. They’re holding up most of the inn right now!”

Margaster looked interested, but said, “They’ll have to wait until after you tell me what befell you and the Lady Laspeera. Here, that is, in the Long Passage, not in Halfhap.”

Dauntless blinked. “Oh, gods! The Knights of Myth Drannor! They came out of Halfhap with us, but the moment the Lady Laspeera told them the Royal Magician was hunting them, they went mad! The thief slapped us both with a sleep-venom ring!”

Margaster glanced over at Laspeera; her eyelids were fluttering. Turning hastily to Tathanter and Malvert, he ordered, “Take this ornrion to the Battlebanners Room and keep him there until I come for him. Don’t leave him and don’t let him go anywhere. I’ll see to the Lady L-”

“Oh, no, you won’t, Gaster,” Laspeera snapped, looking up at him. “You’ll stay right here and relay all that’s befalling, as the rest of us search the Palace for these Knights! I’ll be having them in chains by nightfall!”

She heaved herself up from her shield, reeled, and caught hold of Dauntless for support.

“Leave him with me,” she snapped at Tathanter and Malvert. Then her face changed, and she asked them rather wearily, “Wasn’t there a revel here, this night?”

“Yes, Lady,” Malvert replied hastily. “The reception for the envoy from Silverymoon.”

Laspeera rolled her eyes and wobbled to her feet, leaning on Dauntless. “ That’s where they’ll be. If I know my starving, thieving adventurers, they’ll not be able to resist all the food and jewels! Lead me there!”

She strode out, visibly gaining strength with every step, and everyone went with her except Beldos Margaster.

Alone again, the old war wizard smiled faintly. Then he shrugged, opened another cabinet, took a pile of dark cloth from it, and shook out the uppermost cloth; it was a hood. Working quickly, he hooded each crystal ball and put it into the cabinet. When they were all closed away, the cabinet firmly latched, he went to the other end of the room and worked a spell.

When the horizontal whirlpool occurred in midair, Margaster bent over to peer into it, and kept his intent gaze upon it as it started to spin, and his scrying began again.

“ ’Strordinary!” Lord Ildabray Indesm commented enthusiastically. “Hurled herself right at old Vangey, she did! Took him to the ground and rode him like a… like a…”

He suddenly became aware of his wife’s cold-eyed scrutiny, and harrumphed into red-faced silence.

“ I think,” Lord Bellarogar Rowanmantle said loudly, “That the realm needs bold adventurers of that sort, to shake our Royal Magician right out of his confidence every tenday or so. Not to mention the entertainment his comeuppance affords us all.”

Others standing near rolled their eyes. Lord Rowanmantle thought a lot of things, and all of them loudly.

“Now, now,” Lord Horntar Dauntinghorn said soothingly. “We must remember that aside from bruised dignity and a few wine-stained gowns for which the Crown will no doubt compensate handsomely, no one was harmed. Our Dragons are back at their posts, halberds in hand once more, with no trace of blood on the floor. Moreover, all the ruffians went off in the company of Lord Vangerdahast, who claims ever that his haste and highhandedness befalls only for the good of the realm. And they were hurrying, all of them, so perhaps-”

“The day that sword-swinging adventurers are dedicated to the good of the realm,” Lady Indesm said darkly, “is the day the madwits rise to rule and Cormyr as we know it shall be swept away. I pray to the gods that I not live to see that day!”

“ Really, ” Ramurra Hornmantle murmured disgustedly to her friend Ildaergra, in the silence that followed that dramatic declaration. “If I could do it and escape death for it, I’d borrow a Dragon’s dagger and answer her prayer for the gods forthwith! Whyever should she share in Cormyr’s brighter future?”

King Azoun IV of Cormyr, Dragon of Dragons, Conqueror Triumphant of Arabel and of Marsember, Lord of the Stormhorns and Thunder Peaks, and dozens of other titles he preferred to forget, looked down at the crown on the black velvet cushion with decided distaste. “Must I? Won’t a simple circlet do? Or nothing at all? ’Tisn’t as if the people don’t know me!”

“You can if you want to insult the envoy, dear,” Queen Filfaeril said reprovingly, taking up the crown to settle it expertly on his head, “but she does represent Silverymoon. And she is very beautiful.”

She glided around him, adjusting the crown ever-so-slightly ere stepping back to survey him critically, from crown-spires to booted toe. “And goodness me, but I know full well that lasses swoon for a man in a crown.”

Her impassively regal face marred only by a swift wink, she went to her knees in a smooth shifting of skirts, to plant a kiss on the flaring gold filigree of the ornate royal codpiece.

“ ‘Swooning’ isn’t exactly what I’d call it,” he chuckled, lifting her to her feet and towing her by her chin to his lips.

Their kiss was long and ardent, and they moved against each other and murmured wordless need before Filfaeril pulled gently back to whisper, “Later. After you’ve tasted what Silverymoon has to offer.”

“Fee,” Azoun said reproachfully, “I’d not betray-”

“Hush,” the Dragon Queen said softly, putting a finger across his lips. “I know you, Az. And you won’t be betraying me- if Sune and Sharess smile upon you, and the lady does too-because you have my full and loving agreement in this.”

She leaned in close again, to kiss one of his ears, and whispered into it, “Make Cormyr proud.”

Azoun blinked at her, then grinned, and finally shook his head in admiration and said huskily, “Gods, I love you, lass. Don’t ever change.”

His queen faced away from him, deftly hiked her ornate ankle-length gown up to her waist to show him she was bare beneath, stuck out her tongue at him ere she let it fall again, and said, “Now we’re more than fashionably late! Come! Anglond’s Great Hall is a fair hike from here, and I can’t roll along quickly in this! ”