I am serving my gods by fighting the men of Darkhold, he decided without much thought. But do I further my cause more when I combat lesser evil like that or when I battle a massive evil like the Tuigan?

An answer did not come to Azoun easily, and when he had tentatively decided on a course of action, he wasn't sure that it was the right one. In fact, he changed his mind on the way to Suzail, then once more as he prepared for dinner.

That evening, Lythrana and Azoun were joined by Filfaeril and Vangerdahast in the castle's vast formal dining room. A long, highly polished table of pale wood stood in the room's center. Curtains of deep red velvet covered the windows and reflected dully in the polished oak floor. Together, the floor and the wall hangings first echoed, then damped the high, sweet notes from Thom Reaverson's harp as he played a light tune.

The meal passed swiftly. Vangerdahast spent some time in idle, pleasant chatting with Queen Filfaeril. Azoun and Lythrana kept to themselves, but for very different reasons: the Cormyrian king pondered the growing price of the crusade; the Zhentish envoy silently wondered at the meeting's outcome.

"That will be all, Thom," Azoun said as soon as the meal was over. He pushed his untouched plate of imported strawberries away and signaled for a servant to clear the table.

Turning to the king, Vangerdahast rose to his feet. "I think I will retire, Your Highness. The matters left for you to discuss do not require my presence."

With a stiff bow, the wizard shuffled from the dining room.

Within minutes the table was clear and only Azoun, Filfaeril, and Lythrana were left in the cavernous hall.

"I find it hard to believe Vangerdahast has lived over eighty winters,"

Lythrana began casually. She stretched luxuriously, once again comfortable in her tight black dress. "He seems no older than fifty. In fact, someone at the Keep mentioned he looked about that age ten years ago, too."

Azoun cast a disinterested glance at the envoy. "He's a wizard, Lady Lythrana. It should be no surprise to you that he ages little; such practices are common among the mages at the Keep, too." He looked to his wife, who was oddly subdued in the presence of the exotic envoy. "But my advisor's age isn't what we're here to discuss."

"The demands haven't changed, Your Highness. Let Darkhold go about its business unmolested for one year."

"And?" the king prompted.

Lythrana paused. "We sign a pact with the Dales. You get the dalesmen to provide you with archers for the crusade."

"That's not enough," Azoun said sharply. His voice echoed from the floor.

"There are at least one hundred thousand Tuigan in Thesk right now. I want Zhentish troops to stand with the rest of Faerun."

Lythrana leaned back from the table. She started to speak, then swallowed her words and sighed.

"You're afraid of them too, Lythrana," Azoun rumbled. "I can see it in your eyes when I talk about them." He stood up and turned his back to the table.

The emissary bowed her head. "Of course I am. I was one of the people the Keep sent to spy on the Tuigan." She pulled down the high collar of her black dress. A long red scar marred her otherwise perfectly white shoulder. "I was the only one of my party to escape alive."

The king whirled around. "Then help me. Give me troops."

Lythrana met Azoun's gaze again. "I want to," she hissed after a moment,

"but the Keep won't. Not without something in return."

The king paused. He knew that this was all the envoy had to offer, that Lythrana would not, could not concede him anything else. The king's course was set; Azoun had decided after the hunt that reasons of state demanded only one decision from him. "We'll leave Darkhold alone for two seasons," he said at last.

"No. A year."

Azoun sighed, then nodded. "A year."

The words burned like acid in Azoun's soul. He knew that he was allowing the network of evil that connected Zhentil Keep and Darkhold—the Zhentarim—free reign to attack travelers and raid caravans, but he saw no other solution. If the Tuigan came to Cormyr, they'd cause a thousand times more suffering than the troops in Darkhold could ever create. He needed the archers from the Dales to stop that from happening.

Azoun pointed a slightly quivering finger at Lythrana. "Darkhold will be left unhindered for a year," he said, "but I want troops. And if I don't get them, or if Zhentil Keep stands in the way of this crusade again, I promise you that Darkhold will be crushed to rubble."

Lythrana was shocked into silence for an instant. "Of course," she agreed after a time. "Zhentil Keep wants the Tuigan stopped as much as you."

The Zhentish envoy looked over at the queen, who sat quietly at the end of the table. "Are you taking notes?" she asked, her words mixed with puzzlement and sarcasm.

Locking her ice-blue eyes on Lythrana's cold stare, Filfaeril smiled pleasantly. "No," she said. "The crusade is Azoun's matter."

Lythrana arched a thin black eyebrow under her raven-dark bangs. Noting the look on the envoy's face, the queen added, "However, if Zhentil Keep breaks its word and attacks the Dales or Cormyr while the king is in Thesk, I will be here to mount an army against you."

Narrowing her eyes to green slits, Lythrana studied the queen more closely. Filfaeril looked delicate, with her pale skin and long golden hair. Even the filmy rose-pink dress the queen wore made her seem fragile. But as the envoy looked into Filfaeril's eyes, she caught a glimpse of something—a hardness, perhaps—that worried her. "Zhentil Keep does not take threats lightly," Lythrana said at last.

The king leaned on the table with both hands. "Be assured, Lady Dargor, neither Queen Filfaeril nor I ever make idle threats. We do not like to deal with the worshippers of evil gods, but you are the lesser of two bad options."

Lythrana stood slowly. "Zhentil Keep never assumed you would regard us as anything but a 'necessary evil.'" A false, cold smile crossed her face, then she bowed. "We should end this meeting before either of us says something

... regrettable. The papers detailing the treaty will be ready in an hour?"

When King Azoun nodded, Lythrana bowed again and moved toward the door. "I will send word as to how many troops you can expect and where they will meet you."

As the echoes of the envoy's retreating footsteps died in the large room, the king put his hands on Filfaeril's shoulders. The queen pursed her lips. "I don't trust her for a moment," she noted. "Still, I suspect the Keep isn't foolish enough to break a truce."

Azoun smiled weakly. "They certainly must see that if I can raise an army of thirty thousand to fight a foreign war, the force that would rise against them if they foolishly attacked the Dales would be ten times that size."

The door slid open, and Vangerdahast briskly crossed the room. He looked expectantly at Azoun, who only nodded.

"The Keep will send troops?" the wizard asked expectantly as he got nearer.

"They haven't said how many yet," replied Azoun, "but I'm sure I can get at least fifteen hundred men-at-arms from them." He squeezed Filfaeril's shoulder and added, "We should be ready to send the first troops to the east within twenty days."

5

The Black Rat

Arrow loops were the only source of natural light in the tower's lower floors.

As a result, rooms located there were usually dark, dreary places, even during the daytime. King Azoun didn't mind the deep shadows. In fact, he welcomed the darkness as he stood quietly on the bottom floor of his fortress's northeastern watchtower, for the shadows hid the monarch's growing anger at the soldier who stood before him, his tunic rumpled, his boots unpolished. The guard also had his sword drawn, and a broad smirk lined his thick-boned face.

"So tell me again, old man," the guard grunted at the king. "Just what are you doing down here? Don't you belong back in the main hall with the rest of the relics?"

Azoun narrowed his eyes and cursed silently. The piggish man who stood before him, dappled in the late afternoon sunlight from a nearby arrow loop, was being far too obnoxious to be tolerated. "I told you, my good man," the king said softly, "I'm looking for the captain of the guard. I have a message from His Majesty. Now, are you going to let me deliver it or not?"

The soldier rubbed his poorly shaven chin. "I don't know. I mean, I can't be too careful about who I let roam around the keep." He paused for a second and scratched a particularly hairy spot at the corner of his jaw.

It was obvious to Azoun that the guard was simply being difficult to someone he saw as a harmless old civil servant. "Kind sir," he pleaded, "I must be on my way. The king will be very cross if I don't deliver this message soon."

"All right, but just you remember that Sergeant Connor was nice enough to let you pass," the guard warned, finally stepping out of Azoun's way.

Smiling, the king stared at the soldier's round face. "Oh, yes," he said. "I'll remember." To have you demoted and fined for harassing one of my servants, Azoun added to himself. The ruler of Cormyr bowed fatuously and limped out of the tower into a corridor inside the castle's outer wall.

The king wore the guise of a royal messenger that afternoon: a fine black tunic with a purple dragon sewn across the chest, rough woolen pants, a dark cloak, and low-cut leather shoes. He carried a heavy cloth satchel and a rolled, sealed piece of parchment, official-looking enough to fool almost anyone he met.

Azoun had done a little to change his features, too. With the help of some dye, the king's graying brown hair and beard were now completely white, and some cleverly applied greasepaint had enhanced his wrinkles and paled his skin so that the monarch looked like a veteran of seventy winters instead of fifty. A little well-placed grime covered his normally spotless hands and hid the marks left by the rings he wore as ruler of Cormyr.

It wasn't surprising that the guard didn't recognize King Azoun. Few of his servants and even fewer of his subjects ever got close enough to the monarch to get a good look at his face. Nor was his visage on any of Cormyr's coins.

Even without the simple makeup he now wore, Azoun could stroll into most taverns in Suzail without being recognized.

Still, the king didn't take any chances. Whenever he wished to move about the city unencumbered by his personal guard, he donned a disguise and slipped out of the palace by way of the secret door near the tower he'd just left. His great-great-grandfather, Palaghard II, had ordered the secret door be built so he could rendezvous with his various mistresses. Azoun had never used the exit for that specific purpose, but he had thanked Palaghard's lust more than once when the door allowed him to escape unnoticed into the Royal Gardens, then into the city itself.

The king continued to affect a limp as he moved down the dark, seemingly airless corridor, counting paces for a hundred yards or so. Suddenly he stopped, looked up and down the hallway, and listened for the sound of guards nearby. When he heard nothing, he felt the cool stone walls for a hand-sized indentation. Once Azoun found what he was searching for, he checked the hallway one last time for guards, then pressed a hidden lever.

With a low, muffled rumble, the secret door opened. Sunlight flooded the corridor as a four-by-four stone sank into the ground, revealing a tall, thick, cleanly trimmed hedgerow. Azoun squinted at the sudden burst of light and quickly moved into the concealing shrubbery. He fumbled for the hidden release on the outside of the castle for only a moment, then the door slid shut to the sound of stone faintly rubbing against stone.

"Wait a minute, Cuthbert," someone muttered in a deep voice from a few yards away. "I just heard something moving in them bushes next to the wall."

Azoun crouched down and held his breath. Though the secret door was mechanical, magic kept it relatively silent. Still, the king couldn't hide the sounds of his movement in the hedgerow. A sword poked through the evergreens just above his head.

"There's nothing in there," another voice, probably belonging to Cuthbert, said. "And if it was something, it'd more likely turn out to be a rat than a man.

Castles attract scavengers like that. Why, I once saw a rat the size of—"

"You've told me that story fifty times if you've told it to me once. Anyway, I'm just doing my job," the deep-voiced man told his companion. He thrust his sword into the bushes again. "I've got a duty to the king, and I intend on doing my best to fulfill it."

Azoun smiled at the sincerity he heard in the guard's voice. It was a welcome change from Sergeant Connor's thinly veiled threats. I'll have to find out who that soldier is and have him commended, Azoun noted to himself.

Perhaps I'll even promote him into Connor's job inside the tower.

After a few moments of silence and a few halfhearted sword thrusts into the hedges, the guards moved off. Azoun listened to their footsteps on the gravel path as they walked away. The king also heard one of the guards ask, "I suppose you're going to sign on for that crusade the king's mounting?" The other guard either nodded a reply or had moved too far away, for Azoun never heard his response.

As quietly as he could, the king took off his cape and tunic and unloaded the satchel. Inside the pack was a thin, unlined cloak and a worn, colorless tunic. The livery of a court messenger was fine for getting Azoun out of the keep with few problems, but the king knew that he'd never get honest answers from the townsfolk if he was seen as a member of court.

And honest answers were what Azoun wanted more than anything in the days after the assassination attempt. Of course, Vangerdahast hadn't found it surprising that one of the king's own subjects would try to kill him because of the crusade he proposed. To Azoun, however, the whole affair was mind-boggling.

The Cormyrian king had never doubted that it was his duty to gather the western forces under his banner and stop Yamun Khahan and his barbarians before they had a chance to destroy any western cities. The monarch knew that he had a responsibility to protect Faerun and his own kingdom. He was prepared to sacrifice a great deal—even his life, if necessary—to be certain that the horde never reached the heavily populated areas around the Inner Sea. Perhaps foolishly, Azoun assumed that his people would understand the war's necessity, even share his vision of the West united against the invaders.

And he'd dismissed the rumblings from the guilds, for the merchants always complained about any venture that would increase taxes.

The assassination attempt had shown the monarch how wrong he had been to do so. Now Azoun wanted to know if the Trappers' Guild itself had sponsored the attack. And if the guild did foster the attempt on his life, the king wanted to see firsthand how many of his subjects were in unrest. He realized that any strong popular revolt while he was away on crusade might be difficult to quell. Filfaeril was certainly capable of leading the loyalist forces, but the king didn't want to make such a dangerous possibility more likely by ignoring it.

"Reports can't reveal half of what I'll discover myself," Azoun whispered as he stuffed the royal livery into the satchel and hid the bag in the bushes.

Then, as quietly as possible, the king pushed his way through the hedgerow.

"Hey, you!" someone yelled. "Get out of those bushes. You'll not be using the Royal Gardens for a chamber pot!"

Azoun blushed and turned to see the royal gardener, a thin, choleric man, shaking a rake at him. So much for stealth, the king thought. Holding his hands before him, Azoun said, "Sincere apologies, my good man. I dropped a coin, and it rolled into the hedge."

People were beginning to stop and stare at the irate gardener and the red-faced old man at whom he was yelling. The Royal Gardens were open to the public during the day, but usually few commoners strolled around the northeast corner of the keep; the rest of the gardens were far more attractive.

Still, there were enough people gathering to make Azoun nervous. If the guards should come back, he might be taken in for questioning. The king shuddered in embarrassment at the thought of explaining to the captain of the guard why he was skulking in the bushes, dressed as a down-and-out merchant.

"My apologies, sirrah," Azoun called as he pulled his cloak around his shoulders and walked briskly toward the path that lead out of the gardens.

"And don't come back!" the gardener yelled, tossing his rake to the ground.

A few of the half-dozen people gathered nearby laughed, but most just shook their heads and went about their business.

Azoun was soon outside the Royal Gardens, standing on the dirt road that wound through the houses of Suzail's noble families. Unlike the other streets in the city, this one was devoid of garbage. The nobles paid commoners to keep it that way, just as they paid the men to fill the deep, muddy ruts that formed in the dirt street during rainy weather. In all, it was probably the nicest stretch of road in all of Cormyr, and the ancient, landed families—like the Wyvernspurs—didn't allow just anyone to wander down it.

That made the presence of a crowd of average citizens, following what appeared to Azoun at first glance to be a traveling priest, that much more of a mystery. Twenty people, most dressed in dirty, threadbare clothing, walked at the cleric's heels. The men and women at the rear of the crowd all leaned forward as they moved, straining to hear the priest's words. The gathering soon stopped, however, and the cleric raised his hands high above his head.

"Friends, I come to you with a message from Lady Tymora, the Goddess of Luck, the patron of adventurers and warriors," the cleric said as Azoun moved toward the crowd. When the king got close to the rest of the audience, he reached down and put his hand around the small cloth sack that hung at his belt. Cutpurses and pickpockets often worked crowds like this one, and Azoun knew better than to leave his silver unprotected.

The cleric smiled warmly and continued. "I've gathered you here so that you can see what good fortune may bring." He pointed to the beautiful, three-story facade of Wyvernspur House. "These people have been graced."

A murmur of approval ran through the crowd.

The cleric spun around and pointed at his audience. "Are they better people than you?" he asked, raising his voice slightly. "Are they more worthy people than you?"

"No!" someone yelled.

"Of course not," a man close to Azoun hollered in a deep, rumbling voice.

"They don't even work for what they have," a woman cried. Another murmur ran through the crowd, this one tinged with anger.

"But there you are wrong!" the priest said, pointing at the woman who had spoken last. Again his voice grew a little louder. "The people who live along this street, even the royals who live in the grand palace—" The cleric threw his hands into the air, gesturing toward the castle that stood at the other side of the gardens as if he'd just seen it. "They've all paid for what they own. Do you know how?"

A few people muttered, "No."

The cleric raised his voice and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. "Do any of you know how?"

"No!" a few more commoners cried. "Tell us!"

Another warm smile crossed the cleric's face, and the man dabbed sweat and pushed a few strands of dark, matted hair from his brow. "Yes," he said softly, "I'll tell you."

Azoun felt a dull anger welling up inside of him as he watched the cleric play the crowd. He'd seen bullfights in the south, and the toreadors had toyed with the bulls in just such a way, forcing the beasts to dance like trained bears. The king couldn't be too angry, though; he'd used some of the same rhetorical tactics himself when giving his speech to the crowd in the gardens.

As the smiling priest paused, waiting for anticipation to build in his audience, the king studied him closely.

The cleric's hair was dark brown, almost black, and combed back from his broad forehead. Deep blue eyes lay under the man's thick eyebrows. His most startling feature was his mouth, which was somehow amazingly expressive.

With just the twitch of a lip, the cleric could convey more than most people could with their entire body. Azoun silently noted that the tongue inside that mouth was most likely gold-plated, probably forked, too.

Whatever else there was of the cleric was hidden in a thick brown robe, which was itself very clean, even newly laundered. That fact alone made the cleric stand out in the crowd of grubby peasants that surrounded him. A small silver disk hung at his throat, a symbol of his devotion to the Goddess of Luck.

Since the cleric was facing west, whenever he moved, the late afternoon sun glinted off the disk and flashed into someone's eyes.

The priest finished mopping his brow. "These people have won the favor of the Goddess of Luck because they've helped themselves, taken their destinies into their own hands." He signaled to a young boy in the crowd, who moved forward, carrying a small wooden box.

"But what can we do?" asked a pathetic-looking old woman. She held her bony arms outstretched toward the cleric, and her shapeless gray frock shifted on her thin frame.

Without a word, the dark-haired cleric took the box from the boy's hands, held it out to the woman, and opened it. A large golden coin lay in the velvet-lined case. The coin was a gold lion, if Azoun guessed correctly, and like the cleric's holy symbol, it caught the rays of the afternoon sun and flashed them at the old woman. This time it was a gasp that escaped from the crowd.

Servants from Wyvernspur House now lined the street in front of the manor, and a few noblemen and ladies peered at the gathering from open windows. Azoun knew that it was only a matter of time before a contingent of guards arrived to break up the cleric's meeting.

"Lady Tymora visits the Realms from time to time, and when last she was upon this continent, the Goddess of Luck blessed this coin for our temple."

The cleric picked up the gold lion and flicked it high into the air with his thumb.

The coin arced into the sky, then stopped and spun in the air. Everyone on the street—the crowd, the servants, the nobles, even King Azoun—found himself staring at the gold piece hovering and twirling above them.

"Accept her into your lives, and Tymora will bless you, too," the cleric said to the sea of upturned faces before him. "But only if you prove your worth, only if you tread the way of the faithful."

A few people grunted curses and looked away from the floating coin. "Here comes the plea for copper pieces," a young blond man near Azoun grumbled.

A few commoners simply walked away.

That didn't phase the cleric at all. "Yes," he said to the young man near the king. "One way for you to prove that your heart is ready for the goddess is for you to donate money to her church." A few people nodded, their suspicions confirmed. They started to leave.

"What Tymora really wants from you is a commitment to adventure, a promise to trust in luck and forge your own destiny." The priest paused for a moment and looked into the eyes of the dozen or so people left in front of him.

As he locked gazes with the king, the cleric added, "Tymora wants you to go on the crusade."

The statement hit Azoun like the flat of a sword wielded by a fire giant; his head swam and his eyes blurred for a moment. When the king looked again, the cleric's gaze had moved on, latching on to other people in the crowd. The dark-haired man was still talking, saying things about the crusade and how Tymora would reward anyone who trusted in her enough to face the barbarians. The king wasn't really listening.

Instead, Azoun was trying to reconcile his initial reaction to the cleric with the message he was preaching. Somehow, coming from an overpolished orator, a common manipulator of words like that worshiper of Tymora, the call to arms sounded crude. It was obviously effective, though, for when Azoun focused again on the priest, he saw that a half-dozen men were gathered around him, evidently still interested in following his advice.

Before the king could speak to the cleric, however, a patrol of six guards came marching up the street from the east. Without hesitation, Azoun turned to the west and walked away. The soldiers ignored the old man in the tattered cloak and moved straight toward the cleric and his audience. From the windows overlooking the street, the noblemen shouted a few cheers and cries of support for the soldiers.

When Azoun was fifty yards or so away, he looked back at the scene, only to see the cleric in a casual, friendly conversation with one of the guards. After a moment, in which time the priest introduced all of his new recruits to the soldiers, the worshiper of Tymora held his right hand open, palm up. The spinning golden lion dropped softly into the cleric's grasp. Azoun shook his head and strode toward the waterfront.

Two hours passed as the king wandered through the streets of Suzail, in the general direction of the Black Rat, a tavern near the docks and marketplace. The late afternoon sun was just reaching the horizon, so many of the businesses were closing for the night. Some shopkeepers busied themselves with securing the awnings and heavy wooden shutters on their open-fronted shops. Other merchants—including all the bakers, butchers, and other food peddlers Azoun saw—were still standing in their storefronts, hawking their goods at the tops of their lungs, trying to sell what perishables they could before they closed for the night.

The king walked to a bakery and leaned against the corner of the building.

The white-bearded man who ran the shop scowled at the king, but didn't chase the loiterer away. For the next few minutes, Azoun simply stood on the corner, taking in the relaxing smell of warm bread and watching his subjects as they went about their lives.

"Tell your master that this is the finest bread I have," Azoun heard the baker tell a young serving girl who'd come to pick up part of her master's evening meal. The girl smiled as if she'd made a special deal with the merchant, then ran off. In a few minutes, another girl in the low-cut blouse of a serving wench came to the shop. The baker told her the same thing he'd told the last customer.

Across the narrow, rocky street from the bakery, a weapons crafter kept shop. At the same time the second serving girl was passing by him, the king watched as a small, even scrawny man stormed up to the smith across the way and unwrapped a sword.

"This weapon isn't balanced correctly!" the man bellowed. "I was guarding a caravan in the Stonelands. When we got attacked by goblins, I used the sword and nearly cut off my own leg!"

When the weaponsmith didn't reply, the warrior smashed the heavy pommel of the claymore against the store's weather-beaten counter.

The dark-skinned crafter looked up at last, contempt in his eyes. "I warned you when you bought it, Yugar. That sword's just too damn heavy for you to wield correctly."

"Ha!" the overzealous warrior cried, snatching up the monstrous two-handed sword again. "I can use any weapon that'll fit in my hand. I'm Yugar the Brave!" He said the last as if it should mean something to anyone who heard it. No one passing by so much as took a second glance at the young braggart.

The smith dropped the whetstone he was using to sharpen a tiny, jewel-handled dagger and stepped out of the shop. He grabbed Yugar's arm and wrested the claymore from his grasp. "If you're so brave, why aren't you signing on for the crusade?"

Without pausing, Yugar picked up a slightly smaller sword from the smith's display—rather awkwardly, Azoun thought—and said, "I am... I think. I've heard there's good money to be had if I sign on as a mercenary."

The king winced. Traveling through the city, he'd heard many people discussing the crusade. Most of the merchants were complaining about the new taxes that were being levied to defray the cost of the expedition. Azoun had heard only two craftsmen talking about the crusade with any enthusiasm.

However, one of these men was an armorer, the other a weaponsmith. They had far too much to gain from a war to be considered fair representatives of the people.

The king had also overheard many warriors like Yugar, hungry only for money, and a few who only wanted adventure. Still, the guards and churches had reported early that day that over a thousand people had already signed on for the crusade. Azoun had spent much of the morning dispatching letters to the various nobles who had promised armies, asking them to gather in Suzail as soon as possible. The crusade was, without a doubt, going to become a reality very shortly.

Despite this, the trapper's attack still plagued the king. And before he could leave Filfaeril in command of Cormyr, he needed to know that he went with his subjects' blessing. Few people seemed willing to talk about the guilds in detail, though the assassination attempt was the subject of much idle speculation.

Azoun hoped that the adventurers and guildsmen who frequented the same tavern would prove a greater source of information about the Trappers' Guild and public sentiment about the crusade than the merchants he had encountered so far. At the very least, a visit to the Black Rat would provide an excellent escape from the court, if only for one night. He had, after all, frequented the Black Rat in his days with the King's Men.

As the king was remembering a few of those happy hours, the baker came out of his shop, scowled at the loiterer again, and slammed the awning closed. Azoun took the hint and headed for the docks.

By the time the king got to the tavern, the sun had set and a bright moon hung over the city. The air was very chill, and Azoun could see his breath as he hurried along. Occasionally a lantern or candle flickered in an open window, but most of the shops and houses were completely dark. This wasn't surprising, for few people traveled the streets of any city in Faerun at night, especially one the size of Suzail. It was commonly said that only criminals, fools, heroes, and gods walked a city's streets after dark. That statement was generally quite true.

While the night watch made regular patrols in Suzail, shadowy figures still skulked in and out of alleyways, waiting for unwary travelers or drunken adventurers to stumble into their traps. Creatures that would never roam the streets during the day came out to scavenge through the offal and garbage dumped unceremoniously out of windows into the thoroughfares. And though Azoun had secreted a small dagger in his boot when he'd left the castle, he felt much safer when he finally passed through the door of the Black Rat.

"For the last time, no!" a barmaid screeched. She slammed a mug down on the table nearest the tavern's front door and slapped the one-eyed man sitting there. A burst of loud, raucous laughter rumbled through the room in response. The frumpy, fat-cheeked barmaid took a curt bow—one much too low for a woman with any modesty, considering the cut of her dress—and sauntered back to the kitchen.

Azoun started at the disturbance, then shivered at the wall of warm air that washed over him as he entered the tavern. He hadn't noticed how cold it was outside until then. The king glanced around the room for an open table, saw quite a few, then moved toward one close to the small fireplace that dominated the taproom's northern wall. The dozen or so patrons of the Black Rat watched Azoun cross the room, then went back to their drinks or their games of dice.

"I'd do anything for that girl, and this's what I get!" the one-eyed man yelled.

Azoun noticed that he was slurring his words slightly.

"Bring back the head of one of those barbarians the king's so hot on killing,"

a mournful-looking man called from a table near Azoun. "That'll win her heart."

The barmaid walked out of the kitchen and went straight to Azoun's table, ignoring the rude comments from most of the drunkards in the taproom and the protestations of love from the one-eyed man. The king politely ordered an ale, then leaned back toward the fire.

The woman smiled in gratitude at the respect shown her. "Ale's free tonight," she said. "One of our patrons was recently rewarded by the king, and he left gold to pay for drinks." After another brief smile, she blew a coil of red hair from her eyes and went for the drink.

"Alas," a lean, dark woman sighed as the barmaid left the room. "She's given her love to another, Brak. You'll never have her now. Her smile gives her away."

A few men chuckled, but Brak, the one-eyed warrior, stood up. "What?" he snarled, pointing at Azoun. "That old coot?" The king's shoulders sagged. The last thing he wanted was trouble.

The barmaid returned with Azoun's ale, gave it to him, then got Brak to sit down. "There's no one but you," she teased and pinched the man's ruddy cheek. "But I'll love you more if you prove how brave you are on that crusade.

Perhaps I'll love you most of all if you don't come back."

There was more laughter, but one man, clad in shining chain mail, stood up and lifted his mug. "I say we should raise a toast to King Azoun . . . the only king in the West worth following into battle. Long live the king!"

After the trials of the last few days, Azoun felt his heart leap as the patrons of the Black Rat, both men and women, lifted their mugs and called out, "Long live the king!"

That phrase always made King Azoun think of his father. Rhigaerd had loved to hear men shout that toast, and few nobles had missed the opportunity to please him with it during his reign. Azoun usually found the phrase troubling, since many of the courtiers assumed it was a sure way to win favor. The phrase had fallen out of use at court, but it obviously hadn't in the city. The king didn't find this particular toast lacking in sincerity or enthusiasm, however.

He smiled to himself beneath his powdered white beard. "Yes," Azoun agreed softly. "Long live the king."

"And your damned guild brothers will pay for their grumbling," the mail-clad warrior added, swinging his mug toward the table by the door. Brak grumbled something under his breath, but remained silent.

Azoun didn't miss the reference to the trappers and quickly moved to the table of the man who'd made the toast. "May I join you?" When the man nodded, the king took a seat on the rickety bench across from him. "What was that about the trappers, young man?" he asked in a soft voice.

After a long swallow of ale, the warrior leveled his gaze on the king. "A guild should be responsible for its members." He cast a withering glance at Brak, then added, "He's an influential member of the Trappers' Guild, so—"

Abruptly Azoun held up his hand. "The attack on the king," he finished. "So that's the source of your animosity." He studied the man across the table for a moment before he asked his next question.

He's probably a mercenary, the king decided. The warrior was by no means unhandsome, but the look of dogged obstinacy that clung to his square features made him appear contentious. After a moment, Azoun reconsidered his opinion. The man was fastidiously dressed; his mail shone as if recently polished, his leather breeches and silk surcoat were spotless. No, not a mercenary, the king concluded. More likely a paladin of some lawful order.

Azoun leaned close. "The name's Balin," he said. "Well met... er..."

"Ambrosius." The man reached out and clasped Azoun's forearm in a traditional greeting. "Ambrosius, Knight of Tyr." A slightly puzzled look crossed his face as he let the king's arm go.

Without letting it register on his face, Azoun cursed to himself. The man was a paladin, a holy knight of the God of Justice. Such warriors were difficult to fool, and it seemed for an instant, when Ambrosius had grasped his arm. . .

. The king smiled wanly through his powdered beard and started to rise.

"No need to hurry," Ambrosius said flatly, clasping a strong arm around Azoun's wrist. "I am always at a loss for personable men to share conversation with me here." When the king hesitated, the knight whispered,

"Do not make a scene, good sir. I simply want to know for whom you spy."

With a sigh, Azoun took his seat. "I am here on the king's business," he replied. "Is my disguise so poor that you can see through it so easily?"

Ambrosius thrust his square chin out and looked at Azoun with that expression of doggedness. "Your arm is far too muscular for a man of the age you pretend to be," he whispered. "I do not approve of spies or subterfuge.

I've learned long ago to ferret out such as you."

The knight paused, then asked, "My toast to the king was sincere. What does His Highness wish to know?"

"The feelings of his subjects on the crusade," Azoun replied. "As well as the disposition of the Trappers' Guild toward the king himself."

Ambrosius laughed, a deep, robust sound that came from his heart. "The first is a simple matter to discern. There are hundreds of the king's loyal subjects—myself included— who have signed on already for the crusade."

The paladin leaned back in his chair. "The other is more complex."

After rubbing his chin for a moment, the knight of Tyr smiled broadly. "But, again, there is simple way to the truth." Without pause, he turned to Brak. "Ho, trapper! This man wants to know your guild's attitude toward the king," he said truthfully.

The bar quieted slightly, and Brak stared at the paladin and the king like an enraged cyclops. "I don't want to answer to the likes of you, Ambrosius," the trapper slurred.

The reason for that would have been obvious to anyone in the Black Rat who knew Ambrosius to be a paladin. Such holy knights, because of their devotion to their gods, were sometimes gifted with the power to detect evil in other men's hearts.

"You needn't fear answering unless the trappers were in league against the king," Ambrosius announced. Now the bar was silent, and everyone looked toward Brak. The one-eyed trapper shifted nervously in his seat. "Best answer right away," the paladin added after scanning the room. "It seems there are many here who wonder what your guild has been up to."

A tense silence followed. Brak took a long sip of ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his callused hand. "The Trappers' Guild didn't have anything to do with the attack on the king," he grumbled. He met Ambrosius's steady gaze with his one good eye. "But we don't make no secret of the fact we oppose the crusade."

Ambrosius said nothing as he returned to his seat. Most of the patrons at the Black Rat turned back to their drinks and their private conversations, though a few still watched the trapper and the paladin. Azoun shook his head.

"You could have asked the same question without revealing me as the king's man," he said.

"As I said before, I have no use for spies. You get more by asking questions directly."

"I take it the trapper was telling the truth?"

"Of course," Ambrosius replied. "Brak knows me far too well to consider lying."

After talking with the paladin for a time, sipping on the inn's dark, bitter ale, the king stood and headed toward the door. Brak scowled slightly as Azoun passed, but the drunken trapper was quickly dragged back into an animated conversation about the Tuigan. Azoun heard someone say, "There's no way we can lose with the armies of Faerun brought together like that!" He offered a silent prayer that the man was right, then moved once more into the cold night air.

This chill is the last gasp of winter, Azoun decided as he hugged his cloak tighter around his shoulders. That means the Tuigan are probably on the move again in Thay. The armies of Faerun can gather none too soon now.

And from all that Azoun had learned that day, he was sure it was safe to proceed. The people of Suzail supported his crusade, despite the seemingly isolated unrest amongst a few of the guilds. Though the merchants grumbled about the taxes, the king knew that they rarely stopped complaining about such things. More importantly, the king felt secure that the would-be assassin was working alone.

Azoun shivered in the frosty air and pulled the worn cloak tighter still. The tattered disguise tore under the strength of his grasp. He looked at the ripped cloak and smiled.

On days when he had been in a good mood, Azoun's father had called his son's interest in the theater and costumes a waste of time. At times when the hawks refused to cooperate or the nobles were particularly fractious, King Rhigaerd II had given Prince Azoun's hobby a few less diplomatic titles. At that moment, as he made his way through Suzail, the king of Cormyr thanked the gods that he'd chosen the Black Rat to visit. He smiled with the knowledge that his penchant for disguises had indeed served him well.

6

The Goddess's Hand

Azoun sat back in the cushioned chair and allowed himself to relax. It was the first time in two tendays he'd taken such a luxury.

"One day out, many more to go, eh Thom?" the king asked absently.

The bard sat at a steel-legged wooden table, taking notes for the crusade's annals. He finished a sentence or two, then looked up and nodded. "By the time we get to our destination, I should have the section on the crusade's organization completed."

Azoun closed his eyes and rested his head against the cabin wall. "Let's hope the battles don't prove any more difficult than raising the troops has."

Thom Reaverson didn't answer; it was obvious Azoun didn't expect one.

Within a few moments, the king had drifted off to sleep, lulled by the gentle rocking of the Cormyrian carrack as it made its way across the Lake of Dragons. The bard listened for a moment to the creaking of the ship and the sounds of the crew going about its business abovedeck. After a while, he turned back to his work.

Thom dipped his quill in a cup of water, then scratched it across a square of dried ink. After reading over the last sentence he'd completed, the bard continued his account of the twenty-one days between the assassination attempt and the departure of the king's ship for the east.

The scutage—or shield tax—levied by King Azoun against the Cormyrian nobles has provided him with almost ten thousand troops and the money to raise two thousand more. Surprisingly, many of the nobles have decided to accompany the king themselves, so Azoun can count on a large, well armored cavalry to lead his attacks. No doubt these nobles see the importance of the cause.

Thom considered crossing out the last sentence. The bard felt that, as official historian for the crusade, it wasn't his place to editorialize. Pondering the point for a moment, he decided to let the entry stand. There could be little other reason for the nobles to join the crusaders, Thom reasoned, so that claim actually isn't simply my opinion.

The bard inked his pen again and continued.

Added to the troops King Azoun has gathered from the Royal Army and the populace of Suzail itself, Cormyr has given a total of twelve thousand brave archers, knights, and men-at-arms to the cause. These troops have been organized into one army under King Azoun IV of Cormyr, together with the soldiers levied from other parts of Faerun.

Thom stretched and moved his ink-stained hand over his mouth to cover a yawn. After closing his eyes for a moment, the bard shuffled through the other papers spread out on the table. Moving carefully to avoid smudging the still-wet ink on the page in front of him, Thom slid a particular sheet of parchment out from under the rest. He glanced at the list scrawled hastily on the page, then carefully added its contents to the annals.

The twelve thousand Cormyrians will be joined by soldiers from many parts of Faerun in this battle. The following is a rough estimate of the troops committed by those in Faerun allied with King Azoun.

Sembia

money for 4,000 men-at-arms

The Dales

4,000 men-at-arms (mostly archers)

Tantras

1,600 men-at-arms

Hillsfar

600 men-at-arms (mostly cavalry)

Ravens Bluff

2,400 men-at-arms

Other Cities

3,400 men-at-arms

The dark-haired bard turned over the sheet that held the original list of troops and added the numbers. He hastily noted that figure in the annals.

These troops will be joined by at least two thousand dwarves under the command of King Torg, from a city in the Earthfast Mountains. Zhentil Keep has also promised one thousand soldiers, who will be meeting the army at the northern end of the Easting Reach. All told, the crusaders should total over thirty thousand when they meet the Tuigan.

The last line of the paragraph barely fit at the bottom of the page, even with Thom's tight, controlled handwriting. He studied the finished sheet. When he found no major blotches of ink or dirty fingerprints on it, Thom gently blew it dry. After a moment or two, he put his initials in small, barely legible letters at the sheet's lower right-hand corner. That done, the bard gently laid a thin blotting paper over the new page and put the two under a large, heavy book.

Thom Reaverson packed up his papers and put his ink and quills in a small wooden box that had Cormyr's emblem carved into its top. The box and fine writing tools it contained had been a gift from King Azoun, one of many rewards given to Thom for accepting the duty to chronicle the crusade. The bard would have gladly faced a dragon for the prestigious title of court historian, and he saw the gold and gifts the king had offered him as a sign of the monarch's generosity. Still, the pen set was special to Thom Reaverson, for it had come to symbolize for him the trust Azoun had in his skills.

With his tools and the pages of the ever-growing chronicle stowed securely in a cabinet, the bard quietly made his way from the king's cabin. He nodded to the guards as he left and told them that Azoun was sleeping and was not to be disturbed. On his way up to the deck of the tri-masted carrack, Thom met Vangerdahast, who was working his way stiffly down the steep wooden steps.

When the wizard spotted Thom, he stopped his descent. "Is the king awake and well?" Vangerdahast asked, his voice weak and a little strained.

Thom's sympathy went out to the old mage immediately. It was clear from the color of Vangerdahast's face that his constitution was not up to the challenge of the gently swaying ship. "He's well," the bard answered, "but not awake."

"I hope he knows that we have a meeting with the generals in an hour or so," the pale wizard said testily.

"I'm sure he left word with a servant, Master Vangerdahast," Thom replied, steadying himself on the stairs as the ship heaved deeply to one side. "The rest will certainly do him good."

Scowling at the motion of the ship, Vangerdahast nodded and said, "He's certainly been tireless these last few ten-days." The ship dipped again, and the wizard cursed softly. "I'm going to lie down myself, Thom. If I'm not at the meeting, send someone to fetch me."

The bard backed down two steps to the landing and al owed Vangerdahast to squeeze by him. Though the Welleran was one of the most luxurious ships on the Inner Sea, the cabins and walkways were still very cramped. Only after the wizard closed the door to his cabin did Thom climb up to the deck, into the red glow of a beautiful spring sunset.

Some of the crew were eating their supper in various spots on the deck.

They gulped watery stew and washed it down with warm, dark ale. Around them, other sailors went about their duty, securing sails or climbing into the fore rigging toward lookout positions in the masts. Thom got out of the way as best he could, positioning himself near the port railing.

Far to the north lay the coast of Cormyr—or perhaps it was Sembia by then, for all Thom knew. Dozens of other ships dashed through the water nearby. Most of them were spectacularly rigged carracks from the Cormyrian navy. With their large aft and forecastles, and three masts decked with canvas sails and multicolored flags identifying vessel and port of origin, the carracks were the sturdiest ships in the crusaders' fleet. Others nearby were less impressive merchant ships or mercenaries' vessels. Of course this was only a small part of the massive caravan to the east. Ships had been leaving from Cormyr for days now, heading toward the free city of Telflamm, the gathering point for the armies.

It's no wonder Azoun is exhausted, Thom decided silently. In just the last few months he's brought everything together. And not even that damned attack in the Royal Gardens has been enough to shake his dedication to this venture.

Thom couldn't know that a secret trip to the Black Rat had countered any doubts that Azoun had had about the crusade—even the ones planted by the assassination attempt. In the tenday that followed the surreptitious visit to the tavern and the meeting with the Zhentish envoy, the king had indeed attacked the Tuigan matter with renewed vigor and enthusiasm. Supply lines had been quickly established, ships and troops gathered together, and final messages dispatched to King Torg and the witches in Rashemen. He'd even appointed an impartial seneschal to oversee the trial of the imprisoned trapper.

That dedication had paid off for Azoun, and Thom could see the success manifested in the high-spirited crew around him and the fast-moving troop and supply ships crossing the Lake of Dragons. After watching a dark-hulled cog, the Sarnath, come even with the Welleran, then pass it, the bard let his thoughts wander to the battles that loomed in the future. For the next hour, he wondered what his part would be in the conflict.

Thom's reverie was broken by a large, callused hand on his shoulder.

"Time for the meeting, Master Bard," a deep, soothing voice said.

Thom turned to see General Farl Bloodaxe, commander of the army's infantry. The bard knew the soldier well, for he was a frequent guest at Azoun's palace. Farl looked particularly dashing that night as he stood, one hand planted on his hip, the other grasping a line overhead. The final light of the setting sun cast deep shadows on his ebony skin and glinted in his green eyes. The wind tugged at the loose-fitting white shirt the general wore. That, coupled with his silver-buckled boots and tan breeches, made him look more a pirate than an infantry commander. It wasn't an image Farl fostered, Thom knew, for the general was a well-known supporter of law and order.

Thom smiled warmly. "Thank you for reminding me, General. It's not hard to lose track of time completely when watching the sea pass by, especially after it gets dark."

"I traveled by ship quite a lot when I was a younger, you know," the general noted, leaning on the railing. He looked up at the stars, just becoming visible in the night sky, and added, "It's the one thing I miss most about my days as a world traveler."

"Too bad Vangerdahast doesn't share your enthusiasm for ships," the bard said. "He looked quite ill when I saw him earlier."

The general took a long last look at the dark water rushing by the ship.

"We'd best be going, Thom. The meeting will be underway by now."

Farl Bloodaxe was right. When he and Thom reached the king's cabin in the aft castle, Azoun was unrolling a map, talking about the reorganization of the troops that would take place once they were gathered in Telflamm.

Vangerdahast, still slightly pale, sat by an open window, taking in deep breaths of the cool air. Finally, at either side of the table, the crusade's two other generals stood, listening intently to the Cormyrian monarch.

"After seeing the ships to Telflamm, I'll be going north up the coast to deliver supplies to King Torg and rendezvous with the troops from Zhentil Keep," Azoun said. "The dwarves, being creatures of the earth, won't travel by boat, so—" He stopped speaking when Thom and Farl entered the cabin.

"My apologies, Azoun," Farl said sincerely.

"Yes, milord," Thom added. "It's my fault we're late. I was mulling over a song at the railing when the general reminded me about the meeting."

"Leave it to a bard to forget an important meeting because of a song," one of the generals said gruffly. "Never did see much use in having them along on campaign. They can even be a downright nuisance. Why, once—"

"Please, Lord Harcourt," Azoun said quickly, preventing the cavalry general from launching into one of his endless war stories. "I chose Muse Reaverson to come along as court historian, not as an entertainer. I'd rather you didn't insult him."

Looking a bit shocked at the reproach, Lord Harcourt rubbed his long white mustache and mumbled an apology. He shifted uncomfortably in his hauberk under the king's gaze. Silently Azoun wondered if the cavalry commander ever took the chain mail shirt off, for he was the only armored man in the cabin.

Farl laughed and added, "Or you'll end up looking like a fool in the chronicles. Eternal infamy is a high price to pay for a minor insult."

Though both Thom and Azoun knew the infantry commander meant that last comment as a joke, they both frowned—each for a different reason. The barb brought the family history's disturbing depiction of Salember to Azoun's mind, while Thom simply felt a little insulted that someone could even suggest he would use the position of court historian to settle personal grudges.

The third general cleared his throat noisily. "You were saying, Your Highness, you'll meet with the dwarven lord and the Zhentish . . . troops in the Great Dale." The impatience in the red-haired man's voice was barely hidden, but his hatred for the soldiers from Zhentil Keep was not.

"Yes, General Elventree," Azoun replied coldly. "Thank you for reminding us of our business."

Lord Harcourt and Vangerdahast both scowled at Brunthar Elventree.

Neither man liked the general who was to lead the archers on the crusade.

The red-haired warrior was a dalesman—a military leader from Battledale, more specifically—and he had been given the position in Azoun's army only as a concession to Lord Mourngrym and the other dalelords. The king had thought the appointment of a dalesman to lead the archers in combat a wise move, despite his earlier reservations. Elventree's election pleased the dalelords, and Azoun had hoped it might give the army a new unity.

The appointment seemed to be accomplishing just the opposite. General Elventree could barely conceal his dislike of the other generals, especially Lord Harcourt, whom he felt was elitist. He had also rubbed Vangerdahast the wrong way almost immediately by claiming that no battle was ever won through magic. Elventree didn't conceal his hatred of the Zhentish either, and he proved time and again that his temper could flare as brightly as his striking red hair.

Azoun did what he could to keep the dalesman in line, but he secretly worried that Brunthar Elventree's myopic bigotry was only a prelude to the problems he would face later in uniting the soldiers as an efficient fighting force.

The king broke the tension that had settled over the room by introducing a topic he'd discussed only that morning with Thom. "Before we begin in earnest, gentlemen" he said calmly, "I propose we adopt a single name for the crusading army."

"Yes," Vangerdahast said from his seat near the window. "A single name will help bring us together"

For the first time since they'd met, all three generals agreed. Farl Bloodaxe and Brunthar Elventree nodded, while Lord Harcourt added a hearty, "Here, here!"

"Any suggestions?" the king asked.

After a moment's silence, Lord Harcourt tugged at his long white mustache and said. "I place the title 'Knights of Faerun' under consideration."

"All right, Lord Harcourt," Thom said as he noted the name on a clay tablet.

"What about the name you mentioned to me earlier, Your Highness?"

"The Alliance of the West," Azoun offered. "Or just the Alliance."

"I don't have a suggestion myself," Brunthar said. "But I like 'the Alliance'

much better than 'the Knights of Faerun.' After all," he added sarcastically,

"we aren't all going to ride horses into battle."

Vangerdahast cut in with another possible name before Lord Harcourt could respond to the dalesman's snide comment. "How about 'the Confederacy of Western Powers?"

"Too long," Farl said. He glanced at the map, then concluded, "The Alliance is the best, I think."

Thom Reaverson noted his approval, as did Vangerdahast. Only Lord Harcourt paused before throwing his support to the title. The king thought that he saw the old cavalryman pout slightly before he mumbled, "You have my support, Your Highness."

"Fine, then," Azoun said brightly. "Now we can get to more important business." The king pushed a book onto one corner of the map to stop it from rolling and pointed to Lake Ashane, otherwise known as the Lake of Tears.

"This is where the Tuigan started their invasion of Ashanath."

"And by now," Vangerdahast offered, "they are certainly through Ashanath and into Thesk." He walked slowly to the map and traced west from the lake.

"The Tuigan probably haven't reached the town of Tammar, which is halfway between the Lake of Tears and the place where we'll land. However, the city will likely fall before we enter the conflict."

Farl rubbed his chin. "What about local resistance?"

"Either wiped out by the Tuigan or caught up in skirmishes with the Red Wizards of Thay," Azoun replied. He shook his head. "We can expect only a small addition to the army once we muster outside Telflamm."

Each man was silent for a moment, caught up in considering the hard times that obviously lay ahead of the Alliance. The wind whistled through the open window in high, haunting fits. The breeze had grown so steady, in fact, that Vangerdahast reluctantly closed the heavy leaded glass. The groans and creaks of the wooden ship and the shouts of the men on deck filled the momentary silence in the cabin.

"Then we'll have to arrange the army as best we can," Brunthar Elventree offered at last. "Take advantage of what we have."

As the generals set about organizing, then reorganizing the army into fighting units, Thom Reaverson scratched notes into soft clay tablets.

Parchment and ink were too expensive to waste on note-taking, so the bard always took down ideas and important information on a clay tablet. He would later meticulously transfer those same notes to paper and wipe the tablet clean to be used again.

The discussion lasted for hours. As the subject turned from troop organization to supply lines to potential battlefields, the lantern that hung from a beam at the center of the cabin swayed more and more. The wind soon howled outside the ship, though that sound couldn't drown out the deep, tortured creaking of plank on plank. At first the signs of the incipient storm didn't alarm King Azoun or the others in the great cabin. However, when waves started breaking against the heavy windows at the end of the room, Azoun and Vangerdahast decided to go on deck to see what was happening.

Sailors were rushing everywhere, and as the king reached the deck, he was stung by a hard, cold rain. He motioned for Vangerdahast to stay below, for it was clear that aboveboard on the ship was a dangerous place to be. The royal wizard still felt weak from his earlier sickness, so he didn't even consider arguing. As Vangerdahast shuffled back to the great cabin, Azoun pushed himself toward the railing.

The king soon found that it was difficult to see. Storm clouds had blotted out the moon, and the fierce wind made any other light source almost impossible to maintain. The rain slashed across the sky, almost parallel with the sea, and waves reared up over the railing and crashed down with frightening speed and power. The king shielded his face as best he could and struggled toward the wheel, where the Welleran's captain stationed himself during a storm.

Before Azoun could take three steps away from the railing, a sailor ran into him, knocking him to the deck. The youth didn't stop to apologize or even help the king to his feet. Instead, he dashed to the railing and emptied a large coffer he held in both hands into the water. Azoun gasped; he saw glints of gold and silver as the metal in the box spilled into the sea.

"All the treasure in my cabin," Azoun heard a shrill voice cry. "Into the water with it!" The sailor spun around and dashed toward the voice.

A wave crashed onto the deck and slammed the king into the nearest section of gunwale. Azoun stood as quickly as he could and grabbed a line.

As he wiped his wet hair from his eyes, a strong, dark hand clasped onto his shoulder.

"I thought you might want some company up here," Farl Bloodaxe yelled, trying to be heard over the wind, "when Vangerdahast came back without you."

Azoun nodded and looked toward the wheel. "Have you seen Captain Merimna, Farl? I heard his voice a moment ago."

As if in reply, the shrill voice relayed another order from the rain-darkened ship, then Captain Merimna himself stumbled toward Azoun. "Into the rigging and clew up the topsails! In the studding sails!" he cried, his right hand cupped next to his mouth.

"Captain Merimna," Azoun called.

The Welleran's gaunt commander turned his face toward the forecastle and yelled, "Bring out all the gold. Dump it over the edge and give Umberlee her due!"

Farl grabbed the sea captain and spun the man around. A sudden fork of lightning split the sky and illuminated him. The captain was soaked, like everyone else on deck, and his sodden royal blue uniform clung to him heavily. He didn't seem to notice the rain; his eyes, huge with terror, were focused on some vague, distant threat. "Umberlee's due," he mumbled.

"May all the gods of Good protect us," Farl muttered. "They didn't give the Goddess of Oceans enough tribute before we left!" The soldier gripped the captain with both hands now. "That's it, isn't it?"

Merimna nodded, then pulled away from Farl and rushed toward the bow.

Another wave washed over the gunwale, and both Azoun and Farl lost sight of the gaunt captain.

"What is it, Farl?"

"The captain didn't offer a sacrifice to Umberlee before we left port. If we don't appease her, we're all dead men." In the darkness, Azoun could barely see his face, but he could tell from Farl's voice that he was frightened.

"From that look in his eyes, I'd guess Merimna's useless to us now," Azoun said. "I know you've had a little experience with ships like this, so take command and keep us afloat." After a second, he added, "I'll find suitable tribute."

Without waiting for a reply from Farl, the king struggled toward the hatch.

The ebony-skinned general was already barking orders. Shouts from panicked sailors and the noise of masts bending in the gale obscured what the man said, but Azoun was certain that Farl Bloodaxe could get them through the storm.

The king burst into the great cabin, cold and shivering. "We've offended Umberlee," he shouted. "No one offered her tribute before we left Suzail."

Vangerdahast cursed loudly. Thom Reaverson said a quick, silent prayer to Lord Oghma, the patron god of bards, asking for his protection from the storm.

Barring that, Thom prayed that a suitably glorious tale would be written about them. Brunthar Elventree, on the other hand, whispered something to Mielikki, the Lady of the Forest, asking that he be allowed to see the trees in Battledale again.

Lord Harcourt leaned forward in his chair and steepled his fingers. "We need something of great value right away," he noted stoically. A wave crashed against the stern, shattering a pane of leaded glass. "We lost a flagship this way, back in the Year of the Dragon. Nasty business." He tugged at the corner of his mustache and frowned. "It's our responsibility as flagship to make the proper sacrifice. If she's not happy with the offering, Umberlee will take the flagship instead. Oh, anyone in her way will be sunk, but she'll head straight for us. .. ."

Azoun pulled open a chest and uncovered a few brilliant, multifaceted gems. Brunthar emptied a dozen gold pieces from a leather bag at his belt and dumped them on the table. Vangerdahast and Thom did the same. Lord Harcourt stood and walked to the center of the room.

He glanced at the gathered wealth and shook his head. "Umberlee wants something we value. Something important to us. We must—"

The sound of splintering wood and tearing canvas stopped the cavalry commander from continuing. Farl Bloodaxe's voice carried over the chaos on deck, and the men in the great cabin could hear his commands over the storm. From what Farl was telling the crew to do, Azoun concluded that one of the masts was breaking.

After running a hand through his wet, tangled hair, Azoun reached up and steadied the swaying lantern. He paused in that position to think. Across the table from the king, the royal magician and the dalesman pelted Lord Harcourt with questions. Some of their queries were drowned out by the wind and water whistling in through the broken window.

Like Azoun, Thom Reaverson stood silently in thought. He braced himself against the cabin wall and listened to the thud of waves crashing against the hull and washing over the deck. A hundred stories of misadventures at sea filled the bard's head, and he briefly reviewed each one for something that might help. Then an idea came to him, not part of a particular story, but related to all of them. He walked to the cabinet, opened it, and took out the finely carved wooden box containing his pen set and the completed pages of the crusade's annals.

As the bard left the cabin, Azoun turned to follow; Lord Harcourt, Vangerdahast, and Brunthar Elventree were too caught up in their argument to notice. The king found Thom Reaverson tossing page after finely lettered page into the sea. Rain slashed the sheets and the wind whipped the water-laden parchment, then dashed each page into the waves.

"Thom, wait!" Azoun cried as the bard tossed the last page over the side and lifted the finely carved box above his head. Another flash of lightning zigzagged a wild path across the sky, and the king saw sailors lining the rails to either side of the bard, tossing coins into the water.

In the instant of absolute blackness that followed the lightning strike, Thom hurled the case. The king reached the bard's side in time to see another fork of lightning split the night and strike a nearby cog. The bolt splintered one of the smaller ship's two square-rigged masts and set its canvas ablaze. It was the first time Azoun had realized that the storm had tossed them so close to other ships in the armada. Flames eagerly licked the cog's second mast, and soon it was burning brightly.

The eerie red glow from the burning cog cut through the night and the storm, illuminating the churning sea. The king glanced out at a few of the parchment pages bobbing on the waves.

"Why?" Azoun asked.

Thom didn't answer, but kept his gaze locked on the spot where he'd guessed his gift to Umberlee had hit the water. "Look," he said in a voice that was barely heard over the storm. He pointed to the waves.

When Azoun saw what Thom was pointing at, he gasped and gripped the railing tightly.

Against the backdrop of the burning cog, a forty-foot-high, forked wave had risen out of the ocean. The wave curled in breakers both to the left and right and moved with unnatural slowness toward the Welleran. "Lady Umberlee herself! The goddess's hand!" Azoun heard a sailor cry from nearby. "We're doomed!"

"Try and turn her about!" Farl Bloodaxe yelled from somewhere on the deck. "This'll swamp us for sure."

But the wave continued to move toward the king's carrack, slowly blotting out Azoun's view of the burning cog. A burst of wind pushed cold rain into the king's eyes, so he shielded his face for a moment. When he looked up again, the forked wave, its breakers never fal ing, was only fifty yards from the ship.

It reared even higher for a moment, then collapsed, slapping the surface with a terrible roar.

Everyone onboard the Welleran who saw the unnatural wave fall braced for the terrible aftershock. The collapse of the forty-foot-high wall of water should have sent huge waves out all around, but it didn't. Instead, the storm died abruptly. The wind lessened, the sea calmed, and soon only a steady rain fell on the king's carrack.

As Azoun, Thom, and the crew looked out at the now-calm waters, they saw hundreds of blue-white points of light sinking below the surface. The light diminished as the glowing coins sank into the sea. Closer to the surface, dozens of sheets of parchment, tangled and torn, shone more brightly. Finally, a small box with Cormyr's symbol prominent on its cover bobbed on the waves, casting a bright light.

Thom Reaverson turned to King Azoun. "I'm sorry, milord. Of the things I have on the ship, I valued them most."

Azoun watched the pages and the box sink beneath the water, their light dimming as Umberlee drew the offerings to the bottom of the sea. "I'll replace the gift, Thom, but I can't give you back all your work."

The bard shook his head. "Our work, Your Highness. The annals told of everything you've done up until now to organize the crusade." He glanced at the points of light falling beneath the water. "Perhaps that's why Umberlee accepted the pages and all as a suitable sacrifice. They tell why we're here."

Farl Bloodaxe clapped Thom on the back as he reached the bard's side.

"You may have saved us all," he said, exhaustion apparent in his voice.

The king cast a glance at the mainmast, then looked at Farl. "Will we need to make for shore? From the orders you were giving, I thought the mast was splintering."

The infantry commander shook his head. "We lost some rigging, and the masts were sorely tested by the storm. I've given command over to the first mate for now. He's inspecting the masts and the sheets to make sure we're still seaworthy, but I think the ship will be able to go on."

The rain continued to fall, so Azoun moved the discussion back to the great cabin. Thom Reaverson stayed on deck for a short time, watching the cog burn itself out, then slowly sink. The Welleran picked up some of the survivors, as did the dark-hulled Sembian ship that had passed the king's carrack earlier.

Before he left the railing, the bard took one last look into the sea. The blue-white lights that marked his sacrifice were gone. As he gazed into the inky water, Thom Reaverson wondered if Azoun or anyone else could truly understand what he'd given up. The pages that Umberlee had taken could never be exactly reproduced. They might have been his best work, now lost to the world.

Then again, Thom realized suddenly, perhaps the new annals he would write would be better. He returned to the great cabin to begin his notes anew, hoping that the goddess's hand had granted him an unintended favor.

7

Blood and Thunder

The storm caused by Umberlee's wrath was the last bad weather the fleet saw on its way across the Inner Sea. Most of the days were bright and breezy, and the cogs, coasters, and carracks made good time toward the free city of Telflamm. Still, each day presented new problems for the ragtag navy and the soldiers unaccustomed to life at sea.

This particular morning, on a Sembian ship in the crusaders' fleet, Razor John rubbed his shoulder in a futile attempt to work out a knotted muscle. The fletcher's back had begun to ache continuously after his first night aboard the dark-hulled, square-sailed cog, and he'd been unable to shake the pain since.

The constant damp and perpetual hard labor he faced each day only aggravated the problem.

Sighing, John pushed his rough, spray-soaked blanket aside and sat up.

Like most of the other passengers onboard the Sarnath, he slept on the open deck. In fact, the shortage of storage space on the cog meant that many of the sailors and soldiers on her slept, ate, and passed their free time on deck.

Still, Razor John was a hearty soul, and he quickly acclimated to the everpresent dampness and the aches it caused.

He couldn't get used to the lack of privacy. Only high in the rigging could anyone escape the bustle of the deck, and that was certainly not the safest place to be. Four sailors had already plummeted to their deaths from the masts, the victims of a single misplaced step. Picking up half the survivors of the ship struck by lightning during the storm hadn't helped the overcrowding either. The refugees from the burned ship had swelled the ranks aboard the Sarnath almost to capacity.

Clasping his hands high over his head and stretching again, John said,

"Time to get up, Mal." When the snoring lump next to the bowsprit didn't move, the fletcher kicked it softly with a toe.

"Leave me be, son of a Sembian pig," Mal grunted. He pulled his blanket up over his head, muttering incoherent curses.

Razor John frowned. Mal—or Malmondes of Suzail, as John had discovered his full name to be—had proved himself quite adept at starting brawls with comments like that one. Though Mal was seemingly a good-hearted man, the fletcher found it hard to see beyond his many prejudices.

The fact that John, Mal, and their other companion, Kiri, were traveling on a Sembian cog only made the problem worse.

John nudged the ham-fisted soldier again. "Don't give the first mate an excuse to start in on you again, Mal." As the lump beneath the spray-soaked blanket grumbled, the fletcher pulled on boots and placed a shapeless felt hat on his mop of sandy hair.

"Won't get up again, eh?"

Razor John started, then turned to face the person who'd just posed the question. "No, Kiri," he said. "Just like every morning."

The thin, brown-haired woman handed John two hard biscuits and a piece of fruit. The fletcher let his gaze wander over the woman's lithe form to her slightly round face. As usual, her brown eyes were bright and made John glad to see her. In fact, he had recently found himself using images of Kiri and her smile as shields against the boredom and fatigue that assailed everyone aboard ship.

"Don't fret, John. If Mal sleeps for much longer, we'll split his morningfeast."

Kiri began to juggle the biscuits as she waited for a reaction from the blanket-covered warrior.

She didn't have to wait long, for Mal soon rolled over and scowled at her.

The blond soldier quickly held one of his large fists in front of his eyes, shielding them from the bright morning sun. "Only you would think of something that low, Kiri Trollslayer."

The soldier spoke the woman's name with as much venom as he could muster so early in the morning. He knew that Kiri hated her family name of Trollslayer. She hadn't revealed it to John or Mal at all; they had learned it from another adventurer onboard the Sarnath. Kiri had denied the name at first, but then reluctantly admitted that her father was indeed the famous Cormyrian freebooter, Borlander the Trollslayer.

"At least I have a family name, Mal. I know who my father is," Kiri now retorted, trying to show as little annoyance as possible.

Mal laughed a deep braying laugh. "Ha. Good one, Kiri." The woman knit her brows in confusion. Her reply had been far from original. But then, she realized, Malmondes of Suzail was far from witty.

Both Razor John and Kiri Trollslayer shook their heads as Mal lumbered to his feet and stumbled to the galley. They both found the warrior trying on their patience, but he seemed completely devoted to them. In fact, John and Kiri found it difficult to get away from him for more than a few minutes at a time.

And though they enjoyed what little time they had alone, for now, at least, the couple was resigned to Mal's presence. There was simply nowhere on the ship to hide from him.

"By the Goddess of Pain, I hate that name," Kiri cursed softly but passionately as soon as Mal was out of earshot. She kicked the soldier's blanket up against the gunwale and sat down on the bowsprit.

John looked at her sympathetically. "Are you ready to tell me why yet?"

Kiri sighed and glanced around. A Sembian sailor swabbed the deck nearby, while two others just free of watch curled up against a nearby hatch to sleep. "With that kind of name—," she began, then stopped abruptly when one of the dozing Sembian sailors looked up at her.

"Mind your own damned business," Kiri snapped. She leaned toward the sailor as if daring him to reply. He snorted a laugh, then turned and at least pretended not to be listening.

Razor John moved closer to Kiri. "Go on," he urged. More than anyone the fletcher had met—including the flower girl in Suzail's marketplace—she ignited his interest. The more he knew about her, the better.

Kiri locked her sparkling eyes on John's face and smiled. "People expect me to be some kind of professional troll killer. I've never even seen a troll in my life. One might come up and bite me, and I wouldn't be able to tell it apart from a tax collector."

The Sembian sailor rolled over again. "Have you heard the joke about the tax collector?" he asked, ignoring Kiri's angry stare. "No? All right, what's the boldest thing in Faerun?" When no one replied, the sailor said, "A tax collector's shirt. It hangs around the neck of a thief every day."

"That isn't the way I heard it," Mal said, standing above the sailor. A look of confusion crossed his thick-boned, fleshy face. "I thought the joke was about Sembian millers."

For an instant Kiri considered telling Mal that the sailor had just finished a joke about King Azoun, for that would certainly provoke the warrior into hitting the nosy sailor. She relented, deciding that a fight would mean another run-in between Mal and the first mate. No one needed that. "He just got it wrong, Mal. Hear any news in the galley?"

The blond soldier shoved a whole biscuit in his mouth, chewed twice, then swallowed. "Yeah, actually I did. One of the cooks heard that the captain of Azoun's carrack, the, uh—" He scratched his head in confusion.

" Welleran," John said between bites of fruit. He glanced at Mal and realized that the thickness of his facial bones accentuated the bewildered look that often clung to the warrior.

"Yeah," Mal said, "the Welleran. Anyway, the captain supposedly took some of the gold that was meant to be sacrificed to Umberlee before the fleet left Suzail. They say that he was the cause of that storm."

"They going to give him a trial?" Kiri asked, leaning back against the railing.

Mal wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coarse woolen shirt. "Nah. He's dead. Got washed overboard during the storm."

"The gods take their due," Razor John noted. Kiri nodded, and Mal just scratched his chest through his damp clothing.

A voice from the rigging broke the silence that followed the fletcher's comment. "Ship off the starboard!"

The companions squinted until they saw a small speck near the horizon. In minutes, the Sarnath's bow had been realigned toward the dot. John, Kiri, and Mal sat near the bowsprit for a time, watching the other ship grow larger and larger. The first mate, a cross, foul-mouthed woman, came by soon and sent them to their morning tasks.

Mal muttered defamations against Sembians, dalesmen, and anyone else he could think of as he made his way to the ship's hold. John didn't envy the soldier his duty, which was to feed, clean, and exercise the horses stored in the deepest part of the ship. The animals were kept in slings much of the time to prevent injury. That captivity made them high-strung and skittish, though.

Many was the day that Mal came back from his duty with a bloody bite mark or large purple bruise from one of his charges.

Kiri cheerfully went to her station in the rigging. The daughter of Borlander the Trollslayer had keen eyes, so she was often assigned lookout duty.

Despite the fact that her job was more dangerous than Mal's, she relished the time it gave her away from the crowded deck. She'd even invited John up into the masts on occasion, but the fletcher found the heights too unsettling to stay there long.

Razor John spent his days working on arrows and fletching. Azoun's generals had made it clear to all the ship's captains that weaponsmiths, including fletchers and bowyers, were to be given the time to work on tools for the crusaders. Without the freedom to stroll, selling his wares, John found the work a little tedious. Still, if he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the slight swaying of the deck, he could picture himself back in the marketplace. The noisy bustle of sailors and soldiers, the salty tang in the air, and the cry of seabirds lofting over the ship certainly made it easy to imagine the Sarnath as an extension of Suzail's market.

The fletcher was letting his mind wander over his days in the marketplace when he heard Kiri's voice from high on a mast. "Ship close to the starboard."

"Signal her," came another voice from the deck. John listened for a reply, but if there was one, it was lost in the murmur of the people nearby.

Quickly John stacked the shaft he was working on to the pile he'd finished in the hour since the ship had first been sighted. He stood, stretched, and glanced at the ruined carrack that foundered a few hundred yards from the Sarnath.

The derelict ship's rigging hung loose, and its sails were shredded and limp. Gulls stood unmolested on the rail, a clear indication that something was wrong onboard the tri-masted carrack. For ten minutes, the Sarnath tried to raise a response from the ship, which someone eventually identified by its serpentine masthead as the Turmish vessel, Ouroboros. No one on the transport replied to the shouts or signals from the Sembian cog.

"The Ouroboros is part of the crusaders' fleet," a sailor told John. The fletcher frowned and wondered if he knew anyone who'd shipped out on the now-abandoned vessel.

A sharp rap on the shoulder brought John out of his contemplation. "Ho, fletcher," the first mate snapped. "Come with me. I've got some real work for you." She spun around and pushed her way across the crowded deck.

Razor John sighed, then followed. The first mate had decided shortly after the start of the trip to make his and Kiri's life miserable; the fight Mal had started with her the first night out from Suzail was certainly the reason. Still, the fletcher knew it was futile to argue.

"Help lower that," the first mate told John. She pointed to a small boat that hung at the rail. Without a word, he went to work with three others, lowering the craft and its two passengers into the water.

One of the men in the boat was a Sembian sailor. The other was a young, gold-haired cleric. His robes and the holy symbol around his neck indicated his worship of Lathander, the God of Dawn and Renewal. "I'll signal you if I need help," the priest shouted as the sailor took up the oars and started to row toward the Ouroboros.

The first mate placed a rough hand on the shoulder of the captain, who now stood nearby, and said, "We should be ready to attack if need be." She pointed to the wallowing carrack and added, "This might be some kind of pirate trap."

The captain, a slothful, careless man with a few days growth of beard darkening his cheeks, simply nodded. He scanned the seemingly abandoned ship with watery gray eyes, then turned his attention to flicking the smaller spots of dirt from his soiled white and gold uniform. This was a scene that Razor John had seen repeated in various forms throughout the voyage. It was clear, to the fletcher at least, that the first mate actually ran the Sarnath.

"All right, fletcher. Get your bow and get right back here." The first mate cupped her hands over her small, cruel mouth. "All archers to the starboard rail. Bring your weapons."

The cry was relayed around the cog, and John listened to men and women grumble as they gathered up their weapons from the spots where they slept.

The fletcher took his longbow from his bed near the bowsprit and returned to the first mate's side.

Much of the ship's attention was focused on the little boat as the sailor and the cleric made their way across to the Turmish ship, then boarded her. Only the gold-haired priest climbed up to the carrack's deck. The few mottled seabirds that had gathered along the rails scattered into the air when he got close. Squawking and screeching angrily, the birds circled over the two ships.

A few of the men attempted to shoot the scavengers out of the sky, but the first mate swiftly ordered the men who'd fired at the birds be put to hard labor for the afternoon. John simply frowned at the waste of good arrows for impromptu target practice.

After a few moments the priest appeared at the Ouroboros's rail and waved to the Sarnath. "No one left alive," someone muttered behind John. The fletcher was thinking the very same thing.

The Sembian sailor rowed the small boat back to the Sarnath faster than he had rowed away from her. The priest seemed to be bowed in prayer the entire way back.

"Well?" the captain asked when the ship's boat got near. "What did you find?"

The priest tried to stand, but the boat rocked so much that he nearly tumbled into the sea. His companion grabbed him by the hem of his scarlet robe and yanked him back to a sitting position. From their erratic, almost frantic actions, it seemed clear that both men had been frightened by what had been discovered on the abandoned carrack.

"Plague," the priest replied at last. He took his holy symbol—a wooden disk painted a rosy pink—and rubbed it between his hands. "They're all dead."

A rumble of concern and fear ran along the rail, as those who heard the priest's report discussed it with their neighbors. The first mate cursed and spat into the water. "Well, Captain," she said at last, "there's not much doubt about what we should do now."

Again the captain nodded. "Not much doubt at all."

The two men in the boat couldn't hear the discussions held at normal levels onboard the ship, but they must have sensed something was wrong. They both grabbed for the oars and attempted to push the small boat closer to the black-hulled Sembian cog.

The first mate turned to Razor John. "Kill both the sailor and the priest, fletcher."

John gasped. "No!" he said, outrage in his voice.

The first mate raised her callused hand as if she were going to strike the fletcher, then she stopped. "Those men have been exposed to plague," she hissed. "Kill them before they get aboard, or we'll end up just like the Ouroboros."

The comment stopped John cold. He stared out at the two men in the small boat, then thought of a plague spreading through the ship, killing everyone on the Sarnath. I'll die, too, he realized. And Kiri. That thought, above all, disturbed him terribly.

He met the cold, hard gaze of the first mate. "Why me?"

She smiled a malevolent, evil grin. "Because you're a soldier now, Cormyrian, and I'm an officer. You do what I say. Besides, do you want a ship full of crusaders to die because of two men? You won't beat the Tuigan that way."

Closing his eyes, John came to a decision. He hesitated for only an instant, pulling his black, fingerless gloves tight on his hands, then snatched a blue-fletched arrow from his quiver and nocked it in his bow. The sailor in the small boat looked up just as John let the arrow fly.

The Sembian sank down, an arrow through his heart. The cleric wailed once and got to his knees. "I can cast a spell!" he cried. "I won't spread the plague."

"We just can't take that chance," the captain replied coldly. He turned his gray eyes to John and casually flicked two fingers toward the ship's boat.

The fletcher sighted the cleric's heart and pulled back on the bowstring.

The fine cord bit into his fingers, then he let another arrow fly. The Lathanderite futilely tried to get out of the way. Instead of striking him in the heart, the blue-fletched arrow hit his shoulder, knocking him from the boat. He struggled for a moment, then sank. The cleric's wooden holy symbol was left floating on the surface, but soon it, too, dropped beneath the water.

"You eight archers to my right," the first mate yelled, "get some pitch and lob flaming arrows onto the Ouroboros. I want her fully engulfed before we leave."

After glancing at the still form in the boat, she turned to John. "You do your job well. Now all you have to do is get used to following orders." When he replied with only a blank look, the first mate added, "This is a war, fletcher, not a contest of skill at the spring festival."

Silently John walked back to the bowsprit. Along the way, a few sailors slapped him on the back and congratulated him on his fine marksmanship.

As he leaned back against the gunwale, the fletcher pondered why no one seemed especially chilled by what had just occurred. After a little while, he decided that the first mate was correct: he'd only done his job. Razor John wasn't proud of the task he'd reluctantly completed, but he went back to working arrows convinced that King Azoun would at least understand he'd killed only to save the ship and further the cause of the crusade.

* * * * *

The port of Telflamm was crowded with ships of every sort. As King Azoun scanned the harbor from the deck of the Welleran, he estimated that about two hundred vessels from the crusaders' fleet lay moored nearby—almost half the total armada. Boats of many sizes shuttled between the docks and the larger ships, carrying soldiers and sailors to shore. The piers were filled to capacity with cogs and carracks, which were being unladen by longshoremen.

Crates of food and weapons, horses and livestock, even parts for mobile forges and supply wagons, covered Telflamm's docks.

"We're ready to go, Your Highness."

Azoun nodded. "Then let's be on our way," he said to Farl Bloodaxe. "Will we be to Torg's camp before nightfall?"

The general shrugged. "I don't know these waters very well. I would say more likely before sunrise tomorrow morning." The dark-skinned man shielded his eyes with his hands and looked toward the sun, which was now high in the east over the onion-shaped domes of Telflamm's temples and civic buildings.

"Yes, definitely by dawn tomorrow."

"King Torg awaits," Azoun noted cheerfully, motioning for Farl to give the orders to proceed. The Welleran was quickly under way north along the coast of the Easting Reach, two other Cormyrian carracks following close behind.

Azoun glanced back at Telflamm once, then began a leisurely stroll around the ship. For the first time since the carrack had left Suzail—a little over a month before—the Welleran was quiet. Most of the passengers had been dropped in port so that extra supplies could be loaded aboard the Cormyrian tri-masters. This food and other essentials were destined for King Torg and his dwarven troops, and whatever soldiers Zhentil Keep had seen fit to send.

Only a skeleton crew remained aboard the flagship, commanded by Farl Bloodaxe, who had won the men's support during the storm.

With Lord Harcourt and General Elventree secure in Telflamm, keeping the troops in line, Azoun had time to discuss the use of magic in the upcoming conflict with Vangerdahast. The king's trusted advisor was along on the crusade to supervise the use of the War Wizards against the Tuigan. Azoun had no doubts that his old tutor would wreak havoc upon Yamun Khahan's army given the chance.

"From everything I've heard," Vangerdahast had said during one meeting,

"the Tuigan don't like magic very much at all. In fact, their permanent capital—

if you can call a tent city a capital—is set up in a magic-dead area. Spells won't work there." The mage had stroked his beard then and looked wistfully at the flickering lantern. "A few well-placed lightning bolts ought to shake them up quite a bit."

Azoun leaned on the base of a mast. He laughed to himself, thinking of the gleam that shone in Vangerdahast's eyes whenever he spoke of using spells against the horsewarriors. Azoun was sure that his old friend was getting at least a little caught up in the adventure of the crusade.

In fact, from what the king had seen during the sail from Suzail, the entire army seemed to be growing more excited, more enthusiastic about the campaign. The Welleran had come close to many other transport ships during the trip across the Inner Sea. Every time the flagship got near enough that another vessel could see she flew King Azoun's standard, she was welcomed with cheers of greeting.

That joyous sound kept Azoun's spirits buoyed through the quiet trip along the coast that day, and the king's growing confidence in his army began to show in his demeanor. He spent little time during the night worrying about the battles to come. Instead, he thought about his wife and wondered how she was faring back in Suzail. Before he went to sleep, he resolved to have Vangerdahast contact Filfaeril as soon as possible, once the supplies were delivered.

Vangerdahast even noticed that Azoun seemed relaxed and well rested on the morning they reached their rendezvous point, on the northern shore of the Easting Reach, just south of the port town of Uthmerg.

"Why so animated this day, Your Highness?" the royal wizard asked as he watched the king briskly pace back and forth at the rail.

"I am happy because our goal is almost in sight," Azoun told the mage. He stopped pacing, then pointed east to the tall-grassed, rolling hills that stretched away from the shore. "And King Torg is sure to be ready to join our army by now."

The wizard squinted toward the shore. The choppy, shallow water prevented the Welleran and the two ships accompanying her from getting closer than a few hundred yards from the beach's dark sand. "Then I suggest we get a move on. Do you see any envoys yet?"

Now the king scanned the dark shoreline, too, but saw nothing save a few white birds running in the surf. "No. You contacted them already, didn't you, Vangy?"

"Hours ago," the wizard sighed. He rubbed his chin, then nodded. "If you have no objections, Azoun, I'll have us in the dwarves' camp in a few moments."

With that, the royal magician fell silent and noiselessly mouthed an incantation. His eyes rolled back in his head, revealing milky white orbs. "That will do nicely," Azoun heard the mage mumble. His voice sounded hollow, as if it were coming from a great distance. Before long, Vangerdahast closed his eyes, then shook his head briskly.

"I've located the camp, and I think I've spotted a fine location for us to teleport to. We'd best move right away, however." The wizard grabbed Azoun's wrists. "Don't want some fool dwarf to park a horse or a cart there."

"Farl," the king called. When the general appeared from a hatch nearby, Azoun said, "The escort hasn't shown up, so we're going ahead to the camp.

We'll send word as soon as the dwarves are ready to receive their supplies."

The ebony-skinned man nodded, then asked, "Is there anything else I should do while you're gone?"

"Just keep the ship afloat," Vangerdahast said quickly. "Come, Your Highness, we really can't dawdle."

Azoun swallowed and clenched his teeth. "Let's get it over with, Vangy."

The king had complete faith in his friend. Still, the gruesome stories he'd heard about mages mistakenly teleporting into stones or trees, or ending up hundreds of yards above the ground after the spell, made Azoun nervous.

Again Vangerdahast fell into a rapid, rumbling chant. A brilliant yellow light flashed into existence around the king and the wizard. Azoun looked down, but before he could note the fact that the deck was suddenly visible through his ghostlike feet, the world disappeared. The only sound of the king's passing was the hollow thud of air rushing to fill the space where he'd stood only a moment before.

White. Blinding, empty white.

That was all Azoun saw for what seemed like minutes. Then the world and all its colors returned. The king rubbed his eyes and looked around. Low, grass-covered hills surrounded him on every side.

"I'm sure if I do that one hundred times, I'll never get used to it," Azoun said softly. He staggered forward a step, then stopped to regain his balance.

Vangerdahast chuckled. "Rather like the way I feel about sea travel, I'd imagine."

Unlike the king, he was not troubled by magical travel. In fact, the royal magician seemed energized by the experience, as if the spell had somehow granted him a little extra strength. "The dwarves' camp is—" The wizard paused, then pointed east. "In that direction, I believe."

Azoun was still staggering slightly when he topped the rise. Though he felt weakened by the teleportation, he still climbed the slope with greater speed than Vangerdahast could manage. Being the first one up the hill, Azoun saw the crossbows before his friend.

"Stand where you are," a red-bearded dwarf growled, leveling his weapon menacingly at the king. He spoke in Common, a universal trade language in Faerun, but his words were tinged with a heavy accent.

"Aye," added his companion, who was shorter than the first and much, much fatter. "You'll not be sneaking around our camp, human." His accent was even more pronounced than the other dwarf's.

"Just a minute," the Cormyrian king said evenly, holding his hands away from his sword. "We're here to see Torg."

Vangerdahast trudged up next to the king. The dwarves shifted their crossbows to target the wizard. "Don't be foolish," the mage snapped, dismissing the guards with a wave of his hand. "This is King Azoun of—"

"Pryderi mac Dylan, you absolute dunderhead, put that thrice-damned crossbow down!"

Both dwarven sentries, Azoun, and Vangerdahast looked up sharply at the loud, bellowing command. A scowling dwarf, waving his hands wildly around his head, stormed up the hill behind the crossbowmen. Neither the Cormyrian king nor his advisor were fluent enough in Dwarvish to understand exactly what was being said, but they got the general idea from the other dwarves'

reactions.

The red-bearded dwarf lowered his weapon and dropped to one knee. After he'd pulled his fellow sentry to the ground, he said, "Ironlord, I didn't—"

The scowling dwarf reached the top of the hill. He stood, hands on hips, for a moment, then cuffed the red-haired sentry on the back of the head. "I warned you there'd be royalty about, you oaf," he grumbled in Dwarvish.

"Can't you recognize a king when you see one?"

Azoun and Vangerdahast exchanged brief, concerned glances. The dwarf the others called "Ironlord" wore a steel breastplate covered by a black cloth surcoat. A brilliant red phoenix clutching a warhammer spread over the surcoat's front. The dwarf's thick black beard only partially obscured that symbol, for the hair was bound with thin golden chain into two neat forks. The forked beard made the ironlord look a little ominous, and his hard, closely set eyes only heightened the effect.

This was obviously Torg, ironlord of Earthfast.

"Your Lordship," Azoun began in rough, broken Dwarvish. "I am King Azoun of Cormyr, and this is Vangerdahast, royal mage of my court, commander of the army's War Wizards."

The dwarf smiled broadly and studied the king with his dark, steely eyes.

"Welcome, Your Highness. You speak passable Dwarvish for a human," Torg said in perfect Common. "My apologies for this ... scene." He glowered at the kneeling sentries.

Azoun tried to return the ironlord's smile. "It's certainly understandable," he offered, pointing back down the hill. "We appeared out of nowhere. They were only doing their—"

Torg cocked his head to one side. "Appeared, you say? Out of nowhere?

What happened to the blasted escort I sent to meet you at the shore?" He raised one hand up to his black beard and pulled a gold chain tight around one fork.

"They didn't show up," Vangerdahast replied. "We waited quite a while, but no one came."

The dwarf's face darkened in anger again. He turned abruptly to the kneeling sentries and snapped, "Gather up a patrol and find the escort I sent out." After a pause, he added, "Bring them to me when you find them." The guards rushed to the task.

Vangerdahast decided then that he was going to have to brush up on the spell that allowed him to comprehend strange languages. Torg's habit of slipping in and out of Dwarvish made the wizard uneasy. Since it was his job to keep Azoun safe while away from the ship, Vangerdahast knew he'd feel more secure if he could understand what everyone said at all times.

Torg exhaled sharply, as if he were expelling his anger. The ironlord then faced his guests. "Please allow me to escort you through the camp personally." He spun on the heels of his thick-soled boots and marched down the hill.

Azoun and Vangerdahast quickly fell into step behind the dwarf. Torg's short legs didn't hinder his speed, the humans soon learned. The dwarven king set a good pace as he stomped toward the camp. Walking behind Torg, Azoun noted that, apart from the gleaming metal of his armor and sword, the dwarf was decked out entirely in red and black. Blood and thunder, he concluded silently.

For his part, Vangerdahast was studying the layout of the dwarven camp.

The hill the wizard marched down led to a large, grass-covered plain. Uniform, brown tents spread in straight lines across the open area. The precision of the lines astounded the wizard, who had assumed the camp would be like most human camps: relatively chaotic sprawls held together only by proximity.

Before the two kings and the wizard reached the first tent, they saw the army. Hundreds upon hundreds of short, stocky dwarven soldiers marched in precise ranks. The bright sunlight glinted off their polished armor and the blades of their weapons. Azoun noted with some surprise that the dwarves were carrying polearms.

"You make them drill in full armor?" Azoun asked Torg as they got near a formation. He knew from experience that the hot, early summer sun would be devastating on the armor-clad soldiers.

The ironlord stopped and looked at Azoun, puzzlement showing on his face. "How do you expect them to fight in armor if they don't train in armor?"

"But the sun. The heat will—"

Torg snorted. "It may well be sunny on the day of the first battle. The men will be glad we did this then." The dwarf shaded his eyes and looked up into the sky. "I hate the sun myself. Too damned bright." He turned to Vangerdahast. "Of course, we don't get this much sunlight underground. Another good reason to drill the troops in it."

Surveying the army for a moment, the wizard scratched his head and said,

"This is the first dwarven army I've seen with polearms." He motioned to the marching troops. "Why are you training with pikes?"

A wicked gleam flickered in Torg's dark eyes, which neither Azoun nor Vangerdahast missed. "Do you remember the human general I mentioned in my letters?" Without waiting for a reply, Torg said to Azoun, "The human was very familiar with Your Highness's treatise on the use of polearms in warfare.

Recommended it so highly, in fact, I read the book myself. Quite enlightening."

Azoun bowed slightly, a little embarrassed by the unexpected praise. "You intend to use the pikes against the Tuigan?"

"Of course."

"But the Tuigan are archers," Vangerdahast exclaimed. "Pikes won't do you any good if they stay two hundred yards away and fire arrows at you." He gestured at the drilling troops. "You'll be slaughtered."

Torg laughed and dismissed the wizard's comments with a wave of his hand. "Yamun Khahan has never faced dwarven troops before, and I'm sure his warriors' arrows haven't been tested against plate armor forged in Earthfast." The ironlord put his short, round fingers to his mouth and whistled.

"And we have ranged weapons of our own."

The dwarven captains who were scattered throughout the field signaled to soldiers carrying large drums. The drummers beat a fast, chaotic riff, and the army rushed into a long line, three dwarves deep. As the soldiers in the front rank knelt and planted their pikes in a defensive wall, the back two ranks quickly drew and cocked heavy crossbows. The dwarves made it look easy, but the strength required to ready a crossbow would have made it practically impossible for human armies to accomplish that maneuver in so short a time.

Torg beamed with pride. He raised a hand, signaling the captains again, and a new cadence was sounded. The dwarven troops disarmed their crossbows, slung the heavy weapons on their belts, and regained their pikes.

The drumbeat changed yet again, and the troops broke into four large squares, twenty dwarves wide by twenty dwarves deep. The edges of each square bristled with pikes.

Azoun, almost caught up in the display of amazing military training, saw that Torg was looking at him, obviously waiting for a compliment.

"Impressive," the Cormyrian king said at last. "Perhaps you can give our troops a few pointers."

The ironlord laughed, a deep bellowing sound that seemed to echo in his chest before breaking into the world. "Indeed," he said, giving Azoun a solid slap on the back. Vangerdahast concluded then and there that he didn't like the ruler of Earthfast very much at all.

Torg ordered the troops to resume the regular drills. With a rumble of drums and the clatter of armor, the squares broke into marching columns.

Satisfied with the display, the ironlord led his guests toward a pavilion at the heart of the dwarven camp. As they walked through the tent city, both Azoun and Vangerdahast were amazed at the absolute order of the place. Not only were the tents arrayed in straight lines, but gear was stored in neat piles and even the inevitable garbage dump was kept contained in a tidy, square en-closure.

The dwarven camp was like none Azoun had ever seen or even heard about. He suddenly wished Thom Reaverson had come along. The bard would have found the place fascinating.

"I have yet to hear from the troops your allies in Zhentil Keep are sending,"

Torg said as he entered the pavilion. The king winced slightly at being called an "ally" of the Keep, but, in this instance the term was accurate.

"They should have been here by now," Vangerdahast noted as he sat at a low, long table. "In fact, they should have reached here more than a day or two ago... if Zhentil Keep is honoring the agreement."

Vangerdahast's concern was not lost on Azoun. The king ran a hand through his gray-shot beard and sighed. If Zhentil Keep broke the treaty, it might mean they intended to invade the Dales. In truth, the king realized, they could be attacking even as he sat there, pondering the point. "I should contact the queen," he told the wizard. "She might have heard something recently."

"You'll have time for that in a bit," Torg said, scowling at the reference to the wizard's magic. "I'll send some scouts to the north and west. That'll do for now." He took three brightly polished silver mugs from a metal case and set them on the table. He turned his dark eyes to the pavilion's door and yelled something in Dwarvish.

A smartly liveried squire rushed into the tent, carrying a large wooden keg.

The dwarf's beard was short and, unlike Torg, his face was almost free of deep-set wrinkles. Azoun assumed the servant was very young, but he always found it extremely difficult to estimate a dwarf's age.

"Drink," Torg said, opening a silver spout in the keg and filling the mugs. He handed one to Azoun and the other to Vangerdahast, then hefted the third and raised it in a toast. "To the complete destruction of the Tuigan. May the corpses of the horsewarriors reach to the sky!"

"Indeed," Vangerdahast said weakly, rather appalled at the crass toast.

Azoun repeated Torg's toast more enthusiastically. The dwarf's bellicose oath brought back memories of Azoun's time with the King's Men, promising over mugs of ale to vanquish all the evil in Faerun.

The dwarven brew was very bitter. Vangerdahast drank little, but Azoun and Torg shared a few mugs as they discussed the arrangement of troops.

Messengers came and went, and scouts were sent to search for the Zhentish force. The afternoon passed, and still there was no sign of the Zhentish troops.

Torg left Azoun and Vangerdahast alone in the pavilion shortly after sunset, promising to return as soon as he'd located the missing patrol. Using a spell, Vangerdahast contacted Filfaeril, but she had heard little from the Zhentish of late.

"The only news is that Lythrana Dargor, that beautiful envoy who visited with us right before you left, might be assigned to Cormyr as a permanent ambassador," said the conjured, misty image of the queen. "She has nothing but praise for you, Your Highness. Don't you think she was quite attractive, Vangy?" she asked, though the question was more of a barb aimed at her husband.

"Ah, you've found me out, my love," sighed Azoun mockingly. "Who could have guessed that I'd throw you over for a Zhentish envoy."

With a slight grunt, Vangerdahast pushed himself to his feet. "This spell takes too much energy from me for you two to be spending it this way," he grumbled. "My apologies, Your Highnesses, but—unless there's some other matters of state to discuss—we must end this."

The laughter faded from Filfaeril's ice-blue eyes. "Things here are quiet.

Not a grumble from the trappers." After a pause, she added, "Take care, my husband, and do not worry about our kingdom."

"We'll speak again soon," the king replied. The misty image of the queen dissipated, and the pavilion grew quiet.

For more than an hour, the Cormyrian king sat at the long table, toying with an empty mug. Upon closer study, he noticed that the fine silver drinking cups were engraved with grisly scenes of war. Dwarves battled pig-snouted orcs and shorter creatures Azoun recognized as goblins. On another mug, dwarven warriors carried skulls into a vast cavern and stacked them in neat pyramids.

Without looking at his advisor, the king asked, "Is there some way for you to find the Zhentish troops with your magic?"

The wizard sat at the other end of the table, facing the king. His head lolled to one side in a fitful doze. He snorted awake at the king's question. "Eh?" he mumbled. "The troops from the Keep have arrived?"

Azoun smiled and, after a final glance at the strange engravings, set his mug down. "It's getting rather late," he said. "We should either help look for the missing dwarves or try to contact the Zhentish army."

Rubbing his eyes, Vangerdahast said, "You know that dwarves hate magic almost as much as they hate water. Al owing you to contact the queen was risky enough, thank you. Perhaps we should just return to the Welleran." The wizard stretched and motioned toward the pavilion's open door. "At least I could get a good night's—"

A strangled gasp escaped Vangerdahast's lips. The three lanterns that hung from the pavilion's supports cast enough light on his face to reveal that it had gone stark white. His mouth hung open a little in obvious astonishment, and his eyes were wide with surprise.

Azoun turned to see what had shocked the royal magician so. His hand slipped automatically to his sword, but when the king saw the armor-clad figure in the doorway, he felt his arm fall limp at his side. Unlike Vangerdahast, Azoun managed to whisper a single name: "Alusair."

A slight, devilish smile crept across the face of the woman in the doorway.

She nodded slightly and said, "Hello, Father. It's been quite a long time."

8

The Mithril Princess

Princess Alusair of House Obarskyr smiled and held out her hands to her father. Still numb from the surprise meeting, King Azoun hurried to his daughter and embraced her tightly. After a moment, he pulled back and studied her face.

In the four years since she'd left Suzail, Alusair had changed quite a bit.

Now twenty-five, the princess was possessed of a mature beauty. A few wrinkles gathered at the corners of her oak-brown eyes, and her golden hair haloed her face like morning sunlight. Smiling, the princess stepped back from Azoun and said, "Well, where's the anger I expected?"

The king continued to stare. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if she was an illusion or if this was merely a dream. "I—I haven't had time to be angry, Allie." He choked back a tear and dropped his eyes.

"Your mother and I... we hoped you weren't..."

"Dead?" The princess laughed and moved to the table. "Hardly. I've been in some tight spots in the last four years, but never that close to the realm of Lord Cyric. The God of Death will have to wait awhile for me."

By now, sufficient time had passed for Vangerdahast to recover from the shock of seeing Alusair, too. "You ungrateful little snipe! I ought to blast you into pieces for the worry you've caused your family!" The wizard curled his hands into tight fists and practically shook with rage.

Alusair moved farther into the tent and sighed. "I've missed you, too, Vangy." The wizard scowled and looked away. A shadow of anger crossed the princess's features, but she quickly brought up another subject.

"How is Mother? And Tanalasta?" Alusair filled a mug with strong dwarven ale and set it down.

Azoun returned to his place at the long, low table. "Your mother and sister are both fine. Worried about you, of course." He rubbed his eyes and gestured to the camp outside. "What are you doing here?"

With a slight groan, Alusair opened the clasps on her brassards, the armor on her arms. "I've been helping King Torg defend his land against some ambitious orcs and goblins from the north." She slipped the heavy plate off her arms and let it fall to the pavilion's grass floor.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Azoun looked to Vangerdahast for direction.

The wizard had turned to face the conversation again, but his features were clouded with anger. "So how did you elude my wizards for all this time?" the king asked at last.

Alusair undid the straps of the cuirass that protected her chest. "It really wasn't that difficult," she said, glancing at Vangerdahast. "No offense to Vangy, but this was all I needed."

The princess dropped the cuirass beside the brassards, then held up her left hand. A bright gold band hugged her ring finger. "I bought it from a mage in Ravens Bluff. A spell on the ring makes it impossible for someone to detect my whereabouts through magical means."

"I knew it had to be something foolish like that," Vangerdahast grumbled.

The king looked closely at Alusair's hands as she adjusted the padded doublet she wore under her armor. They were grimy with sweat and hardened from years of gripping a sword, but that was not what Azoun noticed. "Where is your signet ring?" the king demanded.

Her smile fled completely, and Alusair sat down at the low dwarven table.

She moved stiffly, not surprising since she'd not removed the brichette from her hips or the cuisses from her legs. "I threw it away, dropped it into the sea."

"Why?" Azoun snapped as he stood. "That ring could have saved your life.

It identified you as a princess of House Obarskyr."

"Which is exactly why I had to get rid of it. I didn't want a bounty hunter to capture me and try to ransom me back to Cormyr." The princess took a long, slow swallow of ale.

"So you tossed your heritage into the sea?" In the quiet minute that followed the rebuke, Azoun slumped into his chair. "Make me understand, Allie. Why?"

"I told you, I didn't want someone to blackmail the family. I don't think you realize how much danger you put me in by offering a reward for my return."

Azoun shook his head and waved his hand angrily. "No, no. Why did you run away in the first place?"

After another sip of the ale, Alusair leaned forward, her head resting on her hand. "The note I left should have explained everything, Father. I just couldn't stand it at court any longer. You and Mother were always tied up with some petty political problem, Tanalasta spent more time worrying about fashion than the state of the country." She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "I don't want to go over all of this again."

"Then why are you here?" Vangerdahast interjected from the other side of the tent. His face was hidden in the shadows, but Alusair could imagine the look of puzzlement it held.

Her eyes still closed, the princess sighed. "I thought it might be time to forget the past." She turned to her father, her mask of cocky self-assurance cracking for the first time. "I thought you would finally accept me for what I am, not what you want me to be."

Vangerdahast walked to Azoun's side. "I'll explore the camp for a while," he said softly in the king's ear.

Once Vangerdahast had gone, Azoun waited for Alusair to say something.

After a few moments of continued silence, he gave up. "You threw away your heritage, Allie." The king paused, trying to push the anger from his voice. The more he thought about his daughter, however, the angrier he became. "And for what did you give it up?" the king snapped after a moment. "To become a sell-sword? A freebooter? You could have ruled Cormyr one day!"

Alusair laughed bitterly. "Tanalasta is older, remember? She'll be queen, alongside whomever you and Mother decide will make a suitable king. Even if I could rule," she added, turning away from the king, "I wouldn't want to."

"You've no respect for responsibility," Azoun replied. "That's your biggest problem. You're a princess. But do you use the gifts with which the Goddess of Luck has blessed you? Of course not." He pointed an accusing finger at Alusair. "You waste your life roaming the countryside."

The princess stood, her back still to Azoun. "This was a mistake," she said, a measure of hardness returning to her voice. "You're just not ready."

Hearing the pain in his child's voice did more to wipe away Azoun's fury than anything he could have done himself. "I can't help but be angry, Allie," he said. "I just don't see why you couldn't live at court. Was life so terrible that you had to run?"

When the princess turned around again, bright tears sparkled in her eyes.

The light from the lanterns made each drop look like a diamond as it rolled down Alusair's cheek. "I am not a politician, Father. I don't belong in the court." She wiped her eyes with her doublet's sleeve. "You used to tell me stories about the King's Men, how you used to sneak out and go on adventures. What I did isn't all that different."

"Of course it's different," Azoun said almost automatically. "I was never gone for long, and I always returned."

Alusair started to say something, then paused and shook her head.

"What is it, Allie?" the king asked, holding his hand out to his daughter.

"You can be honest."

Looking into her father's eyes, Alusair wondered if she really should speak her mind or let the subject drop. No, she decided, things will never be resolved if I avoid this conflict. "You must regret it," she said softly.

A look of confusion crossed the king's face. "Regret what?"

Alusair swallowed the last of her tears and sat down across from Azoun.

"Coming back. You must regret ever coming back from your adventures with Dimswart and Winefiddle and the others."

"I had responsibilities, Allie. I couldn't—"

"No, Father. Not couldn't, didn't." She squeezed the king's hand. "Even when I was a little girl, I heard it in your voice when you told me about the King's Men."

"Perhaps I regret it a little," the king conceded. He gently pulled his hand away from Alusair and steepled his fingers before his face. "But I had a responsibility to Cormyr—as you do—and I fulfilled it. Anyway," he added, smiling a little, "I never could have had a family or done what good I've managed for Cormyr gallivanting around the countryside as Balin the Cavalier."

"And you wouldn't have been forced to do so many petty wrongs either,"

the princess noted firmly. "You can't worry about each individual in Cormyr, only the state as a whole. So when you tax, you can't consider the minority it really hurts. You take away freedom in deference to law. That's wrong."

Azoun frowned as he considered his daughter's words. "What's the alternative? I do good for the most people by creating and upholding the country's laws."

The princess reached behind her, picked up the cuirass she had dropped onto the ground, and placed it on the table between her and her father. "With a good suit of armor," Alusair began, running her finger along the fantastically carved metal, "and a sharp sword, I can right as many wrongs as I can find between sunup and sundown."

"That's all fine, Allie, but you can't make any significant change as an adventurer. I tried, remember? That's what the King's Men was all about."

Alusair stared at the light reflecting on the armor before her. "I guess I just don't want the responsibility for anyone else. I only kill myself if I try to rescue someone from an ogre or if I decide to take a side in a war." She traced a dent in the armor, recently but not completely mended. "And if I die, I know I fought for a good cause."

Reflexively running a hand through his gray-shot beard, Azoun stood up and paced around the pavilion. The wind was picking up outside, and occasional strong breezes made the sides of the tent snap and bow. After a few circuits around the long table, the king faced his daughter. "What have you been fighting for, Allie? What have you done with the last four years?"

The princess looked up from her armor. "I've been to Waterdeep, Ravens Bluff, Damara, even the Moonshae Isles. I lived for a while on the money I took with me when I left the castle. After that, I worked as a caravan guard, helped a fishing village make a bargain with a dragon turtle, even hunted for the Ring of Winter for a season or two."

The mention of the Ring of Winter, a powerful artifact that had been missing for many, many years, made Azoun start. Most of the beings who sought it were power-mad and very often evil. "These are jobs any mercenary would take, Allie. How can you say you've been fighting for good causes?"

"I always knew who I was working for, Father. I always knew what their goals were."

Azoun fell silent again and paced for a few more minutes. After that, he asked the princess more questions, but each yielded a short, dry answer. The king learned where his daughter had been, what she had done there, but very little about her life. "And did you always travel alone?" Azoun asked after she told him of the time she'd been captured by a party of drow north of Waterdeep. "I'd heard that you'd run away with a cleric from Tilverton."

The comment had an immediate effect on Alusair. She paled noticeably, even in the shadowy tent, and her voice trembled slightly when she replied.

"Yes, Father. I... traveled with a cleric from Tilverton, Gharri of Gond. He died as we tried to escape some bounty hunters. They were after the reward you'd put on my return."

Azoun moved to his daughter's side. "I don't know what to say ... other than I'm sorry for your loss."

"For a long time I blamed his death on you, Father," the princess said, her face betraying the strain the topic was putting on her. "I only recently decided that you couldn't have known what the bounty hunters would do."

The silence that followed the revelation of Gharri's death was longer and more deadening than the last. Alusair sat, her head bowed slightly, remembering her lost love. Azoun stood over his daughter, his hand on her shoulder. The king considered breaking the silence again, but found there was nothing he could say that wouldn't sound maudlin or foolish.

The high, shrill sound of a trumpet crying out over the dwarven camp broke the sad calm in the pavilion. The king heard low, rumbling voices, speaking in Dwarvish. The hushed voices were echoed by faint sounds of metal clanging.

With a slight shock, Azoun realized that this was the first noise he'd heard from the dwarven camp all evening. After the drilling had ended at sundown, the camp had become deathly silent, highly unusual for a large gathering of soldiers.

Alusair grabbed her cuirass and stood up. The trumpet called out again, a harsh, trilling note. "Orcs," the princess hissed. "The sentries have spotted orcs."

As Alusair retrieved the brassards that would cover her arms, Azoun moved to the tent's door. Dwarven troops mustered quietly in the darkness outside. The stocky soldiers marched quickly out of their tents, toward the edges of the camp. Their faces were set in grim determination.

"We've got to go, Father," Alusair said. The king turned to see his daughter, her armor slung over her shoulder, waiting to leave. "This isn't a particularly safe spot. I'll escort you across the compound to Torg's tent, then you and Vangy should head back to the ship."

The king frowned. "I'll see Torg, but I'm not all that sure I'm leaving just yet."

With the skittering sound of metal sliding across metal, the princess drew her sword. "You don't have a weapon, do you?"

Smiling, Azoun reached to his high leather boot and withdrew a slender silver dagger. The lanterns cast small glints of light off the stiletto's razor edge. "I've had too many attempts on my life to ever travel unarmed."

The king and the princess crossed the central square of the dwarven camp.

Soldiers continued to march through the square, heading toward their assigned mustering stations. The troops were fully armored and carried crossbows and swords. Apart from an occasional trumpet blast or shouted order, the camp remained strangely silent.

"Silence is a virtue for Earthfast's soldiers," Alusair explained as they walked toward Torg's compound. "They're used to fighting underground. Any noise made in the caves and tunnels would echo, and that could hide an enemy's location."

Azoun watched a mail-clad dwarf pull a pointed helmet over his head, then trudge off. "Don't you find it disconcerting?" he asked. "I don't think human troops are ever this quiet."

"I'd know who to place a wager on in a battle, wouldn't you?" Alusair asked in response. She stopped alongside a firepit, its flames low, the fire mostly extinguished. The princess kicked dirt into the stone-encircled pit to douse the feeble blaze. Before her father could ask why, she said, "They're used to fighting in the dark, remember? Any light like this—" She gestured at the smoldering ash with her toe. "It could take away their advantage in a night battle."

The pair soon reached the ironlord's tent, directly across the open square from the pavilion Azoun had occupied. Breathless messengers hurried in and out of the large, black tent. The runners wore leather armor studded with metal. Even with that heavy burden, they dashed as quickly as their short legs could carry them, relaying orders for the dwarven commanders. Two guards holding pikes stood at strict attention in front of the royal tent.

"Tell the ironlord I've brought King Azoun of Cormyr to the safety of his presence," the princess commanded one of the guards in perfect Dwarvish.

The sentry nodded his helmeted head once and spun sharply to the door.

When he opened the heavy cloth covering the entryway, Azoun heard Torg growling what must have been orders. The ironlord's loud voice contrasted sharply with the quiet of the camp. As soon as the door fell closed again, the voice was muffled to near silence.

"The tent is made of thick felt, laced with metal," Alusair whispered in response to the king's puzzled look. "They designed it especially for Torg to use in this campaign."

The guard exited the tent and held the door open, a sign for the princess and the king to enter. As he went in, Azoun was amazed at the contrast between the dark, silent camp and Torg's bright, noisy headquarters. The dwarven monarch sat on a stone dais across from the door. He already wore much of his armor; a squire was fastening the last straps of the cuisses on the ironlord's legs. To Torg's left, a tall golden birdcage stood. Three small, brilliantly colored birds fluttered about inside the cage, chirping happily.

"We've got trouble, Princess," Torg bellowed in Common as soon as he saw Alusair. "Pryderi mac Dylan found the escort we sent out earlier. Dead, of course." The dwarven king pounded his fist on the edge of his throne. "Orcs, they say. Signs of them all around the camp."

"The Bloody Skull?" the princess asked.

Torg pushed the squire away and finished the straps himself. "No. From what Pryderi found, this is a new band."

Azoun stepped forward. "How many?"

"Hard to tell, Your Highness. Has your daughter told you about our orc problems?"

"Daughter?" the king gasped, looking from Torg to Alusair, then back again.

"You know?"

"Who do you think told me about your treatise on polearms?" The dwarven king grinned and turned to the princess. "A happy family again, eh?"

"I told him who I was only a few days past, when it was too late for him to contact you, Father." Frowning slightly, Alusair decided to change the subject right away. "Where's the magician who was with my father when he arrived?"

Turning to the birdcage, Torg leaned forward, placing his face against the bars. The birds danced around the cage, twittering loudly. "Do you keep birds in your palace, Azoun? They are fantastic creatures. Almost the greatest thing the gods set on Toril, don't you think?" He cast a glance at Azoun, then gazed into the cage again. "We use them in the mines. If the air goes bad, the birds die first."

Alusair sighed. "The wizard, Ironlord. Where is he?"

"I caught him wandering about the camp, so I sent him with one of the patrols. Perhaps he can determine how many orcs are lurking out there." The dwarven king threw a cloth cover over the birdcage, then reached for his surcoat. "I didn't want a spellcaster in camp, if I could help it anyway. No insult intended, Azoun, but I just don't trust magic."

Azoun heard a trace of fear in Torg's voice, but he wasn't surprised.

Dwarven communities tended to foster natural strength and endurance in their people. Little sorcery was permitted. Dwarves often created weapons and armor that, because of their exquisite making, had magical powers, and dwarven clerics—who called upon their gods for the ability to cast spells—

were common, too. However, mages were people to be feared, for their arts were not rooted in the power of the earth, religious beliefs, or simple craftsmanship.

"No insult taken," Azoun said. "Vangerdahast can defend himself if the need arises, and he certainly knew of the dwarven aversion to magic before he came here."

The stoic guard who had announced Azoun's presence earlier entered the tent once again. "Pryderi mac Dylan's patrol has returned," he said in Dwarvish, his helmet muting his voice to a low rumble.

Torg pulled his surcoat on over his armor. After adjusting the black tunic so the blood-red phoenix lay squarely positioned on his chest, he said, "Show Pryderi in." As the guard moved to usher in the new guests, Torg told Azoun and Alusair to take a seat on the stone benches that were on either side of the tent.

The red-bearded dwarf who had threatened Azoun atop the hill strode into the tent. His beard was tangled slightly, and his surcoat was torn and mud-splattered. "Ironlord," he said as he entered, "I have much to report." He dropped stiffly to one knee and bowed his head. "The mage cast a spell and discovered a little about the orcs."

Azoun could understand only fragments of what was being said, but Alusair spoke and understood Dwarvish well.

At the mention of the mage, she said, "Ironlord, Vangerdahast should be allowed into your presence."

"Of course" Torg said casually. "Squire, tell the guards to let him in."

Vangerdahast entered a moment later. The bottom of his long robe was covered with mud, and brambles still clung to his sleeves. Like Pryderi's, the mage's beard was tangled and dirty. He was picking sharp yellow thorns out of his clothes, muttering curses in Common, when he stepped through the door. He bowed perfunctorily to Torg, then joined Azoun and Alusair.

The disheveled Pryderi cleared his throat and continued his report. "The human wizard joined our scouting party after we'd found the escort. We spotted a pair of orcs creeping about—"

Torg held up a hand, and the soldier stopped speaking in mid-sentence.

"Can you translate this for your father and the mage, Princess? They should know what's being said, and Pryderi is no master of Common." Alusair nodded and leaned toward Azoun, ready to translate the soldier's report.

"Don't worry about me," Vangerdahast muttered when Azoun asked him to move closer. "I cast a spell a little while back that lets me understand Dwarvish." He removed a large, squirming caterpillar from the hem of his robe and tossed it into the corner.

Pryderi, still resting on one knee before Torg's throne, waited for the ironlord's signal before he continued. "We spotted the orcs creeping about north of the camp. They were obviously spies for a larger group, as they were wearing a uniform of sorts."

Torg leaned forward. "Uniform?"

"Yes, Ironlord," Pryderi said emphatically. "The orcs both wore black leather armor and had armbands that depicted skulls surrounded by a black sun."

"Cyric worshipers," Vangerdahast said to Torg. "That skull symbol belongs to the God of Death."

The dwarven king nodded impatiently. "Yes, mage. I know the symbol well.

Many of the orcs in this area worship Lord Cyric, almost as many as worship the old orc gods."

Folding his arms over his chest, Vangerdahast slumped in his seat. Azoun wondered what had put his advisor in such a foul mood. Obviously, he thought, it's got something to do with the outcome of this patrol.

Pryderi shot an annoyed look at Vangerdahast, then continued. "We had to hide in some thickets near the stream to avoid them." The dwarf motioned to his muddied armor. "It was uncomfortable, but the orcs did not spot us. I was ready to follow them back to their camp when the mage cast a spell that froze the creatures in place."

Torg glanced uncomfortably at the wizard, then motioned for Pryderi to finish.

"We killed one of them right away with a crossbow," the soldier reported proudly. "The other we left to the mage." He made the latter sound far worse than death by a crossbow bolt through the skull.

"Well, mage?" Torg asked in Common, resting his chin on a fist. "What did you learn?"

Vangerdahast stood and took a step toward the dwarven king. "I hypnotized the other orc, Ironlord." Torg responded to this statement by furrowing his thick brows together in confusion. Vangerdahast rubbed his chin. "Ah—subjected his will to my own," the mage finally said. "I made him answer the questions I asked."

Torg and Pryderi exchanged knowing glances. Everything Vangerdahast had done was confirming their mistrust of mages' abilities. "Go on," the ironlord said after a moment. "What did you learn?"

"There are at least one thousand ores out there," Vangerdahast replied.

"Probably more. By the looks of the two scouts, they're very well armed for orcs, too."

Azoun put his hands to his temples to rub away a headache that was welling behind his eyes. "The troops from Zhentil Keep," he sighed. "They must have run into the orcs. That's why no one has heard from them."

Vangerdahast nodded. "That would explain much. When I asked the orcish scout, he said they'd come from the west." The mage pointed at Pryderi. "I might have been able to find out more, but this armored imbecile killed the prisoner."

Torg's face reddened, and he shot to his feet. With a growl, he snapped a question at Pryderi in Dwarvish. The soldier bowed his head and replied softly.

The ironlord planted his hands on his hips. "He said the orc was trying to escape. Is that true, mage?"

Scowling, Vangerdahast said, "A soldier struck the orc when he was slow in answering a question. That broke my spell, and the orcish scout went for his sword." The wizard practically shook with anger when he added, "That buffoon shot the orc before I could do anything."

"Pryderi did the right thing, Ironlord" Alusair said, "The orc might have escaped." Torg nodded and sat down again.

Vangerdahast was struck dumb by the princess's statement. He stood, staring at Alusair. The king quickly turned to his daughter and said, "That's absurd."

The rebuke didn't faze Alusair in the least. "You haven't fought as many orcs as the dwarves have, Father. You can't treat them like humans or dwarves or elves. Even if it would have meant certain death, that scout would have attacked Vangerdahast—just to take someone else with him when he died. The soldiers in Earthfast have been fighting against orcs for hundreds of years. Most of their wives and children have been murdered by the beasts.

They know orcish treachery well."

"Besides," Torg noted as he sprawled in his throne, "we have all the information we need right now. If the troops we're expecting from Zhentil Keep ran into the orcs, they've probably been wiped out. And," he concluded, lifting his sword from the ground next to his throne, "they will attack us very soon. All we need to do is wait."

Both Pryderi and Alusair nodded. Vangerdahast returned to his seat next to Azoun. After a short discussion, it was decided that the Cormyrian king and his wizard should stay in camp, at least until the sun rose. Next, the ironlord sent Pryderi to join the army guarding the perimeter and called in his scribe to take down some messages for the home city, Earthfast.

For the rest of the night, a white-bearded scribe sat hunched over a piece of parchment, making notes in the thick, angular symbols of the dwarven alphabet. Elaborate iron lanterns hung from metal supports throughout the tent, illuminating much of the area, but casting deep shadows into the corners.

Vangerdahast slept, stretched out on one of the stone benches, snoring fitfully. Azoun and Alusair sat close together, and the princess told the king about the terrible, bloody battles she'd fought in defense of the dwarven city.

At the end of the last tale, she pointed to the armor she wore. "The dwarves made this for me after that fight with the goblins. It's made of the finest mithril steel." She laughed softly and added, "Torg now cal s me the 'Mithril Princess'

when I wear it."

Across the tent, the ironlord stretched and yawned. He walked slowly to the door and glanced outside. The first rays of the morning sun were creeping over the hills to the east, filling the dwarven camp with cold, pale light. Torg moved his head sharply to work an ache out of his neck. "I was sure the damnable orcs would have attacked by now," he said morosely. "Perhaps now that it's light they'll find a little courage."

As if in response to the dwarven king's wishes, a messenger burst into the tent. "Ironlord!" he gasped, dropping to one knee. "The orcs have shown themselves. They're on the eastern side of the camp."

Torg reached for his sword. "Ha! Now they'll pay for that escort party they murdered," he cried, startling Vangerdahast awake. The birds at the dwarven king's side were also shocked out of their slumber. They flitted around their cage noisily.

Alusair, already wearing her cuirass, stood and strapped her brassards onto her arms. "Have they attacked yet?" she asked the dwarven messenger.

"Not yet," he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow. "They are arrayed in battle formation in the field to the east."

Azoun turned to Torg. "Ironlord, it might be best for us to avoid this conflict.

Perhaps the orcs will listen to reason and march on."

"Reason?" Torg snorted. "Orcs listen to reason, you say? No insult intended, Azoun, but you don't know orcs. They're here to fight."

"What about the crusade?" Vangerdahast asked, his voice still raspy with sleep. "The troops that die in this possibly preventable battle are lost to the Alliance of the West. Besides," the wizard added, appealing to the dwarven king's honor, "you gave your word that two thousand dwarves from Earthfast would assist us against the Tuigan."

Torg muttered something vile about wizards into his dark beard, then sighed. "All right. We'll see what your diplomacy can do. It's your funeral, mage. And remember, the first orc to raise a bow or a sword gets a crossbow bolt between its beady little eyes."

Vangerdahast straightened his beard and followed the two kings and the princess from the tent. Torg's entourage was quickly joined by a squadron of elite guards. Like the other dwarven soldiers, the bodyguard said nothing as it marched to the eastern edge of the camp. Vangerdahast kept to himself, too, and reviewed the spells he knew that might be useful in an attack. Azoun spoke softly to Alusair, but that conversation died abruptly when the Cormyrian king saw the line of dwarves standing before him.

The army of Earthfast was arranged in neat, perfectly straight rows at the eastern edge of the camp. For hundreds of yards to either side of Azoun, the battle line stretched, three dwarves deep. Silver armor reflected the growing morning sun, and two thousand mailed hands gripped crossbow stocks or swords. Trumpeters and drummers mixed with the troops, ready to sound the attack. Standards marking clans stood above the helmeted heads. These symbols—stylized hammers, anvils, and various weapons-served as rallying points for the soldiers.

The impressive dwarven line silently faced to the east, where the sun rose slowly over the hills. There, silhouetted in sunlight, stood the orcish army.

The two armies were a study in contrasts. Unlike the mailed dwarves, the orcs generally wore only black leather armor. A few had on chain mail or pieces of plate, but most of the slouching creatures garbed themselves in the uniformly bleak, weatherbeaten skins. The orcs all personalized their clothing with swatches of bright cloth taken from a murdered foe or bits of bone or fur from a vanquished beast. Whereas Torg's troops stood at attention in rigidly organized lines, the orcs huddled in groups or even squatted on the ground, waiting for orders. Some held unpolished, chipped swords, and others carried almost every kind of weapon imaginable—flails, maces, axes, spears, even polearms. Their standards were real skulls or crude pictures of bleeding eyes or broken fingers, held aloft on posts.

Alusair spotted drummers lounging amidst the orcish troops and pointed them out to Torg. The dwarven king nodded and relayed an order to his archers that, if possible, the drummers were to be shot first. They were undoubtedly the means of relaying orders in the orcish ranks.

Torg took his helmet from his squire and cradled it under an arm. He pointed to the center of the enemy's line, where a huge skull, probably belonging to a giant, sat atop a pole. "Their leader, if you can call these savages organized, is probably right there."

At Azoun's signal, Vangerdahast murmured a spell. When the incantation was complete, the mage put his hands to his mouth and said, "Leader of the orcs, we wish to parley." The words, magically boosted in volume by the spell, easily carried over the silent dwarven troops and even the noisy, grumbling orcs. "I hope they understand Common," Vangerdahast said after he'd delivered his message.

There was a commotion around the giant skull standard. Across the fifty or so yards that separated the armies, Azoun could see a few orcish soldiers brandishing swords, gesturing wildly at a particularly large soldier. This orc in turn grabbed another soldier by the throat and pushed him toward the dwarven line.

The abused orc staggered to his feet, shouted a curse or two over his shoulder in Orcish, and took a step toward the dwarves. "No kill," he shouted in broken Common. "Me speaker for Vrakk."