Beyond the High Road c-2 Read online

Vangerdahast leveled his wand and a thread of golden light lanced out to pierce the orc’s chest. The creature dropped its spear, reached for its heart, and erupted into a crimson spray. The wizard turned away from the gory shower, then felt a pair of talons raking at his knees. He looked back to find the second swiner clawing its way up his legs, tusks gnashing and beady eyes burning with blood-hunger.

  Vangerdahast raised his brow at the uncharacteristic display of courage, then leveled his wand at the orc’s forehead. The rabid creature did not even cringe as the golden thread of light lanced out to blast its skull apart. The wizard pushed the headless corpse from his lap and leaped to his feet. A swiner scrambled past, its crooked spear braced for the attack. Vangerdahast leveled his wand, then was surprised to hear himself shouting in glee as its magic reduced the warrior to flying pieces.

  A loud rumble sounded behind him. He turned toward the sound and found himself looking into the heart of the battle, where a web of flashing thunderbolts and glimmering death rays was littering the ground with smoking swiner corpses. The orcs, of course, could cause little harm against the might of magic. Their stone spear points shattered against the impenetrable armor of the Purple Dragons, their soft swords bent against the enchanted wool of the war wizards’ weathercloaks, and their claws snapped against the magic-shielded flanks of the snorting war-horses. The Royal Excursionary Company countered with good Connyrean steel and well-chosen spells, and orcs fell by the dozen. One dragoneer lopped the heads off three foes in a row, only to be outdone an instant later when a fireball reduced half a dozen swiners to charred bits of bone.

  Finding the battle well in hand, Vangerdahast turned to look for the ghazneth. After a lengthy search, he found it circling high overhead, a mere speck well beyond arrow range. The battle clamor faded as quickly as it started, and the phantom continued to circle. Reluctantly, Vangerdahast tore his eyes away from the dark speck and began to wade through the carnage.

  “Down magic!” he commanded, trying to find one of the company clerics to fix his separated shoulder. “Odd troops, iron. Even troops, steel!”

  The Royal Excursionary Company scrambled to obey, the war wizards canceling their protective spells, the dragoneers wiping their blades clean before exchanging them for weapons of the appropriate metal. Vangerdahast waited on the exchange with ill-concealed impatience. The wizard had been drilling them in his special maneuvers for the last two days-the length of time required for the smiths of Arabel to forge a full complement of iron arms for every man in the company-and he was still not satisfied with their performance. The ghazneths were vicious, quick creatures who would repay any fumbling with swift death, and the wizard had no idea how many of them there were-or how they would respond to the presence of the Royal Excursionary Company.

  There had been no sign of phantoms yesterday, when he and his war wizards had scouted the canyon where Vangerdahast had last seen Tanalasta, but it seemed clear that at least one ghazneth had watched them select the sycamore tree as the Royal Excursionary Company’s assembly point. Vangerdahast doubted the thing had intended for them to teleport in on top of the swiners-no sensible commander would have risked the confusion of an enemy suddenly appearing within his ranks-but it had made known its feelings about the force’s presence. Finding the royal princesses was not going to be easy, even with two hundred and fifty of Cormyr’s mightiest warriors to help him.

  Vangerdahast neared the front of the company, where a small cluster of men in mottled camouflage armor had dismounted and spread out through the carnage. They were dragging wounded swiners around by the tusks, growling and snarling in passable Orcish and threatening all manner of gruesome torture unless someone told them where to find “two humans riding one meal.” The terrified orcs pointed in every which direction, a sure sign they had no idea what had become of Rowen and Tanalasta.

  “Scouts! You’re wasting your time.” Vangerdahast waved his good arm around the perimeter of the battlefield. “Find me a trail-and be quick about it!”

  The Royal Scouts were quick to obey, pausing only long enough to put the captured orcs out of their misery before scattering in all directions. Owden Foley appeared, leading Vangerdahast’s horse and scowling at the rangers’ efficiency.

  “This isn’t good,” he said, dismounting. “This needless killing will only bring harm to us.”

  “These are not the lands of Chauntea,” growled the wizard. Having agreed to bring the priest along only at Azoun’s insistence, he was none too happy at being lectured on his men’s treatment of orcs. “These lands belong to Gruumsch and Maglibuyet, and they have a thirst for blood. Besides, killing them is the kindest thing. A wounded orc can look forward to one of two things: a slow death by starvation, or, if he’s lucky, being made a slave to his own tribe. Swiners don’t care for their wounded.”

  “Then you are lucky we are not orcs.” Owden passed the reins in his hand to an assistant and took hold of the wizard’s limp arm. “But it was not the orcs I was thinking of. Did you not feel that lunatic bloodlust?”

  Vangerdahast looked at the priest. “You felt it too?”

  “Of course-I still do.” Owden lifted one foot and braced it against Vangerdahast’s ribs, then began hauling on the wizard’s arm. “It was caused by this ghazneth-just as the last one caused your insanity.”

  Vangerdahast screamed until his arm popped into its socket, then dropped to his knees and tried not to groan.

  “Battle-lust can make men foolish,” said Owden. “What do you suppose will happen when the ghazneths are ready for us?”

  “I suppose you know the answer,” Vangerdahast growled. He struggled to his feet and tried to raise his arm. He could not lift it more than a few inches, and the effort made him hiss with pain. “I imagine you have a solution?”

  “Chauntea does.” Owden laid a healing hand on the wizard’s aching shoulder. “Here, the goddess will help you with that.”

  Vangerdahast jerked his arm away. “I don’t need her help.” The wizard fished a healing potion from inside his own cloak and downed it, then said, “And the Royal Excursionary Company does not need her protection.”

  Owden pointed at the empty vial in Vangerdahast’s hand. “That elixir was blessed by aged. There is no difference between drinking it and accepting the All Mother’s help.”

  “The difference is that the Royal Treasury paid good gold for this.” Vangerdahast could already feel the potion’s fiery magic driving the ache from his strained shoulder. He used his injured arm to hurl the empty vial into a rock. “And that is all Tempus expects of us in return.”

  Owden shook his head. “I am not your adversary, Vangerdahast.”

  “Then why did you persuade the king to send you along?”

  “Because you may need my help.” Owden’s eyes betrayed the anger he was struggling to contain. “I’m not trying to take your place. I’m only thinking of Tanalasta.”

  “You are not thinking of Tanalasta.” Vangerdahast snatched Cadimus’s reins from Owden’s assistant, then swung into his saddle. “If you were thinking of Tanalasta, you would be back in Huthduth by now.”

  The wizard jerked Cadimus around toward the warped sycamore tree, leaving the priest to glare at his back. Despite the harsh words, Vangerdahast knew the harvestmaster to be a good and capable man-and that was the heart of the problem. Having cured both the king and the royal magician of insanity, Owden had risen high in the opinions of many influential people-including the Royal Sage Alaphondar Emmarask, many of the nobles who had at first opposed creating a Royal Temple, and most importantly Azoun himself. Not only had the king insisted on sending Owden along to help find his daughters, he had asked the rest of the harvestmaster’s priests to help him and Merula rescue the queen.

  Given Azoun’s inherent decency, the king would certainly feel obliged to express his gratitude to the monks, perhaps by establishing Tanalasta’s Royal Temple-and that Vangerdahast simply could not allow. As trustworthy and capable as Owden might be, there could be
no guarantee that his successor would prove as valuable to the realm, or that Chauntea would not use him to impose her own will on the kingdom. It had been more than thirteen hundred years since the ancient elves had charged Baerauble Etharr with serving the first Cormyrean king as advisor and Royal Wizard. Since then, it had been the sole duty of every Royal Magician to protect both the king and his realm by steering them down the safest path. Vangerdahast was not about to let that tradition end under his watch-not when it had proven the wisest and most effective guarantee of the realm’s safety for thirteen-and-a-half centuries.

  When Vangerdahast reached the gnarled sycamore tree, he found old Alaphondar exactly where he had expected: stumbling absentmindedly around the trunk, squinting at the glyphs and painstakingly copying them into his journal. So absorbed was the Royal Sage Most Learned that he did not notice the wizard’s presence until Cadimus nuzzled his neck-then he hurled his pencil and journal into the air, letting out such a shriek that half the company started up the hill to see what was wrong.

  Vangerdahast signaled the riders to stop, then asked, “Well, old friend? Was it worth the trip?”

  Alaphondar pushed his spectacles up his nose, then lifted his chin to regard the royal magician. “It’s curious, Vangerdahast-really quite strange.”

  If the sage was irritated at being startled, his voice did not betray it. He simply retrieved his journal and pencil off the ground, then turned back to the tree and continued to work.

  “These glyphs are First Kingate,” he said. “In fact, they are quite possibly Post Thaugloraneous.”

  Vangerdahast had no idea what the sage was talking about. “First Kingate?” he echoed. “As in, from Faerlthann’s time?”

  “That would be Faerlthannish, would it not?” Alaphondar peered over his spectacles, regarding Vangerdahast as though the royal magician were the under-educated scion of a minor family. “I mean First Kingate, as in Iliphar of the Elves.”

  “The Lord of Scepters?” Vangerdahast gasped. “The first king of the elves?”

  Alaphondar nodded wearily. “That would be First Kingate,” he said. “Approximately fourteen and a half centuries ago-a hundred years before Faerlthann was crowned. More than fifty years before the Obarskyrs settled in the wilderness, in fact.”

  Vangerdahast glanced at the barren moors around them, trying to envision some unimaginably ancient time when they were covered with lush forest and home to a lost kingdom of elves.

  “But the glyphs aren’t the interesting part,” said Alaphondar.

  “They aren’t?”

  The sage shook his head, then said, “This tree isn’t that old. In fact, it’s three hundred years too young.”

  Vangerdahast knew better than to doubt the sage. “And you know this because…”

  “Because of this.”

  Alaphondar turned and ran his hand over the glyphs. Instantly, the raspy voice of an anguished elven maid filled the air, and the sound of nervous horses and astonished men rose behind Vangerdahast.

  Alaphondar translated the song:

  This childe of men, lette his bodie nourishe this tree. The tree of this bodie, lette it growe as it nourishe. The spirit of this tree, to them lette it return as it grewe. Thus the havoc bearers sleepe, the sleepe of no reste. Thus the sorrow bringers sow, the seeds of their ruine. Thus the deathe makers kille, the sons of their sons. Here come ye, Mad Kang Boldovar, and lie among these rootes.

  When the song was finished, Vangerdahast gasped, “Boldovar?”

  Alaphondar nodded excitedly. “You see?” The sage ran his finger along a set of curls that looked identical to every other set of curls. “He died three hundred years after these serpentine beaks passed out of vogue.”

  “I’ll have to trust your judgment, old friend,” said Vangerdahast. He knew how to make the glyphs sing, but he could not read them-much less identify the era in which they had been inscribed. “What does it mean?’

  “Mean?” Alaphondar looked confused. “Why, I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

  “But we can conclude that the elf who inscribed these glyphs was over three hundred years old,” Vangerdahast prodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the Royal Scouts returning from their search for Tanalasta’s trail. Their lionar was riding up the hill to report.

  “Oh yes,” Alaphondar prodded, “and more importantly, that she had been living away from her people for at least that long. Do you have any idea what that kind of loneliness would do to an elf?”

  Vangerdahast eyed the glyphs, recalling their bitter words and the anguished tone of the song. “Yes. I’m afraid I do.”

  Alaphondar started down the hill toward the hole that led beneath the roots. “Perhaps I’ll learn more in the burial chamber.”

  “I’m afraid there won’t be time for that.” Vangerdahast turned to face the scouts’ lionar, who was reining his horse to a stop in front of the wizard. “We’ll be leaving directly.”

  Alaphondar stopped in his tracks. “Leave?” he gasped, spinning around. “We can’t leave yet. It will take at least a day to sketch the site properly, and another day just to start the preliminary excavations.”

  “We don’t have a day.” Vangerdahast looked into the sky and found no sign of the ghazneth. “We may not have even an hour.”

  “But-“

  “This is a military expedition, Alaphondar,” Vangerdahast interrupted, motioning the scouts’ lionar forward. “Our goal is to find the princesses and return them to Arabel-quickly.”

  The exhilaration vanished from Alaphondar’s eyes. “Of course-how could I forget?” He started toward his horse, then had another thought and turned back to Vangerdahast. “Maybe you could go ahead…”

  “You’ve seen two ghazneths now,” Vangerdahast said. “Do you really want to face one of them alone-or even with a dozen dragoneers at your back?”

  Alaphondar grimaced, then turned toward his horse. “Forget I asked.”

  Vangerdahast faced the lionar. “Did you find their trail?” The scout nodded, then pointed into the valley between the Mule Ear peaks. “We found a few old hoof prints. They’re heading south into the mountains.”

  “That’s welcome news indeed,” Vangerdahast said, sighing in relief. “Maybe Tanalasta has finally come to her senses and decided the time has come to return to Cormyr.”

  15

  The air reeked of rank meat and mildewed earth, and in the cramped staleness of the tomb, Tanalasta felt feverish and dizzy. She had a queasy stomach, fogged vision, and goosebumps rising along her spine, and on the floor ahead lay something she did not really want to see. It was armored in tarnished plate and sprawled on its back, a sullied sword and battered shield lying on the stones to either side of it. An opulent growth of white mold had sprouted from the troughs of several clawlike rents across the breastplate, and the crown of the thing’s great helm had been staved in. The face and limbs were lost beneath a thick blanket of the same white mold sprouting from the splits in the armor, and only the crumpled, striking-hawk crest over its heart identified the corpse as that of Emperel Ruousk, Guardian of the Sleeping Sword.

  Holding the smoky torch before her, Tanalasta slipped out of the entrance passage into the tomb itself. Like the last one she had visited, this grave was surrounded by a fine-meshed net of black roots, many of which had been cut away during the battle that killed Emperel. Tangled among the roots, she could see the same web of gossamer filaments she had noticed in the first tomb. The floor was littered with tatters of rotted leather, buttons, buckles, and the mineralized soles of a large pair of boots.

  Tanalasta pocketed a handful of the detritus to examine later, then removed the rope from her waist and stepped over to Emperel’s body. Her queasy stomach revolted at the horrid fetor of the decaying corpse, and she barely managed to spin away before her belly emptied itself. When the retching ended, her temples were throbbing and her knees were trembling. The princess chided herself for being so qualmish, decay was as much a part of the life circle as
growth, and it was an affront to the All Mother to treat it with aversion.

  Tanalasta took a deep breath and returned to the body. Despite her determination, she felt weak and lightheaded and feared she would pass out if she touched the moldy thing. She briefly considered retreating and leaving Emperel lie, but it would have been an insult to the memory of a brave knight to bury him in a place of such evil. The princess jammed the butt of her torch into a crevice between two floor stones and picked up the warrior’s sword. She slid the flat of the blade under his back and, with a weary grunt, rolled him up on his side, then held him there with one arm while she fed the rope under his back.

  By the time the princess finished, her joints were aching and she was out of breath. She trudged around the body and slipped the sword under the opposite side and felt something block it. She noticed the dark line of a satchel strap hidden beneath the white mold. Tanalasta used the sword tip to scrape the mold away, then took hold of the slimy strap and pulled the satchel from under Emperel’s body.

  It was a small courier’s pouch, with a waterproof wax finish and a weather flap. Though the satchel was not closed tight, the flap was at least folded over the opening, and Tanalasta could think of only one reason Emperel would have been carrying an open pouch when he died.

  “May the Great Mother bless you, Emperel Ruousk.”

  The princess laid the slime-smeared satchel aside, then used the sword to roll Emperel’s body onto its side and pull the rope the rest of the way under his back. She tugged the line up under his arms, then tied a secure bowline knot and gave the rope three quick tugs. The line went taut, swinging Emperel around and dragging him toward the exit. When he came to the dirt wall below the passage, his head caught on the wall and tipped back, causing a muffled crack someplace in his neck.

  Without thinking, Tanalasta reached behind his head and tipped it forward, sticking her hand into a fibrous mass of putrefying scalp and mold-coated hair. She fought back the urge to retch long enough to guide the body into the passage, then immediately grabbed a fistful of dirt and scoured the slime from her hand. Affront to the goddess or not, the princess simply felt too weak to abide having the stuff on her flesh.