Ed Greenwood - Swords of Dragonfire

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

Everyone started wrenching open doors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, would you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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