David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"I should've thought of the height of the steps when we decided that Prince Garric would march in state from the palace while Lord Wildulf waited for him!" she growled under her breath. Then, in a slightly less irritated tone, "It was still the right decision, but I see now why Wildulf's envoys didn't argue with me."

They stepped onto the plinth. The Blood Eagles who'd formed a line between the altar and the Sandrakkan courtiers shouted, "The Isles!" and their comrades coming up the stairs in ranks of four, repeated, "The Isles!"

The sound of two hundred men in the midst of so many might have been lost, but the Blaise regiment under Lord Rosen in the plaza took up the cry also, hammering their spears against the bosses of their round shields. That was enough to trigger some of the crowd, then more of it in waves, a blurry but positive cheer: "The Isles-s-s…"

This is working, Garric thought as he raised his right arm overhead, the fist clenched. He wore high boots like a horseman, with breeches and a short blue tunic whose puffed sleeves were gathered at the wrist. He slung his long sword on a shoulder belt, but he had neither body armor nor a helmet, only the simple gold diadem of Old Kingdom monarchs.

Garric had dressed for the occasion as King Carus might've done a thousand years before. Most of the spectators wouldn't know that-but all but the most ignorant understood that he wasn't wearing Valles court robes. Their Earl was submitting himself to a greater authority backed by the threat of force-but it was the authority of the Isles, not of Ornifal.

"The Isles!" Garric shouted. To his amazement his voice echoed back to him. The plaza was brilliantly designed so that the temple steps acted as megaphone for anyone speaking from the plinth, and the facade of the palace on the other side formed a sounding board.

The crowd, most of the local civilians now as well as the royal soldiers, cheered louder. This is really working…

Garric turned to face Lady Lelor. The priestess with a bland expression dipped her crook but didn't curtsey as she'd been directed to do. She was pushing it, acknowledging royal authority over her temple-but only barely. And she was going to get away with it, because Prince Garric couldn't make a scene now without more provocation than that.

He grinned, and the king in his mind grinned also. "She's got balls, that one," Carus muttered approvingly.

One of Lelor's assistants stepped forward, holding a plush cushion on which rested a strikingly ugly crown of garnets set in heavy gold. Garric lifted the massive thing, thoughtBetter the Earls of Sandrakkan than me, and turned to Wildulf. The soon-to-be-Earl looked glumly resigned like a traveller caught in a storm many miles from shelter.

"Kneel, milord," Garric said, "and receive your charge as representative of the kingdom on Sandrakkan!"

Wildulf knelt. As he did so, Garric caught Lady Balila's expression for an instant before she wiped it blank again. He hadn't seen such malevolence since the day a poisonous snake struck for his life.

Garric felt his skin quiver as though lightning had struck a nearby tree, but his face remained unmoved. He stepped forward, the crown outstretched. The second male priest dropped frankincense and nard on the fire. Mixed with the aromatics was something that made the flame sparkle and lifted a plume of bright yellow smoke.

Wildulf had an unexpected bald spot in the middle of his scalp. Garric set the crown on his head carefully and cried, "Arise Wildulf, Earl of Sandrakkan!"

The sky darkened. Garric and everyone else in the great plaza looked upward. A cinder-black cloud had appeared as suddenly as a thunderbolt. It spread, forming into the shape of a vast, shambling demon. A woman screamed and a thousand throats took up her terror.

Garric had his sword out though he didn't remember unsheathing it. Instinct wanted to put him between Liane and the creature of smoke and darkness, but since it was in the sky he couldn't really do that.

The shape spread wider. No sunlight leaked through the form though the heavens surrounding remained bright morning. The misshapen head turned and the right arm reached down toward the altar, spreading clawed fingers. The crowd surged away. Garric, glancing into the plaza, was glad to see that the Blaise regiment held, although its ranks had become disordered.

It didn't occur to Garric to run. There was nowhereto run. If he was going to die, then it might as well be with his feet planted and his face to the enemy.

The shape vanished, not the way a cloud dissipates but instead like a soap bubble-in the sky one instant, then gone utterly. A few flickers of blackness, what would've been sparks if they hadn't been the absence of light; then not even that.

"It's the Ornifal oppressor behind the portent!" Lord Tawnser shouted in a voice as jagged as a saw-blade. He pointed his whole arm toward Garric, his good eye blazing with fury. "It's the tyrant Garric summoning his monsters to destroy Erdin! Death to the Ornifal tyrant before he destroys us!"

"Get that man!" shouted Attaper, but Tawnser was already gone, vanishing around the corner of the temple porch.

A squad of Blood Eagles started forward. They'd already snatched the blunts off their spears. Sandrakkan courtiers milled, some picking themselves up from the pavement where they'd flattened when the shape appeared.

"No!" bellowed Garric as he would've called across the pasture south of Barca's Hamlet. "Don't chase him! Let him go!"

What he'd have really liked would be for Lord Tawnser to slip and break his neck. The chance of that happening was very slight, but it was more probable than any good result of scattering handfuls of royal troops through the streets of a hostile city.

Lord Attaper must've come to the same conclusion as soon as thought had a chance to overrule reflex. He ordered, "Return to ranks!" even as his soldiers glanced back to see if they should obey Garric. They were beyond question loyal to their prince, but they took direction from their own commander.

Lady Lelor and her two aides stood close together. Her face was set and she didn't appear to see Garric when her eyes swept over him. The courtiers, led by Earl Wildulf and his wife, were streaming down the broad steps of the temple. They didn't look back at Garric, or if they did their gaze slid quickly away when he tried to meet their eyes.

In the plaza the crowd disappeared like a chalk drawing in the rain. From a dozen corners came the faint echo of, "Down with the Ornifal oppressors!"

Earl Wildulf greeted Garric at the door of his suite with an unintended belch which embarrassed the black scowl off his face. He'd been drinking and still held the silver-mounted bison horn full of wine because he couldn't put it down. His hand gripped the flaring lip, and its long tapering length rested on his forearm.

"Milord, he insisted!" the commander of the squad on guard said quickly. He kept his eye on the horn with a degree of concern that suggested he thought it might be slung at him.

"He's the Prince, you backwoods numbskull!" snarled Lord Attaper, who'd taken charge of the escort personally when he learned that Garric intended to interview the Earl in his apartments. "And the only reason the Prince didn't have us useyour head to batter the door down is that he is a more forgiving man than I am!"

"Gently, milord," Garric said. "Earl Wildulf, I'd like to talk with you privately about what happened this afternoon."

Generally Attaper was perfectly professional, but the business at the coronation had rattled him. He knew how dangerous it would've been if the whole city turned on the 'Ornifal oppressors', and he seemed to have taken as a personal failure the fact it hadn't been possible to capture Lord Tawnser. Attaper reallyhad come very close to letting out his anger and frustration when a mercenary in Sandrakkan pay denied the Prince of the Isles access.