Клейтон Эмери - The Halls of Stormweather

He clung to his saddle’s high cantle as the scorched horse rolled, thrashing and shrieking in fear. By sheer strength he hauled himself into the saddle again as the horse found footing for a wild gallop.

From nowhere, a laughing Roel cut in front of Thamalon’s horse, waving cheerfully with Teskra clinging to his back.

“Away!” he cried. “For other days, and glory then!”

He clapped his boots to his mount’s flanks, and raced away into the smoke. Thamalon’s terrified mount followed the stallion it knew, and they tore through smoke and toppling rubble together, plunging through streamers of flame to skirt the worst of the roaring pyre that had begun the day as the proud mansion of Stormweather Towers.

They came to a place where blazing beams were toppling and lightning was flashing forth. A sweat-soaked and bleeding Perivel was dodging and parrying with gasping speed and skill, in a room wreathed in flames. He held a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other, and needed both to hold Marklon, Ereldel, and Lord Rajeldus Talendar at bay.

Roel drew a sword from its scabbard and threw it, hard. End over end it flashed, to take Ereldel Talendar in the side of the head, biting deep.

Ereldel toppled slowly, like a reluctantly felled tree, as Roel bellowed, “I’ll be back, Lord Uskevren! Save me some fun!”

Perivel managed a fierce grin in reply—an instant before Marklon Talendar delivered a two-handed cut that had all his strength behind it, and the aged sword in Perivel’s hand broke amid a flood of blue lightning that sent all of the combatants staggering back.

“I’ll… be here!” Perivel cried, gasping for breath and snatching a sword up from a sprawled body. He waved it in the air and cried, “For Uskevren—forever!”

Rajeldus and Marklon Talendar recovered themselves, traded glances, and advanced in grim unison on the Lord of House Uskevren. Even as Thamalon leaned back dangerously in the saddle of his racing mount to shout a warning, the blazing beams above Perivel Uskevren groaned and began to fall. The subsequent crash, and the roar of bright flame that went up in its wake, was the last of Stormweather that Thamalon saw that day. His terrified mount carried him through a choking billow of smoke, and away.

The star-adorned hilt of the knife in his sleeve was as smooth as ever. Thamalon let them all wait and wonder what was behind the gentle, wry beginnings of a smile that he’d left on his face, and went striding down the shadowed halls of reverie once more.

His mount had thrown him in its frantic gallop across Selgaunt, dashing him senseless until the sun was well up the next day. Roel went back to the fire in a vain attempt to drag forth anyone still living, and emerged from its searing flames so badly burned that he looked more like a monster than a man.

The man the Uskevren servants called the Great Bear never regained his health and seldom left his bed as that terrible year dragged on. On more than one night Thamalon found proud Teskra weeping alone in one of the turret rooms, emptying a decanter without bothering with a goblet, and staring out over the lamplit streets of cruel Selgaunt.

He never spoke a word of reproof to her but instead sat with her. Usually she said nothing, but simply offered him the decanter—and usually he accepted it for a swig or two. He sat with her until morning, cradling her against his chest if sleep claimed her. For such a small, dainty thing—she always seemed more a little sister to him than a second mother—she snored like a horse.

After Roel went to his grave, she did not tarry long before following.

Thamalon tried not to look at the pity in the eyes of the few servants who stayed with him, as he grimly began the long task of picking up the pieces. He left Selgaunt for some years, leaving Stormweather in ashes, to trade in Sembia’s humbler ports and even into the neighboring kingdom of Cormyr. Slowly he rebuilt the family fortune, but it was work he might have abandoned in despair had he not met and wed Shamur, and found her fierce temper, wiles, and battle-boldness awakening something warm in him again.

Uskevren shipping fleets meant piracy in the eyes of Selgauntans, so Thamalon avoided the traditional work of his family. Instead, he bought and sold land until he became shrewd at it, anticipating where cities would expand, and which trade routes would rise in favor. What coins he made, he spent sponsoring the crafters most Sembian merchant clans of note preferred to ignore and belittle: the common folk working as finesmiths, wood-carvers, jewelers, and the like.

He rode with them through lean times, dealing fairly, and to them the name Uskevren came to mean not “dark, lawless pirate” but “loyal friend.” He sold their wares into the cities, made them wealthy, and in doing so refilled the Uskevren coffers. In Sembia, to rebuild wealth is to rebuild one’s name… and so the spring came when the Uskevren began to restore Stormweather Towers, returning to Selgaunt as if they had never been away.

The whispers began, of course, and were fanned by houses—Soargyl and Talendar prominent among them—who were not pleased to see a vanquished rival return, but Thamalon Uskevren dealt fairly in the trading halls of Selgaunt. This was something other proud houses were seldom seen to do.

When troubles erupted, the family guard Shamur had founded, trained, and secretly tested to weed out the disloyal proved their worth. Several of the most troublesome Soargyl and Talendar “disappeared.”

Mages were hired. Mornings found more sprawled bodies, and Soargyl and Talendar warehouses and ships burned—just as Stormweather Towers had burned.

When the cost grew too high, the only fires that remained were smoldering in Soargyl and Talendar eyes, but the two families no longer dared to openly attack Uskevren or family retainers in the streets.

Years passed, Stormweather Towers arose from its ashes in opulent glory, and most folk in Selgaunt came to respect Thamalon’s honesty, fearless but polite dealings, and quick business wits. The Uskevren family was truly prosperous, highly regarded—and well-supplied with foes—once more.

Far too well supplied with foes, it seemed.

“Butler!” the man who claimed to be Perivel Uskevren boomed suddenly, “I bid you bring hence all my beloved kin. I desire them to be present, to bear proper witness as I reclaim the wealth that is rightfully mine.”

The butler, Erevis Cale, seemed to hesitate for the briefest of moments. He’d already passed through an archway into the gloom of a low-lit passage beyond, and it was hard to be sure if he’d properly heard the pretender’s order at all.

Damn all the dancing gods, Thamalon thought, this man might be Perivel—or might be anyone who had access to a captive Perivel and a lot of time to question him about family matters.

Thamalon raised his eyes at the sound of faint rustling in the feast hall balconies, caught sight of a sleeve he knew to be his daughter Thazienne’s, and dropped his gaze again to the foes at his table. His sons and daughter would have had to be creatures of leaping lightning to have responded so swiftly to any bidding from Erevis Cale. One of the other servants must already have warned them of what was brewing in the hall.

The head of House Uskevren drew in a deep breath and thought, Gods above, let my children keep silent until at least the testing is done.

With this hired mage swollen with deadly spells and the lawmaker in attendance, it’d take little more than hurled words from the balconies—let alone weapons—to give the Talendars and the Soargyl excuse enough for feuding to begin in earnest.

Thamalon did not have to look to know when his wife entered the hall. He could feel the warmth of her regard—and, as always, felt stronger, as if her presence was both cloak and armor raised around him. She must have returned early from the revel she’d expected would last well into morning. Shamur would know the danger here at a glance, and she’d keep their sons and daughter silent.