Council of Blades (24 page)

"Well, all in all, Lorenzo, I think that was one of your better plans." Luccio reached down to proffer a kiss to Miliana's muddy hand. "Dear lady… so good to see you safe, and at liberty."

Luccio unshipped a bag of snorkels and alighted from the wagon top. "Alas, there is a swim ahead of us.

The river is the only means of escape. The streets swarm with ten thousand blades."

"Why?" Miliana stood wringing out her muddy hair, then capped herself with the ruins of her pointy hat.

"Is there a bread riot on? What's all the noise?"

Luccio looked at her, unable or unwilling to break ill news. Biting his lip, Lorenzo came forward to gently put an arm about Miliana's shoulders.

Her face had already drained ashen white. Creeping quietly into Lorenzo's touch, she let him quietly lead her away.

Lorenzo softly whispered to her. Luccio began to unpack his wagon, laying out snorkels, food packages, a toadskin book, and spare spectacles salvaged from the ruins of Miliana's room.

"Nurgle?"

"Just a moment, old chap. Leave them together for a while." Luccio quietly placed a hand on Tekoriikii's back. The bird mournfully strained toward Miliana, made anx-ious by the half-heard sound of tears.

Sunning herself on the riverbanks, there lay a long, exquisite female nixie-a curvaceous humanoid with webbed feet, webbed hands and dainty gills. Luccio intro-duced her to the curious firebird with a schoolgirl's blush.

"Tekoriikii? This is the Princess Krrrr-poka, of the Akanamere. She… ah, she owed me a favor."

Luccio sealed his packages inside little wooden casks. "You can fly over the river; the rest of us will use snorkels, and she will tow us underwater past the armies and the gates."

Beside the river, Lorenzo stood with Miliana leaning on his arm. The young couple gazed in silence in the direction of Miliana's old home, which now formed the center of a distant storm of screams.

Miliana was free.

And Sumbria was burning.

In the early battles of the first violent hours, the citi-zens had flocked into the streets-some to avenge their fallen prince, and some to protect their homes from marauding gangs of soldiers. Gilberto Ilego, now univer-sally acknowledged as the prince's assassin, had rallied his supporters about him, and the city burned and shud-dered as it transformed into a place of surging battle lines.

Days passed; alliances shifted, soldiers clashed, and the dead were left unburied in the streets. The crash of magic spells sent rows of houses slumping into rubble, and the citizens abandoned the nobles to their fight. The market quarter became a place of tent ghettos and fright-ened families; women and children stood in the streets and stared up the hill at the palaces of the mighty.

One by one, the great houses besieged each other. In the first few days, a half dozen of the small fortresses fell-until the battering rams ran short of soldiers will-ing to man them, and those sorcerers with the power to breach the walls eventually fell victim to each other's spells. The factions split, then split again as each Blade House determined to protect its own affairs, and the great battles of the days before dissolved into street fights and skulking nighttime brawls.

Food supplies fell and sicknesses began; finally the sol-diers themselves abandoned the fight. Some dragged them-selves back to their barracks and remained slumped in apa-thy. Others took to looting empty houses, installing them-selves in taverns barricaded into little forts. There they drank themselves into a howling stupor, raiding the sur-rounding streets for women, bread, and gold; rolling in their own filth as the city took on the stench of the damned.

Only Gilberto Ilego's house remained at war. It was a savage, mindless battle fought against the entire world. Ilego was blamed for all the nation's troubles, and so he shut himself inside his lair and struck out at anything that dared come near. His men made savage raids into the market streets for food and snatched careless citizens to use as conscripts for their unceasing attacks on other palaces. Like a monster in its pit, Ilego carved himself a niche among the ruins of a better world.

Until, one cold-dawned autumn day, the sound of won-dering; joyous cheers came drifting in across the city roofs.

As the tiny sound began to spread, tired Blade Captains ran to their battered marble towers and stared.

Soldiers crowded into gateways, looking at one another in confusion as citizens crept forth from their homes.

The cheers turned into a roar of adulation, and sud-denly the crowds began to run out into the sun.

Through the gates of Sumbria-opened by a swarm of citizens who then flung aside the keys-came a proces-sion more welcome than a shower of purest gold. Colletran soldiers, all with their weapons slung and swords sheathed, marching in column beside a wagon train that stretched far away into the foothills of the Akanapeaks.

The soldiers escorted cart after cart loaded to the brim with priceless food; there were bales of bread and biscuit, sacks of dried fish and flour. Whole pyramids of sausage followed barrow loads of autumn fruit.

The populace of Sumbria gaped at the treasury in shock, standing in stunned amazement as the triumphant march passed them by.

And then the wagon crews began to hurtle bread into the crowds, sparking off a delirious storm of cheers.

The Colletrans had brought everything that a war-torn city might possibly need. Food and water, tents and blan-kets, shovels to clear rubble and five thousand hands to use them. Scores of healer priests dismounted and moved out to treat the sick. Barrels of water and beer were trun-dled over to a makeshift hospital. Colletran soldiers pre-sented themselves to exhausted Sumbrian citizens, enlisting local aid in sweeping looters from the streets. Civil order restored itself in one great heady rush as food gushed out, unmeasured, into the hands of the poor.

What no one in Sumbria could possibly know, of course, was that the food and provisions had been largely stolen from Sumbria's own outlying farming hamlets, farm after farm having been left completely decimated.

Cheering swept the city as if it were a day of festival, with people swarming down the streets to behold the wonder of the age. Flowers flew through the air and land-ed at the feet of a black, high-stepping hippogriff, whose armored rider soothed the crowds with steady hands.

Ugo Svarezi, now prince-elect of Colletro, conferred with Sumbrian citizens, noblemen and troops. With the looting at an end and law and order restored, an amnesty was declared; but an amnesty that did not extend to the villain of the play.

Every tragedy needs a decent scapegoat for the crowd. Sealed up inside his palace, Gilberto Ilego found Colletran snipers firing at his embrasures and Sumbrian nobles hammering at his gates. Drunk, desperate, and wild, he could only slump against his own walls and laugh as he saw Svarezi ride like a demigod through the adoring Sumbrian mob.

The palace's left wing fell beneath a hail of spells and trebuchet stones; a company of Ilego's men deserted through the rubble and fled, only to be cut down in the streets. In the gatehouse tower, Ilego's last surviving companies barricaded themselves behind the doors, snarling like wild animals spitting from a cage.

The entire population of Sumbria swarmed about Ilego's lair, screaming out for blood. Amongst the com-bined soldiers of two cities, Ugo Svarezi rode like a heavy-hearted father gazing upon wayward children. The crowds wanted to please him, to point up at Ilego and blame him for the war. Svarezi gave them his benediction and rode on into the storm.

Ilego, tired almost past thinking but still capable of reveling in irony, swung carelessly from his own battle-ments and leaned out across the crowd. He hoisted a glass to the citizens and drank to their health with wine. He swallowed, then interrupted his drinking in pantomimed surprise.

"What? No chorus? No music heralding the curtain call?" The ragged courtier brayed like a laughing ass. "Svarezi! Surely you can stage a better production than that? You have the costuming, the timing… even the proper cast!" Ilego half made to serve himself more wine. "I, of course, shall play the villain. I'm told one is needed in any proper tale.

"Sadly, I fear this is less a tragedy than a mere farce-with you, dear little citizens, playing the sheep who take the fall."

Below him, a mob of untold thousands jeered up at him in hatred. Ilego bowed before his audience as though idly acknowledging their cheers, and then cocked a hand up to his ear and gaped down at them in shock.

"What's that? Did he never tell you what we planned?" Ilego clung above his gate, eyes wild above a ragged beard. "Did he never tell you I was to rule Sumbria, and he Colletro, together! Did he tell you why he stole the Sun Gem? Did you ever ask him why?"

Dragging up through the streets, there came a titanic wheeled machine; a massive armored box drawn by a dozen cartage teams. Ilego greeted its appearance with a cheer.

"Never extend the final act, and always dazzle them with an unforeseen display!" Ilego raised a careless bot-tle to the crowd. "Time's up, my friends! It seems we have our curtain call!"

Down on a cleared street, among the mob, armored gunners checked their hoses and retorts, then raised clenched fists to their commander. The master gunner jerked the valve release and slammed his visor shut across his eyes.

Mounted at the forefront of the machine, the Sun Gem blazed unutterably bright. A searing bolt of violet light spat across the air, and Ilego's gatehouse wall blew apart. Molten stonework fountained through the sky and super-heated masonry exploded in an example of demolition such as all Faerun had never seen. In an instant, the palace of Ilego was no more.

Svarezi surveyed the lifeless ruins with a cold, unwinking eye. Turning into the arms of an adoring, cheering crowd, he rode forth to take the city as his own.

Ugo Svarezi's envoys, a Colletran Blade Captain and a representative from Sumbria, both kept diplomatic smiles as they held their bows.

"Madam, the prince's offer is sincere. He is now the prince-elect both of Colletro and Sumbria, and is moved to offer marriage to the greatest lady of the age."

Ulia gave a snort and cracked a cast-iron fan into her fist. The death of her husband had left her disgruntled, but not diminished. With the coming of peace, Svarezi had wasted little time in sending emissaries of his love. Lady Ulia had been found in command of one of her own palace towers, a place in which she had gathered almost a hundred young girls to save them from the ravages of the civil war. She had defended this treasure through two weeks of constant battle, keeping all comers from her door by a combination of hurtled rocks, chamber pots and invective… and the largest trebuchet battery in the Blade Kingdoms.

Peace had come, and Ulia's teeth had been carefully drawn. She now stood and confronted new enemies, glow-ering at them with the eyes of a maddened bull.

"I am aware of exactly what your master wants, and he shall not have it! I have read all the same books as he. If he wishes to legitimize his conquest of Sumbria, he may seek marriage elsewhere."

Colletro's diplomat changed his expression to a sly, cal-culating smile.

"Perhaps we can persuade the great lady to change her mind?" The man flipped his colleague a lazy glance. "Were she to sample our hospitality, she would surely see the error of her ways.

"Alas, the chambers we have to offer are a trifle cramped. We cannot guarantee her ladyship's total satis-faction…"

Ulia gazed down at the man as though about to crush him like a snake.

"You would not dare! The prince has an heir, sir. An heir who will avenge slights delivered to his family!"

"An heir?" Awake at last, the Sumbrian delegate raised a sardonic, mocking brow. "Cappa Mannicci sired no heirs."

"I refer, sir, to his daughter Miliana, who has escaped this city to organize an army to reconquer her lost home!"

"Aaaaaah… then it is vengeance my lord must fear!" The Sumbrian delightedly clapped his hands. "I am sure he will lie awake in terror at nights, dreading the arrival of your stepdaughter and her avenging sword."

Still pretending to a veneer of friendliness, the Colletran emissary intruded himself at Lady Ulia's side.

"Seriously, my lady, the prince's offer is the best for us all. Would you let mere pride destroy the bright hopes for our new nation?"

"I wish your new nation to the dogs, sir!" Ulia let her bodice creak with the swelling of her pride. "I can smell a despot as well as anyone, and despotism is the stench that creeps across this land. The people still cheer too much to notice it, sir, but they shall come back to their senses in time."

"By which time, my lady, it will all be far too late." The Colletran snapped his fingers and summoned a horde of guards. "With your permission, my lady, we shall install you as our master's special guest. Diet and exercise may help clear the evil humors from your mind. A good brisk run tied behind a team of horses twice each day, and a diet of bread and salad greens." The man chuckled as he saw the color flush into Ulia's face. "You may halt our little regimen at any time, of course; simply agree to become my master's bride, and you may once again return to the lap of luxury."

"Varlet! Do your worst!" Ulia shoved her guards aside and proudly hefted up her hems. "Toril itself shall expire before you manage to break the likes of me!"

Trailing a nervous procession of guards, Lady Ulia stormed away into the talons of her enemies. Outside the palace walls, the street crowds still excitedly bubbled as the new prince of Sumbria was showered endlessly with praise.