Crusade e-3 Page 5

  "And the Dales?"

  "Not even a witch from Rashemen could predict what they will do," Vangerdahast said flatly. "It mostly depends on your meeting with the Zhentish delegate two days from now." The wizard paused and stood up. "Even if you do get Zhentish support, you're going to have trouble placing the dalesmen in the army."

  "Ah, Mourngrym's ridiculous demand for dalesmen leading themselves."

  "Ridiculous?" Vangerdahast repeated, his eyes wide with surprise.

  Azoun nodded, wondering why his friend was taken aback by his comment. "I'll not have anyone undermining my command of these forces, Vangy. For us to succeed, there must be one clear leader on the expedition."

  "You're being inflexible."

  "Not inflexible, Vangy. I'm right. Military history shows that-"

  Vangerdahast threw his arms into the air and looked up at the ceiling. "One minute you're damning fickle historians and the next you're basing your army's organization upon their advice."

  Azoun scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. "I find good advice where I can."

  "No, Azoun," Vangerdahast began, then shook his head. "It's just like Alusair used to-"

  All the color drained from the king's face at the mention of his youngest daughter. Vangerdahast saw the pained expression that took hold of his friend and instantly regretted the slip. The princess's opinion of her father's stubbornness was, however, a very valid point to bring up.

  It was Azoun's inflexibility that caused his conflict with Alusair. No one really believed that it was entirely the king's fault his daughter had run away four years past, for Alusair was as headstrong and willful as her father was sure that she had a duty to the state. Still, if Azoun hadn't pressed her to abandon her desire to see the rest of the world before settling down to a life of royal responsibility, she wouldn't have fled. And though Azoun had offered a generous reward for her return, Alusair remained hidden from even Vangerdahast's considerable magical talent.

  All these facts, and more personal things, raced through Azoun's mind. Vangerdahast bowed his head and mumbled, "I'm sorry, Azoun."

  The king closed his eyes for a moment and banished the memories as best he could. "As I was saying," he began dully, trying to avoid the topic altogether, "it is important that one person be recognized as the crusade's leader. For this venture to be successful, we need to dissuade our soldiers of their national loyalties. We should fight as one, and this means Mourngrym's demand for dalesmen leading dalesmen is utterly impossible."

  "Have you even considered letting another man lead the crusade?" Vangerdahast asked quietly.

  "Cormyr is committing the most troops," replied Azoun sharply. "Are you willing to give them over to another leader?"

  "That depends upon who stepped forward," Vangerdahast said, though there was little conviction in his voice. His spirit still muffled by his painful error, the wizard meekly returned to his seat.

  "Who, Vangy? Mourngrym, perhaps? How about the Sembians' mercenaries? Would they have my training in strategy? How about that hotheaded general from Battledale-Elventree?" The king hammered the table with a fist, anger roiling inside of him. "I am the only one to lead this crusade. I am the best trained. I-"

  Azoun ran a hand through his beard and straightened the scabbard at his side. When he spoke again, Vangerdahast heard the cold resolve in his voice. "I know that I'm fighting for what's right. I fight for Cormyr and for Faerun, not for myself."

  A deeper sadness took hold of the royal magician as he realized that Azoun was correct. There was no other ruler in Faerun better suited for the crusade, no one who could muster as many troops or lead them against the Tuigan with as much zeal. The wizard pushed himself up from the table and headed toward the door.

  Azoun moved to Vangerdahast's side, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I want you to see that I'm right," the king said softly.

  "Your Highness knows this matter best. As your servant, I will support you in any way I can."

  Vangerdahast heard Azoun's sigh. "And as my friend?"

  The wizard gazed deep into the king's oak-brown eyes. "As your friend I am sorry that you are the best man to lead the army against the horsewarriors."

  "Then that will have to do," Azoun said. He took his hand off Vangerdahast's shoulder. The wizard turned and exited the room, leaving the king alone to study the faces on the tapestry once more.

  3

  Razor John

  "Sure flights! Razor points!"

  The fletcher's cry rang out over the marketplace. Other wandering sellers called, "Nice red apples!" or "Boots mended! Leather repaired!" The fletcher's call, borne by his deep, resonant voice, carried over these and other noises.

  "Sure flights! Razor points! Buy your arrows from John the Fletcher! Only the best from Razor John!" Pausing a moment to settle the heavy cart in his hands, John the Fletcher took in the sights and sounds of Suzail's market.

  It was a beautiful morning. Winter was finally loosing its grip on Cormyr, and the sun shone brightly in the cloudless azure sky. The nights were still chilly, of course, but the days were getting more and more pleasant all the time. The nice weather brought people out to the market, so merchants and shoppers now crowded the open area reserved for tradesmen like John. A few permanent tents and stalls dotted the dusty expanse, but the place was mostly packed with small-time sellers and farmers. Shoppers bustled from one stall to the next. Cooks frowned at unripe imported fruits and vegetables, and merchants smiled endearingly, trying to lure people toward their goods. Ham and beef and other, more exotic meats roasted over small fires, sending tempting smells and black, greasy smoke twisting into the air. Pack animals brayed, gulls screamed overhead, and people jabbered and bartered, creating a steady, roaring hum that would hang over the square until the sun set.

  "Morning, milady," John said to a passing flower peddler. He lifted his black felt hat with one gloved hand and grinned at the pretty young woman. John had seen her around the market before, and by the purple sash she wore around her waist, he could tell that she was a maiden looking for a mate.

  She passed the fletcher by without so much as a second glance. John shrugged, hefted his cart again, and set off toward the docks.

  "Sure flights! Only the best from Razor John!"

  The fletcher had walked but twenty yards or so, calling out his wares, when a stout man signaled him to stop. The man's sunburned face was almost hidden by the fur cloak he wore over his earth-brown tunic. The fletcher immediately assumed him to be an itinerant mercenary from the grimy, unkempt state of his dress.

  "What'll it be today, good sir?" John asked as he unrolled the cloth on the top of his cart. A dozen different types of arrows and crossbow bolts lay on display.

  The man glanced at the weapons, then looked to the fletcher. "I heard you call 'Razor John.' Is there anyone else in the market who uses that name?"

  John rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. "Not that I know of, though I'd wager there are other fletchers in Suzail who go by the name of John."

  The fur-clad man nodded. "No, my good man. If you are the Razor John, then you're the only fletcher I seek." He picked up a silver-tipped longbow arrow and turned it over in his hands. Sunlight glinted off the finely honed arrowhead.

  "You've got a good eye," John noted casually, studying the customer. "That type of arrow is one of my specialties."

  "You make the arrowheads, too?"

  "Aye. I've been trained as an arrowsmith as well as a fletcher."

  The man looked at John suspiciously. "Do you pay dues in the Fletchers' Guild and the Arrowsmiths' Guild?"

  John shrugged his left arm toward the customer. "Of course," he said, slapping his hand over two patches tied around his arm. The small leather circles had the symbols of the Fletchers' and Arrowsmiths' Guilds stamped into them. "Licenses are up to date, as well."

  An odd smile crossed the man's face. "A guildsman. Good. I'll take two hundred of your silver-tipped arrows, then."

  John raised one
eyebrow in surprise. He was accustomed to selling such quantities of arrows, but only to ships' stewards, the royal guard, or the city watch. "My apologies, good sir, but I don't have that many on hand." John rolled the cloth display aside and opened his cart. He removed four batches of ten arrows each.

  "I don't need them right now," the customer said. "I'll be in the market to pick up the rest in-" John held up one finger. "A tenday, it is."

  They discussed how and where John was to deliver the arrows. The terms were simple enough, and the fur-clad man paid the fletcher thirty pieces of silver as a down payment. John was pleased with the sale, for it seemed to indicate that his reputation as a craftsman was spreading. Still, he wondered why the man wanted so many arrows.

  "Outfitting a mercenary company?" John asked as he pocketed the silver coins. "The king is going to be hiring well-outfitted sell-swords for the crusade against the barbarian invaders in Thesk."

  The man's sunburned face paled noticeably. "You'd sell arrows to someone supporting Azoun's foolish plan?" he asked, his lips curling into an almost feral snarl. "I'm tempted to cancel my order, even if you are a guildsman!" Not taking his eyes off John, he slipped his hand into his purse and removed a small leather badge similar to the ones the fletcher wore-this one, though, bore an open, jagged-toothed bear trap stamped into it.

  John stared at the badge. The man wasn't a mercenary; he was a trapper. The opposition the Trappers' Guild was fomenting against the king was rumor throughout Suzail, but the trappers had yet to brave any truly public statement of their opinion about the proposed crusade. Suddenly, the fletcher realized that the grimy trapper might be needing the arrows for just such a statement.

  "I may be a guildsman, but I'm also a good subject of the king," John said gruffly. He dug the silver coins out of his pocket and dropped them into the dirt. "I'll not be selling weapons to malcontents for them to use in a revolt."

  "Better a malcontent than a fool," the trapper snapped. He quickly snatched up the coins and turned to go. "You'll remember this when the king's tax collector takes your shop away." Without another word, the fur-clad man disappeared into the crowded marketplace.

  John simply shook his head in dismay and packed up his cart. He'd heard a great deal about Azoun's crusade-and the trappers' opposition to it-in the last few tendays. It was common knowledge that the king was meeting with important nobles and even the leaders of Sembia and the Dales, trying to get their cooperation. The fletcher wondered for a moment if he should report the trapper to the city guard, then decided he would that evening.

  Not that he thought the trappers posed any real threat to the king. Azoun's army, known as Purple Dragons, could certainly thwart any minor uprising. More importantly, Azoun was going to make a public speech that very afternoon-a speech, rumor had it, in which the king would formally announce the crusade. After the official declaration of war, the government would swiftly equip the crusading army and move it to the east. If the trappers hadn't yet done anything to unify the scattered groups that were against the venture, it might soon be too late.

  Shielding his eyes, John looked into the sky and estimated from the sun's position that he had enough time to make one delivery before the king's speech. He quickly lifted the wooden cart and set off for the Black Rat, a tavern near the docks, east of the marketplace. On his way through the crowded streets, the fletcher thought not of battles in faraway lands, but of the apprentice in his shop. He'd have to visit him before his delivery at the tavern.

  A few blocks from the Black Rat, John left his cart at home. The fletcher lived above his forge and workshop. He sometimes sold his wares from the shop, but it was located far from the market. John found that by traveling part of the day, showing examples of his work, he could drum up much more business than came looking for him.

  His apprentice was a young lad with sandy brown hair and nimble, long fingers. As the fletcher entered the bright, open-fronted shop, the boy was stripping feathers, preparing them to become fletching. "Take time out at highsun to hear the king," John told the boy, examining his work over his shoulder.

  "Thank you, Master John," the apprentice chimed.

  The fletcher laughed. "It's your duty to King Azoun to listen to his proclamations, Loreth, not a gift I can give you." John tossed some poorly prepared fletching onto the dirty wooden floor and patted the boy on the back. "Take more care with these. Tell Mikael and Rolf at the guildhall that I'll have work for them for the next few days. You'll be busy, too," he added as an afterthought. Then John gathered up the arrows he needed to deliver at the tavern and left.

  The Black Rat was crowded when he arrived. Smoke hung in the low-ceilinged taproom, making the dark interior only darker. Two dozen men and a few women squatted on wobbly chairs around uneven tables, smoking pipes, eating breakfast, and telling wild tales.

  "No," John heard someone yell, "storm giants are at least twice that size!" He turned to see an elf wearing leather armor. The exotic-looking man, his fine-boned cheeks flushed with wine or the argument in which he was engaged, leaned back in his chair and gestured wildly.

  A squinting, tomato-nosed dwarf sitting across from the elf folded his arms across his long, white beard and barrel-like chest. "Bah!" he rumbled. "I've killed more giants in my time than you ever saw!"

  The elf leaned forward, made some comment about orcs, and continued the argument more quietly. John couldn't hear what was said next, but he caught snatches of dozens of other conversations, some more interesting, some less than the one going on between the elf and dwarf. Mixed in with these, men and women called for the barmaid. The woman usually responded with a shrill, "In a minute."

  Over this cacophony, the fletcher heard someone yell, "Hey, Razor John! Over here!"

  He scanned the room for his customer, a sailor named Geoff from a Sembian merchant ship. Eventually the fletcher spotted the man sitting at a table near the back of the room. Pulling the bundle of arrows close to his chest to avoid jostling anyone in the taproom, John made his way to the sailor.

  "Well met!" the Sembian said, clapping John on the shoulder as he reached the table. "I see my arrows are ready."

  John smiled amicably and opened one of the bundles. The arrows it contained had the standard shaft and fletching of those used by many hunters. Their heads, though, were quite different from those on typical, pointed hunting arrows. Shaped like crescent moons, these arrowheads were meant primarily to cut through rigging on ships.

  Geoff glanced at them and nodded. "The pirates off the Turmish coast will be surprised to see these slash through their lines." He slapped down a few gold pieces in payment, then signaled to the barmaid and motioned for John to join him at the table.

  "I suppose you're waiting to hear King Azoun's speech this afternoon," the sailor said once the barmaid had delivered an ale for John and another for him.

  The fletcher sipped the warm, bitter brew and nodded. "I've heard he's going to announce another heir is on the way. I don't much believe that, though."

  "Nah," Geoff snorted. "He's much too old." When he saw John's scowl, he added, "Not that I meant that as disrespectful or nothing."

  A brawny, ham-fisted man, sitting at the next table, spun and grabbed the sailor by the collar. "You just wish you had a king like Azoun," he snarled. "All you've got is your pitiful merchants' council."

  The Sembian pulled away from the bigger man, but knocked over his own mug of ale in the process. The heavy metal tankard bounced off the table, spewing ale everywhere, and clattered to the floor.

  Whole tables quieted quickly at the first sounds of conflict. A member of the king's guard who sat near the door stood and started to move across the room. However, Geoff was neither drunk enough nor foolish enough to start a fight in a Cormyrian tavern, especially by insulting the king who was perhaps the most popular leader in Faerun.

  The Sembian reached over and snatched John's mug. "To King Azoun," he called, "the bravest ruler on the continent." No one in the room considered the sai
lor's toast genuine, but it was a suitable apology. After raising their own mugs, the tavern's patrons turned back to their business and the Purple Dragon returned to his seat.

  Geoff bought the ham-fisted man a drink and replaced John's. Silently, he said a thanks to King Azoun for forbidding anyone from bearing arms not bound by peacestrings in the city. Then, after a few moments of small talk, he awkwardly excused himself and left the Black Rat, intent on returning to his ship and fellow countrymen.

  As the Sembian took his leave, the big man from the next table leaned toward John and grumbled, "He didn't belong in here in the first place."

  The fletcher agreed. He didn't much like Sembians. They were far too interested in money and leisure rather than honest hard work. And they had little in common with Cormyrians, as far as John was concerned. Sembians had only a weak loyalty to their country, and their rulers were salesmen, like many of their subjects. They didn't even have a strong standing army.

  "If His Highness does call this crusade," John said to his countryman by way of a reply, "you won't find many Sembians on the battlefield-not unless they're mercenaries."

  "You mean you haven't heard?" the man exclaimed, pushing a lock of his curly blond hair from his eyes with a meaty hand. "We are going to Thesk to fight the barbarians. Tuigan, they call them. Azoun had a meeting with a bunch of nobles a few days ago."

  John nodded. "That's what the king will announce today, I suppose."

  "Aye," the brawny man said, his voice betraying his excitement. "He'll be calling for volunteers. A friend of mine from Arabel told me just yesterday that Lord Lhal has already started rounding up soldiers and wizards."

  "Azoun should be able to raise quite a few in Suzail," John noted, finishing off his ale.

  With exaggerated motions, the big man slapped himself on his broad chest. "And I'll be one of the first to sign on!"

  "And me," said a woman from a nearby table. "I'll be going, too, Mal. I wouldn't let you gather all the glory for yourself."