A Crown Imperilled

  RAYMOND E. FEIST

  A CROWN IMPERILLED

  This one’s for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; you know who you are.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Acknowledgments

  Entr’acte

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  • PROLOGUE •

  Awakenings

  MIGHTY DRAGONS RACED THROUGH THE SKIES.

  Hurricane-force winds struck his face, yet the rider sat confidently astride the neck of his scaled ebony mount; his to command by will alone. Arcane arts kept him firmly in place, and exultation energized every fibre of his being as the Dragon Host rode out in search of conquest.

  Never in the long history of the Valheru had the entire Dragon Host risen united.

  The entire Host, save one. Dark emotions turned quickly to rage. The white-and-gold rider was absent. Ashen-Shugar: the only dissenter within the Host.

  But the absence of the father-brother did not signify. The Valheru had answered his call, and Draken-Korin had taken his rightful place as leader of the Dragon Host.

  He watched mad energies race through the skies above the dragon riders, flashing colours of blinding brilliance as energy vortexes and tears in the fabric of space and time exploded into spectrums invisible to mortal eyes, but perfectly clear to his Valheru vision.

  His vision shifted; memories fading as others resurfaced. The cavern, once the Lord of the Tigers’ seat of power, was dark. That didn’t concern him since his vision was far sharper than any mortal’s, but he missed the warmth of torches and … Where were his servants?

  He tried to lift his left arm and pain tore through his shoulder. He had not felt pain like this since …

  Images cascaded through his mind as he relived the memories of ages past.

  He felt his first breath and heard a contemptuous mother curse him as her servants carried him away. Elven slaves brought him newborn to a clearing in the warm, damp forest, and without any tenderness left him on top of a large rock. To live or die by his own strength.

  He remembered extending his infant senses, a primitive assessment of danger and threat; he felt no sense of fear, only compelling need. His instincts emerged at need, drawing upon ancestral memories shared since the dawn of creation. The forest was deep, and he sensed predators on every side. The most dangerous, now receding, were of his own race.

  Valheru.

  A pack of golden jackals sniffed the air, seeking the source of the tempting hint of birthing blood, their heads up and their senses alert. They had left their den as the sun set in the west, to hunt.

  The child felt them move closer, the scent of his birth summoning his death. He reached out and sent a blast of hate and anger at the troop.

  The jackals stopped, and cringed. Then, ears flattened, they continue to skulk towards the architect of the mental assault, hunger outweighing their fear.

  Another presence … nearby. He reached out and instantly recognized the massive predator. But this time instead of danger he discovered contentment there, a warm, nurturing feeling that felt alien, but also compelling. He reached out once more and formed a simple command.

  Come.

  The tigress leapt to her feet, ignoring the plaintive mewing of her cubs, and bounded down the hill towards the tiny thing that coerced her.

  The jackals approached the exposed infant cautiously, knowing that it possessed dangerous abilities, yet driven by the need to feast. Then another scent arrived on the wind and they halted.

  The massive tiger charged into the clearing next to the infant and roared a challenge.

  The baby might be an unknown threat, but the tiger was all too familiar to the pack hunters, and to be avoided at all costs. Turning tail, the jackals ran, opting to survive and hunt elsewhere.

  The tigress lowered her head with a snarl, but the thought emanating from the infant was clear: Protect me.

  A mortal child would have perished had it been seized and lifted in the tiger’s mouth, but he was not a mortal infant; he was Valheru, and his small body was far from delicate.

  The great cat returned to her den and deposited the infant next to her own pair of cubs, barely three days old, and still mewing with their eyes closed. She lay down on her side to let them nurse, and watched as the man-thing reached out and gripped her fur. Somehow, it managed to pull itself to her teat where it began to nurse alongside her young.

  His eyes opened and he struggled to breathe. ‘I’m dying,’ he whispered to no one.

  You are being reborn, came a distant voice.

  He felt feverish and his entire body was in agony. He could no longer feel the separate pain of his wound, for he was consumed by a throbbing, burning ache. Every particle of him hovered at the brink of death, for only at the edge could the transformation be completed. He tried to move and couldn’t. Just opening his eyes was a trial. He let them close. Death lingered seconds away, beckoning him with promises of relief and rest.

  Something else called to him now: the dreams. He knew the dreams contained madness, but they were vivid and compelling, filling him with a sense of triumph and power. And as much as he longed for relief and rest, the consciousness within the dream was growing in strength, singing of power and control, lust and conquest, blood and victory.

  The man who had once been Braden of Shamata felt his will fading.

  He remembered joining a band of mercenaries in the Vale of Dreams, and sailing across the Endless Sea to distant lands, where weapons smuggling was a hundred times more lucrative than at home. One last caravan and he’d have enough gold to retire. He’d return to the Vale as a man of means, find a talented, young apprentice weapon-smith and make him a partner. No one knew more about weapons running than a Vale mercenary! He would sell to both sides of the Vale, and run his goods all the way from the foothills of the Grey Towers in the north, to reach the dark elves and goblins, to the Confederacy in the south …

  His ambitions faded as that old identity gave way to one that was more powerful, more commanding.

  The mercenary’s faint memories seemed so petty: now he could remember what it felt like to command his dragon, to destroy his enemies, to mate with his own kind when the breeding frenzy seized him. Now he knew he was one of the paramount beings on this world.

  He was Valheru! He had no choice. He turned away from death and embraced the dream.

  It is not a dream, whispered a distant voice that sounded like his own. It is an awakening, Lord of the Tigers.

  Tomas awoke, his body bathed in perspiration, his heart pounding. He blinked in confusion for a moment, before recognizing his surroundings. The body lying next to him stirred, then his wife returned to her slumber. Rising slowly, he moved to the large window carved out of the trunk of the massive tree that held their quarters. The soft, ever-present glow of Elvandar entered the bedchamber as he drew aside the curtain and gazed upon the forest that had been his home for most of his long life.

  The sheen of that glow made of
his body a study in shadows and highlights. Muscles still tight beneath youthful skin marred only by a few battle scars, Tomas’s appearance had remained unchanged for more than a century. Even when unarmed he was among the most dangerous beings on this world, for his power was far greater than physical strength: it came from the dark energies that lived at the heart of a race vanished centuries ago. The Valheru.

  A soft hand touched his back, familiar; affectionate. The Elf Queen spoke softly, ‘What is it, my love?’

  Tomas’s blue eyes continued to stare into the glow of Elvandar, where most of his wife’s subjects lay asleep. Softly he replied, ‘It was a dream. Nothing more.’

  She leaned against his back, her cheek resting on his shoulder. ‘You are troubled.’

  He said nothing for a moment, then repeated, ‘It was only a dream.’

  Sighing slightly, she returned to the bed and slid back under the covers. ‘Sleep, Tomas,’ she said.

  He could tell that she was already drifting back into slumber by the time he came back to the bed.

  For a long time he remained silent, even as the sun rose in the east and the sky began to brighten. The dream had been unlike any he had known since that time of madness, when he had first donned the white-and-gold armour of a Dragon Lord. Tomas had wrestled for years with the internal struggle, as the human and Valheru within him strove for dominance. But once he had gained control, he had reclaimed his humanity and found love, both in the woman who slept next to him every night, and deep within his own heart and soul; and since then the dreams of madness had left him untroubled.

  Until tonight.

  Once again, he had flown on the back of the mighty Shuruga, greatest of the golden dragons, above the lost city of Sar-Sargoth. But this time he had seen his greatest enemy, astride the neck of a massive black dragon.

  Draken-Korin.

  • CHAPTER ONE •

  Warning

  SHOUTS RANG ACROSS THE PLAZA.

  Moredhel warriors gathered in the large square below the palace steps, ignoring the biting chill of the twilight wind off the mountains as they waved their fists and bellowed threats at their enemies. Clans that would otherwise be at sword-point observed the truce, content for the moment to exact revenge on some future day.

  The city of Sar-Sargoth had been built hard against the foothills of the Great Northern Mountains. To the north of those mighty peaks stretched the vast icelands where summer never came. Even as spring presented herself to the rolling Plain of Isbandia to the south-west, winter lingered in Sar-Sargoth, only reluctantly releasing her icy grip. The stinging cold did nothing to alleviate the frustration of the assembled chieftains as they waited for those who had summoned them to council.

  The rising volume of their simmering rage was enough to move the more cautious of the moredhel chieftains to note the closest escape route should frustration build to bloodshed. Too many old rivals had been forced together at this council, and for too long for the truce to last more than minutes.

  Arkan of the Ardanien surveyed his surroundings, then nodded once towards a side street that he knew led straight to an old farm gate several blocks away. Arkan was the model of a moredhel chieftain, with strong, broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His dark brown hair was cut short at the front to ensure that his vision was never impaired, and left long to flow past his pointed ears, down to his shoulders. His dark eyes were set in an almost expressionless mask. Arkan’s reputation was impressive: he had shepherded his troubled clan through more than thirty perilous years. Despite having many rivals and sworn enemies, the Clan of the Ice Bears had grown under his leadership.

  His companion returned his nod and glanced around to assess where trouble would most likely originate. Morgeth, Arkan’s self-appointed bodyguard, let his hand stray to the hilt of his sword. ‘Those damn southerners,’ he said at last to his chieftain.

  Arkan could only agree. Their cousins from beyond the Teeth of the World were an agitated bunch, forced to dwell as their guests in ancient homelands where they had sought refuge during the Tsurani invasion. ‘Well, they’ve been here for a century; they’re starting to get restless.’

  ‘Who’s keeping them here? They can go home any damn time they want.’

  ‘Some have tried.’ The Chieftain of the Ardanien spoke quietly, with the thoughtful candour that those who knew him had come to expect. ‘It’s a difficult trek past those damn Kingdom defences at the Inclindel Gap.’ He paused. ‘On through Hadati country, skirting the dwarves and Elvandar.’ He glanced around as the volume of voices rose again. ‘I’d not attempt it with less than the entire clan—’

  The sounds of struggle became more urgent.

  ‘Narab better get on with this or we’re going to have more than a little bloodshed,’ Arkan added.

  Morgeth said, ‘And then we use that street?’

  ‘Yes,’ the chieftain said. ‘I wouldn’t mind breaking a few heads, but I don’t see any point in starting new feuds when I haven’t put paid to the old ones.’ He looked around. ‘If fighting starts, we leave.’

  ‘Yes.’ Morgeth gathered his woollen cape around him to ward off the biting wind. ‘I thought it was supposed to be warmer down here on the flats.’

  Arkan laughed. ‘It is warmer. That doesn’t make it temperate.’

  ‘I should have brought my bearskin.’

  Glancing at the sea of dark cloaks around them, Arkan said, ‘If things turn ugly, you’ll be glad not to be clad in white fur.’

  A shout went up, but this time it wasn’t a brawl, but directed instead at a group of figures standing at the top of the stairs at the crowd’s edge.

  Morgeth said, ‘Who are those two on the right?’

  ‘I’ve never seen them before,’ said his chieftain. ‘But from the look of them, I judge them to be our lost cousins, the taredhel.’

  ‘Tall bastards, aren’t they?’

  Arkan nodded. ‘That they are.’

  The two elves they referred to were indeed a full head taller than those who had led them to the top of the staircase. Behind the group rose the maw of the palace, the large entrance to the empty throne room that no chieftain had dared to occupy since the death of the true Murmandamus, the only moredhel in memory to unite all the clans under one banner.

  A moredhel dressed in ceremonial robes raised his hands, indicating the need for silence, and the cacophony of voices fell away. When it was quiet, he spoke. ‘The council thanks you for attending,’ he began.

  Muttering answered this, for the council’s message had been clear: to ignore the request would have invited the ire of the most powerful leader among the moredhel, the man who now addressed them: Narab.

  ‘We also welcome our distant kin, who have returned to us from the stars.’

  The chatter rose; rumours about these elves had been rampant in the north for the last few years. One had whispered of their alliance with the hated the eledhel in the south, so it was something of a surprise to see them standing next to Narab.

  ‘What is this, then?’ asked a chieftain standing nearby.

  ‘Shut up and find out,’ answered another.

  Arkan glanced towards the voices to see if trouble was about to erupt, but both warriors had returned their attention to the top of the palace steps.

  One of the taredhel stepped forward. ‘I am Kaladon of the Clan of the Seven Stars. I bring you greetings from your cousins in E’bar.’

  Several of the chieftains scoffed and snorted in derision, for the word ‘E’bar’ meant ‘Home’ in the ancient tongue. Others strained to listen, for the wind was blowing hard and this star elf’s accent was strange to the ear. No matter what blood history tied them together, these beings were far more alien than even the hated eledhel.

  Kaladon continued, ‘I bring greetings from the Lord Regent of the Clan of the Seven Stars. We are pleased to be returned to our homeland.’ He paused for effect. ‘Yet we see much has gone amiss since our departure.’

  The murmuring took on an angry not
e and Narab raised his hands for silence.

  Morgeth muttered, ‘This is going to turn ugly.’

  Arkan whispered, ‘It already has.’ He motioned for his companion to follow him as he edged towards the side street. A few others were also moving quietly towards the escape routes, but most of the chieftains stood silently waiting for the strangers’ next announcement.

  The other figure who wore yellow armour trimmed with purple and gold, so garish compared to the dark grey-and-black of the moredhel fighting garb, stepped forward and announced himself. ‘I am Kumal, Warleader of the Clan of the Seven Stars.’

  That brought total silence. Despite his advancing years and colourful raiment, the speaker possessed a warrior’s carriage and visible scars, and his manner communicated a kinship to the moredhel chieftains that they recognized. A few chieftains shouted out traditional words of greetings to a fellow warrior.

  If the warleader was pleased to be received in such a fashion, he showed no sign of it but simply nodded once and continued, ‘The Regent’s Meet has elected to recognize your independence.’

  Instantly the mood of the gathered chieftains turned ugly once more. ‘You recognize us?’ shouted more than one chieftain.

  ‘Quiet!’ shouted Narab. ‘He brings news!’

  ‘The humans war among themselves,’ Kumal went on when the noise had died down. ‘Their Empire of Kesh has marched against their Kingdom of the Isles, and much of the land to the south lies covered in smoke and blood.’

  This brought a mixed reaction, for as much as the moredhel hated humans, dwarves, and the eledhel, war in the south meant trouble for the southern clans. The leader of one such clan shouted, ‘What of the west?’

  ‘Kesh has taken Crydee,’ returned Kumai, ‘and is driving over the northern pass in the Grey Towers to Ylith.’

  ‘What of the Green Heart?’ shouted another voice.

  ‘Kesh ignores all but the human towns and cities. The dwarves stand ready at the borders of Stone Mountain and the Grey Towers, but will act only if their lands are threatened. The Green Heart and the mountains to the south of E’bar are untroubled.’