She looked after them and found the enclave filled with kettles of boiling oil, barrels packed with crossbow bolts, fire tubs brimming with water. At the far end of the enclosure stood a sturdy oak gate, booming loudly under the regular crash of a battering ram. A constant stream of women and children ran up one set of stairs and down another, ferrying buckets of crossbow bolts and pots of boiling oil to the warriors gathered along the front wall. Though a few of the men wore only the flimsy leather jerkins of honest woodsmen, most were armored in the chain mail hauberks and steel basinets of Cormyrean dragoneers.

The sight of royal soldiers finally cleared the teleport afterdaze from Tanalasta’s mind, and she recalled that she was in the Cormyrean citadel at Goblin Mountain. She would have preferred to enter by the main gate, but there happened to be a host of orcs hammering at the portcullis with an iron-headed ram.

Behind her, the tower sergeant’s gruff voice called, “Ready your bolts!”

“Wait!” Tanalasta fished her signet ring from her pocket and spun toward her attackers, holding the amethyst dragon high above her. “In the name of the Obarskyrs, stay your fire!”

There was a pause, then the tower sergeant hissed, “By the Black Sword! That’s a woman-in a war wizard’s cloak!”

“It is.” Tanalasta dared to raise her head and saw a heavy-browed dragoneer peering out of an arrow loop. “And that woman is Crown Princess Tanalasta Obarskyr.”

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look like any portraits I’ve seen, Princess.” He spoke to someone inside the tower, and a freshly loaded crossbow appeared in the arrow loop next to him. He turned back to Tanalasta. “You won’t mind if we come down for a closer look?”

“Of course not,” Tanalasta replied. “And bring some ropes-long ones.”