War in Tethyr

War in Tethyr by Victor Milán is the second book in the loosely related The Nobles series. "The Business of War&hellip;

Zaranda Star never intended to bring the incessant Tethyrian Civil War to a head. All she wanted to do was take a caravan of goods into the war-torn capital. But then ambitious would-be king, Baron Hardly [sic], confiscated her shipment.

Little did he reckon with Zaranda, retired warrior&hellip; and wizard.

Marshaling a motley company of angry peasants, an adolescent mage named Scab, and an orcish paladin, Zaranda declares her own private war.

But Zaranda must reckon with the machinations of the mysterious wizard Nyadnar&hellip; and the unearthly evil that lurks deep within the city of Zazesspur."

Prologue
A young stable hand nicknamed Scab has a dream about flying that turns into a nightmare about falling into a pit with a tentacled, many-eyed monster. She is woken up by a kick from her master and sets to work on the horses, making plans to seek out a wizard for training later in the day in the city of Zazesspur.

Part I
Crossing a hidden pass in the Snowflake Mountains in hopes of avoiding bandits, Countess Zaranda Star returns to Tethyr with a caravan of goods, intending ultimately to sell them in the city of Zazesspur, so that she can pay off her debts and retire. She travels astride her talking horse, Golden Dawn, and is accompanied by Father Pelletyr, a priest of Ilmater, and Vander Stillhawk, a mute human ranger raised by elves. Her caravan is stopped by halfling bandits, demanding a toll, but she and her companions distract them in conversation long enough for the bard Farlorn Half-Elven to harmlessly incapacitate the halflings lying in ambush in the cliffs above them.

A few days after Greengrass, in the, they arrive at Morninggold Keep. Zaranda's companions are shocked to be greeted at the door by a bugbear. The guests are surprised to learn that the "monster" is Zaranda's long-time chamberlain, Gisbertus, but he fills Zaranda and the others in on the happenings in Tethyr during their absence, primarily the increase in banditry. Zaranda then returns to her bedchambers and converses with the brazen head that she had recovered from her adventures in Thay before going to sleep.

The next day, now on their journey west, the band of travelers come upon a farmstead that has been set ablaze. Zaranda does not hesitate to attack the bandits. The skirmish goes well, until the bandits take Father Pelletyr captive. In exchange for his life, Zaranda challenges the leader of the group, a half-ogre calling himself Togrev the Magnificent, to single combat, and Zaranda is victorious.

Zaranda continues through Ithmong and the villages west of that city, hearing of a new strong government in Zazesspur. A day and a half later, they encounter yet another sign of conflict, a group of peasants surrounding an orog. The orog claims to be a paladin of Torm, renamed Shield of Innocence by the god and sent on a holy quest. After Zaranda talks down the mob and listens to the orc's tale, he kneels before her and claims that she has been sent by Torm for him to serve. The other members of the group have strong apprehensions about this, but Zaranda refuses to judge someone on his race alone and welcomes Shield into her party.

When they arrive outside the city of Zazesspur, Zaranda chooses to take her goods through an old breach in the wall rather than through one of the main gates. No sooner do they enter the city, than they are surrounded by city guards, and it is declared that all their goods are to be impounded by order of the city council. She is told that&mdash;even if she were to leave a bribe&mdash;the earliest her case could be heard would be three months.

Frustrated, Zaranda decides to visit a tavern, where she argues with a former adventuring companion about local politics. A potential bar fight is averted when Father Pelletyr dies of heartstop before Shield is revealed to the tavern patrons as an orog.

As they carry Pelletyr's body to the chapter house of his sect, they encounter a mob surrounding Earl Ravenak and cheering him on as he speaks about cleansing the city of foreign races. Further still, they rescue a woman and her baby from a band of "darklings"&mdash;an orc, a hobgoblin, a duergar, a moon elf, and three humans.

Once they reach the chapter house, they learn that Pelletyr had taken an oath to forbid his resurrection. The group can do little but laugh about the irony of Pelletyr taking an oath to make his potential martyrdom more meaningful only to die a meaningless death.

That night, Zaranda has strange dreams of a voice summoning her.

The next day, she visits an old friend, the armorer Artalos, to ask him his opinion on happenings in the city. They discuss Earl Ravenak and Toby and Poot Hedgeblossom and their political agendas and the danger of the "darklings". On her way out, she notices a mage sigil and is told that it belongs to a sorceress named Nyadnar. She is then handed a scrap by a stranger with a scrawled message telling her to meet a one-armed man the next day at the Carpet Mart if she wants back what has been taken from her.

Meanwhile, the young girl Scab is kicked out of her wizard training for causing magic to happen accidentally without spells.

Elsewhere in the city, Zaranda encounters two young members of the All Friends, worshipers of Ao the Universal. She visits a gnome named White Eyebrow, another old friend, whom she questions about this strange cult. She learns that Baron Hardisty is advised by a minister of Ao named Armenides the Compassionate, who arrived in Zazesspur a year prior with news that Ao wanted to take a more active role on Toril. While visiting the gnome and his daughter, two racist youths come into the shop and threaten the gnomes. Zaranada threatens them in return and discusses with White Eyebrow if violence is even an answer to problems.

That night, Zaranda continues have strange dreams. The next morning, she walks a poorer section of the city and rescues the girl known as Scab from a gang of youths who claim that she was tormenting them with magic. Scab claims that she had defended herself from a boy who had tried to fondle her in her sleep.

Now with Scab, whose real name is Chenowyn, following her around and begging to be made an apprentice, Zaranda waits at the Carpet Mart, but the one-armed man is nowhere to be found. She leaves before a fight between local factions erupts. When Zaranda and Chen arrive back, Goldie informs them that soldiers had come to arrest Shield. The talking horse clarifies that they had not succeeded at arresting him, for she had told the orog to go up on the roof and pretend to be a gargoyle. This he did, successfully, for the whole day, meaning that the sun damaged his orcish skin. She applies balm to his face and then sends the orog and Stillhawk out of the city for their own safety.

Farlorn returns and is introduced to Chen. He then informs Zaranda that he had visited the Forest of Tethir and learned that the moon elf "darkling" woman whom they had earlier slain had been reported missing by her family six weeks ago.

That night, Zaranda once again suffers from nightmares and hears voices summoning her. She is startled awake and sees a winged figure at her window. The figure hands her a slab with the sigil of Nyadnar, and Zaranda understands that she has been summoned. Zaranda visits Nyadnar, and it is revealed that the sorceress is the one who hired Zaranda to recover the brazen head from Thay. Zaranda explains that the head has been confiscated by the council and suggests stealing it back, but Nyadnar tells her not to risk it. Nyadnar then questions Zaranda about her new apprentice, Chen.

After this, Zaranda attempts to speed the processing of her case by visiting Duke Alaric Hembreon, the most powerful member of the city council, but he says that there is nothing he can do. While she is there, the duke's daughter, Tatrina is dragged in, having been caught stealing her father's money to give to the poor children of the city in the name of Ao.

When Zaranda leaves the duke's home, she is arrested by one so-called Shaveli Sword-Master of the civic guard. He takes her to Baron Hardisty, and she is introduced to his advisor Armenides. She is shown a model of a future Zazesspur and told how they want to regulate all magic and religion in the city to put an end to anarchy, with Ao the Universal being the only one truly worshiped. They ask if she is willing to join them in their plan for the city and the nation, and she asks for more time to decide.

By afternoon, however, guards are sent to arrest Zaranda once again and arrive at the inn where she has been staying. The innkeeper, however, informs the lieutenant that Zaranda and her companions have left the city.

Part II
A few days later, a caravan of merchants is traveling south on the Trade Way, when it is captured by bandits. Just before the bandit leader kills the leader of the merchants, the bandit is magically put to sleep, and the bandits are surrounded by Zaranda's hired crossbowmen. After freeing the caravanners and letting the bandits free with a warning, Zaranda tells both groups to spread the word that Star Company, Protective Services Extraordinaire is ready to take clients.

Star Company next arrives in the village of Tweyar and offers protection from bandits to the villagers there. She begins training a small group of men and women in a field. When she realizes how much work it will be to train them in archery, she decides to equip them with crossbows, which require less training than shortbows. Shield also lends his aid in training the villagers to fight in groups, and he proves to be better at teaching combat than any of the others. Afterwards, Shield plays with the children of the village, and Zaranda begins to teach Chen some simple spells.

Eight days later, bandits indeed attack Tweyar. The Star Protective Services easily defeat the bandits with their arrows but let the villagers take credit for it. While the villagers dance and Farlorn flirts with the village leader's daughter, Chenowyn looks on with jealously, which in turn makes Zaranda feel jealous and old.

Errata

 * The cover art shows Zaranda holding a longsword, while her actual melee weapon was the saber Crackletongue.
 * The blurb on the back of the book refers to the villain as Baron Hardly, which is a misspelling of the actual character's name, Baron Hardisty.
 * Worgs are referred to as "wargs" in the novel.
 * On p. 57, it describes lands east of Morninggold as being flatter, even though the characters are clearly west of that county at the time.
 * On p. 91, the book describes Zaranda and her party traveling from the Smiling Centaur through the Wainwright District on the way to the center of the city. This is entirely inconsistent with how the layout of the city was set by the Lands of Intrigue boxed set, which placed the district in the far north of the city and the tavern in the far south of the city. While the novel was written first, this wiki considers sourcebooks higher in the canon, so the "redistricting" can be considered a retcon.

Trivia
The title of Part I of the book, "Astronomy Domine", is the name of a song by British rock band Pink Floyd. The title of the second part of the book, "Career of Evil", is a a song by American band Blue Öyster Cult. The final part leaves the 60s rock theme and shares a title with The Whisperer in Darkness is a novella by American author H.P. Lovecraft.