Gorstag wrenched him around until they were face to face. “So, first you molest my little one … and now you’d slay my bride-to-be! You threaten me with steel here in my own yard, and you serve the Cult of the Dragon … in my own kitchen.” His voice was low and soft, but Korvan twisted in his grasp like a hooked fish, face white to the very lips.
“This has been coming for a long time,” Gorstag added slowly, “but at least I’ve learned something about cooking.”
The hand that held Korvan’s wrist darted to the cook’s throat, whip-fast, and twisted mercilessly. There was a dull crack, and Korvan of the cult was no more.
Gorstag let the body fall into the mud and turned to Lureene. “Are you hurt, my lady? Is there fire or ruin behind you in the Moon?”
Lureene shook her head, wide-eyed. “No, Lord,” she whispered, close to tears, “I’m fine … thanks to you. We’re safe!”
“Aye, then,” Gorstag said, and he looked down the road. The dust of the mage’s furious exit still drifted. “But will Narm and Shandril be? Find me the fastest horse, while I get my axe.”
Lureene stared at him in horror. “No! You’ll be slain!”
“Leave my friends to die because I did nothing?” Gorstag’s face was like iron. “Find me the fastest horse!”
Lureene rushed toward the stables, tears blurring her sight. “No. Oh, gods, no.” But this morning it seemed that the gods were as hard of hearing as usual.…
Gorstag bolted back out of the inn, his axe in his hand. Frightened guests followed to gawk. In the yard, he found a grim-faced dwarf on a small, weary, and mud-spattered mule.
The dwarf came to a halt before the glowering innkeeper and rolled down out of his saddle with practiced ease. Using his broad dwarven axe as a walking-stick, he leaned heavily on it as he limped over to Gorstag and peered up.
“Well met. You’re Gorstag?”
The innkeeper was looking grimly toward the stables, whence an empty-handed Lureene staggered, face stricken. “Aye, that I am.”
“Have y’seen a companion of mine, the adventuress Shandril? She waited on tables here, once,” the dwarf growled. “I hear she rides with a young mage, now, an’ hurls spellfire!”
“Aye. I have,” Gorstag snapped, his axe lifting warningly. “Who then are you, and what’s your business with Shandril Shessair? My daughter!”
“I’m come in all haste from Shadowdale,” the dwarf replied, looking up at him with a glare as harshly steady as his own. “From Sharantyr, Rathan, and Torm of the Knights of Myth Drannor I heard where Shandril was headed, and followed. I’m sent by Storm Silverhand of the Harpers and Elminster the mage, and bear a note to tell you to trust me in this. Here, read it! Now tell me where Shandril is, man, for time draws on and my bones grow no younger!”
Gorstag grinned and snatched open the parchment. “Not so sour, Sir Dwarf. Life’s less a trial to the patient!”
“Aye,” the dwarf replied, “for most of them lie dead. Tell me where Shandril is!”
“A moment.” Gorstag looked from the parchment to Lureene, and saw that she was shaking.
“Dead,” she whispered. “All of them. Every last horse and mule and ox. Lightning still crawls around the stables. Damn all wizards!”
Gorstag put his arm around her, and held the parchment out so she could read what was written, too:
To Gorstag of Highmoon,
By these words, well met! The bearer of this note is the dwarf Delg, a sword-mate of Shandril in the Company of the Bright Spear, after she left your house. He serves no evil master and bears Shandril no ill will. Trust us in this—he has submitted to all our tests of Art in this regard, and it is true. The Cult of the Dragon destroyed the company, and it was thought only Shandril survived. This Delg, left for dead in Oversember Vale, made his way to the shores of the Sember, where he was found by elves and taken to priests of Tempus. While they were healing his wounds and praying for guidance as to what task they should set him in return, Tempus himself spoke, saying that Delg’s task was to defend the girl who wielded spellfire against seeking swords. So he comes to you for aid.
Your part in defending Shandril is done, valiant Gorstag; we tend Dammasae’s place of rest and remember. Aid this one as best you can, and you will be honored greatly. You shall have then in your debt,
Elminster of Shadowdale and
Storm Silverhand of Shadowdale
Gorstag read the letter, frowned a little, and looked up at Delg. “You’ve missed them. They rode west from here some short time ago, now. A hostile mage follows close behind.”
“Hinges of the Nine Hells! This is no time to be standing about reading!” the dwarf growled, hobbling back to mount his mule. “Up, and go like the wind … she’s in trouble again, and in need of old Delg!”
Gorstag glanced dubiously at the exhausted mule.
Delg saw that look. “I make haste in my own way. Fare thee well, Gorstag. Leave this chase to me, and stay by your lady. ’Tis the greatest adventure you can have.” He grinned and rode away, raising his arm in a warrior’s salute.
Gorstag returned it, and stood like a statue watching him go.
Lureene stroked his arm thoughtfully and said nothing.
After a time Gorstag looked away from the road. “Well, mayhap we’d best go in.” His stride was slow and reluctant as he turned his back on the yard with its two sprawled corpses.
Most of the staring guests fell away before him. One opened the door and ducked inside. They followed in a general flood, anxious to be away from their host and his blazing eyes.
All save one. A priestess of Oghma, who’d said almost nothing since her arrival hours ago, glided forward to block Gorstag’s way. “The letter, Goodman—I must see it.”
The innkeeper’s glare had teeth in it. “No.”
“Goodman Gorstag,” the priestess purred, golden fire kindling in her eyes, “I must insist. Refusal would not be wise.”
“You serve the Binder, and so should respect bindings,” the innkeeper growled. “This is one such; leave me be.”
The priestess stabbed out one arm to snatch at the letter—an arm that shouldn’t have reached that far.
Gorstag fell back in astonishment.
“Give me the letter,” the Oghmanyte snarled. “Now!”
Gorstag’s face darkened. “Don’t command me in my own inn. I’ll not—”
Golden flames leaped into a bright glow in the eyes locked on his. “Enough! Doom is upon you, fool human!”
Both of her hands reached for the parchment. Arms snaked past to curve behind him, darkening swiftly. The face drooped into nightmare, the holy crimson vest melted away into a glistening black bulk and—
Lureene screamed her horror.
Gorstag tossed the letter to the winds and used both frantic hands to swing his axe up—and then down. Hot blue and wine-red gore spattered him. He snarled in fear and swung again, hacking as hard and as furiously as ever in his life. He danced to one side in case those tentacles—a flailing forest of them—sought to strangle him from behind.
A droning, whistling cry arose from the nightmare thing. Tentacles severed. Rubbery innards cleft.
Drenched with its stinging gore, Gorstag kicked and sliced and roared his defiance. He suddenly stood staring across much-riven darkness into Lureene’s terrified eyes. White and trembling, she held her tiny belt-knife in her hand—at the end of an arm that dripped gore clear up to the shoulder.
Gorstag gave her a grin. “ ’Tis dead, Lady.” He lifted his axe in celebration. “We’ve done it! One less hunter after Shan!”
He looked down and gave one tentacle a hearty kick. The smell of death was sharp, like a cask of wine gone bad. Everywhere, dark fingers of blood spread across the churned and trampled mud. “Hmmph. I was going to ask you to fetch a stewpot, but somehow …”
Lureene didn’t smile at his crude joke. She shook her head, eyes large and dark. “Oh, Shan. What else is chasing you?”
Gorstag shot his lady a g
lance and asked, “Are you well?”
Lureene nodded, her face pale but with a hint of a smile. She put Delg’s letter into his hand, and put her hands on her hips. “Of course, but there’s a little matter of corpses lying about, and its inevitable effect on our trade.…”
Gorstag growled and went to put away his axe and find a shovel. He carried the letter very carefully in his hand, and looked at it again as he went.
A glowing sphere sank toward an ornate tabletop, darkening as the will that had driven it wavered. The noble lady of Waterdeep who’d been staring so fixedly into its depths reeled in her chair, aghast. Had the servants heard her scream?
“No,” Amarune of the Blood of Malaug gasped. “No!”
Her daughter was dead. Trembling with grief and fury, she sprang from her seat. The chair crashed to the carpets. She strode across the room to snatch aside a rich blue curtain.
Sintre gone forever!
The tall painting beyond was enspelled to glow, but she tore its knights-courting-ladies scene aside to lay bare a plain stone door that it had hid.
She almost snarled the words that would unlock the door and let her pass without awakening death. Thin lines of blue fire formed and receded. She snatched open the door. In the tiny, seldom-seen chamber beyond waited a hoard of enchanted things, weapons enough to shatter a dozen backcountry inns and scores of idiot innkeepers! Why, she might not stop slaying until all the dales were lifeless slaughter-fields, with nothing left but vultures and crows!
Sintre, gone forever!
It had taken years upon years of scheming and lovemaking and poisonings and daring thefts to amass all this magic from fools of Faerûn—and now, by the Shadows, she’d use it to work many dooms! Sh—
Amarune came to a sudden halt in midstride. She wavered precariously for a long, gaping moment.
There was a man sitting on her magic—a gaunt man in none-too-clean robes, who had a long white beard, a hawk-sharp nose, and blue-gray eyes that, meeting hers, were fierce and sad.
“Who—?” she almost sang in astonishment.
“Ye may call me Elminster; many do. But ye’d do much better to listen before ye shriek anything more.…”
Amarune gazed at him in frozen silence. She’d heard of Elminster, oh yes, and …
“Dhalgrave did not issue his most infamous decree for nothing,” the wizard told her mildly. “He spoke so because I offered him the same choice I’m now giving you: Dwell hidden among humans, doing them no harm, and live—or slay and meddle overmuch, and die.”
She swallowed, very much as a high lady of Waterdeep should, and shook her head. This man knew of the Great Shadowmaster and his Dark Decree?
“I know who ye are, Amarune,” Elminster continued, his eyes steady on hers, “and have known who ye are for some years. Yet ye’ve dwelt here no worse behaved than most, save perhaps thy gaining of these pretties—” Her enspelled things clattered and chimed as he dug one long-fingered hand through them, held it up, and let them trail back onto the gleaming, glittering heap. “—no less worthy of living in Waterdeep than the bulk of thy neighbors. Yet the time has come for a certain truth to be made plain between us. If ye lift a single tentacle against any creature of Faerûn hereafter, I will come for ye—after telling Dhalgrave and all of Shadowhome who ye are and where ye are. Then we shall all have good hunting … and our kill shall be Amarune.”
The tall, trembling lady stared at him, eyes golden and terrible. Then she knelt. Sliding slowly forward until her breast and chin scraped the flagstones, she reached out her empty hands, crossing one over the other at her wrists. Her forearms darkened into glistening tentacles, and with deft care she knotted them together, in the Malaugrym gesture of abject submission. “Wizard,” she hissed, the smell of her fear sharp in the small chamber. She gazed pleadingly at him. “Command me.”
Elminster rose with a small grunt of effort, and rubbed one hip, producing a lit pipe out of nowhere. “I’ll go now and even leave ye all of these toys, despite the butchery ye must’ve done to gain some of them. Go not to Highmoon, and do nothing against any being in the Realms … and I’ll let ye live to enjoy them awhile longer.”
They gazed at each other, she tearful and trembling, he calm and implacable. She saw sympathy in his eyes.
“Avenging thy foolish children will but bring ye more pain,” he added quietly, puffing on his pipe. “Lonely ye may be, Amarune—and wronged and long hunted … but ye live here as a high lady, and that’s more than most folk in this world can dream of. Enjoy what ye have and try to be content—for if ye reach for more, ye’ll lose all. This, I swear.”
His figure faded. Magics gleamed through him in the gloomy chamber. “I’ll watch for ye, Amarune—not just as thy keeper … but if ye’ll have me, in time, as thy friend. I’d rather see ye laugh and be happy than have to slay ye. Remember that.” He was gone, his last words left behind.
Amarune rose in tentacled fury, hissing. She lashed the air in rage and pain and loss, but when she sank down to the floor on her knees and wept, her sobs might have been those of any bereaved mother of Waterdeep. Black tentacles became slender white arms. With them, she cradled one silver-sheathed wand as if it were the most precious thing in the world.…
In time, she fell silent and rose empty-handed. She closed the door on the gathered glowing death and the faint smell of pipe smoke … and went to ring the servants for wine. Much wine.
Shargrailar the Dark circled high above Thunder Gap. Cold winds whistled through the spread, bony fingers that were all that remained of its wings. Shargrailar was the mightiest dracolich in Faerûn, perhaps the most powerful there had ever been. Its eyes were two white lamps in the empty sockets of a long, cruel skull. It looked down on the world below with the cold patience of a being who had passed beyond the tomb and yet could fly. It flew lower, watching and waiting.
So a human female dared to destroy dracoliches? Death must find her. Lucky she must have been, and her victims young fools. Still, she must die. Armed with spellfire, she was headed toward Shargrailar’s lair. Interesting.
Like a silent shadow, Shargrailar glided among the clouds, peering at the tiny road called the East Way. It had been a very long time since Shargrailar had been interested in anything.
Thiszult rode hard, hauling savagely on the reins. To call up his special magic, he had to pass the maid and her mageling and get ahead of them—or find a height above their camp to keep them in view. It would not do to miss them now, or to get too close and warn them.
He thought furiously as he rode. He wore no insignia and rode alone. He displayed nothing to tell Faerûn he was a mage, nor that he wished anyone ill. Yet, he was riding in brutal haste—dangerous, as the road climbed into the Peaks. His speed would warn anyone that all was not right—especially this couple, wary of foes.
Thiszult slowed his mount, cudgeling his brains for a plan. In darkness they could easily evade him. Yet, one had to sleep. They would halt to camp. Perhaps then would be the best time to attack—but only if he was close on their trail, yet unseen. Yes, that—
A man stepped out of the trees right into his path, and Thiszult’s horse reared.
“What fool—” the startled wizard started to curse, wrestling to keep his seat.
The man smirked, eyes calm and golden and very, very cold. “There’s a Realms-shaking overabundance of idiot wizards riding Faerûn today. Hunting spellfire, I presume? With all your best blasting spells burning holes in your brain?”
Shocked, the cult mage stammered, “W-who are you?”
“Architrave, I am called. It’s always nice to know the name of your slayer, don’t you agree?”
Black tentacles stabbed out like sudden spears.
Thiszult twisted back frantically and fell head-over-heels from his saddle. Rolling furiously, he found a tree to get behind, and another to claw his way along until he was upright. Gasping, he whirled.
The mocking man had become a black, surging wave that rolled over his horse.
Wild-eyed, it snorted, bucked, and lashed out with its hooves. Black tentacles closed around its neck with lazy grace, twisting.
Thiszult muttered the only spell his terrified mind could think of, to take him away from here. The dying horse rolled once more atop the black thing. Its tentacles lanced through the air toward Thiszult.
He finished the spell, and it snatched him up into the sky. A single black tentacle streaked after him, but he soared frantically aloft, racing on toward Thunder Gap.
In his wake, tentacles fell, a dead horse was flung free, and a glistening black bulk raged and coiled in a silent, quaking storm. Becoming a small, obsidianhued dragon, it leaped into the sky and snapped its still-flowing jaws experimentally thrice. Flapping powerful bat-wings, a trifle unsteadily, the false wyrm arrowed west in the wizard’s wake. This was no day for mercy.
Delg’s head snapped up. Something had flashed past him, low above the trees—too large to be a bird—something that had lacked wings … a man?
Whoever or whatever it was had been going fast and hadn’t been witless enough to soar above the open road. Delg could see nothing of it now through the trees ahead. Another wizard, after Shandril?
Well, why not? Wasn’t it time for every last dragon and leviathan and many-headed thing in all Faerûn to join the chase? The dwarf shook his head and rode on, thinking of Burlane and Ferostil and Rymel, all dead now, never to laugh with him again.… Mayhap he’d join them soon.…
Kicking his mule into reluctant hurry, he watched the road ahead, his axe ready.
Shargrailar looked idly in its wake, past the few wisps of cloud, back along the road to—
Another dragon? So small, and as black as seawater on a still night, but coming like a summer storm, cleaving the air at great speed. The dracolich eyed it, feeling fierce exultation, and dipped one of its wings to whirl and dive.
What mattered who this wyrm might be? Now it would be Shargrailar’s latest kill. Too long had it been since he’d pounced on something worthy of the effort, too long …
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