by Ed Greenwood
"Tracer gems? As in, you're making it easier for the war wizards to trace us right now?"
Pennae shook her head, did something to het leathers on the inside of her left elbow, and held up what she'd slid out of them: a small, dull, almond-shaped stone. "This works for just two beings, possibly only humans. If you can get blood, tears, or spittle from them to smear on it, one person per side of the gem."
"Works how, exactly?" Florin asked, glancing alertly at the trees and hills around them, as if he expected arrow-loosing armies to rise up out of concealment at any moment and chatge down on the Knights.
"There's a word graven around the edge, here. When it's spoken, the side of the gem that's uncovered or uppermost is the side that works, telling the bearer the direction and distance away the one it can trace is at that moment."
"So use it," Semoor urged-and then frowned. "Wait! Who are the two people?"
Pennae gave him a tight smile. "Well, I managed to get some of Vangerdahast's spittle when he was snarling at us."
Florin rolled his eyes. "And the other?"
"Dauntless," Pennae told him. "Gained the same way, at rather closer range."
"Use it," Semoor repeated.
Pennae raised her palm out before her and set the gem into it, pinning it in place with her forefinger. "Who first?"
"Can you use it whenever you want?" Doust asked "Seeking one person doesn't delay you in looking for the other?"
"Yes. And no, it doesn't."
"Vangerdahast," Florin and Islif said in unison.
Pennae shrugged, murmured a word the other Knights couldn't catch, closed her eyes briefly, and then announced, "Back in Suzail, so far as I can tell."
"Dauntless?"
Pennae turned the gem over, pronounced the word, and promptly acquired a wry smile. "Right behind us."
"So Vangey wants us safely out of the realm-just a stride or two will do-where the laws of Cormyr won't apply," Semoor said, "before his personal band of oh-so-loyal Dragons sink their swords into our backs. And those bastards'll do it, too!"
"They're not butchers, man!" Islif snapped, as Pennae put the gem away. "They're good and loyal folk; stalwarts doing the best they can, following the orders of the king and laws of the country, just trying to get by."
Semoor matched her glare with one of his own. "Aye. And so are all the good folk rhey kill, too."
"Before we really get going at snarling at each other," Pennae interrupted, "I suggest we settle one thing in our minds: Whether or not Dauntless really is following us-and ir certainly looks that way, doesn't it? — or by a very long and supple arm of coincidence, is merely following orders that have nothing to do with us at all, that just happen to take him along the same road."
Doust's smile was as wryly crooked as it was sudden. "And we're going to establish the truth with certainty on this matter how, exactly? Turn around and ask him? When his reply may well be arrows or spears down our throats?"
Pennae gave him a mocking smile and waggled all the curled fingers of her left hand, back outermost, in Doust's direction, in the latest fashionable rude gesture that meant, to state its message most politely, "Right back at you, stonehead!"
"It may astonish you to learn, Holiest Ornament of Tymora," she replied, "that one or perhaps two personages of Faerun have, in the days before this one, given some thought to situations similar to this one. It may even stagger you to learn that some of them have proposed solutions-and bids fair to stun you into mutely blinking insensibility to grasp that I have heard of, and myself understood, their proposals. To whit: I hereby suggest that all of us turn norrh off the Ride, the moment we're not seeing thick forest beside us, into the wild countryside."
Semoor frowned. "Right into the jaws of the waiting wolves, outlaws-or worse."
Pennae arched a brow in his direction. "I thought we were adventurers," she said, in a precise imitation of his voice at its most mocking.
"He's the priest of Tymora, not me!" Semoor snapped, jerking a thumb at Doust.
"Enough," Islif said. "Florin?"
The ranger stared back at his fellow Knights thoughtfully. Then his eyes flashed in a decision made, and he nodded at the trees flanking the north side of the Ride.
"Pennae's right," he said. "We look for the first way into the wilds that won't lame our horses, and take it. Seeking a place where we can hide and watch the road. I'd like a word or three with Ornrion Dahauntul, with whatever magic we can mount that tells us when he's speaking truth and when he's not. I think we need to know why we're being followed."
"Who's using us this time, and why?" Pennae murmured.
Florin's answering word and nod were equally grim. "Precisely."
"I believe that's a break in the trees, ahead there," Semoor said, pointing.
"So who's waiting there to feather us with arrows, d'you think?" Doust asked, crouching a little lower in his saddle.
Islif shook her head. "There may be archers hereabouts, but not there. I've been watching birds fly in and out of it. Unconcernedly lighring on a branch, soft-calling their kind, then hopping to the next."
Pennae, in the lead, nodded agreement. "Yon's an old road, by the looks of it. Overgrown but wide enough for wagons, for all the tall weeds, and-"
She held up a hand to signal a halt, swung down from her saddle as smoothly and swiftly as any stream eel ever eluded a snatching hand, and stalked forward, crouching low.
Florin pointed at Jhessail and then at Pennae, indicating she should watch over the thief's advance. Islif was already waving at the priests to keep eyes out east and south, as she swung around to peer back along the Ride behind them.
Pennae turned and came back to them. "A very old road but used recently by lots of horses, some oxen, and wagons. Mules, before that. Doust, get down off that beast, and come with me."
The quietest of the Knights blinked at her and then looked at Florin, who nodded.
Doust sighed. "Tymora be with me," he muttered and swung himself awkwardly down, almost falling from his horse.
Wincing at the stiffness riding had given his thighs, he stumbled after Pennae, who shot out a hand to catch hold of his nearest elbow, dragged him to a halt, and with a glare and some wordless miming, indicated he should try to move as stealthily as she was.
Doust rolled his eyes, kissed the holy symbol of Tymora he wore around his neck, grinned at her, and attempted stealth. The result made Pennae roll her eyes.
"Follow about a dozen strides behind me," she whispered. "Quiet is better than haste, but keep me in sight. If I'm attacked, yell for everyone to come running."
Without another word or looking for his nod, she turned away, sank down into a wary crouch, and set off through the tall grass with no more sound than faint whispers.
Doust watched her go, thinking she looked remarkably like just another tree-shadow. She very soon became hard to see, blending into the dark trunks of stunted trees and the gloomy shadows under leafy boughs. Without thinking overmuch, just trying to keep the curvaceous thief in sight, he followed her.
Grass and dead, brittle-dry shrub branches crackled under his boots, and he was startled by something dark rising up right beside his face.
Before Doust could turn his head, whatever it was bit the lobe of his ear gently-and then caught hold of his wrist when he instinctively flung up his hand to strike whatever was biting him away.
"Stay right here," Pennae breathed into the ear she'd nipped. "Don't move at all. Not at all. Until I come back for you."
Eyes fixed on his, she sank down to her knees, vanishing into the tall grass as if the ground were swallowing her, and… was gone. The priest of Tymora stood alone, staring around uncertainly, with the faintest of breezes ghosting past his throbbing ear.
Until Pennae rose up out of the grass again right in front of him, looming up dark and sinuous and sending him stumbling back on his heels with a startled "Eeep!" that made her grin like a satisfied vixen.
Without a word she stepped around Dous
t and back out into the road to rejoin the rest of the Knights, leaving the priest to scramble after her.
He did so, murmuring a heartfelt prayer to Tymora to keep all of their skins intact in the days ahead. Ears included.
Chapter 5
Hiding behind our Lady For in every blood fray we fight And every exploit shady We're nay so bad as priests so bright Who daily hide behind "Our Lady"
The character Selgur the Savage In the play Karnoth's Homecoming By Chanathra Festryl, Lady Bard of Yhaunn First performed in the Year of the Bloodbird
The road leads to a hollow much used as a caravan camp, if I'm not mistaken," Pennae told her fellow Knights. "Old fire rings, stumps of trees that have been felled, dried, and burned as firewood, and a little creek that's been churned into mud by the hooves of horses and draft oxen. Out the back of the camp glade, the trail goes on, deeper into the forest, but it's really overgrown. No one has used it for a very long time."
"So this is our way off the Ride?" Florin asked quietly. At Pennae's nod he swung down from his saddle, waved to the rest of the Knights to follow, and started to lead his horse into the trees. Everyone followed, Pennae quickly capturing the reins of Doust's mount with her own.
By the time the Ornament of Tymora reached the hollow, Jhessail and Florin were heading back past him, out to the Ride to watch for Dauntless. At the sight of Pennae and Doust, Semoor beckoned and called, "Help me hobble our-"
Pennae let go of her fistful of reins, sprinted to him almost as fast as a speeding arrow, and caught hold of his chin.
"Idiot of Lathander," she hissed into his face, "shut up. Shouts and raised voices carry far. We're none of us deaf. Yet. Dauntless could be just the other side of yon duskwood, hmm? Stop trying to be a grand-voiced priest bellowing to impress folk in the next kingdom, and start being an adventurer. Talk only when you must, say as few words as possible, and say them quietly. Dolt."
"I love you, too," Semoor muttered as she let go of his jaw and strode past him. "Hey, don't you hobble horses?"
"I've work yet to do," she hissed, swiveling at the hips to answer him without slowing, then turning smoothly back to face forward again as she plunged into the deep woods at the back of the clearing. Once more she sank into a crouch and became a silent, flitting shadow, scouting along the overgrown continuation of the trail.
Doust and Semoor exchanged looks and shrugs and then bent in unison to see to hobbling the horses.
Not that there was much to do. Islif had already set to work, clamping her large hands around bits and rings to quell janglings. The two priests joined her. They were just finishing when Florin and Jhessail burst back into the hollow.
"Dauntless!" the lady wizard snapped, "and five Dragons with him! Mounted and heading right here as if they use this camp all the time!"
The two priests stared at her helplessly.
"Where'll we-? The horses!" Doust said.
"There's no place to go!" Semoor added.
"Get into the trees," Florin and Jhessail commanded in unison.
Jhessail promptly plunged past Doust and Semoor, doing just that, as the ranger snapped, "Leave the horses! We make poorer targets if we spread out. Keep low and work magic from behind trees where the likes of Dauntless can't get good swings at us! Go!"
The priests went.
Islif beckoned Florin as she headed across the hollow back behind the Knights' hobbled horses. It was the only way to have any hope of intercepting Pennae when she inevitably tired of poking around in the foresr and came back.
"Someone's been through here," a man said, his voice coming from the direction of the Ride. "Can't still be here now, though. There's not an outlaw or a sneak-thief in the kingdom as can escape my scrutiny, know you."
The speaker pushed through the tall grass, on foot and leading — J. his horse. Seeing the hobbled horses ahead, he stopped midword, jaw dropping in astonishment.
"Well, Morkoun?" someone jeered from behind him. "I s'pose ye'll now try to tell us yon horses are neirher outlaws nor sneak-thieves and so managed to sneak past thy eagle-keen-"
"Will you dolts shut up?" Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul snarled. "Horses mean either horse thieves have left these nags-and 'tis an addled-fool place to leave them, now, isn't it? — or more likely, their riders have gone into hiding in the trees all around us here, just a breath or two ago! Why, they could be the Knights themselves! If you shattered-helm-brains hadn't been so cursed talkative, a-chattering through your unthinking, worthless lives, we might be staring at people now, not just their happily grazing horses!"
He urged his horse forward, pointing impatiently with his sword. "Look! Saddles still on them, and saddlebags, too! Why, I'll wager the Knights of Myth Drannot are watching and listening to us right now! Not that they'll dare to show their faces with all of us-"
A man with a sword in his hand and a half-smile on his face stepped into view around one side of the clustered horses, in perfect unison with the appearance of a tall, burly woman in armor around their other side.
"— here," Dauntless added, voice faltering.
"Falconhand!" one of his men snarled, drawing his sword.
"Aye," another snapped, amid a chorus of Purple Dragon curses. "The woman's one of the Knights, too! She was the one who-"
"Scatter!" Dauntless roared from his saddle, waving one arm wildly at his men as he pointed into the trees with the sword in his other hand. " 'Ware spells, curse you!"
His sword point indicated two small, faint glows that were growing stronger by the moment, outlining the slender hands in their midst. Above those glows, Jhessail Silvertree smiled coldly.
"There'll be priests somewhere around here, too!" Dauntless shouted, backing his mount away. "Best we get clear of this, and-"
A scream that was as shrill as it was high drowned him out and sent most of the Dragons wincing and stumbling backward.
It rose higher and turned raw as it came, approaching swiftly out of the forest behind the camp glade, becoming a series of pain-wracked shrieks rarher than sounds of terror.
The Purple Dragons started to obey Dauntless, scattering in grunting haste and waving their swords. The horses under them snorted and stumbled as their riders lurched in their saddles, trying to watch not where they were going but the trees where those screams were coming from.
Trees that promptly vomited forth a screaming, sprinting woman in leathers, whose racing limbs were rippling with fire!
"That'll be them," Highknight Targrael said, an unlovely smile rising to her lips as they listened to the screams. "You know what to do."
Telsword Bareskar of the Palace Guard nodded, fitted his windlass to his crossbow, and set it to whirring.
A certain laundry chute had left him with a score he dearly wanted to settle. Even his growing fear of the dark Highknight hadn't made him regret the eagerness with which he'd obeyed her command to depart his post and accompany her in a little Knight hunting.
The head of a chartered adventurer or two wasn't the sort of trophy he'd expected to mount on the wall of the guard room, but he was warming to the notion.
Especially if it was the head of a certain half-naked lass he'd chased through half his floor of the Palace cellars…
Crossbow ready, he took a quarrel into his hand and dared to give Highknight Targrael a grin.
The cold grin she gave him back as she beckoned him on through the treegloom sent a chill through him, even before he heard her soft whisper.
"As do I."
The castle had seen better days. Roofless and forgotten, with old and towering trees thrusting up through its stones like so many dark spears and shrouding its crumbling walls beneath heavy boughs full of leaves, it stood in deep wilderlands, far from roads now in use and folk who might be ruled by a lord who dwelt in such a stronghold. Its dungeons and lower floors were prowled by dark, tentacled things, which had kept smaller, furrier forest creatures from lairing overmuch in its riven upper rooms. Birds, though, hadn't the wits to care about tentacle
d things, dark or otherwise. Their nests and voidings covered the floors thickly.
Except in one corner of a small, high room that retained not only its roof but a stone table flanked by two stone benches. A large arched window overlooked rhe table. The window lacked all trace of shutters, framing, or anything that might have filled that frame.
Through that spacious hole flew a large, untidy black bird that might have been a hawk-if hawks grew as large as horses.
The hawk landed heavily and awkwardly, glared around at the gloomy emptiness of the deserted room with its fierce gold-rimmed eyes, and then shook itself-and in a moment of unpleasant shiftings became a broad-shouldered man in black robes with a pepper-and-salt beard and tufted eyebrows to match. His eyes were every bit as fierce as the hawk's.
Massive gold rings on his fingers winked and glowed briefly, then went dark. "Good," rhe man announced, seeming to relax. He strode to the neatest bench and sat, slamming his forearms down on the table. "I've arrived first. For once."
"If it pleases ye to think so," part of the roof replied as it leisurely peeled away from the rest and dropped down into the room, leaving a gaping hole behind. What landed feather-light on the floor was a white-bearded man in torn and patched gray robes and battered brown boots. He looked older than the hawk-mage and held a curved pipe in his hand. His blue-gray eyes were fierce and bright. "Myself, I can't think why it matters. D'ye still measure thyself against others? Truly?"
Khelben Arunsun was too disgusted-and astonished-to rise to this bait. "But the rings showed no-"
"Haven't ye learned how to defeat such detections yet? Bend the Weave around them, man! Bend the Weave around them!"
As he delivered this vigorous advice, Elminster sat down across from Khelben and puffed his hitherto dark and empty pipe into spark-swirling life. "Yet before ye master such trifles, suppose ye tell me what's struck ye as so important that ye needed to mindcall me hither-without telling me why. What's afoot?"