The Sword Never Sleeps tkomd-3

by Ed Greenwood

  What would happen to him when the bone covered him entirely? Would it start gnawing at his innards or growing across his eyes?

  Was he doomed?

  Not that there was a thing he could do to stop it.

  Which meant he might as well keep on as if he was going to live, until the gods showed him otherwise.

  So he was looking like a monster already and very soon would be a monster to most folk of Faerun. Which meant the life of a lurking, forest-dwelling outlaw would be all he could hope for.

  Well, the northern Dales were the best place he could think of to try to do that. All the vast forest to lurk in, good farms to plunder crops from…

  There was nothing left fot him in Cormyr, unless he could get the Pendant of Ashaba.

  It would be useless to him in Shadowdale. No simple farmers would accept a walking skeleton as their ruling lord.

  Yet if he could get it back to, say, Arabel and see the Lady Lord there, he could bargain with it and perhaps get a war wizard to banish this bone armor and turn him back the way he'd looked before.

  To get the Pendant, of course, he'd have to kill some Knights of Myth Drannor. No great crime, that, in the eyes of the Cormyrean authorities. At least from what he'd seen and heard. That ornrion had looked to be itching to butcher some Knights himself.

  Moreover, Brorn Hallomond had a sworn score to settle. Lord Yellander must be avenged.

  Something shifted in his groin. Gods, it had covered him there. Well, that was it. He was a monster.

  Could he get work in Sembia in one of the festhalls? The Man of Bone, now onstage, dancing with the highcoin lasses? Say, now…

  No. Try for the lordship first. Noble lords in Cormyr were all far richer than dancers in clubs, and with coin enough he could buy all the lasses he wanted to dance with.

  He had to have that Pendant.

  Knights of Myth Drannor had to die.

  Telgarth Boatblade leaned forward over the table, the better to murmur to the four conspirators Ruldroun had sent here. "See those men coming in now? Each of you get a good look at the face of one of them. Thorm, that one. Darratur, the tall one. Glays, the one with the mustache. Klatn, the balding one. I'll take the one with the beard. Go upstairs to pretend to look for rooms if you have to, or follow them into the jakes-just get a good look. Don't make them suspicious by staring. Try to seem boted, and look around idly, often, as if you always do. But fix their features in your memories. The moment you have, go out front, and we'll meet by the hitching rail."

  "Why?" Klarn asked.

  Boarblade decided there and then that Klarn would be the first of the four to die, if the need arose. He did not need someone questioning his every word.

  "They are a Crown envoy and his bodyguards. We're going to wait until they're abed, use our hargaunts to adopt their faces, then firmly but urgently require the discreet use of our mounts-their horses; they'll be fast, first-rank beasts, believe me! — and ride on out of here."

  Four faces stared intently at him. They were excited. Good.

  "Trot until we're out of sight of this place," he added, "then walk until we find a stream. Rest the horses a bit, then walk them again, and start looking for a place off the road to camp. Come the warm hours after highsun on the morrow, if we do all that righr, we can be galloping hard along the Ride."

  He sat back and said firmly, "We've got us some Knights to catch, they've a long start, and I for one am not walking all the way to Shadowdale. Which is certainly how far we'll have to go if we try to catch up to them, just plodding along on foot. Anyone dispute that?"

  No one did.

  Chapter 21

  Alone I faced the Dragons

  And now you laugh and stamp your feet

  And profanely bellow for more ale

  And mock my limp, my burns, and scars

  Weakness your valor makes hale

  Well let me tell, sneering younglings

  As 'gainst my feeble sloth you rail

  There was a time when I was as you

  Bold, foolish, young, and pale

  Riding to tame the world entire

  Though dreams 'gainst talons fail

  Fell my friends and lovers all, one by one

  Burned, gnawed, screamingly pierced-impaled

  Gutted and bone-smashed, 'til in the end

  Alone I faced the dragon and lived to tell the tale

  Drathar hadn't had magic to hurl for all that long. Oh, he'd always known from the tinglings when he was near a spell being cast or when walking through the roiling aftermath of a spell battle that he'd had a touch of the Art. Yet he'd been a thief, and no more than a thief, before he'd found the Qaethur.

  It had been the Qaethur, a worn and chipped gemstone carved into a shallow relief depiction of a human face, that barely filled his palm, that had whispered to him, opening up a door in his mind to the glory of the Weave. Unthinking and eternal, the Qaethur spoke the same things to everyone who touched it. He had been one of the lucky few.

  He had Varandrar to thank for that. The senior Zhent in Arabel had sent him to do that slaying and robbery, had known the Qaethur was there for the taking, and had specifically mentioned it to Drathar. Varandrar had meant him to find it.

  The bastard.

  Now he had power few thieves could do more than dream of and the riches that power had let him wresr from others. Now he was truly someone worthy among the Zhentarim, not a mere tolerated lackey.

  And now, he knew as much as many in the Brotherhood did and so knew something else: true fear.

  His spells were too paltry and fresh-learned for him to battle any but the greenest wizard, Art against Art, and hope to live. Yet he had a talent for the spells that called and coerced beasts to his bidding.

  Which is why the Knights of Myth Drannor were soon going to be facing a gray render.

  "Soon" as in very shortly after it finished tearing apart the joints of the wyvern it had just slain, gnawed the last shreds of meat, and went looking for more to devout to fill up the yawning, gurgling emptiness in its belly.

  Riding its mind as lightly and gingerly as possible, Drathar smiled tightly as the horrible rending and splintering of bone went on.

  As the old Dale saying put it, his own mother wouldn't know him now.

  The hargaunt was spread very thinly across his face-just enough to make him seem a pocked, wrinkled woman who looked nothing like a certain former war wizard. Most of its bulk was busy doing its best to thrust his chest out into a rather impressive, though sagging with age, bust.

  The tattered and dirty dress he'd had to strangle the crone he now resembled to gain possession of-hargaunt-disguised as the ornrion Dauntless, he'd intended merely to rob her, but she'd persisted in screaming and trying to blind him with her clawing fingers and everything breakable she could snatch up and throw-was catching on thorns and twigs and the gods alone knew what else as he fought his way through the brush, but what of that?

  Torn went with dirty, and dirty suited him. He didn't want to look well-to-do or beautiful enough to make anyone consider him worth waylaying.

  Onsler Ruldroun was in a hurry to do a little waylaying of his own.

  "Auril's kisses, bur 'tis cold," Pennae murmured nigh Florin's ear, gently pushing aside the tip of his sword from where it had reached out to menace her as she approached. Hunched over and hugging herself for warmth, on the verge of shivering, she tried to thrust herself against his armpit. "There's always a chill before dawn, yes, but this is worse than I've tasted for a long time."

  "And if a monster swoops swiftly in at me?" the ranger whispered. "What then?"

  "Throw me at it, and use my screams to wake the others. Or use me as a shield."

  Florin sighed, put his free arm around her, and started rocking the thief gently back and fotth, shifting weight from one boot to another just as he was, to restore the rhythm he'd established before she'd risen from huddled sleep to join him.

  It was cold, and he'd been feeling it.


  "Alone I faced the dragon," he muttered to himself, barely above a whisper.

  "And lived to tell the tale," she whispered back, her soft breath almost a tune. "And before you think of it, don't bother telling me to go back to sleep. I'm too chilled for slumber. In fact…"

  Florin felt deft, iron-strong fingers sliding in under the waist of his breeches, reaching into the warmthHe stepped away. "No. Not now."

  Pennae moved back against his chest. "Flor, I'm not after… what you think I am. Right now, at least. I only wanted to get the tips of my fingets a little warmer, and there's always just enough room-"

  "Indeed," the ranger growled into her ear in mock disapproval. Then he put his arm around her again and drew her gently back against him to settle into just where she'd been before.

  "Who d'you reckon is still after us, now?" she whispered, sliding her fingers a little way back in under his breeches, then bringing them to a firm halt.

  Florin shrugged. "Half the stlatning Realms, it seems," he murmured. "To say nothing of Those Who Harp and anyone else who may just be watching what befalls us, rather than hunting us down to do the befalling. I-"

  He stiffened suddenly and thrust her away.

  "What?" Pennae hissed, seeing his intent face and his rising sword. He was staring tensely out into the night, gaze hard upon something. Yet she hadn't heard a thing.

  Trying to look down into the dark forest before them, she stiffened. That was just it.

  She, too, couldn't hear a rhing from in front of het. No little night noises, no gentle sighing of ghost-breeze-driven leaves.

  Nothing at all.

  She could hear those faint forest sounds coming from off to her right-and to the left, too, when she crouched and turned. Yet straight ahead, nothThen she saw it. A movement in the trees, a thrusting that was mirrored by Florin's sword lifting sharply in response beside her.

  Something large was approaching through the night-gloom. Something that was tearing aside trees and trampling down bushes and saplings in the heart of that eerie silence.

  It was massive-a great, gray, neckless, hulk of stonelike hide and tippling muscle, reaching out with two huge black-taloned, manlike arms so long that they dragged knuckles through the brush whenever they weren't reaching up to claw aside a tree trunk. It was shouldering through a thick stand of trees to reach their ledge, lumbering along heavily, massive shoulders and that bony snout that thrust forward from between the shoulders rather than rising above them on any sort of neck.

  Florin cutsed softly, then told Pennae, "Wake the others now, in case its silence comes right up here onto the ledge with it. Not Jhess, but stand over her, ready to kick het awake or drag her aside if you have to."

  The thief nodded, staring at black fangs jutting out of large, parted jaws, as the snout lifted to better peer in their direction. A line of three small, amber yellow eyes ran down each side of its bone-ridged head and beheld her with dull, hungry malice. Or was it merely hunger?

  Drathar winced. The render's hunger was quickening, and that made its mind a flaring, roiling thing that threatened to draw him in. He didn't want to end up lost in that hunger-driven flood.

  He was too good, mayhap, at this beast-coercing. Best to hang back farther. He'd intended to, anyhail, to keep well away from the thief's hurled daggers. The mindlink would tell him when it was feeding. There would be time enough when the real battle was over to skulk in closer and see how matters lay.

  He'd cast silence on the creature to cloak its approach. That would have to be cleverness enough. Else he'd be striding along after it, bloodying his fingers on trees, presenting himself as ready meat for anything bold enough to get close to a feeding gray render.

  Which would have to be something so bold, he wouldn't want to face it at the best of times.

  "Tempus, Tymora, and doom," Islif muttered, managing to look angry and sleepy at the same time. "I don't like the chances of my sword being able to carve that. D'you think there are any loose shards of rock up atop this cliff you could climb up and shove down onto its head?"

  Pennae shrugged. "I saw some deep clefts up there, with greenery doing the lush tumble down out of them. Whether I can get anything free in time is another thing. I'll take that battlehammer Semoor lugs with him but never wants to use and see what I can do-but mind, falling stone really doesn't care if it hits ugly monster or valiant Knight of Myth Drannor."

  "Pennae," Islif replied, "We're too desperate to worry about that. Get climbing."

  The thief nodded, turned away, and starred up the weathered stone as if it were a well-lit ladder.

  Islif wondered what Pennae would do if there were other forest prowlers waiting for her with bared and grinning fangs at the top of the cliff.

  Then she wondered if the thief had alreadv stolen the Pendant and, upon reaching the top of the cliff, would just sidle off through the trees, leaving the rest of them to a swift and bloody doom.

  Then, joining Florin and a reelingly sleepy Doust and Semoor in a line along the ledge, she wondered if she'd have time to even know what was killing them, before it did.

  What must be magical silence was ebbing as the hulking thing clawed its way up the gravel slope. She could hear faint clackings and rattlings as stones tumbled in a constant, growing flood.

  Rolling over those sounds, she could hear something else-a deep, wet rumbling, like a dog growling deep in its throat. The thing was large-half again as tall as she was, its shoulders far broader than hers. Hairless and seemingly sexless, it stood upon squat, massive legs and had a stumpy little flap of a tail. There'd be a channel beneath that tail where it relieved itself. That and its pale, wet maw and the eyes-six of them-were the only vulnerable spots she could see.

  Shaking her head, Islif wondered if she'd be able to reach any of them and if they really were weaknesses her blade could pierce.

  Ar least she had time to ponder such things, as a little gravel showered and bounced down from above, marking Pennae's climb. This beast was digging into the loose stones below theit ledge more than it was managing to climb them.

  Yet there had to be solid rock or sturdy earth under all the rocks, pebbles, and gravel, if one went deep enough. It would only be a matter of time.

  "Can we try to blind it, d'you think?" Florin asked. "Before it gets up here with us? Pennae?"

  "She's gone," Islif said, not knowing if the thing could hear and understand them. "Up. So depend upon no cleverly thrown daggers to help us."

  "Both of you should be able to reach the eyes with your blades, if standing right beside it," Semoor muttered. "If it doesn't stand up tall, that is, and all the shifting stone doesn't just slide you on past." It was obvious who "both of you" were meant to be.

  "If we get down onto that loose stuff," Florin murmured, "can we get up here again?"

  "Can we stand up to fight it at all?" Islif asked. "I'm not welcoming the thought of wallowing, scarce able to land a sword cut, and ending up sprawled flat in the scree, sliding helplessly down to its legs as it digs and churns, so it can reach out and break my back- or claw me up to dine-whenever it pleases."

  "We could try to reach out and haul you back," Semoor suggested, eyeing those black-fanged jaws. The beast was clearly watching them, turning its head to regard each Knight in turn, and its rumbling was rising in tone and volume. It sounded angry.

  Islif and Florin both shook their heads.

  "That'll just mean you get hauled helplessly into the same doom as ours," Islif said.

  Florin sighed and fixed both priests with stern looks. "No holy magic that can help now, at all?"

  Doust and Semoor gave each other uneasy looks then shook their heads in unison. The ranger sighed then ducked down until he was half-kneeling-and sptang.

  Off the ledge and forward, sword out. Those great, black-taloned arms swung up to claw at him but succeeded only in coming up under one of his boots and lofting him the extra bit he needed, not only to land on the beast's massive back just behind the eyes, but to
turn in midair, so he came down facing rhe ledge and his fellow Knights.

  Florin drove his sword sideways into the angle of the jaws. As he'd expected, the monster bit down hard on it, making it into a rock-solid handle for the next breath or two. Which was quite long enough for the ranger to use his other hand to snatch out a belt dagger and bury it hilt-deep in one of the beast's eyes.

  It stiffened, then roared in pain and threw up its arms, rising out of its crouch. By then, Florin had yanked his dagger messily free of one eyesocket and plunged the steel into the next one.

  The monster roared and reached up with one arm to claw him forward over its head and down into its waiting jaws-and Islif's sword slashed across its talons, severing or blunting them all and causing it to squall in astonished pain. It shook that hand wildly, seeking to banish the pain, which was more than long enough for the ranger riding it to plunge his dagger into the third eye on that side of the monster's head.

  It stiffened again, then spasmed, wriggling wildly and uncontrollably beneath him. Florin clung to blade and dagger, fighting just to stay on its back-as Islif snarled to Semoor, "The big skillet, on edge, between its jaws!"

  The priest blinked at her, then tore apart his pack and produced the pan. Islif snatched it, drove it in between those black teeth- and then lunged so deeply that her armored shoulder fetched up beside the skillet with a clang. Which meant her sword was arm-deep in the beast's maw but angled up into its massive shoulders and spine, piercing and now slicing and slashing viciously.

  The monster reeled, flung up its arms to tear the swordswoman apart-and Doust and Semoor launched themselves from the ledge, maces smashing down on the monster's hands with all their weight backing the blows.

  The monster staggered back, arms flailing, the rumbling now a bellow of raw agony, and Florin dared to dtive his fingers into one gore-weeping eyesocket to gain a handhold to cling to. He let go his swotd and used that hand to thrust the dagger into the first of the three eyes on the other side of the head.