Three patrols called in as reinforcements? What by all the Nine Hells was going on?
Boots thundered in the passage, and she called out, “Asgarth? What’s all the tumult?”
“Those stlar—ahem, those Swords adventurers! Men’re firing crossbows all over Palaceside!” the lionar shouted, adding in his next breath, “Beg pardon, Lady Lord!”
“Granted,” Myrmeen called, deep and loud. And shook her head in wry amusement. She’d expected the Swords of Eveningstar to get up to something after this day’s gentle tonguelashing, but this quickly? And three patrols-worth of trouble?
“Gods Above, Azoun,” she muttered, “you certainly can pick them.”
Myrmeen turned back to the piles of papers. Her war was here, on this desk. As usual. Now where—? Oh, yes, the third request for an escort to Candlekeep …
Yet if that gong rang again, the Dragons would discover the Lady Lord of Arabel charging out of here at the head of the answering patrol. Oh, yes.
Myrmeen glanced down the desk at her helm, currently serving paperweight duty on the ‘not yet seen’ pile.
The look she gave it was a longing look.
Weeping freely—gods, it hurt, and she felt weak and sick inside, and kept falling, oblivion lurking like eager dark shadows to claim her—Pennae stumbled on.
Perhaps her foe had given up on cudgeling her brains from the outside, and was now riding the minds of this small army of men with crossbows who kept walking stlarned-near into her, acquiring looks of recognition on their faces though she knew she’d never seen them before, and firing at her.
If they’d been better shots, she’d have a belly bristling with bolts by now, or a hole through her middle large enough even for clumsy Purple Dragons to thrust their helmed heads through.
Instead, Pennae just felt like she had a hole like that in her, at about shoulder level. She’d spewed her guts out all over the cobbles twice now, and had nothing left inside her to heave.
Another stride … another …
Pennae wanted so much to lie down on her face on the cobbles and just rest—but that would mean swift death for her, with Agannor, Bey, and at least two myserious foemen in leathers now following her.
She was leaving a bloody trail as she trudged, and probably a solid line of tears, too. She’d given up clinging spiderlike to walls, because she’d kept falling from her perches aloft, tumbling helplessly back to the cobbles.
Yes, she was beginning to hate cobbles. Very solid things, cobbles … keep walking, Pennae.
“Hoy!” The face belonged to a bristle-mustached Purple Dragon, with a watch badge pinned to the baldric across his breast. Others, similarly garbed, were gaping at her from behind him.
“Evening, lads,” Pennae gasped. “Never seen a lass with a crossbow bolt through her before?”
Strong hands caught her as she stumbled, and the Dragon attached to them growled, “So, maid, what befell ye, exactly? How came you to have a—”
“Florin!” someone distant called; it sounded like Islif.
“Hey, Florin!” someone—Semoor, for a handful of gold—even more distant chimed in.
“Pennae!” That nearby shout rang out like a war horn, cutting through a sudden hubbub of Purple Dragons calling “Ho!” to each other.
Sinking into the darkness that had been clawing at her for so long, now—the warm, welcoming darkness—Pennae smiled.
Florin Falconhand had come for her at last.
Horaundoon shook his head in weary exasperation. So many minds, fighting his.
He wiped his sweat-slick brow with a hand that trembled, sighed, and sat back. He dared not to stay linked—not with the very real risk that someone whose mind he was in would die, violently.
No, he’d dismiss the two Swords warriors as lost, and just watch things unfold through the orb. At the very least, it should be a good show.
“Lathander loves thee,” Semoor’s voice intoned, through the gurgling waterfall of cool, blessed release that was sweeping through her.
Pennae blinked, tried to cough—and gentle fingers stroked her throat as tenderly as any lover, quelling her gagging.
“Tymora loves you, too,” Doust added, from above those fingers. “And—hrast it—I do too.”
“And Florin really does,” Semoor said slyly.
“Thank you, Stoop,” Florin said firmly, from somewhere above them. “That’s two potions, now?”
“We holy prefer to call them ‘healing quaffs,’ forester,” Semoor said haughtily, and then grunted in startled pain.
“Ah,” Islif said pleasantly, “just as we unwashed prefer to call that ‘the toe of my boot, put right where it will do a pompous holynose the most good.’ Clumsum, d’you think your healing spell worked?”
“Shrug,” Doust said aloud, and there were several chuckles from above Pennae.
“Purple Dragons stand all around us, Pennae,” Florin said, his voice drawing nearer. Pennae blinked through what seemed to be tears, and could make out that he’d hunkered down on his haunches to lean over her. “They want to know what befell you. So do we.”
“Martess,” Pennae gasped. “Murdered. By Agannor and Bey. Chased me here. Other men with crossbows … also chasing. Beware someone—wizard?—attacking you, inside your head. Made me … fall over.”
“Blood of Alathan!” Doust gasped, at about the same time as Islif snarled, “Caztul!”
Then Florin said, “Swordcaptain, I must ask you to turn a blind eye to what we may do next. I am enraged, and am like to do my own murdering in your streets.”
“Man,” a gruff and unfamiliar voice replied, “three good men are down with bolts through them. An’ that’s just my Dragons; I hear there’re shopkeepers dead, an’ a little lad who was out playing in the wrong alley, too. Go do your murders!”
Departing boots thundered, and a surprised voice—Doust’s—asked, “Jhessail?”
“Let her go,” Semoor murmured. “As if you or I or anyone could stop her.”
“Help—help me up,” Pennae gasped. “I’m going, too.”
“You, lass, are staying right here,” the swordcaptain growled. “There’s blood all over you, your leathers’re sliced half off you, an’—”
“And my task stands unfinished,” Pennae hissed, clawing her way up the man’s arm until she could stand. “My task. I’m a Sword of Eveningstar, Swordcaptain. Mayhap you’ve heard of us.”
“Trumpet fanfare,” Doust announced helpfully. There was a moment of tense silence before Purple Dragons started to guffaw, all around them. When the swordcaptain she was clinging to started to shake with laughter, Pennae almost fell over again.
Chapter 24
FELL WIZARDS AND ANGRY DRAGONS
Again ye ask me which foe is worse, fell wizard or angry dragon? Well, I rather think my reply must be as before: that depends on how well ye can dance.
The character Hellflame
the Weredragon in the first act of
To Slay A Wizard
A play by Stelvor Orlkrimm
published in the Year of Moonfall
There!” Florin shouted, pointing ahead with his sword as they pounded along a back alley slippery underfoot with rotting cabbage leaves. A crossbow promptly cracked, followed by another.
Florin flung himself at the wall, taking Islif down with him, and the Dragon running behind them screamed and crashed to his face, bouncing and moaning, with a bolt quivering through his knee.
“Jhess,” the forester growled, scrambling up, “you shouldn’t be here! You’ve no armor—”
“Shut up, Florin,” came the furious reply, at about the same time as two familiar voices cried, “Wait for us! We bring holy blessings!”
Jhessail rolled her eyes. “You’re shunning me? What about them? The Happy Dancing Holynoses themselves?”
Islif flung her a rare grin, and Florin waved his surrender—then peered and cursed. In admiration.
A weak, pale, weaving-on-her-feet Pennae was running alongside Dou
st and Semoor.
Together once more, the Swords trotted on, the watch lionar beside them puffing, “We’ve closed the gates, and called every last blade out of barracks—the lady lord herself’s out running around with her sword drawn, somewhere. So they can’t escape us! ’Tis just a matter of time …”
Islif threw him a jaundiced look, but said nothing, until they ducked around a sagging, permanently parked cart to burst out of the alley, and she shouted and pointed. “There!”
“There” was the dark doorway of a warehouse, a refuse-strewn threshold where Agannor was just jerking his sword out of the throat of a reeling, blood-spattering Purple Dragon. Two crossbow bolts came humming past him out of the darkness, and one took down another Dragon. A war wizard stepped coolly sideways to escape the other, and went right on casting a spell.
Purple Dragons were converging from all directions. Agannor cast looks all around, saw the Swords and gave them a mocking wave, and disappeared into the warehouse. Another pair of crossbow bolts claimed another two Dragons.
Puffing along beside Florin, the swordcaptain growled, “Where’re our bowmen?”
“Those murdering bastards could be just inside, aimed and waiting for us, know you!” another Dragon gasped as they sprinted for the warehouse door, keeping close to the walls of other buildings in hopes they’d not run right up to meet more crossbow bolts.
Islif gave him a wolf’s grin. “I know. I’m rather counting on it.”
Something crashed down right in front of her, exploding into shards and splinters as it bounced and cartwheeled away. A chair, or had been.
Islif looked up—in time to see a grinning pair of men launch a wardrobe over a balcony rail at her. “ ’Ware!” she roared, launching herself into a full-length leap.
The crash, right behind her, was thunderous; two Dragons managed not even a peep as they were crushed.
Semoor, running hard, skidded helplessly in the sudden pool of blood, but kept his feet and came on. “What the tluin is going on? They’re throwing wardrobes at us?”
A crossbow bolt hummed out of the warehouse and spun him around, laying open his arm at the elbow as it grazed him—and took a Dragon full in the face.
“Naed,” Semoor gasped, and then shouted, two sprinting steps later, “Ho! Changed my mind! Let’s have more wardrobes!”
“What is going on?” Jhessail gasped, as they neared the gaping warehouse door. “Who are all these foes?”
“Zhent agents,” a Dragon grunted, from right behind her. “ ’Least those two on the balcony were.”
“Were?”
“They just got ’em,” he growled in satisfaction.
Florin ducked down, plucked up the splayed shards of a smashed and discarded shipping crate, and turned. “Fire spell?”
“Done,” Jhessail gasped, stopping and fumbling forth what she needed from her belt pouch. A Purple Dragon ran on, into the warehouse, warily ducking low—and promptly screamed as two crossbow bolts tore through him.
Flame flared up from Jhessail’s hand. She caressed the rotten wood Florin held out to her, then another crate proffered by Islif.
Florin thanked her with a grin, turned, and hurled the blazing wreckage into the warehouse, where its merrily leaping flames showed all watching dusty shelves of sacks and coffers, a sprawled dead man, two men fleeing with crossbows, the Purple Dragon who’d stopped two bolts writhing in agony on the floor, and—
“Where’re the hoist chains?” the ranger asked suspiciously. “Don’t these high loft warehouses load wagons right there, just inside their doors?”
Islif tossed her blazing crate into the warehouse to add more light, but shook her head. “I see none. Come on.”
Emboldened by being able to see that no crossbowmen stood aimed and waiting, Purple Dragons were rushing the doorway from several directions. The Swords joined the streams of running warriors, but were a little behind the first men—the ones who shouted in alarm and then died, smashed bloodily to the floor, as someone unseen let fall the hoist-chains from above, in great thundering heaps that buried the men they slew or struck senseless.
Other chains came swinging out of the dark corners of the warehouse in deadly arcs, smashing men into broken things even as they were hurled back into the faces of their slower fellows.
By the time Florin reached the chaos of broken and struggling men at the warehouse threshold, things were brightening—in a familiar, flickering manner. He looked up.
“Get back!” he roared, catching Islif and swinging her around into a breath-stealing, jarring meeting with the onrushing Jhessail. “Back, everyone!”
A sword flashed above the burning crates and barrels atop the hoist-rack, severing a rope—and to the thunderous clatter-clatter-clatter of a winch going mad, the flaming hoist plunged toward the floor.
“Get out!” Florin shouted, waving his arms at onrushing Purple Dragons. “Fire!”
He was still shouting when the crash, behind him, shook him off his feet and made the entire building creak and groan. Tongues of flame spat past him, hurling shrieking, blazing men out among their fellows.
Purple Dragons cursed colorfully, war wizards threw their arms up to shield their eyes, and over the crackling roar, war horns cried fire-warning. Once, twice, thrice, and then the bellow of Dauntless could be heard, rising above all the tumult: “War wizards, quench yon fire! Swordcaptains, run to fetch every priest you can! Get that fire out!”
As the Swords rallied around him, Florin found himself face-to-face with a Dragon he knew: Swordcaptain Nelvorr.
“Sir Sword,” that officer gasped, “put your blade away. The ones we’re chasing are in yon warehouse.” He waved his arm in a circle. “We have it surrounded, t’other side, and no one has tried to break out that way yet. If they do, they’ll die.”
Florin looked into the flames. The place was an inferno just inside the door, and the front wall was leaking plumes of smoke and swiftly climbing lines of flame, as lines of pitch that had been used to seal cracks in the boards caught alight. To either side of the door, however, the warehouse yet looked untouched, not even any smoke coming from its shuttered windows. “Are there any cellars? Tunnels?” he snapped.
“No,” replied a voice from behind him. A voice he’d heard before. “At least,” the Lady Lord of Arabel added, a wand held ready in her hand, “none are supposed to exist—and my tax collectors look hard for such things.”
“I’m going in there,” Florin told her, as a war wizard finished an elaborate spell and the fire died down noticeably.
“You surprise me not,” she replied with a half-smile, waving him forward. Florin gave her a smile and a nod, and ran, the Swords at his heels.
Smoke greeted them, thick and curling, as Florin ducked in around the eastern doorpost and led the way, sword out and keeping low.
Through the thinning blue haze the Swords hastened, peering this way and that in hopes they’d see the dreaded crossbows before a bolt found them.
The place was a labyrinth of open-sided floors, pillars with climbing pegs embedded in them, and stacked, roped-in-place sacks, barrels, and coffers. Ramps were everywhere, and cobwebs, and the motionless hanging chains of hoists.
Lanterns glimmered far behind the Swords as Purple Dragons entered the warehouse. The dancing lights of flames were gone now, leaving only the faint light of a few dusty glowstones, high up on the walls in their furry-with-webs iron cages.
Another pillar onward.
And another. With every cautious step the Swords grew warier; soon they’d reach this end of the warehouse. If the men they sought weren’t back down the other end—and from the way the catwalks up in the roof beams ran, and where Florin had seen that sword slicing the hoist-ropes, that wasn’t likely—they had to be somewhere here.
Close.
Waiting.
Of course, this was the lowest level; they could be anywhere behind the sacks up above, on all those dark, open-sided storage floors.
“How many
warehouses like this does the city hold, again?” Semoor muttered to Pennae. “Strikes me you could steal stuff by the wagon-load for years, and it’d not be missed.”
Pennae gave him a fierce grin—then a fiercer scowl. “Later,” she whispered into his ear. “We’ll talk about this later. O high-principled holy man.”
Ahead, Florin abruptly threw up his arm in a warning wave. Then he drew aside against a stack of crates and pointed.
The Swords looked out at what he’d already discovered: a sea of spilled grain, fallen from sacks sliced open in some accident or other, and now hanging limp and nigh-empty.
A line of boot prints ploughed through them, in a path that ended abruptly, in otherwise undisturbed drifts of grain. Men had hurried this way and then simply—vanished.
“Jhessail?”
The mageling stepped forward, her face set, until she was standing just on the edge of the grain. “Strong magic,” she murmured, spreading her arms almost as if basking in the sun, embracing the empty air. “Like a fire, beating on my face.” She took a long step sideways, shook her head, then did the same in the other direction, returning to where she’d first been standing. “Just here.”
“Like a door,” Doust murmured.
Semoor bent, scooped up some grain in his cupped hands, strode along the path of disturbed grain, and when he got to its end, threw his handful forward.
Aside from a little wisp of drifting dust, it abruptly vanished, right in front of him. “The way is open,” he said, stepping hastily to one side.
No crossbow bolts came hissing out of the empty air, and after a tense breath or two Semoor rejoined them.
“Agannor and Bey went this way, you think?”
Islif nodded grimly. “I think.”
Florin nodded too. “All right. We’ve not got our armor or gear, but if we go back to get them, I’m thinking the murderers will be gone forever. What say you?”
“Let’s go get them,” Pennae whispered. “I saw their faces, and her blood on their swords—and they tried to slice me often enough.”
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