Swords of Dragonfire tkomd-2

by Ed Greenwood

  “Mielikki forfend!” Florin gasped.

  The man-mountain nodded as if he had heard such reactions far too many times before. “They call me the Dread Doorwarden,” he announced, gloomily rather than triumphantly. “Or sometimes, the Stalking Doom.”

  Florin shuddered, recalling those names spoken by retired Purple Dragons telling horrific tales on sunny days back in Espar-a place where he’d far rather be, just now, than facing death in the dark passages under the Palace of the Purple Dragon. Those stories had been gory horror-yarns about men, sent on errands, who strayed into the wrong passages in the darkness, and were diced and eaten raw under the Royal Palace in Suzail.

  “I was told tales of you as a lad,” he said slowly, staring up at the hulking mountain of flesh, “but I never believed them.”

  The Doorwarden grunted wearily as if he’d heard such words a thousand times before, and trudged ponderously forward. Florin moved hastily aside to avoid being trapped in a corner.

  One great arm swung, and the ranger flung himself into a roll on the floor to get under those three horns. They sang slashing past overhead. He was barely up again before that axe crashed down, striking sparks on stone just behind his heels.

  “You still are a lad,” that deep voice rumbled. “Believe in me now?”

  Florin ducked and dodged again. This time those three blades passed so close he could feel them and hear the whistle of air along their blades.

  “Yes,” he whispered, “but I don’t want to.” He ran to get behind the guardian and lashed out at one huge elbow with his own sword. If he could get to where he could hamstring No. The backs of the Doorwarden’s knees were protected with overlapping, flared arcs of armor. No wonder the man moved ponderously.

  Florin flung himself to the floor again to avoid weapons slicing down at him from two directions-both of those massive arms, coming down from full stretch to converge-and then saw his only chance.

  The Doorwarden knew this room well, and had never given him safe room to get past, and out the way the guardian had come in by. So Florin would have to take an unsafe way. He came to his feet running, as if to circle along the walls again, but as the Doorwarden turned and sidestepped to prevent him racing past, Florin changed direction and ran right at the man, hurling himself forward sword-first like a great dart-between those armored legs.

  And then up and on, panting in frantic haste, ribs aching from the sideways kick the Doorwarden had managed to land while trying to close that gap. Florin darted through where he knew the opening was, sword up, fleeing blindly into the darkness.

  “Fool,” a cold voice said out of the darkness right in front of him, as an unseen blade rang out of a scabbard.

  The staff’s blast shattered a few of the blades, shards spinning away amid showering sparks. It flung the others aside, but slowed them not a whit. They swerved to converge once more upon the Royal Magician of Cormyr, who hurled down the staff to cast a swift and desperate magic.

  Those racing points almost reached Vangerdahast, three of them looming up right before his eyes, before his spell erupted out from him in all directions, a blast of ravening force that shook him as it sprang from his skin, his mouth, and his very eyeballs, a horrible roaring that-ended as swiftly as it had begun, the Dragondown Chambers falling into a deathly silence broken only by the brief tinklings of broken swordblades finding the floor.

  Vangerdahast gazed bleakly all around, turning slowly to view the devastation. He was alive and unscathed, but of the dozens of war wizards who’d been so busily rushing around, nothing was left but bloody smears on the walls and pools of gore on the floor. Whoever his blast hadn’t butchered had been felled by whirling, ricocheting blade-shards.

  That was the problem with that spell; to rend enchanted weapons, it must needs destroy wards and shieldings. In saving himself, he’d doomed every other war wizard in the Chambers.

  Not for the first time.

  Vangerdahast felt sick. “Forgive me, Mystra,” he whispered, watching his ruined staff smouldering at his feet.

  An excited voice suddenly blatted at him from the empty air in front of his nose. “Lord Vangerdahast! The guests are pouring into the Palace now, and among them we’ve-Jarlandan, Garen, Costarr, and me, that is-recognized the Calishite mage-for-hire Talan Yarl among the folk pouring into the Palace. He’s disguised as the Turmish envoy who was expected, and so may well have done something to that man. What should we do?”

  Durward, of course. The fool couldn’t handle an open-yon-door assignment without asking for assistance.

  “Royal Magician? Do you hear? This is Durward, and I ask again: what should we do?”

  Vangerdahast threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m coming! ” he snapped. Looking grimly around at the red slaughter once more, he growled, “No time to try to save any of them. No time! ” Then he marched out, face gray and old.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered, striding hard along passages where Purple Dragons saluted hastily. He swept past, ignoring them.

  “Florin!” Islif yelled. “Pennae?”

  Her voice echoed back to her off unyielding black iron in front of her nose, and down the long, dark passage behind. If anyone answered, none of the Knights heard it.

  After the silence had started to stretch, they all looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Right,” Semoor said, “ now what?”

  “We decide what to do,” Jhessail told him, “and do it.”

  “Well, that’s simple enough,” Doust agreed sarcastically. “Glad you came along, Jhess. Without you, we’d have been lost!”

  “We are lost, holynoses,” Islif snapped. “Try to think of useful things to say, while we-as Jhessail said-try to decide what to do.”

  Doust shook his head. “All we really know is that Pennae told us there’s a war wizard conspiracy to slay Vangerdahast and the king and queen, and that we have to get to the Dragondown Chambers as quickly as we can. She didn’t even tell us why, though I’m guessing it was to find and tell Vangey. Only guess, mind. And now our way there is blocked, we’re lost under the Palace-and we’ve lost Florin and Pennae.” He looked up, spreading exasperated hands. “Have I missed anything?”

  “Plenty,” Semoor told him, “but your aim is getting better.”

  “Belt up!” Jhessail snapped. “Just… be still! You’re not funny, you’re not helping, and-and I’m trying to think. ”

  “Yes, of course,” Semoor murmured. “I can see how hard that must be for you.”

  Islif cuffed the Anointed Light of Lathander across the back of the head even before Jhessail snarled and kicked him in the shins. Semoor hastily withdrew into a protective ball, holding forth his holy symbol in front of him-and beside him, Doust threw up his hands in an “I’m innocent, pray strike me not!” gesture.

  The two lady Knights disgustedly turned their backs on the priests, put their heads together, and after a few swift murmurings Islif turned and said briskly, “Right, we’ve decided. Doust, you’ll lead, with the glowstone out. I’ll be just behind you, sword at the ready, then Jhessail, then Semoor. Your job, Semoor, is to look behind us-all the time, mind, not once or twice and then forget about it. We’ll turn back from this barrier to the first cross-passage, take it, and at our first chance we turn back in the direction we were heading in this passage. Once we think we’ve gone far enough to outflank this barrier, we try to head back this way until we find the other side of this barrier, and search for Florin or Pennae.”

  “Still with you,” Semoor murmured, his voice quiet and serious.

  “Good. Now, if we don’t find them soon, we turn instead to seeking a way up, into the rooms of state, and try to find a high-ranking Purple Dragon who might believe us about the conspiracy. We can trust no war wizard except Vangey. Any questions? No? Right, let’s move!”

  With Doust walking in the forefront with the glowstone, they turned their backs on the iron barrier, retraced their steps down the passage to the first cross-pas
sage, finding it closer than they remembered, and turned along it.

  Almost immediately, they saw a radiance in the distance, growing to sudden splendor as it rounded a corner and came out into the passage, then bobbing as it came rapidly toward them.

  “Hide your glow,” Islif murmured in Doust’s ear, and then turned and hissed, “Over to the side, everyone, and right in behind me.”

  The light came closer-a glowstone held by someone in a hurry. Hastening toward them came a frightened courtier, in a grand barrel-fronted jacket that looked a little torn and dusty. He saw them and hesitated in his anxious trot, stiffening for a moment, but then looked away and started to rush past.

  Which was when Islif stepped away from the wall and took his arm, just above the elbow, in a grip of iron.

  He let out a little squeak of fear, and thrust his free hand wildly into the front of his jacket. Islif let him draw the dagger she’d expected clear of the garment-and then deftly punched the point of his elbow with her free hand, and sent the dagger clanging away along the passage.

  “Well met, courtier,” she said heartily. “Have you by chance seen a ranger named Florin? Or a lady in leathers, who goes by the name of Pennae? Or anyone at all down here, who shouldn’t be here?”

  “Y-you,” the man stammered.

  Islif shook him. The Knights heard his teeth rattle. “Anyone else? ”

  “N-no.”

  “Where’s the nearest way up into the Palace floor above us?” she said.

  He gestured mutely, pointing with fervor somewhere diagonally through stone walls. Suspecting this meant along the passage and then turning the right corner to find stairs, Islif kept hold of the courtier’s arm and told him flatly, “Take us there. Now.”

  “My… my dagger… my mother’ll kill me if I don’t come home with it…”

  “And I’ll kill you right now if you try to go and get it,” Islif told him pleasantly. “Does that make your choice easier?”

  He nodded, clapping a hand to his mouth and staring over it at her with wide, fearful eyes.

  Then those eyes rolled up into his head and he fainted in her arms. Disgusted, Islif let him fall to the passage floor in a heap.

  Chapter 21

  LETTING THE MADWITS OUT

  Well may dragon roar

  And dying captains shout

  For the fields are red with gore

  And they’re letting the madwits out.

  Tethmurra “Lady Bard” Starmar from the ballad Trust Only In Your Sword published in the Year of the Crown

  "Florin?” Pennae called softly. “Florin?”

  She waited, but he did not shout again. After standing still and silent in the darkness for a long time-in case the iron barrier rose as suddenly as it had descended-Pennae shrugged, turned, and set off alone down the passage.

  She could see nothing at all except very faint light a long way ahead, but her fingertips trailed lightly along the stone wall, the passage floor was smooth and level, and there seemed to be nothing standing between her and that distant light.

  So Pennae strode on, quickly and confidently, her soft-soled boots making little sound, and was soon approaching that light.

  It was leaking around the frame of an ill-fitting door, the first of a row of closed doors; the rest were dark. As she slowed to think about what to do next, the door suddenly opened-giving her a momentary glimpse of an untidy office stacked high with scrolls and coffers-and a tall, black-robed man strode out to face her, pointing at her as he did so.

  A war wizard, his eyes unfriendly-tall, thin, and wart-covered, his face was homely and entirely dominated by a great ravenbeak nose. “You,” he snapped imperiously. “Wench! What’re you doing here?”

  “Seeking Vangerdahast,” Pennae replied calmly, striding steadily nearer as if she had every right to be walking along this passage, and was mildly surprised at both his presence and his question.

  “Why?”

  “My business, I believe,” Pennae told him. “As you seem suspicious, perhaps you’ll take me to him.”

  He shook his head. “I’m very busy-the revel. No, a cell will keep you just fine until this is all over. Thieves and hired slayers are just what we’re here to thwart. You look the very picture of one, and you might well be wanting to get to Royal Magician Vangerdahast so as to slay him! Or distract and delay him whilst someone you’re working with manages something nefarious! Oh, no, you’ll not be distracting-”

  A bare two paces away from him, Pennae quelled her sigh and deftly stripped off her leather jack, baring herself from the waist up with the allure of long practice, leaving her leathers dangling from one wrist.

  The war wizard’s eyes bulged, he started to stammer something unintelligible-and she glided forward, gently took his hands, and guided them to her breasts.

  “Like them?” she murmured, looking hungrily up into his eyes. “Ahhh, war wizards… I admire you all so much. I wanted Vangerdahast, but… you’re here, and so commanding…”

  She let her eyes half-close, and moaned as his cold fingers, trembling with excitement, moved inexpertly over her. He drew in a sharp, ragged breath, and she whispered, “May I… kiss you?”

  “Uh, ah, well-” War Wizard Lhonsan Arkstead ran out of things to say, and settled for swallowing. Hard.

  Her mouth was parted and reaching for him, so temptingly close below him. Arkstead was not a handsome man, and had never learned the arts of being pleasant. No woman’s mouth had ever been so offered to him.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered, as he bent his head to hers. “This is… less than wise.”

  Abruptly leathers whirled over his head, blinding him, then were thrust into his mouth, muffling his cries-and the very hard pommel of a dagger struck Arkstead in the throat, robbing him of breath and voice, and then on the side of the head, robbing him of all Faerun.

  “You were quite correct,” Pennae told his senseless body, as it slid down her legs into a crumpled heap at her feet. “Loins-driven idiot. But then, I seldom do wise things either.”

  She reached down to retrieve her jack-and three Purple Dragons came rushing at her out of the darkness, blades stabbing.

  Pennae spat out a curse and sprang back, abandoning her leathers. There was no place to flee to. She snatched out her dagger and crouched behind the war wizard’s body, hoping they’d not trample him, and so give her a little room to move.

  She was wrong. The soldiers charged right over him, maintaining their unbroken line three abreast. Pennae sprang to one side, to try to cut down on the number of blades that could reach her, and parried desperately.

  One blade, then two, clanging aside in a skirling of ringing steel-and the third burst past her little steel fang.

  Despite her desperate twisting and arching, it darted in, snakelike, and slid like icy fire into her side.

  Islif slapped the courtier’s face briskly, then pinched the skin of his throat between her fingernails, and finally rolled back an eyelid and put a fingertip to his staring-at-nothing eyeball. He never flinched in the slightest.

  Exasperated, she rose from him and snapped, “Come on! We haven’t time to try to get this fool awake and talking!”

  The Knights rushed off, Semoor plucking up the man’s fallen glowstone as he passed.

  The moment they were out of sight the courtier sat up.

  “What do you know?” Bravran Merendil said aloud in wonder, managing a shaky smile through the drug-sweat that was suddenly drenching him. “Mother’s deadsleep proved useful at last!” His smile of disbelief grew. “Who’d have thought playing dead ever helped anyone?”

  He pulled another glowstone from his codpiece, used it to find his fallen dagger, sheathed it back inside the grand barrel-front of his courtier’s jacket-and then smotes himself on the forehead, and gasped, “Talan Yarl!”

  He launched himself down the passage, sprinting hard and thanking the gods that woman and her ruffians had gone in the other direction. “Suddenly,” he muttere
d wryly to himself, “playing dead sounds like a very good idea indeed!”

  “A fool? Aye, I’ve never denied that,” Florin replied, rushing forward and waving his sword rapidly back and forth right in front of him. It struck that unseen blade with a glancing clang, and then he was past, and turning in the darkness to face whoever it was, but backing away as he did so.

  He was backing into the unknown, and facing a foe with a drawn sword-a woman, unless he was mistaken about that cold, arrogant voice-whom he couldn’t see, but he’d managed to get her between him and the Doorwarden.

  He became aware of a faint glow in front of him, a thin line that he was sure hadn’t been there before, a line that was moving, sweeping around-’twas her sword!

  Its glow was growing slowly but steadily stronger, now, as it swung at him, Florin steadily backing out of her reach. He had to win time for that glow to grow until he could see it better, and to move away from the Dread Doorwarden, hopefully to and through a place too narrow for him to follow.

  He could see a face-female and human, and bone white in hue-behind that blade now, as their swords met again, hard, ringing off each other and striking sparks. It was not a kind face, and it did not wear an expression even a fool would have termed “friendly.”

  Not even this fool.

  “Who are you?” he asked, giving ground again-as heavy breathing and a ponderous footfall told him that the Doorwarden was striding up behind the woman with the sword.