by Ed Greenwood
“Gods,” Shandril said, face paling, “don’t remind me.”
“No, no,” Narm said, with feeling. “Don’t remind me. I can still feel those teeth.”
Shandril remembered all too vividly, retched, and turned hastily away. They watched her shoulders shake for a moment, and Narm turned to Delg with a sigh.
“Now look what you’ve done,” he said.
“Nay, lad—yon’s your handiwork. Grab her, now, and let’s be on our way. We haven’t time for foolishness.”
“Foolishness?” Shandril’s voice was weak but indignant, her face the color of old bone as she rose from her knees.
The dwarf glared at her. “Aye, foolishness. You’ve several days’ march of woods to be sick in—you don’t have to stop each time you feel ill. On!”
She glared back at him, took a deep breath, wiped her mouth clean, and went on.
“What was that?”
“The sound of your own big feet, Othrogh,” the Zhent swordmaster muttered. “Quiet, now—the maid could be the other side of that next tree.”
The half-orc sniffed the air, then shook his head with an emphatic grunt. “No. I’d smell her.”
Around him, the other members of the patrol rolled their eyes, made various faces, and sighed. Swordmaster Cleuvus looked at Othrogh sourly and said, “Just keep your lips shut for awhile, hey? They gave us all the same orders—and you heard ’em as well as I did.” He looked up. “The rest of you,” he added shortly, “spread out—now! She hurls fire, remember? If you all crowd together under the same tree like that, how could she miss?”
There were various grumbles and dark looks; he knew they’d only gathered to hear him berate Othrogh—and they knew he knew. Cleuvus grinned. Ah, well, swordmasters were never loved. Except when they went to town with coins enough to hire—
He was still thinking such vivid, pleasant thoughts when the tree beside him grew a stout arm with a mace at the end of it and rudely crushed the back of his head in. Cleuvus fell on his face like a thrown stone, thinking of love forever.
“Skulk through the forest, would ye? Wear dark armor that offends mine eyes, would ye? Oh, the crimes! The crimes!” The voice rose in mock anguish amongst the startled gasps of the Zhents, and its owner lumbered into their midst—and bowed.
“Rathan Thentraver, Knight of Myth Drannor, at thy service. Looking for little girls in the forest, are we? Well, if ye find any, be so good as t—”
“Get him!” The eldest Zhent snarled, and swords flashed in a sudden rush of dark armor.
A man dropped heavily, cursed—and then gurgled and fell silent. The object he’d tripped over rose, dusted himself off, and then calmly glided forward to bury his bloodied dagger in the back of another warrior.
Torm of the Knights grinned at his comrade Rathan across the tumult of clashing weapons, then said, “Now is that nice? You could’ve waited for me to get some blood. You could have let Torm—much thinner, handsomer, and younger than a certain priest of Tymora—strike first! You could have busied yourself at some ritual or other; the one where you wear ladies’ underthings and pretend to be a paladin, perhaps—but oh, no! The clarion call of battle was too strong. The—”
He broke off to duck frantically aside as two Zhent blades crossed in the space where the knight’s face had been a moment earlier.
Puffing, Rathan smashed his way through another Zhent’s guard, shattering the sword raised against him. As the man fell, spraying blood from his crushed face all over the knight’s knees, Rathan said, “Oh, aye—let ye strike first and grab all the glory. Betray the commandments of Lady Luck to dare all and leave my life to chance. Let a clever-tongued thief go ahead of a respected, dignified—nay, even rotund—pillar of whatever community I’m currently passing through. Not by the Lady’s laughter! When the bards sing ballads of this day, when two knights went up against almost a dozen Zhent sword-swingers in the forest, ’tis Rathan whose deeds will awe. Rathan who’ll get the beauteous maiden as his reward. Rathan who’ll—”
“Take his usual pratfall,” Torm put in, his blade finding the throat of the Zhent whose frantic swing had made Rathan stumble back hastily. The fat priest tripped over a tree root and sat down heavily. “Oww!” he complained as the ground shook.
For their next few breaths, the knights were too busy slaying the last few Zhentilar to notice that the tree whose root had felled Rathan shook now in soundless laughter. Two golden eyes high on its trunk watched the last blood spilled, and then closed, just as Torm leaned against the bark below them, breathing hard, and said, “Well, still no sign of what we seek—how many Zhents is that, now?”
“Thirty-three,” Rathan’s voice came back gloomily to him from the other side of the tree. “Why do they always come along just when I need to relieve myself? Tymora, if ye’re listening—tell me that!”
The day passed in continuous plodding travel—one weary stride after another, slipping and ducking and scrambling through, around, and over trees—fallen trees, leaning trees, and gnarled, tangled, growing-in-all-directions trees, damp leaf-mold slippery under their feet. Here and there pale brown mushrooms the size of halflings’ heads rose up in clumps, and rotting stumps held lush green cushions of moss.
Shandril hadn’t thought she could ever tire of trees—but then, she’d never thought she’d see so many trees in her life, let alone in one day. These weren’t the beautiful giants of the Elven Court; Hullack Forest was dark and dense and damp, its trees grown thick together.
The three travelers felt like unwelcome intruders; none of them had wanted to stop at highsun to eat. They’d hastened on, instead, searching for higher ground and a clearing where they could camp.
The sun had sunk low by the time the ground began rising again. Here and there, rocks showed through the moss and the fungi-cloaked wreckage of fallen trees. Ravines and gullies appeared more often, and the black pools of standing water were smaller and fewer. As the sun slipped to a last, low red ribbon under the trees, the weary travelers’ hearts rose. They were climbing sharply at last.
“Delg,” Narm said excitedly from behind the dwarf as they slipped and clambered upward, Shandril between them, “some of these rocks have been cut and dressed. Look: straight edges on this one—this must be some sort of ruin.”
“You don’t say,” the dwarf said softly. “It wouldn’t surprise you overmuch, I suppose, if I told you I’d noticed a thing or two about these rocks myself.…”
The dwarf’s voice died away in wonder as they came out into a height of crumbling stone arches, walls, and broken stairs. Shattered pillars reached like jagged fingers up at the twilight sky. Selune shone faintly just above the horizon as night came down on them.
“Well, here we are for the night, whatever your likings,” Delg said, peering all around with keen interest. “This is old, old indeed—and not dwarven nor yet elven, either. I’ll have a look at this in morning light.… I can tell the age of the stonework better then.”
“For now,” Narm put in firmly, looking at the dark trees behind them, “we’d better find a corner of this we can defend, or we may not live to see the morn.”
Delg sighed. “Shandril,” he said plaintively, “you had a thousand thousand dalesmen to choose from after—after the company fell. Did you have to choose a whiner and a worrier?”
Shandril sighed right back. “Delg,” she said mildly, “I love this man. Give him at least the respect you’d give a dwarf of his age, will you?”
“I am, Lady. I am,” Delg replied, and they saw his grinning teeth flash in the growing moonlight. He lurched over to Narm and clapped him low on the back, hard enough to send the young wizard stumbling ahead helplessly.
“Forgive my manner, lad. I don’t mean most of it—much. Your lady can tell you how it was in the company. We were swordmates together—and, mind you, she survived it, then. Ferostil was nastier than ever I was, and Rymel more the prankster, too. If mere words are enough to hurt you, lad, grow some armor speedily; it doesn’t
get any easier on the ears as you get older.”
“My thanks, Delg,” Narm said shortly, “but I’d be happier if you could tell me what that is.”
“What, lad?” Delg’s axe glinted in the moonlight.
“That thing, there!” Narm said fiercely, pointing. Far away across tumbled arches and broken rubble, something dark and winged seemed to both fly and to flow over the stone beneath it, like some sort of giant black snake. A snake with batlike wings, eyes like glimmering rubies, and a cruel snout. It was coming toward them, not hurrying, as though dinner seldom escaped it.
“Shandril!” Narm said commandingly. “Hold still, and I’ll cast my light spell.” He lowered his voice, and added, “It’s my last—to feed your spellfire.… Ready?”
Shandril nodded, and Narm hurried through the gestures of casting the spell as the dwarf advanced to stand as foreguard, hefting his axe. “Battle again, is it?” he muttered. “Then let it come! Clanggedin be with me and guide my axe.”
Narm’s casting ended as the winged thing rose up into the air before them, passing over Delg’s reaching axe. No magical radiance appeared beneath Narm’s hands, which rested on Shandril’s neck. She had willed the light into her, drawing the tingling energy in through the bare skin of her neck. Flames danced briefly in her eyes as she waved him away, then looked up to face the winged horror directly.
It loomed above her. Dark and terrible, its leathery wings beat in eerie silence, its bony jaws spread wide, its red glowing eyes met hers. “Turn back,” Shandril said, “and we will not harm you. Turn back!”
Above the glowing crystal ball, a light feminine voice chuckled. “They do talk a lot, these fools. Always threatening and declaiming grandly—when they’re not pleading, that is.”
“True, Mairara,” came an older female voice in answer. “Yet I fear this servant creature will fail us as all the others have done.”
Gathlarue set her goblet down on the tabletop and stared into the crystal ball that had risen to float just above it. In its curved depths they both beheld the scene in the ruins. Both stared so intently into the globe that neither noticed as one leg of their table grew a silent, bearded smile for an instant, ere a quiet wisp of a shadow rose from it and slipped away.
In deadly silence, the dark horror folded its wings and plunged down on Shandril. Narm cried out and drew his dagger, and Delg’s axe rose as he raced in to swing at the flank of the descending menace. But there was a sudden flash and rolling roar of flame.
While backing toward a fallen stone wall, Shandril had hurled fire into the beast’s open mouth.
The man and the dwarf both staggered hastily back from the rush of flame as the monster, covered with it, perished in writhing tatters of smoking flesh. It gave off a horrible smell. With mixed awe and satisfaction, Narm and Delg watched for a moment while it shriveled and burned. Then they heard a queer choking sound from behind the ruined wall.
In three bounds Narm was around the corner, heart in his mouth. His wife knelt on the stones. Shandril shook her head, waving him feebly away. She was being thoroughly and wretchedly sick. “The smell,” she gasped. “Gods, how vile!”
“Vile, indeed,” said a new voice from beyond her. “Were I younger and less—’hem—stout of stomach, I’d be doing that too. Which should serve ye as a warning, girl, not to be hurling flames about at just everything that moves. Ye’ll burn up something ye value, one o’ these days. Phew! Come away, come away, all of ye—that thing smells as if it did nothing but roll in dung and eat dead things.”
“Who,” Delg and Narm demanded together, “are you?”
The stout, dark figure beyond Shandril drew something from its belt—a dagger whose blade glowed with blue fire in the night. Narm stepped quickly in front of Shandril, raising his own dagger, but the man shook his head and brandished the glowing blade to serve as a light.
Its radiance shone down on him, illuminating the grizzled, scarred, and yet somehow good-natured face of a burly man clad in flopping, food-stained leather armor. Fierce brows and mustaches gleamed gray-white on his large and weather-stained face. Huge swash-boots flapped beneath an ample paunch as he stepped forward, handed the glowing dagger to Narm—who juggled it gingerly—then swept around the young mage and grandly offered his hand to Shandril to help her rise.
Warily she avoided it, coming to her feet in a crouch, facing him. “Yes,” she said, fire winking in her eyes, “who are you, sir?”
The battered, leonine face wagged sadly from side to side. “An’ here I thought I was famous at last, over at least the lands of all the North. Ah, well.”
He drew back from Shandril, plucked his dagger deftly from Narm’s grasp, and struck a heroic pose, holding the dagger forth as though it were a great battle-sword. “I am Mirt, called the Moneylender, of Waterdeep. Men once called me—’hem—Mirt the Merciless. Some folk call me the Old Wolf.”
Delg eyed the stout man sourly. “I am Delg, of the dwarves.” It was a gentle dwarven insult, implying that the speaker did not trust the one he addressed enough to furnish his last name.
Mirt bowed in reply, and made a quick, complex sign with one hand.
Delg’s eyes widened. “So,” he said with new respect, “you have known others of my race as friends, before. Well met, stout one. What brings you here—to the depths of this forest, and alone?”
“Well met, short one,” Mirt replied easily. “I like to pick mushrooms this time of year, and Hullack Forest seemed a nice enough place—quiet an’ all, until spellfire started roaring about all over the place, and—well, ne’er mind. Come back to my camp, all of ye, and we can swap stories for a bit. Until dawn, say …”
“A moment,” Narm said quietly. “Delg’s question is a fair one, sir. Before we follow you into gods know what, tell us how you come to be here. We are—suspicious folk, these days. Everyone and everything in Faerûn seems eager to kill us.”
“Ye, too?” Mirt replied mildly, raising his brows. “ ’Tis a plague, it seems. They’re always trying to kill me, too.”
Narm waited. A breath of silence passed, and Shandril quite deliberately climbed up a ragged edge of stone wall to stand above them. She glanced quickly all around, and then stood facing the man who called himself Mirt, one hand raised. Fire licked along her fingers for a moment.
The stout man watched her, nodded as if in acknowledgment of power, and then turned back to the young mage and smiled winningly. “Well, Narm Tamaraith, ye’re right.”
Narm frowned. How did this man know his name?
He opened his mouth to ask just that, but the stout man waved him to silence, saying, “Aye, it’s rude of me not to congratulate ye on your wise marriage to Shandril Shessair right off, and set ye three at ease.”
Mirt smiled up at Shandril and added, “The bride is as beautiful as I’ve been told, and no mistake. Well met, all of ye.” He bowed again, various daggers and scabbards about his belt jangling and ringing, and smoothed his mustaches with broad, hairy fingers.
“I’ve awaited ye here, in these long-desolate ruins of Tethgard—there’s a tale I’ll have to tell ye some time—because a friend told me ye’d be along, soon, and probably in need of aid. When young folk go blundering about the countryside …”
Delg rolled his eyes. “All right,” he broke in, “we may as well be finding your camp. I can see there’re some good tales to be heard. You wouldn’t know a certain mage called Elminster, would you?”
“Or a lady named Storm?” Shandril asked softly.
Mirt chuckled and stepped forward to hand her lightly down from her rocky height. “As it happens, both those names belong to friends of mine,” he rumbled. “Convenient, aye?” He passed his dagger to Narm again. “Here, lad—ye hold the light; then perhaps ye can stop looking so suspiciously at me, like I’m aching to put it in yer lady’s breast the moment yer back is turned. There is something I was given to show ye.…”
He pulled off a worn leather gauntlet. They saw a brass ring around one of th
e man’s fingers and a fine chain encircling his thick, hairy wrist. Something small gleamed as it dangled from the chain: a silver harp. Then it all vanished again beneath the dirty leather; its owner winked and turned with a rolling gait to lead the way past a pile of tumbled stones and into the night.
“You know we have enemies?” Shandril asked him. “Some, I must tell you, are powerful indeed. Their magic—”
Mirt chuckled. “Aye, aye, make me tremble in my boots, girl. Ye’ve run into those Zhentarim snakes, as do all in the North sooner or later, and some of the crazed-wits that every land in Faerûn is home to; the Cult of the Dragon, in yer case. Worry not. The worst they can do is kill ye.” He shrugged. “Besides, their arts cannot spy on us or find us while ye stay close to me. I’ve magic of my own—a little—that I got from a grateful mage long, long ago. It cloaks me, she said, from scrying and probings of the mind, and suchlike. So we can all sing songs and have too much to drink well into the morning.”
“Stout one,” Delg murmured, “if you keep on like this, it will be morning.”
Mirt rolled his eyes in silent reply and waved at them to accompany him. They followed the stout, wheezing old adventurer down into a little gully in the rocks, where several dark doorways opened out of crumbling walls—the cellars of now-vanished buildings. Mirt shambled toward one opening.
Shandril yawned, stumbled, and almost fell. Narm rushed to hold her up and found her swaying with weariness, almost asleep on her feet.
Mirt wheezed up close to them, peered into Shandril’s sleepy face, and sighed. “The problem with ladies, lad,” he remarked to Narm, “is that they take all the fun out o’ things. After, that is, they’ve put most of the fun into things, I grant.”
He lurched on into the darkness. “Mind yer step, now. The best adventures begin when yer boots step proper and sure along some path or other to glory.…”
When Shandril opened her heavy, sleep-encrusted eyes again, the light told her that it was late afternoon. She sat up with a start, fearing that something had gone very wrong. They should have been up and away from here at the first light of morning. Narm’s cloak fell from her; underneath it, she wore only her breeches.