Elminster nodded. “Thy tactics, I’m content with. Both at once is indeed wisest, if ye can bring it off. I find matters are seldom so tidy. Yet again I must say thee nay, Blackstaff. I must be seen to be in Shadowdale, free to wander elsewhere but appearing when great foes or matters of import—and ye’ll grant these wraiths are both, just as ye paint them—unfold there. I have my orders, as ye have yours.”
The black-robed figure across the room let out something that was almost a roar and came striding toward Elminster raging like a black flame. For an instant the form almost seemed gaunt-thin with large, snapping-with-anger dark eyes and pointed ears … and then it was the Blackstaff again, Khelben Arunsun as large as ever, towering across the table with both knuckles planted on its old stone surface, fists clenched white with anger.
“Secrets,” he said, “may be the stock in trade of every Chosen, but it is folly and corruption when Chosen keep secrets from each other. I more than mistrust these ‘orders’ you speak so glibly of. They are far too handy an excuse for doing just what you want to do. Let me tell you straight, Elminster Aumar: I suspect you of deceiving me, of hiding behind Our Lady.”
Elminster rose slowly from his bench, planted his own fists on the table, and leaned forward in exact mimicry of the Blackstaff’s pose, until their noses were almost touching.
“You,” he replied, imitating Khelben’s voice precisely, “suspect far too much, Khelben Arunsun. Nasty, suspicious minds may be useful for wizards in keeping themselves alive, but no one should ever forget that they are nasty, suspicious minds.” He sat down again, swung booted feet up onto the table, and puffed at the pipe that came swooping back to him. “I stay and do what I do,” he said, in his own voice. “Have ye anything else ye’d like to try to bully me about? Or—ahem—discuss?”
Khelben stepped back from the table, glowering. “Again you take it upon yourself to decide what will be and what will not be. I will not back down on this, El.”
“Well,” a pleasant contralto voice observed from the long-empty-of-door archway behind them both, “it’s nice to know that the Blackstaff remains as hog-headed as ever. And everyone’s favorite Old Mage just as merrily, provokingly irritating. Haven’t you two given the slightest thought to the notion that one day, in some small way, it might be nicer for everyone—yourselves, your fellow Chosen, the rest of the Realms—if you undertook to grow up?”
Khelben winced, eyes closing for a moment as he muttered an extremely creative curse under his breath. Then he turned and said politely, “Well met as always, Dove. What brings you to this rather remote place? A very long arm of coincidence, or have you been lurking at Elminster’s beck and call until the so-called ‘right moment?’ ”
“My,” Dove said, striding into the room and stripping off her long leather gloves, “you do have a nasty, suspicious mind, don’t you?” She undid two buckles, swung two crossed and linked scabbards off her back, and set her swords on the table. “You’ll achieve more in life, Lord Mage of Waterdeep, if you’re nice to people more often and bully, bluster, and snap commands at them rather less. Just some friendly advice.”
She half-sat on one end of the table and announced, “I was sent here by Mystra, as it happens, who has shared with me your amicable discussions thus far. She’d like me to state the view of the Harpers of the Dales—and those of us based in Cormyr, too. We believe it will do much harm to the stability of those lands if the Knights are left undefended for any lowly Zhent to slaughter and Elminster vanishes from his visible guardianship. Even if another wizard—that’d be you, Blackstaff, but your face is less known hereabouts, and the Zhents are very good at spreading false rumors, to say nothing of wild-tongued Dalefolk and bored citizens of Cormyr—then shows up and engages in a spectacular spell-battle with some fell and scary wraith-things, the Zhents will rub their hands and probably start marching their warriors the next day, to ‘protect’ everyone in sight. By conquering them, of course.”
She rose and strolled in Khelben’s direction, wagging a reproving finger. “I hardly need to tell either of you gentle mages that Harpers disagree among themselves over all sorts of things. Yet on this, all local Harpers are agreed: Zhentil Keep must not be given any excuse to send forth the armies they’re itching to use, nor emboldened in any way. Starting to think Elminster isn’t sitting in Shadowdale watching their every move is a golden pretext in itself. Khelben, don’t be stupid. For once.”
“Now who’s being rather less than nice?” the Blackstaff retorted, striding slowly to meet her. “And while I’d like to have leisure time enough to debate tactics with every Harper ’twixt here and the more distant isles of Anchorôme, in this particular matter—one Chosen keeping secrets from another—the views of non-Chosen are immaterial. Consider them dismissed.”
The sigh that resounded through the room was so deep and strong that it numbed their very bones and set the stone table to thrumming eerily. Khelben spun to seek its source—and found himself regarding two huge, long-lashed eyes that had opened in the old stones of the wall. Human eyes, by their appearance, but each as large across as he stood tall, and they moved over the surface of the stone and left it unaffected.
Blue fire surged through the veins of all the Chosen, nigh choking them. Mystra was not amused.
“Lady,” Khelben said gravely, bowing his head, “how—”
Khelben mine, the goddess said, her voice thunder in all their heads, hear and heed my commands, as Elminster has already done. You are to stand back from the Knights and Shadowdale and those known as Horaundoon and Old Ghost. You and all Chosen are merely to watch what befalls, meddling not at all. If one snatches tools out of every forge fire, they can never be tempered at all.
“Your will commands us all, Lady,” Khelben spluttered, “but—but doing nothing, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, seems to render all Chosen unnecessary.”
You are “doing nothing,” as you term it, in this one matter. Let this be one tale you stay out of, all of you. It is needful. Remember also this, Khelben Arunsun: This world is large and full of striving life. You are not the only one playing a long game.
“That’s so,” Storm agreed, her face bathed in the light of the bright scrying sphere floating in the air above her kitchen table. “Even my patience is growing a trifle frayed just keeping these dolts Torm and Rathan alive so that they can join the Knights.”
That thought prompted the Bard of Shadowdale to whirl away from one scrying sphere to another, to peer at whatever Torm was up to at that moment somewhere in the Realms.
The sphere brightened obediently. Storm peered into it, rolled her eyes at what she saw, and murmured, “Young Master Slyboots, you’ll be the death of yourself yet!”
Chapter 6
GREAT MURDERING BATTLE
For all that of love our bards do prattle
And sages opine as they’re derided
’Tis always in great murdering battle
That things get—in truth—decided.
The character Selgur the Savage
In the play Karnoth’s Homecoming
by Chanathra Jestryl, Lady Bard of Yhaunn
First performed in the Year of the Bloodbird
The horse under Dauntless had tasted battle before, but that didn’t mean it had any particular liking for fire that came racing right at it, shrieking.
It bucked, heaving and plunging under the ornrion in its haste to be elsewhere, away from those rushing flames, back out of these trees onto the open road, where—
Arrows came hissing out of the trees to thud hard and deep into the horse’s haunches, causing it to scream in pain, rear, and dance sideways so wildly that Taltar Dahauntul decided being spilled out of his saddle was wiser than staying in it.
He crashed down hard onto his shoulders and rolled hastily away—or tried to. Pain stabbed across his neck and shoulders as the breath slammed out of him. He groaned, and the plunging hooves of another horse came crashing down all around him.
And we
re gone, leaving in their wake a cursing Purple Dragon who thundered to earth through a rather fragile thornbush, shouting out his own curses.
That straining, sputtering voice belonged to Telsword Grathus. Dauntless saw more arrows hiss past overhead and heard Grathus gulp suddenly, choke, and stop spitting out curses forever.
“ ’Tis a monster!” First Sword Aubrus Norlen cried. “A monster, to be sure! Hew it down! Dragons, to me now! Slay this beast that all Cormyr be delivered from its grave peril!”
Panting, he hacked at the lithe, dark, flaming thing that was rolling in the stream at his feet. A hissing cloud of smoke was billowing up from it. He could hardly see his foe. Yet he swung lustily, and his steel bit into something solid. That brought a shriek of pain from the thing, and it clawed at his ankles. He stumbled hastily back.
“Dragons!” he shouted again. “To me now! Aid, for the love of Cormyr! Aid, for the love of—”
“—a little piece and quiet!” Blade Orbrar snapped, coming up beside him and slashing at whatever was thrashing and rolling in the stream beneath the drifting smoke. “Norlen, will you belt up?”
“Whaaat? I am your superior, Teln Orbrar!” First Sword Norlen bellowed. “Obey me and address me with the proper respect and defer—uhhh!”
First Sword Aubrus Norlen’s gasp was as loud as everything else that had been coming out of his mouth. It hung in the air as he staggered backward and sat down, hard.
The Purple Dragon Blade turned to see why Norlen was retreating so precipitously. He was astonished to see an arrow had appeared, sprouting as if by magic, low on his front. It was sunk deep in a gap in the First Sword’s too-small armor, between two plates that had quite failed to grow and cover his expanding belly over these last few months. The arrow was quivering, and so was Norlen. He stared up at Teln Orbrar in disbelieving horror, spitting up dark blood, as the light behind his eyes went out.
Orbrar was neither a stupid man nor a slow-witted one. He flung himself flat on the ground right beside the First Sword even before Norlen toppled sideways. The arrow that had been meant for him whistled harmlessly past and was lost amid brief cracklings in dark undergrowth.
“Naed,” Orbrar gasped, rolling frantically over and down into a little hollow in the ground, almost cutting himself on his sword doing so. “Gods-cursed stlarning naed! Oh, tluin, tluin, tluin!”
“Not now,” a voice that was tight with pain hissed in his ear, an instant before a very, very cold knife entered his throat. “I’m too busy being wounded right now. Later, perhaps—you murdering Purple Dragon bastard.”
Choking around the icy metal that had so suddenly somehow appeared in his gullet, Blade Teln Orbrar found himself unable to reply.
“Not—” he struggled to say, staring into two eyes that wept tears and blazed with pain and fury.
“Not a bastard,” he managed to choke out as Faerûn went dim around him. “Not. Decent, really. I …”
Night fell. Forever, he knew. Forever.
“That’s the last tluining arrow!” Halmur snapped, tossing his bow down and reaching for his sword.
Steldurth nodded, raised his own blade, and gave the sardonic, dusky-skinned Turmishan an approving smile. “You feathered Dragons enough for us. No one left to get in the way of us killing the Knights this time!”
“Kill?” Kraskus growled, bending down to thrust his red-bearded, brutish face close. “Time to kill?”
“Time to kill, Kraskus,” Brorn said firmly from behind them all. “To avenge Lord Yellander!”
“Yellander,” the bullyblades snarled in unison, hefting their swords, and rushed out of the concealing trees.
“I don’t want to kill you!” Florin said, striking a Dragon’s thrusting sword aside, then slashing in the other direction in time to parry a second Dragon’s attack. “Stop this!”
“Stop this? Man, we are the law here!” Blade Hanstel Harrow snapped back at the ranger. “Lay down your sword, and we’ll—”
“You’ll kill us where we stand,” Semoor Wolftooth said, retreating and vainly trying to wipe his forehead clean of blood from a gash made when the very tip of one of the Dragons’ swords had just caught him a lunge or two earlier. His streaming gore was almost blinding him. “Those’re your orders, aren’t they? Well?”
Neither Dragon answered with more than wordless growls of exasperation and effort, as they went right on hacking at Florin as hard and fast as they knew how.
“Stop this!” Semoor spat through the blood dripping from his nose and chin. “Stop or someone’s going to get killed!”
Raging, Dauntless came to his feet. Their horses were dead or fled, the last one lashing out with its steel-shod hooves at one of the priest Knights—Doust Sulwood, wasn’t it?—as it reared one last time before racing back toward the road.
Grathus was dead at his feet, and their saucy wench of a thief was just rising from beside Orbrar, his life-blood all over the knife in her hand.
With a roar the ornrion launched himself into a run across the uneven, trampled ground, swinging his sword up and back for a great cleaving stroke that should end her sly evil forever.
She was reeling, wet with blood and with half her hair and leathers burnt off her, but her eyes glittered with a fury to match his own as she raised arms that trailed wisps of smoke, bloody knife coming up to greet him.
Dauntless slowed not a whit. That fang could do nothing against his armor for the moment he needed to hack her down—and then she’d not be using it on anyone, ever again.
“Die, outlaw bitch!” he bellowed, bringing his sword down. “Die!”
Florin sprang aside again. He didn’t want to kill these Purple Dragons, didn’t want their blood on his—
The snarling face of the nearest Dragon changed, fear falling across it ere its owner backed away. He was gazing past Florin, and so was the other Dragon, whose outflanking rush had faltered.
Florin kept moving, aside and back, but turned his head to see what they were both staring at.
A swarm of men with swords raced toward them, the foremost almost close enough to touch, clenched teeth opening to bellow, “Yellander!”
“Oh, tluin,” Florin said and set his feet to meet the nearest of Yellander’s bullyblades blade-to-blade. Just in time.
Jhessail rose out of her crouch, daring to breathe again, as Doust said, “Guard yourself!” and erupted out of the little hollow where they’d crouched together. Mace in hand, he charged into the fray.
Standing—these outlaws must have run out of arrows, hence their charge out into the open—the spellhurler drew the dagger from her belt.
It seemed so puny, against all these hulking men in armor and their swords. Yet her battle spells were all gone now, most spent on half-seen archers in the trees. So she could run away, sprint after Doust, and do what little she could, or she could stand here and watch.
Which really bid fair to mean stand and watch her friends die.
Dauntless brought his blade down so hard, it couldn’t help but break the dagger raised against it and both the wench’s slender wrists gripping that knife, too. If she managed to parry at all.
Only to find himself stumbling awkwardly forward, almost impaling himself on his own pommel, as his sword bit deep into forest leaf mold. Somehow the thief had ducked or twisted away, and—where was she?
He spun, fearing being hamstrung.
Damn all if he didn’t find himself looking into her defiant grin! Pennae was reeling, teeth clenched in pain and fighting to keep standing. Blood was running in a dark wet flood down the arm that held out her dagger to menace him, and that arm was wavering. She had been trying to hamstring him, gods take her. Only the weakness of her wounds had kept her from doing it before he could get his sword unstuck and whirl to face her.
“Curse you, wench!” he spat, stepping back from her to give himself space enough to swing his blade back up to his shoulder.
She fought to keep standing, lurching forward to try to stay close to him, too cl
ose for his seeking steel—but Dauntless turned with her, took another step back, and then leaned forward and put all the strength in his shoulders behind a woodcutter’s chop, bringing his sword down in a cleaving that—
—missed the staggering thief entirely as something slammed hard into the ornrion’s knees from one side, snatching his hacking sword away from his intended victim.
It was his turn to stagger, as his sword bit into turf again and plunged him into a fight to keep from falling. He managed amid all the awkward hopping to turn his head enough to look down his struck leg and see that his assailant was—
That weakling of a Tymoran priest among the Knights!
Sulwood, Doust Sulwood. That was his name.
And this Doust Sulwood was glaring up at Dauntless right now, gasping for breath with his hands still clawing at the knee-plates of the ornrion’s armor.
Dauntless jerked back with a snarl and kicked his way clear of the sprawling priest.
“Deal with you later, holynose,” he growled, swinging his sword aloft again.
Then he let out a roar that rang with the rage rising in him, and charged the thief again. If he did nothing else this day, felling this little bitch and delivering Cormyr from her tireless thievery should—
She was stumbling back, gasping, staring at him almost beseechingly through her hair. Defenseless and reeling, on the brink of begging for mercy.
“Not this time, wench,” Dauntless said. “Not this time!”
He drew his blade back for a killing blow, bounded forward, and brought it down.
In midair it struck a bright blade that seemed to thrust out of nowhere, a sword as hard and unmoving as an iron bar.
The impact struck sparks past his nose, nigh deafened him with its clang, and numbed his sword arm right up into his shoulder. Dauntless roared in startled pain and hastily stepped back. The bright blade followed, thrusting at him.
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