Shadows of Doom

by Ed Greenwood

  She shrugged. Left, then. Sharantyr climbed into the tunnel, slid along uncomfortably on her knuckles for a time, thought about what a target her backside must make for anyone shooting a crossbow down this tunnel, and carefully sheathed her sword. Empty-handed, she could travel at twice the speed and found it far easier to be quiet. She went on, groping in deepening darkness, as the tunnel rose, met with smaller side tubes, and grew a little smaller.

  Well, she was in the castle, but how to get out of this dark, close tunnel? Something small and four-footed scampered momentarily across her way. A rat, no doubt. Sharantyr started to wish she could see.

  What if she met with something larger and hungrier, or a trap of some sort? She wouldn’t even see it in the darkness.

  She forced that thought down, concentrating instead on the sure knowledge that the chute carried waste down from somewhere, and so she must inevitably reach that origin.

  Sharantyr hoped someone’s backside wouldn’t be covering it when she did. She could almost hear the sly voice of the thief Torm, her sometime tormentor in the Knights, making that snide observation. She smiled to herself and climbed on.

  Then, very suddenly, her hands found a hard stone wall. She felt upward and discovered that her tunnel had ended in a shaft a little taller than she was, with some sort of grating as its ceiling. She drew her sword and probed carefully, searching for a trap. Her sword point pierced something yielding—cloth—and a stream of tiny pellets hissed down in a trickle past her face. She held out her hand to catch some of the grains and brought it to her nose. Rice! She had cut into a bag of rice.

  Sharantyr probed carefully, tracing the outlines of the grating. Then she sheathed her blade, took a deep breath, crouched, and sprang up high, hands outstretched.

  One hand smashed into a sack, scrabbled, and found a grip around a bar. The other smashed hard and painfully into metal. She gritted her teeth and hung by one hand for what seemed a long time, nursing throbbing fingers and shaking them in hopes nothing was broken.

  Then she reached up, got a grip on the grating with her hurt hand, and started tugging and bouncing up and down. Her hand throbbed with every move, but the grating shifted slightly, lifting with her movements. She continued, as hard as she could, but the rice bags above held the grating down, and at last she had to admit defeat.

  Sharantyr dropped again, drew her blade, and attacked the rice above her, stabbing again and again as hissing rice ran down into her hair, her bodice, and even through sliced and torn spots in her leathers.

  She went on stabbing and jabbing until she could feel no weight on the grating above, then carefully worked the empty bags aside with her sword through the grate.

  It was dark and cool in the chamber above. Very faint light filtered down to her. Sharantyr leapt up again.

  This time the grating shifted as she struck it. She let go, dropped, and instantly sprang up again, striking the grating on an angle. As it lifted, she kicked the air hard and arched her body. The grating slid sideways with her clinging to it. The lady ranger twisted and arched her body again, and before the bars could fall back into place, she got the toe of one boot up through the opening.

  The grating came down hard on her boot. Sharantyr grunted, heaved, twisted, and rolled all at once. She found herself sprawled atop more sacks of rice, still entangled with the grating, in what seemed to be a large and dark storage cellar.

  Shar laid the grating carefully back in place, found the sacks she’d emptied, and covered it with them. Then she climbed over a great many sacks—some, by the sound, held dried beans—-into a narrow trail among the sacks, crates, and barrels that crammed the room.

  If this place was barred or locked from the outside, she was not going to be pleased. Sharantyr drew her blade again, held it carefully upright close to her breast, and went cautiously eastward, for the trail seemed to widen in that direction, and the faint light grew slightly stronger.

  Her way ended in an old, stout wooden door. She pushed at it and then pulled, but it had no handle on this side. She felt around the door, found its edges, and carefully slipped her dagger up one of them.

  As she expected, the blade struck a catch or hasp. If it was locked or pegged down, she was in trouble. But if it could be lifted by driving the blade upward—Yes! The door swung open, and Sharantyr reached for the hasp with racing fingers to quell any noise of its falling.

  Done. The room beyond was also unlit, but light reached long fingers into it from a torch in a wall bracket beyond a door or wooden gate that was more gaps and knotholes than wood. Sharantyr drifted up to it, put away her dagger, reached nimble fingers through to lift the peg that held it shut, and peeked out into the corridor.

  Two bored-looking men were seated not six paces away, sorting potatoes on a long table covered with what looked like a very old tapestry. They worked in silence, and when one of them suddenly spoke, his voice seemed very loud.

  “If you’d just kept your jaw still when he asked about the wenches instead of tryin’ sly stuff, he wouldna found us out, an’—” The voice held the exasperation of a renewed grievance.

  “Shut up,” the other man said in a tired voice. “Be glad ye’re down here carving dirt-balls instead of up there, sweating in your armor and being carved up by the idiot merchants and farmhands that some crazed-wits has stirred up. They’re still attacking the castle!”

  He tossed a potato lazily over his shoulder. Sharantyr swallowed, reached up—There!—and snatched it silently out of the air. She set it down very carefully at her feet and took another silent step forward.

  “Ye should have heard His Awfulness,” the man went on, “when I went up to the kitchens. Fairly frothing, he was. He’d just finished telling the council that he was lord now—so there!—cool as ye please, when some wench in leathers comes tumbling down the stairs and nearly runs him through with a sword. He was screaming and scrabbling on the floor, they say, and had to ’port away, to escape. As it was, this gal carved up his entire bodyguard and some of us, too!”

  “What?,” the other man gasped. “All by herself? She took out Dannath?”

  “And Uthren, and Balagh. Oh, aye, this must have been some play-pretty, in truth! I’d like to see her, let me tell ye! In the dark, and her alone, if ye catch my warmest thought …”

  “May the gods,” said Sharantyr conversationally into his ear, “grant thy every wish.”

  As he spun around to face her, she drove her knee up hard. The man could not find breath to scream. He simply bent double, eyes staring at her in disbelief as he collapsed. Sharantyr was already stepping past him to drive her sword into the other man’s throat.

  He gurgled and went down. She spun back to the first, caught his throat in a strangling grip to quell any outcry, and said softly, “Now that you’ve seen me, Zhent butcher, I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn down your ‘warmest thought.’ Here, have a potato.” She plucked a smallish potato from the table, rammed it into his mouth, and held it there as her blade went into his stomach.

  The body bucked under her, and Sharantyr felt sick. If he cried out she might die, so she held him down, vomited all over him violently, and then picked up her sword again. She held her aching ribs for a moment and leaned against the wall to clear her head before moving on.

  The corridor ended in steps leading up into a passage heavy with the smell of stew. Her stomach lurched again. Sharantyr shook her head and stepped boldly into the hall. She strode down it, past open doors and people chopping wood and bustling about stoking cookfires. One sad-faced, gray-haired woman caught sight of her, but Sharantyr raised a finger to her lips and went on. No alarm was raised behind her.

  The passage ran east and upward. Sharantyr went up with it and was almost relieved to enter a room full of sprawled Wolves, half out of their armor, with a gaming board on a table in their midst and bloodied weapons leaning against the walls.

  She tore into them, slashing and stabbing like a maniac. Startled men cursed, scrambled to reach w
eapons, writhed in agony—and died. Covered in their blood, Sharantyr went on. Gods grant that after this day she would never have to kill again.

  But it is the nature of men, she thought savagely, remembering Elminster’s dry voice at a campfire long ago, to forget promises, to break agreements—and to kill.

  “Gods curse and damn all Zhent Wolves!” she roared, close to tears. Her outcry brought running, booted feet and their Zhentilar owners with them, many blades raised against her.

  With a wild cry, Sharantyr charged in among them, whirling and leaping, her blade dancing and singing around her. She was no equal to Storm, or even Florin or Dove of the Knights, but they were not here and she was, and there were evil men to be struck down so that a dale might live again, and Elminster find a peaceful refuge for a day or three, and—It suddenly seemed to Sharantyr that she’d been fighting for a very long time, perhaps years, without a break, and that the blood spattering her now would never wash off. She began to cry as she fought.

  They say in Zhentil Keep that women who weep with swords in their hands are widows of the slain. If a Zhentilar rides into a place where the hand of Zhentil Keep’s armies has been felt before, and women weep and run for swords at the sight of the black-helmed warriors, he will take special care to slay those women, for they will not rest, it is said, until they have avenged their husbands or died trying, to join them in the Realm of the Fallen.

  Wolves drew back from her in horror as old tales they’d heard as boys, scoffed at as youths, and forgotten as men came alive before their eyes. They stumbled back, faces white, as the woman in slashed and tattered leathers leapt and darted among them, dealing swift, endless darkness with a battered blade.

  “Die, damn you!” she wept, and gave them death.

  “How did she get in?” one man raged, parrying with all his might.

  “What boots it?” another yelled back. “Run! Run, if you would live! Ru—uuughh!” Sharantyr’s long blade found his throat from behind, and his run ended there in a dying plunge to the stone floor.

  In the end they all broke and ran, those who could move at all, leaving her panting and blood-drenched, alone with the dead. Sharantyr cried and cried, kneeling among death, until she could cry no more.

  She rose, white-faced in the torchlight, and thought of Stormcloak. He was the real foe, he and his mages. He must die.

  18

  Cheerless Obedience to Mages

  As Sharantyr’s sobs died away, Lord Angruin Stormcloak, striding importantly from his chambers to the great hall, heard their last echoes and frowned. What was a woman doing in this part of the castle? Had one of the men—? He sighed and had drawn breath to curse their waywardness when his eyes fell on men running toward him, terrified, blades drawn.

  “Hold!” he roared, reaching for a wand. Was this some sort of treachery? “Stand, all of you! Answer me. Why are you running?”

  They came to a clattering halt before his fury. Men shifted and would not look at him.

  “L-Lord,” one armsman said, fear full in his voice, “there’s a woman—a dragon she is, with a sword! I saw her kill ten of us or more, and—”

  “And so you fled, all of you,” Stormcloak said with contempt. He looked coldly around at them all, eyeing men now clearing throats and exchanging glances and looking very uneasy indeed. “Are you warriors?”

  Silence answered him. “Are you men?”

  Nods, and more silence.

  Stormcloak took a step forward. “Are you Zhentilar?”

  “Aye, Lord.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  Stormcloak nodded wolfishly. “Good,” he said with deep sarcasm. “I had begun to wonder about that.” Then his voice changed again. “And what do Zhentilar warriors do?”

  “Obey, Lord.”

  “ ‘Obey when told to slay,’ isn’t that how the song goes?” Stormcloak corrected.

  Nods answered him again. Stormcloak looked around at them all.

  “Obey whom?”

  A man swallowed. “Z-Zhentarim mages, Lord.”

  Stormcloak gave him a brittle smile. “And why do you obey mages, all of you?” He looked around at them all again. In the end, to break the heavy silence, he answered his own question. “You obey mages—myself, for instance—because if you don’t, we’ll unleash magic on you more terrible than any blade, more painful than any wound!”

  He looked at them as the passage rang with those last shouted words, and let the echoes die away before continuing.

  “Warriors who run one way can face one woman—with a sword,” he added with a sneer. “Warriors who run the other way will face me,” he said, raising his wand with slow menace and a silky smile.

  In silence, the men called Wolves by the folk of the High Dale turned sullenly, raised their swords, and went back down the passage. Slowly.

  Sharantyr stalked forward on silent feet, like a hunting cat. Many had fled down this passage. If she knew Zhents, they’d soon be back this way, a mage in their midst ready to use a spell or a wand to smite her down and impress all the warriors who watched.

  So another way would be better. Were there no side passages in this place? She glanced this way and that as she went, and in the end chose a stair going up. If she could not go around, she must go over. She had only one life to lose and could not afford to fight fairly, or to face large groups of thirsty swords or a mage in a large open space.

  “Well, then, Stormcloak,” she said aloud, “let us see if one Knight with a sword can bring you down. It’s been done to Zhentarim before.”

  “Who’s that? Maerelee?” a voice asked from the head of the stair.

  “No,” Sharantyr replied truthfully, coming steadily on up the stairs. “It’s me.”

  Then she was level with the man: a Wolf in armor, frowning warily, sword out. The weapon swept up as he saw her. “Who are you?” he challenged. “I’ve not seen you before, here or in the dale.”

  “I am your bane,” she said calmly, walking toward him. Her expressionless face did not change as he tried to bat the sword out of her hand with his own. Nor did it change when, at her sudden lunge, he found himself two fingers away from death. Nor after, as he parried frantically, countered and found himself forced to parry even faster. He turned to run and she sprang after him, landing hard on his running legs.

  He fell heavily, and her blade stabbed down as she landed atop him.

  When she rolled back up to her feet, he lay still on the stones, facedown. Sharantyr looked down at him for a moment, sighed, and went on. Just how many Zhents were crawling about this castle?

  “It only takes one to kill thee,” she heard Elminster’s long-ago voice tell her, and smiled wryly. Thanks, Old Mage. Well said. On with it, then.

  She found the next one just inside the first room her passage entered, heading east. He was sharpening his sword and reacted with commendable speed, grinning as he whipped his blade at her stomach.

  This Wolf obviously considered himself a matchless swordsman. Sharantyr parried two lightning-fast thrusts, leaned close to spit into his eyes, stamped on his toes, ducked her blade under his parry—he was good at attacking but not so good at holding off attacks—and ran him through.

  She left him twisting in agony and snarling curses at her, waving his blade weakly and ineffectually at her from the floor. Mielikki forgive me for what I’ve had to become, she prayed silently. I’ve made myself a worse butcher than any Zhentilar soldier!

  Shuddering, she opened the door at the end of the short passage she was traversing, found herself in a bunk room with four startled Zhents, sighed, and started slaying again. Just how long had she been killing? There were some days of her life that she’d very much like to forget forever, and couldn’t in her darkest dreams. This was definitely turning into one of those days.

  “This is fast becoming one of those days,” Itharr said wearily as the Harpers battered their way through another door, stolen shields held high to ward off crossbow bolts or thrown spears from the Wolves wa
iting beyond. None came, so they flung the shields down and charged.

  “You’re not getting bored, are you?” Belkram asked in mock concern.

  At his shoulder, Gedaern grinned and cocked his head to survey both the Harpers.

  “Are the two of ye always like this?”

  “Worse,” Belkram replied mildly as three Wolves in full plate armor shouldered aside an anxious servant with a halberd and lumbered forward to meet them. “ ’Ware, brothers!”

  The two Harpers stepped forward to meet the charge. The Wolves came at them swinging heavy battle-axes in great roundhouse swings the lightly armored men could not hope to stop except with their bodies.

  “Back!” Belkram called, waving a hand at the older dalesmen. He ran back to where they’d thrown down the shields, snatched one, and threw it to Itharr. Itharr ducked under a swing, dropped the shield, and had to scramble away to avoid being beheaded. The Wolves came on, grinning through the bars of their full helms.

  “Itharr, you do the sticking!” Belkram called, and laid hands on the body of a Wolf he’d killed breaths before.

  One Wolf charged him. Belkram heaved the corpse up into a cradled position across his own chest, puffing under the weight, and dumped it into the Wolf’s swing, dragging axe and arm to the floor. The corpse’s arms flopped loosely. Belkram sprang over them to land with both feet on the man’s axe-wielding arm. The man roared hollowly inside his helm as Itharr arrived, daggers in both hands, to drive them into the sallet’s eye slits. The roaring stopped abruptly.

  The two Harpers sprang away just in time, leaping and rolling to avoid the wild, chopping blows of the other two axes.

  There came a shuffling sound from behind them, and the dalesmen trotted past, carrying a heavy wooden table like a ram. They flung it into one of the Wolves, knocking him over, then snatched out their blades to attack the other Wolf together.