Swords of Eveningstar komd-1

by Ed Greenwood

  Pennae knew what that sliced-off scream meant.

  Martess was dead or dying-and if the gods willed it, she’d see that Agannor and Bey followed her!

  She came out of the room she’d been peering into like a dark cloak hurled along in a gale, cursing herself for leaving her sleep-dosed daggers back at their rooms this night. Well, she’d just have to make this a little more personal.

  She was still four doors away from the one Agannor and Bey were ducking out of, running hard with daggers raised to hurl, when something like a fog with fists descended on her mind.

  Rolling and shaking Pennae like thunder, it struck her head from the inside, thrice and a dozen times and more, sending her stumbling.

  Agannor grinned from ear to ear, a light like madness in his eyes, and raised his sword. “Yes, my beauty!” he hissed. “Come and play!”

  His blade lashed out, flashing.

  Fetching up bruisingly against the wall as the floor seemed to heave under her, Pennae clenched her teeth and fought for balance. Bey’s sword was coming at her, too “Alura Durshavin, you’re one strong little tigress,” Horaundoon of the Zhentarim murmured, hurling his mind against hers again.

  The scrying orb in front of him was flickering, enfeebled by his drainings. Yet even as it drifted lower, he could see in its darkening depths the thief fling herself into a blackflip, as supple as any eel he’d ever watched eluding the nets of eel-cooks back in the keep.

  His two warriors thrust and hacked at her again-and both missed. Again.

  Dazedly, Pennae got herself turned around and fled.

  Horaundoon bore down hard. If she got to the taproom, or managed to shout an alarm down the stairwell, he’d likely soon lose both of his Sword minions. She was worth ten of them, but she was fighting him even now; taming her would take all his power and attention, day and night.

  Hah! Horaundoon thrust into, shook, and tumbled Pennae’s mind, watching her moan and stagger. Bey was right behind her, now, blade raised to In the orb he watched the thief thrust herself back and down, rolling into an erupting, kicking ball that had Bey toppling over her, and her spinning on one hip to scissor her legs around the ankles of the onrushing Agannor, sending him helplessly crashing down onto Bey, sword stabbing air and shouting in fear.

  Pennae sprang over them, or tried to, but the battering, snarling weight of Horaundoon in her mind drove her aside into a wall. She fell hard atop the two tangled, vigorously cursing warriors, rolling and kicking.

  Agannor grabbed at her, tearing her leathers, and she sliced and stabbed viciously, managing to catch his palm briefly with the point of her blade. He shrieked in pain and snatched his hand back and away-just as Bey’s sword thrust across her stomach, slicing leather with swift ease.

  Pennae twisted, heaved, and managed to win free, her sprint down the hall becoming a whimpering crawl that had her clawing her way to her feet, leaning hard on a wall to keep from falling. Staggering on, she slid along it, trailing smears of blood, as Horaundoon hammered in her head and Bey came pounding along the hall behind her, Agannor right behind him.

  The stair had a rail, and Pennae caught hold of it just in time, swinging herself up and aside as a sword bit deep into the floorboards she’d just been standing on.

  Bey hacked at her again, and again, hewing air hard enough to smash ribs and limbs if ever he hit leather-clad thief.

  Pennae ducked, kicked his knee hard to send him staggering back into Agannor, and raced up the stairs, hoping the trapdoor at its top wasn’t locked.

  The gods were with her. A simple through-two-straps longbar kept anyone lifting it open from above. Pennae plucked out the metal bar and smashed aside Bey’s seeking blade with it, leaving the sword ringing like a bell and him shouting at the eerie pain of a numbed sword hand.

  And Pennae was across the roof, the slammed trapdoor bouncing in her wake, and running hard for the next roof along. ’Twas the first of seven in the block, if she remembered rightly, and at least two of those shops had wooden stairs descending from their rooftops to balconies.

  She jumped, landed awry and bruisingly as the foe in her mind slammed into her wits, hard and sudden, just as she was launching herself, and staggered sidewise until she fetched up against a crumbling fieldstone chimney, brittle old birdnests crunching underfoot. Pennae winced; if these head-splitting, nigh-blinding attacks continued, she’d best get down to street level, where at least she couldn’t die just from falling over!

  Agannor shouted, behind her, and Pennae hissed a curse and ran on, heading for the next roof-and the next stab inside her head.

  Horaundoon frowned. Out in the open, the wench would swiftly best his two lumbering minions. He ached to finish her, to burst her mind like a new-laid egg flung against a wall… but-whiteblood! — he’d been trying to do just that for how long now? And still she fought him.

  No, ’twas time to leave off trying to fry her wits, and cast a spell that would send his orders thundering into the minds of a score of Zhent agents all over Arabel. Telling them it was high time to load their crossbows and go Pennae-hunting.

  In the wake of the shrieks, shouts, and the ringing clang of swords, there came the thunder of boots on the stairs, and the booming thunder of something heavy falling, twice.

  “I’m going up there!” Florin snarled, struggling in the grip of the four grim, plainly clad Purple Dragons who’d risen from a nearby table to drag him down when he’d first drawn sword.

  “ No, outlander,” one of them snarled into his face, as they twisted and strained together in a sweating, grunting heap on the floor, “you’ll not. Our orders-”

  “Unhand Florin Falconhand, and get back, all of you! ” Jhessail shouted, her high, usually gentle voice ringing out across the taproom of the Lion and bringing down a hush of tensely staring drinkers. There was a dagger in her hand, and bright flames raced up and down its blade. “Or I’ll cast the strongest spell I know, and bring down this tavern on us all!”

  The attacks-thank Mask! — had ceased, but her head still throbbed as if she’d taken a solid mace-blow. Worse than that, other men seemed to have joined the chase: men with swords and daggers and no hesitation in using them. So where were the lady lord’s oh-so-efficient, thrice-accursed watch now?

  Agannor was stumbling along well in her wake, obviously winded, and Bey was ever further back, but- naed!

  This unwashed, stubble-faced man, stepping out of an alley right in front of Pennae, had a cocked and loaded crossbow in his hands. It cracked even as she flung herself aside and brought her daggers up.

  A moment later, she was wringing a numbed and bleeding hand, the dagger that had been in it was gone, and she heard the crossbow bolt bouncing and splintering on cobbles far behind her left shoulder.

  “Naed! Hrasting bitch, ” the man cursed, staring at her over his fired crossbow. “How the tluin did you step aside from that? ”

  Pennae wasted no breath in a reply, but hurried toward him, hefting the dagger in her right hand. The man cursed again and flung the crossbow full in her face to buy himself time to drag out a rather rusty short sword.

  Pennae launched herself up the wall, caught hold of a stone window-sill under a crudely boarded-over back window, and swung hard, boots first, catching the man in the throat at about the same time as he got his sword free.

  He went over in a heap, arms twitching in spasms, and Pennae landed hard, heels first, on his ribs.

  Just who was chasing her now was A crossbow bolt sang past her ear with the high, thrumming whine that meant it had only just missed her, and Pennae snarled and darted into the alley.

  A moment later, she came out of it again-sobbing as she flew helplessly back through the air, snatched off her feet and spinning in midair, with a crossbow bolt right through her shattered shoulder.

  Myrmeen Lhal looked up from the stack of decrees and dispensations she was rather wearily signing. That was the third alarm gong.

  Three patrols called in as reinforcements? What by a
ll 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 Doust 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-th
e 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.