Hand of Fire ss-3

by Ed Greenwood

  Krostal shrugged again. "I've never curbed what I dare do for fear of the grand and great. One can't live guided by fear of these great heroes, unless one has centuries to spend idle in cautious waiting. When do they really show up, ever? Have you been confounded by one when hurling spells for the Cult-when you slew that mage in Westgate, say, and took his wealth for the Followers? Of course not. One stands and falls on one's own efforts. If one is good at it and resists the invariably fatal temptation to sit on a throne somewhere, one never even comes to the attention of the 'big folk' like Elminster, the Blackstaff, and the Seven Sisters we hear so much about!"

  Malivur set down the alanthe decanter, raised his refilled goblet, and smiled a trifle ruefully. "Then here's to obscurity."

  The thief smiled, raised an imaginary goblet in salute, and replied, "Here's to fewer angry outbursts, seller-of-spices, for silence may help to win us obscurity. I don't want to crow with triumph. I want to have spellfire in my hand like a dagger in the night and slay my foes before they know my stroke is coming, or that I am nigh, or even what slew them."

  "That's the way of thieves," the Cult mage replied, "not wizards."

  Krostal nodded. "Beyond that handful of 'big folk,'" he asked lightly, "how many old, powerful wizards do you know?"

  "No, I want both of ye," the caravan master said sourly, snatching a look back over his shoulder to make sure Onthur was keeping the weaver out of earshot. "There could be walking skeletons or clawing-at-us corpses or even helmed horrors under that floor-and yon bastard get of a serpent would stand there smiling at me while his little surprises tore my men apart!"

  "Cheery image," Shandril commented wryly. "Lead on."

  Orthil Voldovan gave her a suspicious look and then rounded on Narm. "Well? And ye?"

  "Where she goes, I go," Narm said quietly. "We told you that."

  "Hmmph, yes. Come on, then!"

  It was only a few hurrying strides to the wagon, but the eyes of the entire caravan seemed to be on the small knot of guards trotting along with the weaver. Voldovan seemed not to see the audience, but Beldimarr and two other guards smoothly stepped aside to take up positions around the wagon, facing out to keep the curious at a distance, while everyone else boiled up into the wagon with loaded bowguns, and herded Sabran down to join the indignantly sputtering Mhegras.

  "I–I-protest in the strongest possible term-" he began, but the caravan master drowned him out.

  "Ye'd dealt with me more honestly, ye two, I'd be politeness itself to ye, but 'tis a bit late for protests now. If ye'd like this to take as little time as possible and win for yerselves the best treatment I can find in myself to give ye, kindly reveal the swiftest and least damaging way to take up this floor-or I just might be inclined to use axes and make my own haste!"

  "That won't be necessary, Roadmaster," Sabran said calmly. "If you light two lanterns and take up these two boards here, you'll find cross-spars. Pull them along, and you'll release a section of flooring from here to here that lifts in one piece."

  "Why don't we aim our bowguns at the two of ye-while ye do it?"

  "Certainly, if you'll help us with these coffers…"

  The coffers were lifted aside, and hard-eyed guards crowded close to watch the merchants narrowly as the section of floor was freed and lifted aside-to reveal oiled cloth sacking sewn around large, thin somethings.

  "Stand back now," Voldovan ordered, and then waved two of his men wordlessly forward. The guards probed the bundles with their daggers, cautiously lifted one bundle with the words, "Feels like armor plate," and slit its stitches, only to draw out-a blued, curving sheet of armor plate.

  "Looks like barding," the caravan master said slowly, and then raised his gaze to meet that of Sabran. "Well?"

  "Peytrals-twenty-two identical plates."

  "What are peytrals?" Narm muttered. Shandril chose that moment to look at the two merchants and discovered both of them staring at her restlessly, almost quivering with-fear? Anticipation? Eagerness to do something?

  "Horsebreast armor, lad," Voldovan said absently, watching one of his men bend down with a lantern and peer into the hole, seeking to see what was under the rest of the false floor.

  "Looks to be all the same stuff, Master," the guard called, after long moments of twisting and peering.

  "Any enchantments on them?" Orthil asked the weaver, who shook his head. Voldovan turned without pause to Narm and asked, "Is he telling the truth?"

  Narm swallowed, doffed his helm, and handed it to- Voldovan, who snatched it with a curt shake of his head as Narm was handing it to Shandril. The caravan master gestured to her to keep aside from Narm and watch the two merchants. She nodded and did as she was bid.

  The young mage frowned, raised his hands, and cast a careful detection spell Jhessail had taught him, a variant of the common magic that could see linked castings and layers of magic… even where one had been cast to conceal another.

  The furrier-Mhegras of Esmeltaran-seemed to sneer slightly at Narm's spellweaving. Shandril regarded him thoughtfully; a mage, perhaps?

  "N-no," Narm said slowly. "No magic on any of the goods here, that I can see." He raised his head and gave Mhegras an apparently casual glance that made the Master-of-Furs stiffen as if he'd been insulted, then turned to Voldovan and shook his head. "Nothing,"

  Without pause or change of expression the caravan master asked Sabran, "The new arms tax?"

  The weaver nodded, and Voldovan waved at his men to restore the floor and the coffers. "Make ready to roll in all haste," he snapped. He strode to the wagon-flaps and there turned to glare at the two merchants, adding, "A word of advice: keep no secrets from any roadmaster. 'Tis a good way to get yerselves left behind in the wilderness without yer wagons and wealth, left to walk to the next town-if the wolves let ye."

  Collecting Narm and Shandril with a jerk of his head, he went out. In a few grunting moments, the guards finished heaving and stowing, and followed. From outside the wagon came shouted orders, the crack of drovers' whips, and the rumblings of wagon wheels reluctantly gathering speed.

  Sabran and Mhegras eyed each other coldly, then said, more or less at the same moment, "Well? Why didn't you strike at them?"

  Narm and Shandril had been standing only paces away in the confined space of their wagon, with no barrier nor body between to stop magic from cutting them down-and neither weaver nor furrier had lifted a finger. The two younglings had departed unscathed.

  "Now was not the right time for anything but slaying," Sabran said coldly, "and whilst a possibility of capture remains, we must strive for that greater goal."

  "You were afraid," Mhegras sneered. "Capture, my left rump-cheek!"

  "Oh, say you so?" the priest of Bane replied cuttingly, extending his calm and steady hand. "Just whose fingers are trembling, wildtongue?"

  Mhegras stared down at his own hand… and discovered, to his horror, that it was anything but steady. Rage rose in him like fast-kindled flame but died when he lifted his furious gaze and met Sabran's cold and waiting eyes. A faint glow of already risen magic was dancing in the priest's palm.

  The wagons were thundering along at a speed that set them rocking and bouncing at every rut and pothole on the road-and there were a lot of ruts and potholes on the Trade Way. Narbuth's arms grew so numbed that Narm and Shandril took turns relieving him as the ready-wagon crashed and rattled on, rocks and trees racing by at breakneck speed.

  "The horses won't be able to manage this for much longer!" Narm shouted in Shandril's ear, as the wagon rushed down into a little rivulet that ran across the road, reins and harness momentarily curling and whipping about crazily. The wheels slipped and slid, the horses dug in, and the harness stretched singing-tight as the four snorting beasts hauled on up the next slope.

  "Tell Voldovan that, not me!" Shan cried back, as they crested a ridge and saw a dozen more ridges beyond, the ribbon of road climbing over each in succession. A distant dust cloud told of travelers-probably wagons-coming south,
but the Way had largely been theirs alone thus far this day. This was not a good sign, Narm and Shandril had gathered, from the expressions and muttered comments of the veteran guards and merchants.

  As the view stretched out before them and the wagon started to gain speed in what was sure to become a breakneck plunge down the ridgeside, an even less auspicious sign made itself apparent: long, dark crossbow quarrels-the heavy war-bolts that could take down horses as readily as men-snarled and hummed out of the greenery on both sides of the road. Narm took Shandril by the shoulders and flung her through the top-flap, back into the wagon, cursing as a quarrel sliced through his leathers, laying his back bare.

  " 'Slike being slapped with a burning brand," he gasped, falling into the rocking darkness atop Shandril. One of their horses promptly screamed.

  "Gods!" the young mage spat, trying to turn. Shandril looked past him-in time to see Narbuth take a quarrel in the face. The drover's head exploded in a burst of blood and brains ere the force of the striking shaft snatched him off the wagon, out of sight.

  Shandril's mouth tightened as she dragged Narm down to the floorboards, which promptly rapped them both hard on their chins as the wagon bounded over a particularly large pothole. "I can't burn down every tree between here and Waterdeep," she snapped, "and I don't dare try. Every time I call on my fire 'tis stronger, wilder… harder to control. Narm, what are we going to do?"

  Her husband gave her a helpless smile. "Well," he said brightly, "uh…"

  As so often happens to those who dally, Faerun decided things for them. There was a sudden chaos of meaty, wagon-shaking thuds, a horrible wet spraying sound, and their wagon suddenly tilted.

  Shan wrapped herself around Narm with a little scream as the world turned upside down several times.

  Wood was shrieking and splintering all around them as a lot of heavy things wreathed in scratchy hay fell on them, one after another, and the wagon rolled. The boards of the walls and floor shuddered, bulged, buckled, and twisted. There was a deafening crash that sent things flying or tumbling all over the shattered wagon, another unearthly scream… and silence.

  Silence soon filled by shouts and wagon rumblings and more screams, punctuated by the hissing and humming of crossbow bolts very close by. Narm muttered something wordless and tried to shift himself from under his lady and seemingly dozens of coffers and haybales and other unidentified but sharp items.

  Shandril clutched at him and hissed, "Lie still. For now we play dead and wait. Let someone else be hero-and crossbow target-for a change."

  Narm opened his mouth to protest, stared into her fierce gaze, and nodded.

  There were more loud and ground-shaking crashes. Drovers were dragged past spewing steady streams of heartfelt curses ere the rumblings of moving wagons died away. Voldovan's caravan was coming to a halt-right in the closing jaws of whichever wolves were firing all of those crossbows from the trees.

  Narm heaved, trying to move from under something that was numbing his left leg. "Lie still!" Shandril snarled into his ear.

  "Then get that chest or whatever it is off my foot," her husband snarled right back at her. "I'm all wet down that leg, too. Am I bleeding?"

  Shan shifted atop him, twisting around, and he felt her hands running gently along his leg, exploring…

  Someone crashed through branches and rustling leaves very close by, someone else followed, breathing heavily, and from farther off came the clang of sword on sword-fast, furious hacking that soon ended with a despairing cry and gurgling sounds.

  The hum and zip of crossbow bolts slackened, and the crashings of running feet and singing of swords upon swords swiftly rose to an everpresent din on all sides of the upturned ready-wagon.

  Narm felt the heavy thing pinning his ankle thrust aside and quickly pulled his foot away. Shandril crawled back up him again in the tumbled gloom, and murmured into his chest, "Just water. A cask split-'tis all wet, back there."

  "What if someone puts a torch to all of this? We've got to-"

  "We've got to lie still, love lord of mine. If flames do come, I can pull them into me and so both quench them and warm my spellfire. We're in what passes for a ditch, and by the sounds of it there are plenty of other crashed wagons. Now, quiet. We're dead, remember?"

  "You make it hard to bear in mind," Narm told her with a smile, as Shan wormed her way into his arms and made herself comfortable. They lay together and listened to the sounds of men dying all around them.

  "Whose wagon's this?" an unfamiliar voice gasped suddenly, startlingly close.

  "Voldovan's-one of his ready-wagons. Hmmph! I guess the fire-witch wasn't such a world-searing menace after all."

  'This was hers? Gods! Thender told us half Faerun is after her!"

  "Not any more. Not unless they're the sort of crazed robe-wearers who hunt folk down after they're dead, to twist them into unlife to menace us all for an extra lingering lifetime or two! There's Voldovan-see? All the bolts'll be flying his way, now. Come on! Back to…"

  The voice faded so swiftly that the sounds of frantically sprinting men drowned out the rest of the words.

  Narm and Shandril had scarcely relaxed and started to breathe normally again when someone else, breathing hard, ran up and more or less fell into the far end of the wagon, where the chests and casks were tumbled into a wall of splintered, riven confusion. Someone else arrived almost on top of the hard-breathing man-who growled out an angry curse.

  "Bones of the dead, Brasker, don't do that! I almost cut my hand off getting this blade around at you, to say nothing of what I would've done to you if I'd managed it!"

  "Stop your whining," a heavier voice replied sourly. "They're putting quarrels through everything that moves out there… and in case you've failed to notice, those're the big ones! Hit by one of those, and you'll be greeting the gods straightaway, not lying around cursing that this wagon's somehow yours. As I recall, this was the one the spellfire wench was riding."

  "Have you seen her, since this-?"

  "No, and if one of those blackswords have killed her on us, Gorthrimmon's going to be less than pleased. Take her alive, he said, at all costs."

  "What does the Cult want with one slip of a lass, anyway? So she knows a fire spell or two. Haven't we got mages enough already to fight Luskan to a standstill or scour out Darkhold if they're ever foolish enough to want to die screaming in spell-battle?"

  "This spellfire, Holvan, is something special. It can cleave spells so fast it wipes the sneer off an archmage's face and makes him tremble! Whoever grabs it'll be able to slaughter the Red Wizards himself, chase the Blackstaff into hiding, and melt down old Elminster and the Seven Sisters, too!"

  "Gods above," Holvan whispered. "So they expect us to take her?"

  "No, they expect us to die trying-along with the other Followers we don't know about, who're also along on this caravan. As I see it, we'll do best to find out who the Zhents have sent along in these wagons and slit a few throats without getting caught at it! 'Tis going to end in spell-battle, see if it doesn't, and the fewer competitors around to hamper us of the Cult in taking her down, the better! I hear a Cult wizard called Lharass has found some ancient spell or other that can chain mages with their own magic! I wonder if this Shandril can be held by chains of her own spellfire?"

  "I like the sound of this less and less," Holvan muttered. "Whatever happened to putting daggers in merchants' backs and taking their coins to the nearest Lord of the Cult, for him to gather and present to some dread wyrm, while we trot safely off and find us some more merchants?"

  "The world changed, Holvan. It always does. I prefer the old simple ways, too, but somehow the rulers and flying wizards of the Realms forgot to ask my opinion. They always do."

  "The bolts've stopped, Brasker; should we-?"

  "Bide just a bit. I'd be less than pleased to offer myself as the only target still standing, if they're just lying low… no, there's Voldovan coming back, and he's talking to that fool Nargalarr, the pot-seller. It m
ust be over. Back to our wagon!"

  "Shouldn't we-?"

  "No! Brigands love to fall back and wait for everyone to get into the road and start tramping around talking about their great valor and who got away from them-then rake all the chattering heroes with another volley. So we run fast and low from wagon to wagon back to our own, and nowhere else! If one of the guard wants to talk, he can do it running after us! Come on!"

  There was a brief scrambling, a thud of boots, then relative calm.

  "Brasker and Holvan," Shandril murmured. "Remember those names."

  "Done, love," Narm whispered. "I'm beginning to think every third merchant in this caravan is after us!"

  Whatever reply Shandril might have made was lost in a sudden cacophony of shouts, screams, humming bolts, and the thudding of running feet-followed swiftly by a deafening chorus of clanging, singing steel. Brasker, it seemed, had been right. They heard Voldovan roaring something, and "In here!" someone hissed, and coffers were flung aside in the upturned chaos of the wagon. "Hurry!"

  A chest fell heavily, an already riven cask groaned, and suddenly the tangle of coffers at Narm's feet were thrust aside, and a face peered in at them. A stranger's face with a drawn and bloody sword beside it, and another unfamiliar face at its shoulder. "This'll do," one of the men said, not yet seeing the young couple lying motionless ahead of his boots. "There's space enough to hide back here. We can-ho!"

  The brigand's blade drew back as he saw Narm and Shandril, ready to stab-and his companion shouldered aside an untidy heap of coffers, and joined him in staring.

  "Well, well, two lovebirds," the first brigand said in delight, as his blade swept down. "Greet you the gods together!"