Shadows of Doom asota-1

by Ed Greenwood

  With a grunt of satisfaction, he took a handful of dusty, well-stoppered glass vials from an earthen jar by the door. "Healing quaffs," he said. "The only thing I dare spare the time to take. Let's be off, lass, before thy feared counterblow comes from the keep."

  He stepped out through the curtain and paused.

  "Ye might pick up all the food ye can find-and wine, for that matter." He looked out, seemed satisfied, and added, "Never forget the food. Coins, now, are hard on the digestion and don't seem to restore a man like simple bread and cheese do."

  "Women," his companion told him dryly, "are no different. And my name's Sharantyr, 'lad.' " She met his eyes challengingly.

  Elminster laughed and replied, "My apologies, Sharantyr. Now hurry, will ye? I'll be giving this wand to one of the folk here, to hide away and use to free shrunken friends later."

  A few hurried breaths later, they vanished back into the woods, Sharantyr's belt heavier by eleven daggers she'd stripped from the fallen Wolves.

  It seemed they'd left these trees very long ago, but up the road, the fat Sembian merchant in newly slit-into-rags clothing could still be seen, sweating pounds off his rotund frame as he fretted, clambered, and pleaded to get his wine-wagons safely away before more guards arrived looking for someone to blame for the fate of their comrades lying sprawled bloodily in the dust of the road. Sharantyr cast a last look around, found herself grinning, and followed the Old Mage into the concealing green depths of the woods.

  Belaerus shook his head. "Who'd a' thought it?" he said, staring at the bodies sprawled all around. "Just one old man."

  Durvin the cellarer slid the wand he'd just been given into his boot and looked at his friend sharply. "I saw only a young man, a man with a long beard, braver than we. Young enough and brave enough to fight an entire guard of Wolves for the dale. To win back our homes for us."

  Belaerus nodded hastily. "Aye, brave enough."

  "Brave enough," echoed another merchant, and there were nods and murmurs there on the road. Men straightened and set their jaws. Durvin remembered old words, long unsung, and began, his rough voice rumbling loud along the road.

  Six breaths later, when mounted, full-armored Wolves swarmed out of the keep and thundered down the road like a black wind, they found men with fierce, hard eyes and no fear in their faces standing amid the black-armored bodies on the road, singing the old Shieldsong of the High Dale.

  Men rode hard that day, galloping importantly here and there about the dale. Longspear's message riders, hard eyed and quick, spurred from castle to keep and from keep to posts and barracks. In their wake, the aroused Wolves gave the High Dale a waiting air of armed alertness.

  Bands of soldiers rode the roads, peered into inn rooms and farm kitchens to check again what had been checked many times before, and plunged repeatedly into the dark cloak of trees that covered the northern slopes of the dale.

  Longspear himself, stout and hook-nosed and massive in his worn and well-used armor, sat on an armor-plated war steed as big as some cottages in the dale and eased himself around the streets beneath the frowning walls of the High Castle. Commanding and stern he looked, eyes hard and jaw grim, as he waved and pointed with huge iron-gauntleted hands. Attentive message riders galloped in obedience to his every order. But for all his authority and their energy, the intruders who'd hurled spells enough to destroy half a handful of the lord's feared mages and sent twenty or more Wolves to their graves in blade-to-blade battle remained uncaught.

  Heladar Longspear surveyed the mountains fearlessly. Unmoving, uncaring of the might he commanded, they walled in the High Dale to the north and south, at once protecting him and shielding his newfound, mysterious foes. Was Sembia behind this? Cormyr? Outlaws trying to seize a home? Or worse?

  Deep inside, a chilling whisper repeated the thought he'd been pushing down since the first blood had spilled on the Daggerdale side of the supposedly secret gate that linked him with the Zhentarim. Was a rival priest, mage or faction within the Brotherhood seeking to bring him down, to work some dark and hostile plan?

  It might be someone here in the dale. Angruin, perhaps, angry that he'd not been given open rule. Or one of the lesser mages, ambitious and impatient to better his standing in the Brotherhood. That would be bad. Danger close at hand, and skillful enough that he'd not seen it until twenty or more blade-brothers had fallen.

  Perhaps the alternative was worse. Someone-it could be anyone-in the Brotherhood striking from the shadows, pursuing an unknown plan with unknown strength. A beholder, half-a-handcount of liches, a rebel cabal of priests… all such had happened before. It was even whispered that Manshoon cold-bloodedly worked behind such intrigues, keeping rivals down and everyone afraid of each other-and of him.

  Heladar found himself sweating and forced his thoughts to more comfortable matters: affairs of war fought with swords, with no magic more than priestly healing and a few flash-and-bang spells cast by obedient magelings. Scouring the High Dale was his task right now, then a good evenfeast. After the meal, the council would gather. He'd called the moot, and he'd have to see past the masks of smooth words and stiff faces that each man there always wore. His own life might well depend upon it.

  Not for the first time, Heladar found himself thinking of the high constable he'd deposed, and wondering if his own fall would come as swiftly as the one he'd arranged for Irreph Mulmar. He felt the weight of watching eyes on him: the dale folk, who hated him as much as they'd loved Mulmar. He kept his face hard and fearless as he looked slowly around at the patiently watching mountains. Then he directed his mount unhurriedly toward the castle. Though the sun was still high and the day fair, a cool breeze seemed to come out of nowhere, tuck cold fingers over the high collar of his armor, and wind its way slowly down his spine. Heladar Longspear rode into the High Castle and wondered how much longer it would be his.

  9

  Death to the Tyranny of All Mages

  The great doors boomed shut, causing torches to flicker up and down the walls of the high-ceilinged great hall, reflected flames glimmering on the motionless helms and breastplates of the lord's honor guard. The Council of the High Dale was in session.

  Lord Heladar Longspear looked glumly down the great table. The searchers had so far come back empty-handed. Their mysterious enemies had slid away from seeking blades as a breeze loses itself in the woods. An old man and a girl, if the report just in from Eastkeep was to be believed. Only two, with swords and some magic, against all his warriors and. the mages of the Brotherhood.

  Yet there were almost thirty fresh graves up behind the barracks. Worse, the arch-backed chairs halfway down the table where the lesser mages sat were empty. Mrinden, Kalassyn, and Sabryn were not here. Of the three, only Kalassyn still lived-and he lay abed, still too near death to walk about or sit in a chair half the evening. No one looked at the empty seats.

  Silence fell over the murmuring councillors as Heladar's gaze ranged over them all. Twelve pairs of eyes looked back at him. Longspear did not bother to rise, smile, or utter empty words of welcome. They all knew why he'd called them here.

  "Councillors," he said heavily, his eyes on the few faces he did not know as fellow agents of the Brotherhood, "I thank you for your swiftness in answering my call. Haste is of importance in dealing with any violence, unless one wants open war to erupt. We must deal speedily with the mysterious attacks and lawless outrages that have occurred in our fair dale this day and the night just past."

  He left a little silence then. As usual, the most stupid of the local merchants rushed in to fill it. Fat Jatham, they called the wheezing, heavy-lidded, pudding-bellied weaver. He wore a splendid tunic, his own work no doubt.

  "Hem-ah, Lord," Jatham breathed, "we've all heard wild rumors of battle, and spells, and many of y-our brave warriors slain. But I daresay most of us-as I, myself-were abed, asleep, for most of what went on. Will you tell us what befell?"

  Longspear stared at him, not letting anything show on his face. Was the
little man's slip about the sword brothers deliberate or merely slow wits? Everyone in this room and the dale around knew with cold certainty that the men-at-arms-his Wolves, the people called them- obeyed only Longspear and the mages. It was not polite, however, to say so. If open defiance started, it would spread like a wind-driven fire in dry grass. And if stamping it out meant a weaver's body swinging on the newly built gibbets on the castle walls, what of that?

  He raised his hand to indicate Angruin. The cold-eyed mage brought him orders from Zhentil Keep, often making it clear he thought swordsmen like Longspear were just barely intelligent enough to obey them. He made it clear that Heladar was to take orders from him, in private, or suffer the wrath of Manshoon-after the pain of whatever dark magic Angruin Myrvult cared to inflict on him.

  Well, then, let Angruin obey Lord Heladar in public, and do it well. Called himself Stormcloak and thought himself a big man because he could work a few nasty spells on folk, did he? Let him do some work.

  A long-ago memory came to mind: an old Zhent warrior drinking himself to death, telling Heladar, "Priests and mages both are deadly to ye, boy. Deadly to us all. Mind ye keep 'em busy, for they're most apt to get into trouble and do ye ill with underhanded work when they've time to plot and scheme and skulk. Keep 'em too busy to dig ye a grave."

  Angruin dragged his cold eyes only slowly from Longspear's face and said to the weaver, "Unknown persons-at least two and probably many more-have somehow entered our dale. They used magic against our loyal troops, so we suspect magic allowed them to sneak in among us. Our patrols first met with them in the practice field above the barracks, just north of here"-he nodded toward the window, but not a single head in the room bothered to turn and look-"last night, and there was a battle."

  He paused for effect, looking around the table. "Magical fire was hurled against our forces. For safety, we advise that no one approach that place. Spread the word among the people: Avoid the upper field. There's nothing to see there, in any case, and the magic that still lurks there can twist the unwary into the forms of snakes, newts, or worse. Our soldiers have set a guard to discourage the curious."

  "Is that," the urbane, poker-faced Sembian merchant asked calmly, "what happened to the mages who are not here with us today?" Xanther Srildar sat in his usual seat, right across from the empty chairs. Not for the first time, Longspear wondered if he was more than he appeared to be.

  Angruin obviously felt the same. "Yes," he said flatly. "We lost some of our swordsmen but repulsed the intruders."

  "How many?" The blunt question came from dark-eyed, dark-browed Blakkal Mord, a local leather worker. This one was no friend to any newcomers to the dale-including, of course, all men of the Brotherhood.

  Angruin's eyes narrowed. Certain councillors were always trying to find out just how many soldiers the lord commanded in the dale. Were they truly simple enough to believe they'd ever be given a truthful answer?

  "A score and three," Angruin said promptly. "At the field, when we chased these enemies through the woods, and this morning, when they attacked the road guard at Eastkeep."

  There was a stir up and down the table. Not all here had heard of this before. Not surprisingly, Xanther and the other Sembian merchant, the wine dealer Saddusk, spoke together. "What befell there?"

  Angruin looked meaningfully to the Lord of the Dale. Longspear motioned him to continue and picked up his flagon. It was good wine. He gave a silent nod of thanks to Thammar Saddusk, who returned it gravely. Then he turned back to the wizard. It had been happy fortune that the wine merchant had decided to move to the dale, in semiretirement from the bustle and high prices of Sembia's crowded cities, just after Longspear had taken it. The wine at the High Castle, by all accounts, was better than what one could get in Zhentil Keep itself, unless one was both noble and too rich to care what was charged for it.

  Angruin began with a shrug. "Two people-an old man and a young woman, the watchers on the keep wall say-came out of the woods and fought with the guard on the road. They prevailed, entered the guard hut, and then fled."

  "Prevailed?" Gulkin Hammarlin asked, his tone none too friendly. "Were all the guards slain?" The burly former hiresword was no friend to Zhent newcomers, either, and apt to be difficult. He was the best carpenter, glazier, and roofer in the dale, though; too useful to silence.

  "Yes." Angruin's mouth shut like a trap, leaving only the single word hanging in the air over the table.

  "Nine armed men?" Saddusk's dry voice asked. "What of the guard-wizard? What's his name-Dommil, or whatever?"

  Stormcloak gave Longspear another inquiring look. Heladar took great satisfaction in raising his own eyebrows in mock surprise and motioning him to continue again.

  "Ildomyl," Angruin said flatly. "Dead."

  The mages Nordryn and Hcarla, Stormcloak's sneering lurkers-at-shoulders, both looked at him sharply. Nordryn and Ildomyl had been friends, and Nordryn looked shaken.

  Hcarla just looked irritated, no doubt because Angruin hadn't told him of this before the meeting. Hcarla always wanted to know everything that was going on. On two late-night occasions when Longspear had shown certain traveling ladies the private chambers of the Lord of the High Dale, Heladar had caught sight of Hcarla's familiar-a small, ugly, bat-winged cat. On the second occasion, Heladar had taken great delight in cutting the spying creature out of the air with his blade and watching it plummet into the moat. Hcarla had been weak and white-faced for days.

  But enough ancient history. No doubt everyone in the dale knew by now that the mercenary band that had seized the High Dale by deposing High Constable Mulmar and slaughtering the constables he commanded had come from Zhentil Keep. Anyone with wits at all knew that no independent band would include more than a handcount of wizards. The dalefolk knew that Heladar Longspear was here at the pleasure of the Zhentarim, even if no whisper of that had ever passed the lips of any Brotherhood agent.

  Yet would that connection, even proven, spur a neighboring realm, nearby merchant, or hard-luck mercenary or outlaw band to challenge the rule of the self-proclaimed Lord Longspear? Nay. 'Twas more likely to discourage any open attack.

  So, did these magical attacks, first launched through the Zhentarim-created Daggerdale supply gate, come from rivals in the Brotherhood, or were they mounted as some sort of devious test? Heladar studied the faces of the men who sat at his council table, wondering (not for the first time, nor yet, he feared, the last) which ones might be spies or waiting challengers-and who, or what, stood behind each.

  With half the wizards gone, twelve sat before him at the table. Stormcloak, Hcarla Bellwind, and Nordryn-the Zhentarim mages, openly menacing, sure of their power. Everyone at the table knew they ruled in the High Dale as much as he did.

  Heladar kept his face impassive-it was second nature by now-and looked to the others. Three were Zhent agents, their loyalties known to himself and the mages but not, he hoped, to others in the dale or to watching outsiders.

  There was the local blacksmith, Kromm Kadar, staring back at him impassively. A recent addition to the council and a Zhentilar warrior of bannerlord rank, Kromm was a silent, strong man who saw all and missed nothing. His predecessor, in both council seat and smithy, had been a Sembian spy, the first man Angruin had killed openly in the dale.

  There was Alazs Ironwood, local horse breeder and trader, a sarcastic Zhentilar veteran, a Sword with much experience in battle.

  Next to him sat the balding, birdlike alchemist who served as physic, pharmacist, and tanner to the dalefolk. He was also their only priest-a finger of the Black Hand, of course-and Heladar trusted him not a whit. He probably reported back to Fzoul Chembryl every time a mouse drew breath in the dale. Cheth Moonviper was his name, and as befitting a blood member of one of the oldest Zhent noble families, he was haughty, fussy, prissy, and far too perfumed and giggling for Heladar to want to approach him closely.

  Those, Heladar reflected with dark humor, were his allies.

  The other six me
n at the table could, in secret, serve half the Realms. Unless they were very foolish or unlucky, neither he nor any of these strutting spell-hurlers would ever know their treachery for sure until, of course, it was too late.

  Heladar eyed them sourly, suppressing a sigh. He was tired of veiled menace, intrigue, and honeyed words. Swinging a sword was more his style. Did every ruler, even of such petty places as this, have to contend with such dung and serpents? It was a wonder more kings didn't hold daily executions!

  He could think of a few that would do the High Dale, himself, and probably their wives and as-yet-unborn offspring a service by quickly and quietly swallowing a sword blade in some alley near the castle. Heading the list would be the fat weaver, Jatham Villore. The man was a loudmouthed pest and, Heladar suspected, far wiser than he pretended to be. But if the weaver was a spy, whom did he report to?

  The leather worker, Blakkal Mord, seemed altogether more sinister. A warrior, before all the gods, and not out of practice, either. He'd lived in the dale a long time, but that didn't mean he wasn't the eyes for a local power. Sembia? Cormyr? By the beard of Tempus, he could even serve the Pirates of the Isles! Heladar sighed. Hopeless, this guessing, until the man let slip his true banner. Like all the rest.

  The smooth-tongued, saturnine Xanther Srildar was almost too obviously a spy. The Sembian "rarities and collectibles" merchant could be the eyes for Sembia or any merchant cabal one might think of. He might even serve the Cult of the Dragon, the Harpers, or Gondegal the Lost King for that matter. He moved his hands like a wizard. Heladar frowned at those hands, not for the first time.

  Then there was the surly, barrel-chested carpenter, Gulkin Hammarlin, one of an old naval family from Daerlun. Gulkin had lived in the High Dale for over twenty winters after a short, hard mercenary career, and fiercely resented Longspear's rule. His hatred for the mages was even stronger, suggesting it was Zhentil Keep he stood against and not Longspear the usurper. What was more, he didn't bother to hide his leanings.