Shadows of Doom asota-1

by Ed Greenwood

  The Lord of the High Dale straightened rather stiffly and turned about. His eyes were clouded and distant, his expression set. Stormcloak looked at him in satisfaction and said, "Go down and lead your men, Lord. Ride to victory."

  The charmed lord tramped across to the stair in his gleaming armor. As he passed, Stormcloak considerately thrust the visor of his helm down, covering his set face.

  Then the mage glared at the men all around him and ordered, "Loose your bolts, then leave your bows here and go down to the courtyard to await my orders."

  The Sword who commanded those on the battlements said hesitantly, "Leave our bows? What-"

  The mage wheeled on him. "Address me as Lord Angruin, if you would live!"

  All around them, bows were grounded, and silent Wolves hastened to the stairs.

  "Back!" Belkram and Itharr shouted together, waving their swords. "Back! What good do you for the dale, by going forward and dying?"

  Crossbow bolts, fired straight out from the castle walls to carry as far as possible, hissed down around the shouting Harpers. Dalefolk groaned and staggered as they were struck. Here and there men fell, pitching onto their faces to lie still or writhing weakly in the mud.

  Men were running, now, back across the marketplace, leaving the dead behind, revealing the bloody, trampled bodies of Wolves as they receded.

  "No!" Irreph roared as the two Harpers came up to him. "What have you done, you fools? Once we've scattered, they'll ride us down one by one!"

  "High Constable," Belkram said, meeting Ylyndaera's frightened gaze, "we must fall back now and rally the people in the shops and alleys around the edge of this open space, or we'll all go down under whatever magic those wizards can hurl!"

  Even as he spoke, there was a flash of amber light, and smoke curled up from the foot of the castle road. In a spot that had been empty a moment before, Angruin Stormcloak stood grandly in his dark robes. He laughed, his cold mirth ringing out loudly across the corpse-littered marketplace, and raised his hands.

  Stones flung at him fell short. Mulmar cursed and swung around to shield his daughter, picking her up at a lumbering run with the two Harpers, back into an alley mouth. "We haven't a bow among us," the high constable said bitterly. "They took them all, and most who could wield them were maimed, cut down, or hanged here in the square."

  "You had a lot of bowmen?" Itharr asked as they crouched together against a wall.

  Irreph looked at him. "All my armsmen," he said quietly, cold death in his eyes again. He looked across the square at the wizard and whispered harshly, "All of them."

  The air crackled lightning then, and men screamed as the blue-white bolt spat and snapped down the street they stood in, dancing them with its fury until it passed and they fell burned and lifeless to the ground. As the lightning faded, men of the dale showed themselves at doors and alley mouths, waving weapons angrily.

  Stormcloak laughed again and raised his hands with nonchalant, almost clinical grace. This time a ball of fire roared down another street. As the screams died away, the strong smell of cooked flesh was borne across the marketplace by a rising breeze.

  Men began to flee, running down the streets and alleys in blind flight. The two Harpers looked at each other helplessly, then at Mulmar.

  "I will not retreat," Irreph said slowly. "They will not take me this time."

  "We'll stand with you," Belkram told him.

  "No, you will not," Irreph Mulmar said in a voice of steel. "As I am high constable, hear and obey me. You will take my daughter, both of you. Guard and keep her safe, and get her away to safety-to Azoun's court or to a lady called Mineira, a healer, in Saerb. She can get word, via the Harpers, to the mage Elminster of Shadowdale. Ylyndaera must live to rule the dale in years to come, when these serpents have fallen and been swept away."

  "We are Harpers, sir," Itharr said, "and we came here seeking Elminster, who has left Shadowdale. We think he has come here."

  "Here?" Mulmar said, rising. "Then we may be saved yet."

  As he spoke, two bolts of force, white teardrops with wavering trails of light, raced across the marketplace like tiny falling stars to strike Stormcloak. The mage roared in surprise and pain, and staggered back.

  Another pair of missiles sought him. This time the watching Mulmars and Harpers saw their source: an old man in tattered, dirty robes, crouching amid the brine barrels in front of the fishmonger's stall. Beside him was a woman in leathers, a sword in her hand.

  "That's one of the Knights of Myth Drannor," Itharr said excitedly. "Sharantyr!"

  "Then that," Belkram said slowly, indicating the man with the wand, "must be Elminster."

  Ylyndaera burst into sudden tears. "I knew there were gods," she said. "I knew they'd hear me!"

  13

  When Wizards War

  Angruin Stormcloak snarled in anger. They had a mage! So this was no simple uprising, but the work of a powerful enemy-perhaps meddling mages from Sembia or Cormyr, but more likely from within the Brotherhood. This fool attacking him would doubtless be some apprentice given a wand and told to prove himself, but still…

  Stormcloak cast fire again. This time, the air in front of him turned golden, there came a melodious chiming as of many bells, and the scent of fresh-baked bread wafted past-but no flaming death blasted those who stood against him. His magic had gone wild. Again.

  He stood alone, facing enemies across an open place, armed only with spells he could not rely on. Not a prudent situation.

  Angruin turned and beckoned to those waiting in the castle with both his arm and his will. The thread of magic held. He reached silently down it and forced Lord Longspear, mounted at their head, to roar the charge and urge his mount forward. Then the Zhentarim wizard scrambled down off the road, to the side of the marketplace where the fewest dalefolk waited to storm back at him.

  A moment later, he heard the angry thunder of many plunging hooves, and the Wolves swept down from the castle into the marketplace, scattering to level their lances and spur into the mouths of streets and alleys. For a breath or two the world was all snorting horses, creaking leather, and jangling harnesses. Then the black-armored Wolves were in among the buildings, and the ringing of steel-and the shrieking-began. Satisfied, Stormcloak stood watching as screaming men fled and fell. The folk of the dale would pay in blood for their defiance.

  War came to a certain lane on charging hooves. The lances of two Wolves flashed down as they made for the mouth of the street, bellowing laughter and claiming specific targets as their kills.

  The two Harpers there, crouched against a wall in front of Irreph and Ylyndaera Mulmar, rose smoothly, blades flashing. Belkram set his teeth and struck the lance of the first Wolf skyward.

  As the lance flew up, Itharr leapt under it to tumble the Wolf off his horse with a kick. The second Wolf rode over him without slowing, leaning out to drive his lance through the naked high constable. As the glittering point swept down, Irreph put Daera behind him with one strong hand and raised his chains with the other.

  Belkram's blade came down hard on the butt of that lance. The lance's tip leapt up and over Irreph's shoulder to skirl along the stone wall behind him in a shower of sparks.

  Then the Wolf was past, hooves thundering down the lane, and Itharr was rising out of the dust with his dagger dark with blood, letting fall the visor of the first Wolf. "Now!" Belkram bellowed, stepping out into the marketplace and waving his blade. "Strike them down in the narrow places! For Mulmar, and freedom!" Roars and waved weapons answered him; dalefolk were still up and fighting.

  Across the open space, the Zhentarim wizard snarled and raised his hand. Belkram ducked hastily back into the lane.

  An instant later, the old man on his knees among the barrels smote Stormcloak again with a pair of magic missiles, spoiling his spellcasting. The wizard's scream of rage could be heard clearly over the shouting and the thunder of hooves.

  Then a mounted Wolf waving a long, dark mace was thundering across the market
place toward the lane.

  "Is that Elminster?" Itharr yelled as the two Harpers snatched up a lance and swung it together, like a great broom, to sweep this third Wolf out of his saddle.

  "I think so," Belkram called back as the man crashed helplessly to earth, boot heels bouncing. Itharr raced in to leap atop him, and their roll together was brief and brutal.

  Long training made Belkram look back at where the second Wolf had gone, just in time to see him spurring back, lance first. Irreph was turning to face him, chains flying. Daera hadn't fled and now could only stare helplessly at the lance leaping at her throat-and scream.

  Belkram shouted and ran, knowing he'd not be in time.

  Itharr threw his sword, then his dagger after it. They flashed end over end through the air.

  Irreph shoved his daughter hard and she fell. He stepped forward to swing his chains and smash the lance tip aside, but it was already dipping and turning to follow Ylyndaera's plunge.

  A shuttered window on the other side of the lane flew open, and a red-cheeked goodwife shrieked defiance and hurled a chamber pot out at the galloping Wolf. It struck the side of his face squarely, whipping his head around as it shattered and breaking his helm, skull, and neck all in one dull crash. The falling body stopped both of Itharr's weapons on its way to the ground.

  The goodwife raised horrified hands to her mouth and screamed. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell back out of view.

  The two Harpers ran to Ylyndaera, who was picking herself up gingerly, spitting road dirt and holding her scraped hands painfully curled.

  "Go hide, girl!" the high constable roared, shaking her. Then he looked up at the two men in leathers and snapped, "Take her somewhere safe!"

  "There is no such place," Itharr told him quietly.

  "I will not run from this," Daera told her father in a trembling voice. "What good is life to me if you are killed after I turn my back and run away? I'm staying!" She went to the nearest fallen Wolf and tugged a belt dagger from its sheath. It glinted in her hand as she scowled at the galloping Wolves out in the marketplace.

  Then she turned to her father, face white and hands trembling. "Let's kill us some Wolves," she managed to say before she turned away and was very sick.

  "Our swords are needed!" Belkram bellowed as Itharr tore his weapons from the fallen Wolf. "If the gods will it so, we'll meet again after the bloodletting's done!"

  The high constable nodded, holding his sobbing daughter tenderly with hands that still trailed chains. The two Harpers clapped Irreph's shoulder and ran out into the marketplace.

  Bodies lay everywhere, and not a few of them wore the armor of the Wolves. Their surviving comrades were milling about the streets and yards around the market, hacking and howling. After the initial easy butchery done by their lances and the plunging hooves of their horses, they'd found themselves surrounded, often isolated, and lacking room to readily turn their mounts. Wolves were now losing as many struggles as they won in the alleys. Old men and young boys alike leapt on them from windows and balconies above, or toppled barrels under their horses. If a Wolf fell, there was a general roar and rush, and he seldom had the time to get up again.

  Stormcloak saw that the only route he could hurl spells down without slaying Wolves as well as dalefolk was the lane that had emptied when Irreph Mulmar snatched up someone smaller and dove headlong through a window.

  He also saw two men in leathers coming for him, blades out, and knew he dare not trust in his spells to bring them down. He set his will and called Longspear back from a bloody fray far down a side street.

  The Lord of the High Dale, his armor spattered and dented, spurred his snorting, wild-eyed mount back into the marketplace, turned it with ruthless strength, and rode hard at the two men, pulling the curved horn from his belt as he came.

  The call to "retreat and rally" rang out. To a Zhentilar, ignoring a signal horn meant death; to a man they turned and fought or galloped their way back toward the open market. At their heels ran or limped the folk of the dale, closing in again around the edges of the trampled, corpse-strewn marketplace.

  They were in time to see Longspear lean out of his saddle and swing mightily with his great gore-bathed warhammer at a man on foot who wore dusty leathers and a grim expression. The man dove and rolled aside as nimbly as any acrobat and came up circling, sword flashing.

  Another Wolf lancer charged at the man in leathers from behind, but two white stars whistled from a shop front to strike the soldier down. The horse was riderless when it thundered past the man with the sword.

  Another man in leathers was running in at the lord's other side. Longspear jerked his reins about savagely, but the man's sword was already leaping for his throat. With a shriek of straining metal, the warhammer met the striking steel just in front of the lord's impassive helm and turned it aside, but the man dropped it and dove in, hurling himself at the lord's ribs and upper leg.

  The horse bucked. Armored arms flailed for balance, and Lord Longspear crashed to earth. The first man he'd struck at was waiting. His dagger went in under the lord's helm with the speed of a striking snake.

  A great, savage roar went up from the watching folk, and they were pouring out into the marketplace, running amid the still-gathering Wolves. The dalefolk leapt and swung weapons as if driven by the gods themselves. The Zhent warriors fought to stay in the saddles of bucking mounts and laid about themselves desperately with their own blades. The red, shouting chaos of Tempus, god of war, reigned over the marketplace.

  "I'm missing something!" Irreph Mulmar snarled in frustration, hearing the tumult outside the shuttered shop he'd plunged into. He thrust his struggling daughter into the arms of the fat woman who sold rope, cord, and thread there. "Ulraea, watch her for me, will you? And keep her here!"

  "Aye, sir," Ulraea began doubtfully, but Ylyndaera twisted out of her grasp like swirling wind and leapt across the room toward the window her father had brought her in by.

  "By all the gods, girl, forgive me," he said, chains rattling, and clipped her on the jaw as she ducked past.

  Ylyndaera Mulmar continued gracefully, face first, to the floor and lay there unmoving. Irreph snatched her up by the shoulders; her head hung limply. Without pause he swung her into Ulraea's arms and said, "Just hold her here, will you? She'll be right again, all too soon. I must be out there!"

  He whirled, shackles gleaming, and plunged back out through the window. One of its shutters broke off as he burst out into the battle, to hang dangling in his wake.

  Stormcloak swayed amid the milling horses. He clutched his head and his gut, feeling wretchedly sick and wincing at the splitting pain in his head, all at the same time. Gods! So that was what it was like to be linked to the mind of a man when he's killed. Ohhh, gods above!

  When Irreph charged out into the marketplace, a slim figure ran with him: a long-haired, beautiful woman in tattered leather armor, the one who'd earlier been with the wizard with the wand. A long sword gleamed in her hand. Irreph frowned. What had the Harpers called her?

  One of the Knights of Myth Drannor, they'd said. Irreph shot another look at her; she winked back. He'd heard of that band of adventurers-who in the Dales hadn't? — and she certainly looked as if she knew how to handle a blade. He glanced back. There was no sign of the old man with the wand now. Elminster or not, he'd vanished.

  Irreph began to think, for the first time that day, that the High Dale could be his again. He just might live to see the last of these accursed Zhents gone. He bounded forward and swung his chains with a savage grin, smashing the nearest Wolf from his saddle.

  The man fell on the other side of his horse. He staggered up and got out his sword before Irreph could reach him. The Wolf's broad blade swung up, and the high constable had to leap back. His chains were too slow and heavy to stop the flashing steel of a good bladesman in time.

  Then a slim sword came past his shoulder to his rescue, taking the Wolf's blade aside. Its wielder fenced with the Wolf in a
dazzling exchange of cuts and parries before sliding her blade in with silken ease through one eyehole of the Wolf's helm. The lady Knight! Sharantyr, that was her name!

  Irreph turned to her. "My thanks, Sharantyr of Myth Drannor," he said formally, as if he wore court robes and not merely hair and dirt. "Welcome to the High Dale."

  "The honor is mine, High Constable," she replied calmly, saluting him with her bloodied blade. "Shall we stand together awhile?"

  Irreph smiled and indicated the fray before them with an offering hand. She laughed and ran forward.

  The next Wolf was already beset by four dalefolk wielding pitchforks and clubs. Sharantyr ran her sword point into the back of his knee, and he fell from his saddle in pain. His attackers did not give him time to moan very long.

  They ran on, Irreph bearing to the left around the main press of horses and struggling men. "The castle!" he yelled. "We must get at the wizards. Without them, these Blackhelms are just so many swordsmen."

  Sharantyr nodded, and they ran at another Wolf in their way. Irreph's chains smashed the man from his saddle without pause. Beyond, they saw the Zhentarim wizard who'd hurled fire and lightning standing at the end of the castle road, in obvious pain.

  Sharantyr plucked a dagger from her boot and threw it, all in one smooth motion.

  Had they been closer, she might have struck the man down. As it was, he saw death flashing through the air toward him and stepped aside. They both saw him shake his head, look around, and back away. His hands moved and he was gone, vanished as if he had never been there.

  "The castle!" Irreph snarled again, and Sharantyr nodded. To their right, the two Harpers were hacking and thrusting like men possessed, leading the men of the dale against the Wolves. Pitchforks and daggers held by grim and trembling dale farmers were sending horses down in rolling agony or goading them to bolt, dumping their riders as they fled.