Crown of Fire ss-2 Page 10

  Narm's casting ended as the winged thing rose up into the air before them, passing over Delg's reaching axe. No magical radiance appeared beneath Narm's hands, which rested on Shandril's neck. She had willed the light into her, drawing the tingling energy in through the bare skin of her neck. Flames danced briefly in her eyes as she waved him away, then looked up to face the winged horror directly.

  It loomed above her. Dark and terrible, its leathery wings beat in eerie silence, its bony jaws spread wide, its red glowing eyes met hers. "Turn back," Shandril said,and we will not harm you. Turn back!"

  Above the glowing crystal ball, a light feminine voice chuckled. 'They do talk a lot, these fools. Always threatening and declaiming grandly-when they're not pleading, that is."

  "True, Mairara," came an older female voice in answer. "Yet I fear this servant creature will fail us as all the others have done."

  Gathlarue set her goblet down on the tabletop and stared into the crystal ball that had risen to float just above it. In its curved depths they both beheld the scene in the ruins. Both stared so intently into the globe that neither noticed as one leg of their table grew a silent, bearded smile for an instant, ere a quiet wisp of a shadow rose from it and slipped away.

  In deadly silence, the dark horror folded its wings and plunged down on Shandril. Narm cried out and drew his dagger, and Delg's axe rose as he raced in to swing at the flank of the descending menace. But there was a sudden flash and rolling roar of flame.

  While backing toward a fallen stone wall, Shandril had hurled fire into the beast's open mouth.

  The man and the dwarf both staggered hastily back from the rush of flame as the monster, covered with it, perished in writhing tatters of smoking flesh. It gave off a horrible smell. With mixed awe and satisfaction, Narm and Delg watched for a moment while it shriveled and burned. Then they heard a queer choking sound from behind the ruined wall.

  In three bounds Narm was around the corner, heart in his mouth. His wife knelt on the stones. Shandril shook her head, waving him feebly away. She was being thoroughly and wretchedly sick. "The smell," she gasped. " Gods, how vile!"

  "Vile, indeed," said a new voice from beyond her. "Were I younger and less, hem-stout of stomach, I'd be doing that too. Which should serve ye as a warning, girl, not to be hurling flames about at just everything that moves. Ye'll burn up something ye value, one o' these days. Phew? Come away, come away, all of ye-that thing smells as if it did nothing but roll in dung and eat dead things."

  "Who," Delg and Narm demanded together. "are you?" The stout, dark figure beyond Shandril drew something from its belt-a dagger whose blade glowed with blue fire in the night. Narm stepped quickly in front of Shandril, raising his own dagger, but the man shook his head and brandished the glowing blade to serve as a light.

  Its radiance shone down on him, illuminating the grizzled, scarred, and yet somehow good-natured face of a burly man clad in flopping, food-stained leather armor. Fierce brows and mustaches gleamed gray-white on his large and weather-stained face. Huge swash-boots flapped beneath an ample paunch as he stepped forward, handed the glowing dagger to Narm-who juggled it gingerly then swept around the young mage and grandly offered his hand to Shandril to help her rise.

  Warily she avoided it, coming to her feet in a crouch, facing him. "Yes," she said, fire winking in her eyes, "who are you, sir?"

  The battered, leonine face wagged sadly from side to side. "An' here I thought I was famous at last, over at least the lands of all the North. Ah, well."

  He drew back from Shandril, plucked his dagger deftly from Narm's grasp, and struck a heroic pose, holding the dagger forth as though it were a great battle-sword. "I am Mirt, called the Moneylender, of Waterdeep. Men once called me-'hem-Mirt the Merciless. Some folk call me the Old Wolf."

  Delg eyed the stout man sourly. "I am Delg, of the dwarves." It was a gentle dwarven insult, implying that the speaker did not trust the one he addressed enough to furnish his last name.

  Mirt bowed in reply, and made a quick, complex sign with one hand.

  Delg's eyes widened. "So," he said with new respect, "you have known others of my race as friends, before. Well met, stout one. What brings you here-to the depths of this forest, and alone?"

  "Well met, short one," Mirt replied easily. "I like to pick mushrooms this time of year, and Hullack Forest seemed a nice enough place-quiet an' all, until spellfire started roaring about all over the place, and-well, ne'er mind. Come back to my camp, all of ye, and we can swap stories for a bit. Until dawn, say…"

  "A moment," Narm said quietly. "Delg's question is a fair one, sir. Before we follow you into gods know what, tell us how you come to be here. We are-suspicious folk, these days. Everyone and everything in Faerun seems eager to kill us."

  "Ye, too?" Mirt replied mildly, raising his brows. "Tis a plague, it seems. They're always trying to kill me, too." Narm waited. A breath of silence passed, and Shandril quite deliberately climbed up a ragged edge of stone wall to stand above them. She glanced quickly all around, and then stood facing the man who called himself Mirt, one hand raised. Fire licked along her fingers for a moment. The stout man watched her, nodded as if in acknowledgment of power, and then turned back to the young mage and smiled winningly. "Well, Narm Tamaraith, ye're right."

  Narm frowned. How did this man know his name?

  He opened his mouth to ask just that, but the stout man waved him to silence, saying, "Aye, it's rude of me not to congratulate ye on your wise marriage to Shandril Shessair right off, and set ye three at ease."

  Mirt smiled up at Shandril and added, "The bride is as beautiful as I've been told, and no mistake. Well met, all of ye." He bowed again, various daggers and scabbards about his belt jangling and ringing, and smoothed his mustaches with broad, hairy fingers.

  "I've awaited ye here, in these long-desolate-ruins of Tethgard-there's a tale I'll have to tell ye some time because a friend told me ye'd be along, soon, and probably in need of aid. When young folk go blundering about the countryside…"

  Delg rolled his eyes. "All right," he broke in, "we may as well be finding your camp. I can see there're some good tales to be heard. You wouldn't know a certain mage called Elminster, would you?"

  "Or a lady named Storm?" Shandril asked softly.

  Mirt chuckled and stepped forward to hand her lightly down from her rocky height. "As it happens, both those names belong to friends of mine," he rumbled. "Convenient, aye?" He passed his dagger to Narm again. "Here, lad-ye hold the light; then perhaps ye can stop looking so suspiciously at me, like I'm aching to put it in yer lady's breast the moment yer back is turned. There is something I was given to show ye…"

  He pulled off a worn leather gauntlet. They saw a brass ring around one of the man's fingers and a fine chain encircling his thick, hairy wrist. Something small gleamed as it dangled from the chain: a silver harp. Then it all vanished again beneath the-dirty leather; its owner winked and turned with a rolling gait to lead the way past a pile of tumbled stones and into the night.

  "You know we have enemies?" Shandril asked him. "Some, I must tell you, are powerful indeed. Their magic-" Mirt chuckled. "Aye, aye, make me tremble in my boots, girl. Ye've run into those Zhentarim snakes, as do all in the North sooner or later, and some of the crazedwits that every land in Faerun is home to; the Cult of the Dragon, in yer case. Worry not. The worst they can do is kill ye." He shrugged. "Besides, their arts cannot spy on us or find us while ye stay close to me. I've magic of my own-a little-that I got from a grateful mage long, long ago. It cloaks me, she said, from scrying and probings of the mind, and suchlike. So we can all sing songs and have too much to drink well into the morning."

  "Stout one," Delg murmured, "if you keep on like this, it will be morning."

  Mirt rolled his eyes in silent reply and waved at them to accompany him. They followed the stout, wheezing old adventurer down into a little gully in the rocks, where several dark doorways opened out of crumbling wallsthe cellars of now-vanished
buildings. Mirt shambled toward one opening.

  Shandril yawned, stumbled, and almost fell. Narm rushed to hold her up and found her swaying with weariness, almost asleep on her feet.

  Mirt wheezed up close to them, peered into Shandril's sleepy face, and sighed. "The problem with ladies, lad," he remarked to Narm, "is that they take all the fun out o' things. After, that is, they've put most of the fun into things, I grant."

  He lurched on into the darkness. "Mind yer step, now. The best adventures begin when yer boots step proper and sure along some path or other to glory…"

  When Shandril opened her heavy, sleep-encrusted eyes again, the light told her that it was late afternoon. She sat up with a start, fearing that something had gone very wrong. They should have been up and away from here at the first light of morning. Narm's cloak fell from her; underneath it, she wore only her breeches.

  Narm smiled reassuringly at her from nearby, where he sat in the arch of an old, ruined stone window, his spellbook on his lap.

  "What happened?" she demanded to know, pulling on her boots and getting up. Where was her tunic?

  "You needed sleep-sleep you didn't get enough of, after all your fire-hurling. So we let you sleep.

  Delg's been fishing most of the day in some pools at the other end of the ruins."

  Shandril strode to him. "Fishing?"

  "Aye-he said he wanted to be done before you were ready to bathe in the same water." Narm grinned-

  and then ducked aside to get his spellbook out of the way of her friendly fists.

  She pummeled him playfully, until he caught her wrists. They rolled over, chuckling and straining to slap and tickle each other-until their struggles took them over the sill of the window, to a hard and graceless landing on the turf below.

  Delg stumped toward them in dripping triumph, gleaming fish gasping and flapping in both hands. He raised an eloquent eyebrow.

  Shandril met his gaze, blushed, and said, "It's not what you think."

  "Oh, no," Mirt said in jolly derision, from behind the dwarf. "Of course not…"

  Shandril scrambled to her feet. "Well, it's not," she said indignantly and marched back to where she'd lain. She turned, a dangerous look in her eye, and stood with hands on hips to glare at them all. "What have you done with my tunic?"

  Then she met Mirt's appraising eyes, blushed, and covered herself with her arms. Delg kept his eyes carefully on hers, and said, "It's drying, on the rocks yonder. It took me awhile to find the right plants to scrub your smell out of it with."

  "My smell?" Shandril sighed; she just didn't have any more energy left to be indignant. She turned to snatch up Narm's cloak-but stopped, staring.

  "Look," she said in tones of wonder, then reached out a hand.

  "Don't!" Delg flung his fish down and shoved her roughly aside. "In strange places, girl, don't reach for things barehanded."

  Fast as the dwarf was, Mirt was faster. The fat merchant strode around them both, boots flapping, and plucked up what had caught Shandril's eye. It had lain among the stones beside where her head had been the night through. They all saw it then-a teardrop-shaped gem, smooth and hard and iridescent, like the still-wet scales of the fish Delg had dropped in his haste to stop Shandril. It winked and sparkled in Mirt's hand.

  As he turned it, the colors in the heart of the gem mirrored the rainbow and seemed to flash and swirl like liquid in a glass goblet. "My, but it's a beautiful thing," the fat man said softly. The gods must have left it here for ye to find, lass."

  He held it out toward her; Delg gave a hoarse exclamation and grabbed it from him. "Look!" One stubby finger pointed at a tiny, exquisite engraving on the curving flank of the stone: a harp between the points of a crescent moon, with four stars spaced around. "The sign of the Harpers!"

  Shandril reached for it, and he laid it gently in her cupped hands.

  "Aye, keep it, lass-it cannot be a bad thing." The dwarf turned to rake Mirt with a keen look. "D'you know what sort of gem it is?"

  The fat man nodded. Aye. A rogue stone."

  The dwarf nodded, eyeing him suspiciously. "I wonder how it came to be here?" he asked.

  Mirt shrugged, smiled slightly, and looked up at the sky. "The gods work in strange ways, their wisdom hidden from us 'til after they're done," he quoted, in the manner of a pompous priest.

  Narm thought Delg would bristle at that hoary old saying, but the dwarf only smiled and said, "Keep that stone safe, lass-and not worn openly, for all to see. You'd best leave it with your lad while you wash-if you go down with him now, we'll have these fish ready when you're done."

  Shandril smiled happily and did as she was bid.

  The fire crackled, dying to hot red-glowing coals. Delg poked at it, and then went to his pack, which lay among the rocks. Well back from the coals, Narm sat beside a small candle-lamp, intent on his spellbook. Mirt stood watch somewhere off in the darkness.

  Shandril, comfortable for the first time in what seemed like days, lay at ease?in the warmth of the fire. No spellfire roiled or tingled within her, she was at peace with the world. She looked up as Delg bent over her-and sighed at his intent expression. She could hardly believe she'd once been hungry for adventure, now it seemed as if it would never let her alone.

  "Lass," the dwarf said in low tones, unwrapping dark cloth from something he'd dredged out of his pack. "We need you to have spellfire. Touch this."

  Wondering, Shandril peered at what he held. It was long, massive, and black-a dwarven war hammer. It looked ancient, made for brutal killing. From the deep cracks running across it and the bands of beaten metal that held it together, it looked to have seen use in some mighty battles. Awed, Shandril laid a finger on it to trace a curving crack-and felt the tingling of magic.

  She looked up at Delg. "Oh, no. Delg, I couldn't." He looked back at her, his intent expression unchanged. "It must be old, and precious to you," Shandril added softly. "I've never seen it, not in all the days since you first came to the inn with the company."

  "It's a lump of forged metal, lass-my friends are far more precious to me than things 1 can make, and make again." "You made this?"

  "No-'tis ancient, lass; a war hammer of the Ironstar clan. It's about the only magic I have left."

  Shandril looked at him, shocked. "I can't, Delg! Not your only magic-it must have cost you dearly."

  Delg put a hand on hers. "Do you… are you my friend, Shan?" He seemed to find the words difficult. Shandril reached out a hand to stroke his bearded jaw. "Of course, Delg. You know that." Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed his grizzled cheek.

  The dwarf harrumphed and shifted on his haunches. 'Then, please, Shan-take the magic out o' this old thing… I've a bad feeling that we'll all be needing it, right soon now. Please?"

  Reluctantly, staring into his beseeching eyes, Shandril grasped the cold, heavy head of the war hammer and pulled at its magic with her will, feeling the tingling flow begin.

  At that moment, a twig snapped in the woods, not far away. Narm's head jerked up, and he threw down his spellbook to peer into the trees.

  Delg closed Shandril's hands firmly around the war hammer and told her, "Keep on at it, lass!" Then he rose, took two rapid, gliding steps to where his axe was propped against a rock, and swung it up to the ready.

  The attackers came in a rush once they saw the camp alert: a score or so of Zhentilar warriors, nets and clubs in their hands.

  Delg looked around and cursed bitterly. Their fat, wheezing host was nowhere to be seen.

  "So I let my guard drop for once. Just once!" he snarled as the Zhents rushed down upon them. "Get your back against a rock, lad! Over here, where my axe can guard your back"

  Narm had no time to rush across to him. even if he'd wanted to; a Zhent swung a club at his face in the next instant. The young mage ducked coolly, and two pulses of light burst from his hand into the face of the Zhent, who staggered, roared, and clutched at unseeing eyes. An instant later, Narm's dagger was in his throat.

&
nbsp; As the Zhent toppled, Narm sprang away-right into the folds of a weighted net, backed up by a flurry of clubs. He went down without a sound.

  Delg had time for no more than a glance at the young mage. His axe flashed as fast as his strong shoulders could swing it, but height made it hard for him to cut the nets-nets that were settling over him from above by. twos and threes. He was soon entangled. Then the nethurlers drew the net ropes taut with their own great weight and reach. The dwarf was dragged down.

  Shandril dropped the crumbling war hammer-it had been old, its enchantments all that still held it togetherand rose from behind where Delg was struggling. Flames leapt and raged in her eyes.

  The men who hauled on the nets that held Delg down were only two paces away. Without a word she flung herself into them, letting spellfire rage from her hands and mouth. She crashed bruisingly against armor, heard men snarl and then shriek amid the rising, roaring flames and then they fell silent.

  Shandril drew the flames back into herself, and looked down at the blackened, smoking corpses. Beside her, Delg was fighting his way free of the scorched remnants of webbing as the next wave of Zhentilar rushed at them.

  Shandril hurled spellfire again-ragged and faltering fire. She swallowed grimly and threw out one hand. Fire streaked from it to lash the Zhents bending over Narm. They staggered and fell, shouting hoarsely amid raging flames. Shandril raised her other hand to burn the warriors charging at her from the edge of the clearing. A moment later, however, they laughed in triumph as her spellfire rushed outward, then sputtered and died away in their faces.

  She saw the cause: it came out of the night in front of the warriors, a band of utter darkness like a fence or an impossibly wide shield-a black band floating before them as they came. Just behind the warriors trotted a man in robes-a Zhentarim wizard! — with triumph shining in his dark eyes.

  Shandril snarled and lashed out at their feet with spellfire, aiming below the dark band. The wizard hastily lowered his creation-but he was too slow to save the feet of one running Zhentilar. Spellfire blasted, and the man's boots vanished. With a shriek of agony, the charging warrior toppled forward into the darkness and was gone, his cry cut off suddenly. As the wall of darkness advanced, Shandril could see the remains of the man, twitching on the ground-two trunkless, footless legs.