Belkram and a weeping Itharr came after her. The Malaugrym were right behind them, flinging out tentacles that Sylune smashed aside with a spell Shar never saw.
The next spell sent a ball of fire crashing through the door into Milhvar's precious library, and they heard his startled shout.
He must have raised some sort of hasty spell-barrier, because the fiery blast came back into the dusty little room, flinging three tortured young Malaugrym with it. Their ashen bodies thudded off the walls amid blazing tables as the three rangers staggered out into the room of casks.
The pain in her side had subsided into a dull ache, now, but Shar didn't resist when Belkram seized her hand and thrust a ring onto one of her fingers. "Your turn," he grunted, and shook Itharr like a frilly lounge cushion. "Stop wailing-she's fine!"
Itharr sobbed, blinked, hiccuped, and fell silent.
And deep within her Sharantyr heard Sylune say, Trust me, and felt the sword twitched from her fingers.
There was a momentary flicker of blue light. Then the sword was back, humming and glowing as before but with a subtly different weight to it. Shar cut at the air experimentally as they crossed the room, heading for the door through which Amdramnar had brought them here. No, the sword was somehow different.
And then fire snatched it from her fingers, and shadows howled around her wrist. She grabbed for it in vain and saw it spinning away from her, globed in shadows, to hang near the ceiling.
Light was growing all around them now as Olorn stepped out from behind a cask and waved his hand. Belkram and Itharr froze in midcurse, immobile. Sharantyr grabbed at her belt dagger, but shadows were sliding around her wrists and ankles, thrusting them inexorably apart.
Olorn laughed again and strolled toward her. Behind him, many Malaugrym were entering the room, cruel excitement in their faces.
"I've stood more than enough insolence from mortal wenches in the past," he said to Shar, "and you're just one more. I had breeding plans for you, but you're not good enough to sully myself with." His right hand wriggled then, becoming a tentacle-a long, thin, dark tentacle with eel-like jaws. "So instead," he announced brightly, "I've decided to make a meal of you!" The tentacle rose, like a swaying cobra, then bent and came straight across the room at her, gliding horizontally through the air.
Shar was spread-eagled on thin air by then, floating off the floor in the grip of shadows that had become as hard as iron. Her face was closest to the tentacle, and as it approached her, snakelike, she felt shadows tugging at her lips and the corners of her mouth.
She fought against the steely strength of the shadows, teeth clenched, but the tentacle slid lazily closer and her jaws were being forced apart. No!
A long moment passed, the eager Malaugrym audience silently watching her struggle. She fought in vain. In the end, her mouth was open wide and held that way, jaw quivering with the strain.
The tentacle slid between her teeth, probing ahead with a tip to hold her tongue down. Then it expanded, filling her mouth with its foulness… and began to get warmer.
"A little roast tongue to start with," Olorn said jovially, and the Malaugrym laughed in cruel chorus. As the pain began to build, Sharantyr discovered that she could still breathe-but she could no longer scream.
21
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 20
Tears of helpless rage welled up in Sharantyr's throat, and she struggled frantically against the shadow-bonds that manacled her. They shifted a little… and a little more. She could move!
Then she saw that the Malaugrym were laughing at her, enjoying her futile midair squirmings and swayings, and Olorn was sending another tentacle her way with taunting slowness.
"What part of her shall we play with now?" he asked the other Shadowmasters. The tentacle twitched as an eager chorus of suggestions rang out. Sharantyr closed her eyes. She'd never dreamed that dying could be this bad, or this slow. By the sounds of it, midair surgery could go on for days, if they kept her — parts of her — alive with their spells. Mystra and Tymora hear me, she prayed fervently, if you can't deliver me from this, at least make it quick!
And then the tentacle in her mouth quivered — no, shuddered — and she heard Olorn scream. Her eyes snapped open in sudden wild hope.
A blue blade was glowing in the air, flashing in ghostly hands, flashing through Olorn again and again, transfixing him. Blue flames licked around his body as he struggled to change shape. His tentacle abruptly receded from Shar's mouth but failed to escape the blade that was chopping him apart.
Pieces of the Malaugrym, great writhing lumps, rained down onto the floor in flames. The room was full of wriggling shapes as the Malaugrym shouted and shifted shape and hurled spells at the ghostly swordswoman — Sylune, her hair flying free behind her as she flew about the room, hacking and slashing. The flashing blue blade turned back all the spells sent against her… back upon those who'd sent them.
Olorn must have died, because Shar found herself falling abruptly to the floor. As she landed painfully on knees and elbows, she saw the two Harpers stagger out of their immobility. High overhead, the shadow globe fell apart, and the false blue blade it had held began to fade slowly out of existence.
The room was slaughterhouse chaos now, as Sylune dealt death to the Malaugrym. She rose up out of the heart of them for a moment and calmly cast a transmutation spell; the dagger in Shar's hand quivered.
She looked down at it. The good steel now shone with a glossy silver plating, and she could see Belkram's sword and Itharr's dagger were the same. With a shout, Sharantyr raced across the room and buried her tiny fang in the nearest Malaugrym.
He screamed. Sharantyr matched it with a shriek of her own, a shout of anger and disgust as she poured out all she'd held in check since seeing Old Elminster's dripping head snatched away from them in Daggerdale. She waded into shifting arms and tentacles and beaks, snapping fanged jaws and swimming thousands of eyes, hacking at rubbery flesh that smoked and shriveled where her blade touched it.
The room rocked again. She spun around to face the spell-flash.
"This has gone far enough," Milhvar said coldly from where he'd just appeared in the center of the room. At his last word, his prepared spell struck, hurling everyone back against the walls with bruising force.
Everyone except a certain flying ghostly form, who smiled a crooked smile at him and hurled a glowing blue blade through the air.
Point-first it slashed across the room, humming as it went, and Shar saw Milhvar's lips working in frantic haste.
Abruptly he was gone in a cloud of sweat, and another body was in his place. The Malaugrym mage Iyritar screamed as the sword of Mystra tore into him.
Impaled on the blade, Iyritar flailed his hands about vainly, clawing at the air in his agony.
From the wall where Iyritar had been, Milhvar stepped forth, weaving another spell as the three rangers tore free of his fading bindings and launched themselves from the walls with silver blades raised.
Sylune abruptly winked out. Shar stared up at where she'd been in astonished horror, slowing in her run. Itharr's shout of alarm dragged her eyes down to see what Milhvar's magic had wrought.
Iyritar's gore was on fire, blazing with scarlet flames as it sprayed from the dying Malaugrym's body and spread out to form a sphere of blood around the sorcerer's limp form, with the blade of Mystra lodged in it. In seconds the sphere was complete. Milhvar wiped sweat from his brow with one hand and visibly relaxed.
A smile crept slowly onto his face as he stepped forward and held up a hand to slow the charging Harpers with a magical wall. From behind its invisible safety he told them, "Without your precious blade, you're trapped here, to become our playthings or slaves-or carrion, if you prefer. Like all humans, your fates will befall you swiftly."