Shandril didn’t want to hear the choice, it seemed. With a scream very like the angry shriek of a harpy, she hurled spellfire in a fury. White flames leapt forth, roaring; when they died away, the Zhents around saw that the warrior’s upper body had been blasted away.
The legs tottered for a moment and then fell. The two men beside the ash heap screamed in terror and ran.
Narm dropped to his belly beside the pit. Its lid was held open by Delg’s booted feet; the red-faced, furious dwarf lay below, just beyond his reach, spitting curses Narm was glad he couldn’t understand.
Shouts came from the trees behind them. The warriors they’d run from—who’d herded them here, Shandril realized—were following up their trail. Fast.
One man remained atop the other bank, sword drawn. He looked down at them uncertainly, his face gray with fear, his eyes wide.
“Drop your sword, or die!” Shandril told him. “Now!”
Alorth licked bloodless lips and looked across at what was left of the swordmaster. He threw his blade down, raising his hands to plead. “Please—”
“Get down here!” Shandril hurled spellfire back down the gully behind her without looking; a cry of despair, abruptly stilled, answered her. She glared at the Zhentilar. “Come down—or die!”
Almost weeping with terror, Alorth slithered down. Those burning eyes stared up at him from only a few feet away. They might belong to a young, frightened girl—but they held his death, and Alorth knew it. He trembled, sudden sweat running down his nose.
“Touch no weapons,” Shandril said, biting off her words. “Reach down and get him out of the pit. If he’s hurt, or if you leave the pack behind, you die.”
Alorth stared at her for a moment, and at the young mage who rose up from the dirt to glare at him. A crossbow bolt whistled past them.
“Move, or die!” Shandril hissed, eyes flaming. Spellfire lanced out. The Zhentilar cried out at the burning pain her gaze brought him, and fell heavily on his knees. Behind him, he heard screams and a roar like rolling thunder. He looked around—to find the forest lit by hungry flames, Zhentilar warriors shrieking and staggering in the conflagration. The young lass stood defiantly facing them, fire dancing in her hands.
Then something gleamed, very near, as it slid down into his view: the point of his own sword, not a finger’s length from his eyes, the angry face of the young mage behind it.
Sobbing in fear, Alorth turned and reached for the dwarf. Too far. He’d never reach that far, without—he frantically scrabbled at the edge of the pit, but harsh hands were suddenly at his ribs and belt, heaving and shoving.
With a cry of terror, Alorth Bloodshoulder toppled headlong toward the spikes, those cruel points leaping up at his face, and—there was a sudden pain in his knees as he came to a wrenching halt. Alorth groaned. Sweat fell past his eyes—and spattered on the sharpened wood only inches below. The mage must be sitting on his lower legs.
The dwarf, still snarling dwarven curses, swarmed up his arms, digging in fingers with cruel force. Then the weight and the pain were both gone, and Alorth was roughly hauled up onto the ground. Freed, he slumped into the dirt, moaning softly.
The noise like thunder came again. Alorth looked up with tear-blurred eyes, and saw a stream of white, roaring flames rolling down the already blackened gully away from him, the girl silhouetted against its brightness.
Crossbow bolts leapt from the trees to either side, caught fire as Shandril looked at them, and crashed down in smoke and ashes. The dwarf, axe in hand, glared at Alorth from a foot or so away, and the Zhentilar fearfully snatched the dagger from his belt.
Shandril heard his grunt of effort and spun around. Spellfire roared, and Alorth found himself staring at the bare bones of his arm. The smoking remnants of the dagger fell from them an instant before they collapsed, pattering to the ground in a grisly shower. Alorth found breath enough to whimper for a moment before the world spun, and he crashed down into darkness ….
“Are there any left?” Narm was peering back through the trees as they stood gasping for breath in a little hollow deeper in the forest. They had run from the gully of smoking Zhentilar corpses for what seemed like an hour. The pursuing shouts and crossbow bolts seemed to have stopped—and far behind them, they heard barking calls that probably meant wolves had discovered waiting cooked meals.
“There’re always more Zhents, lad,” Delg puffed. “They’re like stinging flies.” The dwarf was glumly looking at his torn and punctured pack. Shredded clothing protruded from the rents the spikes had made.
Narm pushed the cloth back through the holes. Between gulps for air, he said brightly, “That could’ve been … far worse … aye?”
Delg rolled a severe eye around to meet his. “Many men spend their lives trying to get out of one hole or another. Just take care, Narm, that yours doesn’t wind up being a pit with sharpened spikes at the bottom of it.”
Shandril managed a weak chuckle, and then got to her feet. “We’d best go on while we can,” she sighed. “Or they’ll be on us again—and those crossbows can’t miss forever.”
Narm was muttering something and passing a hand over Delg’s pack. Where he touched it, the worst rents and holes shrank and closed, the fabric smoothing out as if new. Narm, finished, probed at his work, and looked up at her. “How are you feeling, Shan?”
“Tired. When I said I was sick of endless battle,” Shandril told him grimly, “I meant it.”
The glow from the pool lit the face of the Zhentarim priest who stared into it, watching them from afar. He smiled a slow, cruel smile and said, “Oh, maid, if you’re sick of battle now, you’ll be at the doors of death over it, before long—I can promise that.” The warriors standing with him all laughed. It was not a pretty chorus.
As they struggled through the endless green depths of Hullack Forest, and the day wore on, Delg felt the constant weight of watching eyes on them. More than once, he called a halt to peer around suspiciously, looking at the dim legions of tree trunks on all sides. “We’re being watched,” he said. “I can feel it.”
“Magic?” Narm asked.
“Of course magic, stumblehead,” the dwarf replied grumpily. “If a beast—or even a Zhent sneak-thief—was stalking along behind us, I’d have seen it by now.”
“As you say, oh tall and mighty one,” Narm replied, eyes dancing.
Shandril flicked a warning look at her husband as the dwarf growled something under his breath, and Narm raised his hands. “Peace! Peace, oh giant among dwarves!”
“A bit less tongue, youngling,” Delg replied, “and we’d best be on our way again—unless Elminster taught you any clever spells that can ward off scrying magic.”
The mage frowned. “No, no … but I’m trying to remember something Storm said, back in Shadowdale, about the goddess Tymora.”
“Tymora?”
“Aye … Rathan gave us a luck medallion blessed by Tymora, and Gorstag gave us another. Storm said something about how such things can be used, but I can’t recall—”
The dwarf snorted. “Of course not. You’re a mage, and mages can’t even remember their own names or ages. Let me look at these medallions.”
Shandril obediently pulled on the chain around her neck, drawing her medallion out of the breast of her tunic. Narm brought his out of his robes. The dwarf squinted at them both and sighed.
“By the gods, you two innocents’ll be the death of me yet! With these, we can be cloaked from magic, twice—each use will burn away one medallion.”
“What?”
“Aye.” The dwarf fairly danced in impatience. “There’s a charm on these things.” He swung around to fix Narm with eager eyes. “You can cast an invisibility spell, can’t you, lad?”
Narm nodded. “Y-yes.”