Narm swallowed, doffed his helm, and handed it to- Voldovan, who snatched it with a curt shake of his head as Narm was handing it to Shandril. The caravan master gestured to her to keep aside from Narm and watch the two merchants. She nodded and did as she was bid.
The young mage frowned, raised his hands, and cast a careful detection spell Jhessail had taught him, a variant of the common magic that could see linked castings and layers of magic… even where one had been cast to conceal another.
The furrier-Mhegras of Esmeltaran-seemed to sneer slightly at Narm's spellweaving. Shandril regarded him thoughtfully; a mage, perhaps?
"N-no," Narm said slowly. "No magic on any of the goods here, that I can see." He raised his head and gave Mhegras an apparently casual glance that made the Master-of-Furs stiffen as if he'd been insulted, then turned to Voldovan and shook his head. "Nothing,"
Without pause or change of expression the caravan master asked Sabran, "The new arms tax?"
The weaver nodded, and Voldovan waved at his men to restore the floor and the coffers. "Make ready to roll in all haste," he snapped. He strode to the wagon-flaps and there turned to glare at the two merchants, adding, "A word of advice: keep no secrets from any roadmaster. 'Tis a good way to get yerselves left behind in the wilderness without yer wagons and wealth, left to walk to the next town-if the wolves let ye."
Collecting Narm and Shandril with a jerk of his head, he went out. In a few grunting moments, the guards finished heaving and stowing, and followed. From outside the wagon came shouted orders, the crack of drovers' whips, and the rumblings of wagon wheels reluctantly gathering speed.
Sabran and Mhegras eyed each other coldly, then said, more or less at the same moment, "Well? Why didn't you strike at them?"
Narm and Shandril had been standing only paces away in the confined space of their wagon, with no barrier nor body between to stop magic from cutting them down-and neither weaver nor furrier had lifted a finger. The two younglings had departed unscathed.
"Now was not the right time for anything but slaying," Sabran said coldly, "and whilst a possibility of capture remains, we must strive for that greater goal."
"You were afraid," Mhegras sneered. "Capture, my left rump-cheek!"
"Oh, say you so?" the priest of Bane replied cuttingly, extending his calm and steady hand. "Just whose fingers are trembling, wildtongue?"
Mhegras stared down at his own hand… and discovered, to his horror, that it was anything but steady. Rage rose in him like fast-kindled flame but died when he lifted his furious gaze and met Sabran's cold and waiting eyes. A faint glow of already risen magic was dancing in the priest's palm.
The wagons were thundering along at a speed that set them rocking and bouncing at every rut and pothole on the road-and there were a lot of ruts and potholes on the Trade Way. Narbuth's arms grew so numbed that Narm and Shandril took turns relieving him as the ready-wagon crashed and rattled on, rocks and trees racing by at breakneck speed.
"The horses won't be able to manage this for much longer!" Narm shouted in Shandril's ear, as the wagon rushed down into a little rivulet that ran across the road, reins and harness momentarily curling and whipping about crazily. The wheels slipped and slid, the horses dug in, and the harness stretched singing-tight as the four snorting beasts hauled on up the next slope.
"Tell Voldovan that, not me!" Shan cried back, as they crested a ridge and saw a dozen more ridges beyond, the ribbon of road climbing over each in succession. A distant dust cloud told of travelers-probably wagons-coming south, but the Way had largely been theirs alone thus far this day. This was not a good sign, Narm and Shandril had gathered, from the expressions and muttered comments of the veteran guards and merchants.
As the view stretched out before them and the wagon started to gain speed in what was sure to become a breakneck plunge down the ridgeside, an even less auspicious sign made itself apparent: long, dark crossbow quarrels-the heavy war-bolts that could take down horses as readily as men-snarled and hummed out of the greenery on both sides of the road. Narm took Shandril by the shoulders and flung her through the top-flap, back into the wagon, cursing as a quarrel sliced through his leathers, laying his back bare.
" 'Slike being slapped with a burning brand," he gasped, falling into the rocking darkness atop Shandril. One of their horses promptly screamed.
"Gods!" the young mage spat, trying to turn. Shandril looked past him-in time to see Narbuth take a quarrel in the face. The drover's head exploded in a burst of blood and brains ere the force of the striking shaft snatched him off the wagon, out of sight.
Shandril's mouth tightened as she dragged Narm down to the floorboards, which promptly rapped them both hard on their chins as the wagon bounded over a particularly large pothole. "I can't burn down every tree between here and Waterdeep," she snapped, "and I don't dare try. Every time I call on my fire 'tis stronger, wilder… harder to control. Narm, what are we going to do?"
Her husband gave her a helpless smile. "Well," he said brightly, "uh…"
As so often happens to those who dally, Faerun decided things for them. There was a sudden chaos of meaty, wagon-shaking thuds, a horrible wet spraying sound, and their wagon suddenly tilted.
Shan wrapped herself around Narm with a little scream as the world turned upside down several times.
Wood was shrieking and splintering all around them as a lot of heavy things wreathed in scratchy hay fell on them, one after another, and the wagon rolled. The boards of the walls and floor shuddered, bulged, buckled, and twisted. There was a deafening crash that sent things flying or tumbling all over the shattered wagon, another unearthly scream… and silence.
Silence soon filled by shouts and wagon rumblings and more screams, punctuated by the hissing and humming of crossbow bolts very close by. Narm muttered something wordless and tried to shift himself from under his lady and seemingly dozens of coffers and haybales and other unidentified but sharp items.
Shandril clutched at him and hissed, "Lie still. For now we play dead and wait. Let someone else be hero-and crossbow target-for a change."
Narm opened his mouth to protest, stared into her fierce gaze, and nodded.
There were more loud and ground-shaking crashes. Drovers were dragged past spewing steady streams of heartfelt curses ere the rumblings of moving wagons died away. Voldovan's caravan was coming to a halt-right in the closing jaws of whichever wolves were firing all of those crossbows from the trees.
Narm heaved, trying to move from under something that was numbing his left leg. "Lie still!" Shandril snarled into his ear.
"Then get that chest or whatever it is off my foot," her husband snarled right back at her. "I'm all wet down that leg, too. Am I bleeding?"
Shan shifted atop him, twisting around, and he felt her hands running gently along his leg, exploring…
Someone crashed through branches and rustling leaves very close by, someone else followed, breathing heavily, and from farther off came the clang of sword on sword-fast, furious hacking that soon ended with a despairing cry and gurgling sounds.
The hum and zip of crossbow bolts slackened, and the crashings of running feet and singing of swords upon swords swiftly rose to an everpresent din on all sides of the upturned ready-wagon.
Narm felt the heavy thing pinning his ankle thrust aside and quickly pulled his foot away. Shandril crawled back up him again in the tumbled gloom, and murmured into his chest, "Just water. A cask split-'tis all wet, back there."
"What if someone puts a torch to all of this? We've got to-"
"We've got to lie still, love lord of mine. If flames do come, I can pull them into me and so both quench them and warm my spellfire. We're in what passes for a ditch, and by the sounds of it there are plenty of other crashed wagons. Now, quiet. We're dead, remember?"