Zhentarim wizards seldom do.
"They've moved swiftly," Thoadrin said approvingly. "Better light for us to shoot and scramble in, and even more weariness for their beasts!" He looked up and down the men ranged along the rocks, and growled, "Remember: no man looses a quarrel until my signal!"
Not waiting for their nods and muttered replies, he peered across the gulf of air to the rocks that rose on the far side of the Trade Way-straight into the eyes of Laranthan, who gave him a reassuring nod and the fist-on-chest gesture that warriors use to mean "All is ready, and I await your signal."
Good. He wanted no one to have time to turn and flee or rush off out of bowshot and then scramble up into the rocks to come creeping along after his men. Let them all rumble right into his trap. If his men downed enough beasts of the first few wagons, they'd doubtless crash or stop in disarray, forming a barricade for the rest to crowd up behind. The road would become a shooting-gallery-hopefully long enough to reduce Voldovan's guards to nigh-none.
The Cult of the Dragon might not have the fell reputation of all these high and mighty wizards, these Zhents and Thayans and Arcane Brotherhoods, but their claws were real enough-and one of them, now smiling grimly at the approaching dust-cloud and thunder of wagons, was named Thoadrin.
Soon it would be blood time, and they'd send their bolts hissing down. Thoadrin crouched behind his rock smiling in satisfaction. A near-perfect ambush; slaughtering Voldovan's men would be a trifling amount of trouble.
"In fact," he said aloud to the heedless air, "no trouble at all." He raised his hand, making sure both Laranthan and his own line of men could see it, and held it high as the first caravan guards trotted past below him. Tense, he awaited just the right moment to bring it down and unleash hissing death.
"I don't like the look of this," Narm said suddenly, snatching up the shield from its hooks. "Look at Beldimarr-and Arauntar, too! They're-"
"I can see," Shandril said harshly, eyes dark and hair stirring around her shoulders. Narm looked at her, opening his mouth to tell her to raise her own shield, and saw spellfire rising from her arms and flickering out of her face. He shuddered, said nothing, and lifted the old shield, leaning as close to her as he dared. The air itself crackled and howled past his ear and cheek as spellfire rose. Someone shouted ahead, someone screamed, Beldimarr cursed horribly, and the air came alive with the sound of a dozen crossbow bolts.
The guard beside Voldovan took one in the throat, threw up his arms, and pitched over backward, falling from his saddle like a felled tree.
The caravan master snarled out an oath and grabbed at the shield bouncing on its hooks on the dead man's saddle, trying to get it free. The next quarrel took him through the arm and sent the frightened horse with the empty saddle leaping away from his roar of pain. Quarrels were thudding into Narm's shield and piercing half through it, burning into his ribs, and he was too busy scrambling and flinching away and gasping out curses of his own to see more.
Shandril took one look at the chaos of archery and dying horses and men and shouted, "Take my legs! Hold me up!"
Letting his shield slide and hang from its straps, Narm scrambled to obey her. Shandril stood up on the perch, flung her arms wide, and gathered spellfire around herself in a great snarling cloak of rushing flames.
Crossbow bolts leaped into those flames and hissed away to ashes, one of them crumbling and falling away inches from Narm's nose. He yelped but clung grimly to his lady's thighs, hooking his feet around the edges of the wagon-perch door, trying as best he could to brace her against the jarring and bouncing. The horses reared and tossed their heads and snorted, reins swung slack like wild ribbons in the air… and Shandril's spellfire roared out over their heads, lashing the rocks on either side of the road with leaping, scorching flame.
The firing was becoming more ragged as Thoadrin's men ran out of cocked and loaded crossbows to snatch up and aim, but Orthil Voldovan's run seemed ruined indeed. A wagon had crashed onto its side, ahead, dead horses were dragging in harness everywhere, and there were more guards sprawled lifeless on the ground under maddened hooves than were still running about swinging futile swords and shouting.
Shandril saw Arauntar grimly scrambling up the rocks, sword in hand. Above him were the helmed heads of grinning warriors who'd gathered to stab him in the face the moment he climbed within reach. She sent spellfire roaring at those faces, and through the rock cleft where they'd been crouching. Letting anger take her, she poured on flames in a white, devouring roar that broke that line of rocks away and sent them spraying and tumbling into the wilderlands beyond.
Men were hurled away as broken, boneless things amid those shards of rock. More fled headlong from behind other rocks before her flames could reach them, so she turned and served the rocks on the far side of the road the same way.
About half of that second line of rocks were gone when the fires surging inside Shandril faltered for the first time. She shuddered and held back her spellfire, crouching down into Narm's embrace.
A head popped up around the side of an unscathed rock almost immediately, lowering a loaded crossbow to aim right at her. Shandril blasted the stone and all into nothingness ere the bolt could be fired. Beside her, Narm wrestled with the reins as their wagon slowed almost to a stop. One horse dragged limply in harness, and the others, for all their snorting terror, seeing nowhere to flee in the tangle ahead, turned in opposite directions, rocking the wagon wildly.
"They're fleeing for their lives!" someone shouted excitedly from behind Shandril-a moment before a splintering crash announced the arrival of the shouting merchant's wagon into the rear of Narm and Shandril’s ready-wagon. Horses screamed, reared, and fell heavily. In the shouting, pitching confusion Shandril stood up to blast another bowman, missed her footing, and fell on top of Narm with a gasp.
A crossbow quarrel promptly hummed right past both their noses and cracked off the side of the wagon, showering them with slivers of wood. "Enough adventure for you?" Narm grunted, as he tried to drag them both back inside while still flat on his back with Shandril twisted atop him. He failed miserably.
"No," she gasped back, with a short, choked-off laugh as her breath gave way, a single wisp of spellfire darting from her mouth, "there's never enough!"
"That's what I was afraid of," Narm muttered, trying again to worm his way back into the wagon. Another crossbow bolt tore through someone's canvas nearby with a vicious zip.
The horses all around them fell away into heaps of bone, and dark whirlwinds roared up from where their bodies had been to form a snarling, darkening cloud overhead.
"Oh, bloody Mystra!" Narm gasped, awe suddenly warring with dread in him.
Shandril nodded numbly. As the cloud grew larger and darker, men shouted in fear all around them… and the towering darkness seemed to lean forward as if it wanted to fall on her.
"Theldarace Norlaund, Finecarver" said the sign on the side of the wagon, and the slender, swift-to-smile man who rode inside answered to that name. Neat, trim travel racks sharing the wagon with him securely held the wares he sold, which bore out his claim to be a seller and carver of long, curving pipes for the dedicated smoker of aromatic blends and both longhorns and songhorns for minstrels and musicians. Beautiful things, glossy-polished and as delightful to the eye as elven-work. No one had seen Norlaund do any carving during the run, but the road through the Black-rocks was hardly conducive to any exacting work-least of all tasks done with sharp knives that didn't involve savage letting of blood.