Tam stiffened. “Hrast.”
“We have company,” she said calmly.
As if they’d heard her, the intruders burst into the room: a Turmishan man by the window, sleek as a shadow and carrying two hooked scythes; a pale-skinned woman by the door, her face a mess of scars around bright black eyes. She reached back and drew her sword.
“Get out of here!” he shouted to Mira, as he moved between them and the chest, pulling at the chain he wore wrapped around his waist from the center. The spiked links unhooked and fell loose. He whispered to Selune and felt her blessing pour over his skin and light every link of the chain.
He’d expected Shadovar. He’d been waiting for echoes of the shadar-kai he’d seen in his youth. But no-a gray skull on a background of brown rays, displayed as the woman drew her sword and turned her shoulder toward him. Zhentarim. Mercenaries of the Black Network.
They might not have expected him, but that gave the thieves no pause-the pair moved at him so quickly, he only saw blades. The chain lashed out, tangling the man’s wrists and scythes together. Tam pulled, and the assassin tripped forward, crashing to his knees.
The woman with the sword took the chance to slash Tam’s forearm, leaving behind a sudden line of red. Sharp, stinging-not enough to stop him from directing a burst of holy fire at her midsection, shoving her back. The sword screamed past him once more, close enough to tear the fabric of his shirt. Tam yanked his chain back from the prone man and slung it toward his companion, the light of the moon goddess building along the links until it burst out the end with a low whoosh.
The man was on his feet again, one scythe slicing toward Tam’s throat. He threw an elbow up into the man’s forearm, pushing the blade, up, away. It nicked his cheek. The assassin’s arm shifted, hooked up under Tam’s arm, as if to pull the priest into the other scythe.
The man jerked back. Tam broke away.
There was Mira, one knife sunk in the Turmishan man’s side. The other up, high, drawing across the assassin’s throat in a sharp, swift cut. Blood poured out of the wound, blood bubbling with the assassin’s desperate breaths, and still Mira held him up on her knife’s blade.
Get her out of here! a voice shouted in Tam’s thoughts, over and over. Get her out of here! Threatening to overwhelm the focus of the Moonmaiden’s powers, threatening to take his thoughts away from the battle at hand. Mira dropped the body as the man stopped trying to breathe through the wound in his neck.
Dead, he thought forcefully. He didn’t need to save Mira from the dark-skinned man. The man was dead.
He faced the woman, back on her feet, despite the blood that poured from her wounds and between her teeth, and slashing at him with that black-bladed sword. He jerked the chain up and caught the blade between its spiked links. Too quick, she slipped it free and struck a glancing blow off the heavy leather covering his left shoulder, hard enough to bruise and he cried out with the shock of it and loosed his grip on the chain.
Mira moved toward the assassin, knives ready and he fought to speak, to tell her to get out of the way, to run from the room. His heart turned inside out as the assassin’s attention shifted, took in Mira-little Mira.
The sword sliced through the air, carving a path toward Mira’s shoulder. Tam raised a hand, the force of the moon swelling through him like a tide on his blood. Powerful, but not powerful enough-time slowed as the assassin went after his daughter.
“Lady aid me,” he cried, the prayer taking hold, rage chasing the fear.
Mira dropped, straight down, as if her legs had given out, and landed flat on her back, well out of the sword’s attack. But now an easy mark for the bleeding assassin. The assassin raised her blade.
Holy fire, bright as a full moon, streamed from Tam’s open palm and crashed over the assassin, throwing her into the far wall. The wave caught her, then she hit the wall and lay silent, dancing with the residual magic of the silverstar.
What remnants of Selune’s peace he’d held tight to now fled. Tam was on the Zhentarim woman in an instant, his chain dropped and a dagger drawn. He cut the assassin’s throat, savage and quick-make certain she’s dead, he thought, the image of her standing over Mira’s prone body hammering at his thoughts.
Panting, Tam turned a slow circle, scanning the darkened corners of the room. Nothing. Mira came to her feet, her knives still gripped in both hands. He jumped at the sudden movement.
“Are you all right?” he all but shouted, his pulse in his ears. He reached for her, to comfort her, perhaps, but also to comfort himself, to be certain she was all right and not cut to ribbons for merely being in the way of one of his missions.
Mira stiffened and sheathed her knives. “Fine,” she said, though she was pale-faced and out of breath. She looked down at the bodies, her eyes distant. “Fine for the moment.”
“You’re not hurt,” he said, looking her over. All the blood was the Zhents,’ but still, she was splattered with it. Like his worst nightmares given flesh. “You’re not hurt,” he said again. “Gods.” He looked around at the carnage. “Gods, if I weren’t here, you could have been killed.”
Mira’s mouth went small. “Possibly. But if you weren’t here, then this fellow wouldn’t have come so close to stabbing you in the ribs.”
He ran a hand over his beard. Never, he’d sworn the last time his duties brought danger so close to his daughter, never again. But now, here Mira stood, looking down at the bodies, calm as the waters of a sacred pool. She always was a calm one, he thought. Even as a babe in the cradle.
Not a babe anymore, he thought. A woman with very sharp knives.
“We still have time,” Mira said. “Though not much. Word’s traveled fast, but not accurately.” She looked up at him. “How much coin can you get together?”
Tam shook his head. “You can’t imagine your patron will go ahead with his bidding. These are Zhentarim assassins.”
“And they only sent two,” she pointed out. “Which means they haven’t figured out what the page and stone point to. They might still think they’re clues to a hoard. They don’t know about Tarchamus.”
Tam started to protest-if they didn’t know, they wouldn’t have sent any assassins, and now that they’d sent two, they would send more. And Shade was still a die unthrown. Now wasn’t the time to be complacent.
But Mira’s expression didn’t suggest she was relieved. She chewed her upper lip, and stared at the body of the male assassin, as if she were trying to spy the fragments of clues scattered over his skin. There was more here.
Stop thinking like a worried parent, he told himself. Think like a Harper.
“You said you know where it came from,” he said. “Where? Or rather, where do you think Shade and the Zhentarim think it came from?”
She looked up at him and blinked. “Getting artifacts from ancient Netheril isn’t easy. What exists is largely in Shade’s hands and they’re particular about what they share. But there are two references to the arcanist Tarchamus. Both are fragmented. Both are widely considered to be apocryphal, or at least exaggerated. But both make it clear that Tarchamus was a formidable arcanist, an expert at tapping into the powers of other planes without traveling to them, capable of crafting weapons that could level cities and mythallars that could stop the stars in their courses.”
Tam raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “I told you. They exaggerate. But even as such, it’s clear he was no dabbler.”
“If he existed,” Tam added.
“Someone made the book the page was torn from.” She laid a hand on the chest. “It’s possible his spells or the artifacts imbued with his magic still exist somewhere-wherever this came from. And I think the stone is a piece of the door that sealed it. If Shade knew this page might be a clue to the location of Tarchamus’s lost enclave, they would have sent an army by now.”