"But the shadows will be more active in the dark, for that's the way of shadows, and without a single light burning anywhere about the streets, you'll never see them coming. They'll kill you before you can even lift your sword!"
Ajandor frowned, considering. At length he said, "1 wouldn't want to fall without striking a blow. That would make a poor end to the tale of my line. We'll return to the Cormyr Gate."
On the way back, they passed one of the sets of stairs that climbed to the Old Town, a precinct built on high ground. Famed for its picturesque beauty, it was likely as ruinous as the rest of the city. Partway up the steps was an Altar of Shields, unmarred by the devastation that prevailed on every side. To Kevin, it almost seemed a mockery, as if Helm, god of guardians and protectors, had preserved his own little shrine while permitting the rest of the city to perish.
The squire's mood soured still further when they reached the gate. Redwind, Ajandor's charger, lay dead. No shadow had come to rend the faithful animal. Rather his heart had given out and small wonder. At the knight's insistence, the two riders had pushed their mounts unmercifully once they heard about the destruction of Tilverton, even though, from a coldly practical perspective, they no longer had any reason to hurry at all.
Ajandor gazed down at the horse that had borne him for the past ten years, an animal that, Kevin believed, he had loved.
"Poor old fellow," murmured the knight.
"It's too bad," Kevin said.
Ajandor turned away from the fallen steed. "The animal got me here. I suppose that's all that matters."
"Until we want to ride away."
Ajandor didn't reply.
"Well," said Kevin after a pause, "after I see to my horse, we'll want a fire and our supper."
"Do as you like." Ajandor walked back to the east end of the stone tunnel that was the gate, where the rain created a sort of shimmering, pattering curtain and stood staring out as night swallowed the city.
By the time Kevin finished preparing a meal of fried ham, crumbly yellow corn cakes, and dried apples, the vista beyond the gate had gone utterly black. He tried not to think of what might be lurking unseen just a few feet away. A faint cry came from the opposite direction, out in the countryside, making him jump. Some of the refugees hadn't fled very far from Tilverton, and perhaps shadow creatures were ranging outside the broken walls as well.
At the sound, Ajandor glanced over his shoulder then turned away once more.
"Supper's ready," Kevin called.
His master didn't answer.
For a second, annoyed, the youth was tempted to let it go at that. The gods knew, he was hungry enough to eat both portions himself. He rose from the fire and carried the two tin plates to the end of the gate.
"Here," he said, thrusting one dish forward.
Thus prompted, Ajandor accepted it. He took a token nibble of corn cake then stooped to set the plate on the ground.
"No!" Kevin said. "Sir, you need more than that, or you'll get sick."
"I'm not hungry."
Kevin took a deep breath, screwing up his courage. He had never hesitated to speak his mind to the kindly mentor who had taken him in after his own parents drowned in a boating accident, but this taciturn stranger daunted him a little.
"Sir, I think I know what's in your mind. We couldn't have gotten here any faster."
"That's a convenient way to think."
"It's the truth. We left home the same day the herald brought us word of the call to arms, and we had to ride from one corner of Cormyr to the opposite one, slogging down muddy roads and fording swollen rivers." That, of course, was why the kingdom of Cormyr and its allies were going to war. A city of wizards was tampering with the weather, producing constant rain that ruined crops, birthed floods, and made travel a nightmare. "Despite it all, we did arrive before the date specified in the princess's decree."
"But not in time to fight."
"Obviously, no one anticipated that the shades would lay siege to Tilverton before our forces could march on them. Anyway, do you think we could have changed the outcome if we had been here? Do you think you could have saved your son?"
Ajandor sneered. "You're glad you were let off, aren't you? Glad you weren't obliged to die in the service of the Crown."
Kevin groped for a suitable answer. Nothing sprang to mind.
"Get away from me, coward. Leave me to mourn in peace."
The squire obeyed then found that suddenly he, too, had no appetite.
He took the first watch as was customary and his duty, even though Ajandor did not avail himself of the opportunity to rest. Afterwards, the youth found it so difficult to sleep that he almost felt that he shouldn't have bothered, either. The occasional anguished cry from beyond the walls kept jarring him awake.
At daybreak, or what passed for it beneath the perpetual overcast, the two men-at-arms headed back into the streets. It was raining harder, but the stink of the bloated dead seemed worse than ever. At first it churned Kevin's stomach. Eventually, though, he forgot about it, when he noticed something about his master's demeanor.
When they'd first entered what remained of Tilverton, Ajandor had paid particular attention to any dead warriors clad in the wine-colored surcoats of the Purple Dragons, the company of knights to which Pelethen had belonged. Now he paid little heed to any of the pathetic corpses sprawled on every side. Instead, he scrutinized doorways, windows, and rooftops, low walls and the mouths of alleyways, a wagon with two dead mules slumped in the traces-everywhere a foe could lie in wait.
That, Kevin reckoned, was only prudent, but when Ajandor caught a glimpse of a shadow crouching over the burnt corpse of a mother with a blackened, shriveled infant in her arms, his response wasn't prudent at all.
"Ho!" bellowed the knight, throwing back his cloak and taking hold of Gray Dancer. "Shadow! Come and fight!"
The murky form rose from the corpses-had it been eating their decaying flesh? — and Kevin saw that it was shaped more or less like a man. It glided forward through the rain, and four more shadows slipped from the ashy ruins of a bakery to fall in behind it.
"Sir!" said Kevin. "There are too many."
"Not for me," Ajandor replied.
Gray Dancer hissed from its scabbard, the mithral blade luminous even on this dreary, rainy morning. The thin man strode forward.
"My sword might not even hurt them!" Kevin called after him.
Ajandor didn't bother to reply, nor did he falter in his advance. Kevin cast away his hindering rag of a mantle, drew his own quite possibly useless weapon, and trotted to catch up with the knight.
As they closed to fighting distance, the phantoms spread out to encircle their human foes. Resolved to prevent that, Kevin pivoted and cut at the one on the left.
The impact felt as if his blade were shearing through cloth, not sinking into flesh, but at least there was resistance. The shadow reeled back with a rent in the middle of its chest.
Kevin cried out in satisfaction-he was still afraid of the cursed apparitions, but at least this time he was fighting something he could damage-and the shadows responded with a piercing, silent shriek. It wasn't sound, but he could hear it inside his head. He flinched at the pain, and two of the phantoms sprang forward and clutched him by the wrists.
Their fingers were burning cold, but the chill was the least of it. Something, strength, or life itself, perhaps, drained out of Kevin and into his assailants. His vision blurred, and his knees buckled. Inside his mind, the shadows squealed in greed and triumph.
He tried to wrench his sword arm free, but the shadow maintained its hold. As Ajandor had taught him, he heaved up his leg and stamped, raking his boot along the ghostly creature's shin and smashing it down on its foot. It seemed to Kevin that with so much of his strength leeched away already, the stomp kick was a puny, fumbling effort. Still, perhaps startled, the shadow loosened its grip. The squire shoved that one away and turned to the other. It scrambled in even closer, wrapping its arms around his torso, making it impossible to bring the point or edge of his sword to bear. For a moment, weak, frozen, he couldn't think what to do, and Ajandor's lessons came back to him again. He bashed the shadow's head with the heavy steel egg of his weapon's pommel, and losing its hold, the shadow slumped to one knee.