"N-no. I thought… so… once, but-" The laboring, wheezing voice suddenly caught. Mulser made a little bubbling, choking sound and fell silent. Elminster looked into the warrior's eyes until they stopped seeing anything, then got up stiffly and said, "Go to the gods in peace, Mulser."
Sharantyr's eyes were tender yet angry. "You were kind to him," she said. Elminster shrugged. "And yet," she added slowly, "he is a Zhentilar, one of the Black Blades that have spent years carving up the Dales and the dalefolk that live in them. One of those we must fight every season. Zhentilar chained me as a slave, once. I was running from their cruelties when the drow took me."
Elminster touched her arm. "I've seen ye strike down Zhentilar before, right eagerly. Does doing so heal any of those memories?"
Sharantyr's eyes were dark as she said coldly, "No. Not yet." She lifted the naked sword that lay across her knees and added, "But 'tis not for lack of trying."
The old wizard sighed. " 'Tis not my place to judge. All of us are driven by things. Even this poor soldier." He nudged Mulser's body with his foot. "One of my tasks is to strike down the evil folk who drove him on, those who command the Black Blades. Such foes make the Zhentarim truly dangerous."
"If you're going to keep on at that task, I'll fight beside you with a right good will," Sharantyr said fiercely.
They regarded each other in silence for a breath, then the Old Mage turned away.
"Come," he said shortly. "We must hide these dead men and go on." He strode away into the night almost angrily, and Sharantyr looked after him with concern.
Elminster went only a little way, growled, and came back looking fierce. "My pardon, please, lass," he said grimly. " 'Tis a churl's act to make thee do all the carrion heaving alone."
Sharantyr, puffing under Mulser's dead weight, said only, "Take his feet, then."
They spent a few uncomfortable breaths puffing and struggling in the darkness and then were done. The bodies lay in a corner of the ruins where two walls met, buried under all the rubble Sharantyr could shift: stones, old beams, tiles, and a few tangled creepers.
Elminster walked slowly back and looked at the oval of floating, glowing light. Sharantyr rolled her eyes, breast heaving with her efforts, and set the last large rock on the pile before going after him.
"Well," she panted, as she joined him, "what now?"
Elminster smiled at her mildly, gestured at the gate flickering silently before him, and then calmly strolled through it.
They were somewhere dark. Out of the night above and ahead of them came a hissing crossbow bolt. Elminster calmly shoved Sharantyr to one side and leapt the other way. The quarrel hissed past.
They were crouching on turf, with mountains rising at their backs and far ahead of them. Just ahead, the ground descended into the High Dale. From the trees there came another bolt, this one close enough to stir Elminster's thinning hair though he was well away from the gate's glow. The shaft must have been fired blind.
Then from the trees came the unmistakable booming sound of an alarm gong, the finest brass-and-drum sort sold in Sembia for a gold piece each.
"Oh, dung," Elminster said clearly into the night. From somewhere off to his left he heard a snort as Sharantyr stifled a giggle. Elminster rolled his eyes and trotted forward. The sentinel would have to be up a tree, now that the heroic archmage of Shadowdale was getting a bit too old for climbing trees in the dark. Oh, dung and double dung, indeed.
5
Sharantyr had expected trouble on the other side of the gate. A temple or gloomy spell chamber, perhaps, crowded with evil-looking men and weird, gibbering creatures who slunk, slithered, or prowled the lengths of their chains-or worse, prowled unleashed.
She'd expected trouble, and Elminster had not failed her. They'd found it.
Instead of a castle or cavern, they stood under the open sky between two mountain ranges. By the stars, they were south and a little west of Shadowdale, and she was facing south. Here it was a fair, clear night with a cool breeze blowing gently from the east. The grass under her feet descended to trees, the source of their trouble: an alarm gong and someone who had fired two ready crossbows dangerously well. Or more than one someone.
That thought kept Shar crouched low as she ran forward across the little dell, dodging but heading to the left, trying to get as far as possible from the amber radiance of the gate behind her. The gong sounded again, a faster, repeated ringing as if the sentinel were scared. Wise of him.
Sharantyr's rapid progress brought her to the lip of the dell. A track-grassy and rutted, wide enough for carts-descended toward barnlike buildings, lamplight, and, in the distance amid a torchlit cluster of buildings at the bottom of the valley, the unmistakable walls of a small, stout old castle.
A faint crackling of branches warned her of the guard's descent and probable attack. Sharantyr turned to face the sound and shrank farther to the left into the concealing shadow of bushes. What was Elminster doing?
More crackling. The guard was descending a wooden ladder, snapping branches aside in his haste. Sharantyr tried to look like part of the night, her blade held low and ready in her own shadow, her head bowed to keep her eyes small and screened by her hair. Soon… soon… Now!
The guard was hurrying the last few steps. His haste would carry him right past her. His gaze could not help but fall on her, and he could stick her with anything long and sharp he might have before she could even land a blow. Gods spit on us all!
A familiar, testy voice came out of the night from the other side of the ladder, behind the descending guard. "I'm over here, by the gods! Who taught ye to shoot a crossbow, anyway, Manshoon himself?"
Sharantyr didn't blame the guard. She could not have heard that taunt and failed to turn and look. The shadowy man pivoted as he landed, blade sweeping around to confront the unseen speaker. Sharantyr rose out of the night from behind him like a hungry shadow. Her hand jerked his head back sharply, covering his mouth and robbing him of breath at the same time. Her blade flashed as she drew it sideways with cold precision, and she ducked low to keep most of the blood out of her hair.
"Done this before, have ye?" Elminster asked out of the darkness. Sharantyr sighed loudly and shook her head as the man died in her arms.
"Old Mage," she hissed in anger. "Must you?"
Elminster spread innocent hands. "I'm not sure what ye're on about, this time, but we have only breaths before whatever comrades this fellow has-er, had-respond to his gong. Flip him over and drag him by the feet, facedown, to the gate. I want a trail of blood even a blind Calishite couldn't miss. Where'd he drop his crossbow? Ah, I have it. Come!"
Sharantyr did as she was bid. In the flickering light of the gate, Elminster's face was intent as he crouched low. "Down, lass. Against the light ye make a most fetching target, I must say, but 'tis not the time. Got thy dagger handy? Good. Make ye the Harper marks for 'Trap Ahead' and 'Keep Low' on his breast."
"On flesh or his leathers?"
"Leathers, lass, leathers. Harpers have to read 'em, mind, and they're apt to be as blind as the next cow, in the dark."
Sharantyr swiftly cut the two diagonally crossed inverted T shapes that warned of a trap, and then the circle bisected by a horizontal line, with a parallel line atop it, that warned observing Harpers to keep their bodies low.
Elminster nodded critically, laid the crossbow across the man's legs, and asked, "Head or feet?"
Sharantyr swiftly said, "Feet for me. Your turn for the blood."
Elminster wrinkled his nose. Together they lifted the body, swung it twice, and tossed it faceup into the oval of light. It passed through soundlessly and was gone. Sharantyr had to grin when Elminster bent to peek under the oval to make sure that the body wasn't just lying on the ground behind it. The grass was bare.