Two bolts hit Leng, one bouncing off the bracer on his left arm, the other burying itself in his chest. He looked up at the remaining four—Gan, Gunton with his spear, and Ardeth and Royce with their crossbows held ready. And Mythkar Leng, High Priest of the Dark Sun, standing waist-deep in cold water, blood coursing out of his body, found himself without any further tricks.
"You would kill me to protect that thing?" he growled, waving a weak hand in the stone unicorn's direction.
"No," Royce said. "Because we want you dead."
"We're only here because of Geildarr!" he protested. "He wanted me dead, and..."
"Please," Royce protested. "You've given us plenty of reasons to hate you."
"You would murder a priest of Cyric?" he asked, blood dribbling from his mouth down his chin. He raised his shoulders in a pathetic gesture of contrition.
"Somehow," Ardeth said, "I doubt the Lord of Murder will mind."
Royce released another crossbow bolt, this one hitting Leng through his cheek and driving into his brain. Whether it killed him on impact or not they did not know, but he fell back into the fast-flowing water and was swept away by the current, carried off by its fury. The last they saw of Leng was a flash of his purple robes as the Unicorn Run dragged him around a bend.
The four survivors spun to face the stone unicorn, the spirit of the Run, which seemed unaffected by Leng's destruction. It was almost upon them.
"Shall we run?" asked Gunton. "Downstream, perhaps?"
"What good would it do?" asked Royce. All around them, unicorn heads now poked out of the forest—they were utterly surrounded, as well as outnumbered.
"We must stand our ground," Ardeth said.
"What?" asked Royce.
"We must link hands," she said, reaching out to Gan. The hobgoblin took her small hand in his massive one.
"This is how we face death?" asked Royce, his brow furrowed.
"It's how we survive," said Ardeth, hanging her crossbow at her belt and grabbing Royce's hand. Shrugging, his head shaking, he took Gunton's hand as well. The four of them anxiously watched each step of the creature until it was almost upon them. "Patience," said Ardeth, and its shadow fell on them, blacking out the sun like an eclipse. "And don't let go."
There, in that deep black shadow, they vanished, borne away as if on a swift breeze.
The spirit dissipated, shedding its material form. It rejoined the rocks, waters, trees, and air. The woods grew silent as the unicorns slipped away, the threat gone.
And the river kept on flowing, clean and pure.
CHAPTER 12
"We can relax now," Ardeth said. All the beautiful colors around them bleached away from the land, replaced with pallid blacks, grays, and whites. The Unicorn Run was transformed to a literal shadow of itself—ripples of dark mingling with flashes of white. The forest around them trembled with gray leaves.
"What happened to the world?" asked Gan.
"It's still there, but we're not," Gunton supplied. "This is the Plane of Shadow." He turned to Ardeth. "You're more of a wizard than you let on."
"I am just an initiate," Ardeth said. "But I have a trick or two. This place isn't safe either. We should get moving. Do not lose hold of me, or you could all be stranded in this place, or lost in one of a thousand worlds." She led the others north, in the direction of the Star Mounts, or rather the massive white peaks that stood in their place, wavering and trembling against a starless black sky.
The experience was unnerving for Gan, as a trembling world shorn of color zipped by them. They moved faster than they possibly could on Faerun, traveling up the rising hills. Soon the smoky spires towered around them on all sides. Ardeth told the others to be still, and soon the darkness melted away as light and color broke through.
They found themselves standing in a high alpine valley, disturbing a family of curly-horned sheep that dashed away over jagged rocks. The sudden blast of sunlight was an assault on their senses. The ground was rocky with generous vegetation—mosses, lichens, and fragile cedars sprouting from every free spot—and great mountains soared all around. These weren't just any mountains, but the fabled Star Mounts. High on the cliffs they could glimpse blue-purple shapes, like vast crystals.
It took the group several long breaths to admire the place and to let their eyes adjust to the bright light. Winds whistled high above them, but they could feel barely a breeze. The tallest mountains, those that could be viewed even from vantages outside the High Forest, were stern giants reaching up for the gray sky, their snow-capped heights vanishing into the haze. Less apparent from a distance were the smaller mountains that filled the spaces between them, each on par with the Graypeaks around Llorkh. The lower slopes were alive with streams and waterfalls that flowed down into the valleys and eventually became the Unicorn Run.
Ardeth said, "Thank Geildarr for our escape." She reached into her robes and produced a small black gem. She dropped it on the ground and it shattered as if it were glass. "Alas, we'll be forced to use our feet from here on."
"Thank Geildarr indeed!" Royce thundered at Ardeth. "If not for his petty rivalries, there'd be five Antiquarians alive now instead of two!"
Gan stepped forward, lifting the axe just slightly. Ardeth placed a hand on his arm to stop him.
"Spare me, hobgoblin!" Royce shouted. "I'm not going to kill your mistress today. Your glowering and brandishing of that battle-axe didn't intimidate Leng. Why didn't you just bury it in his brain and be done with it?"
Gan snorted and stood up straighter.
"Gan was only doing what I asked," Ardeth said. "Don't blame him."
"Oh, I don't," Royce said. "I blame you and Geildarr. If you wanted Leng dead, we could have devised a plan to slaughter him and hide every trace, if you had only told us."
"Why did it have to be the Unicorn Run?" asked Gunton. "Why did he have to die there?" A quieter soul than his leader, his anger manifested in red streaks spreading across his cheeks and a slight tremor in his voice.
Ardeth said, "We wanted him to choose his own death. It would look better to Fzoul that way. Also, Geildarr wanted Leng to have a death of... sufficient grandeur."
Royce laughed madly, the sound echoing off the high mountains surrounding them. "It had grandeur, that's for sure!" He made a fist and banged it against his leg. "And we were just expendable pieces in his scheme?"
"You're mercenaries," said Ardeth. "You are, by your nature, expendable."
"They were all fond of you," Royce said. His eyes were moistening and his voice broke. "Your pretty face, your graceful walk ... these things put us off guard. But my vision is clear now. Asmodeus's soul is no darker than yours." Unable to stop the tears for his dead companions, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands.
"I had hoped we might avoid the heights of the Star Mounts," said Gunton, staring accusingly at Ardeth. "Our mountaineering equipment was mostly destroyed when Leng set our camp ablaze. What remained was in Bessick's pack. It now lies at the bottom of the Run."
"I lived all my life in the Graypeaks," Gan proclaimed. "I know my way through mountains. I will lead the way."
Ardeth looked around. "Which of these is Mount Vision?" she asked. "The Sanctuary should lie to the east of it."
"Well, I'm guessing that we're somewhere deep inside the Mounts ..." Gunton surveyed the terrain and finally pointed out a distant peak rising over a group of smaller mountains, its tip vanishing into cloud and haze.