The thought of The Shadowsil's passing made him feel dark and weak inside, and he rose out of that momentary sadness feeling savage. He clutched a wand fiercely and wanted badly to strike down something. Then he frowned.
The girl. Yes. Spellfire, it had been. He yet smarted where it had briefly touched him, despite all the healing potions he'd drunk since, emptying the belt he wore across his stomach. Gods, but it hurt yet! It had been fortunate she was so untutored and so unused to battle, or Manshoon the Mighty might well have fallen this day. Her power must be his own, and soon, before Elminster mastered it! Not such an old fool, that one. Not aggressive, but even stronger in art than he'd thought. No doubt he'd take a measure of killing-something best prepared in haste when back at-
Gods! They were flying among the trees!
Orlgaun had sunk lower and lower as Manshoon had pondered, the great wings moving more and more feebly, and suddenly its claws and belly were crashing and thrusting through the small uppermost branches of the tallest trees in the forest. Manshoon shouted, hauling hard on the fin before him and staring ahead. But the dragon did not respond, and the trees stretched on as far as the eye could see, with only a few gaps just ahead. Manshoon cursed feelingly as the dragon crashed further downward amid snapping and wildly whipping branches, rocking and buffeting its rider. The blows and crashes grew steadily harder as Orlgaun sank full into the trees, crushing them with its vast bulk and smashing them aside with the velocity of its fall.
More and more slowly they struck the next tree, and the next, and Manshoon crouched low and fended off flailing branches grimly as the great wyrm came down to earth. Orlgaun did not even grunt; perhaps its spirit had fled its torn and battered body in the air while still above the trees. Certainly this would be its last flight. Manshoon saw one wing smashed limply backward by a gigantic phandar that itself broke asunder, the trunk groaning as it parted, and then the dragon struck a stand of shadowtops head-on and the world itself seemed to shake and split asunder.
Manshoon found himself, when he could see straight again, hanging head-down in a tangled ruin of shadowtop branches and leaves, Orlgaun's scaled back above him. The dragon lay belly uppermost among smashed and splintered wood, impaled and twisted horribly. The mage crawled and slipped about until he fell out of the branches to the leaf-strewn ground beneath, and moved out from under the vast carcass as soon as he gained his feet. He had lost the wand, though he still carried other items of power aplenty. Ahead, in the direction Orlgaun had been flying, the trees thinned into some sort of clearing. All about lay green dimness, still echoing with the last rustlings of Orlgaun's fall.
Manshoon took a step forward, and another, and then stared in shock at a bat-winged, horned, and tusked creature that had appeared out of the trees in front of him. A malebranche! Beyond it he could see another, and quick glances about told him that others were approaching. The devils of Myth Drannor!
The High Lord of Zhentil Keep cast a spell in grim haste, backing away, and then cursed loudly and feelingly as his lightnings struck down the nearest devil. He turned away from the clearing and fled as fast as his legs could go. The trees here grew too thickly even to fly! As he ran, Manshoon drew a wand of paralyzation from its holder at his belt and thought on how best to use the magics he had left. It had not been a good day.
10
Full Flagons
I have known high honor, proud fame, and great riches, and have drunk deep of good wine at feasts where my mouth watered and my belly was filled with delightful viands amid good fellowship and conversation… and I tell you that all these pale and drift away as idle dreams before the gentle touch of my Lady.
The knights had traveled swiftly into the woods, moving northward, after the retreat of Manshoon. The Thunder Peaks marched north on their left with them as they went, leaving Rauglothgor's shattered lair behind. They walked until night fell, rose with the dawn, and went on again until another nightfall.
In Mistledale, the knights purchased mules. Elminster let lapse the last of a succession of floating discs he had conjured up to carry Shandril, despite her protests. The others had walked.
A footsore Narm clambered up onto his mule, which favored him with an unfriendly look, and glanced enviously at the knights who still sprang about and vaulted up into their saddles and traded jests with unflagging enthusiasm. They were obviously all used to walking miles at a stretch, from aged Elminster to the Lady Jhessail. Narm's thighs were achingly stiff. He grinned as Rathan, who had begun a ballad that told of the glories of Tymora's favor, gave up helplessly under Torm's persistent needling. The thief had quickly parodied line after line as they plunged into a narrow, gloomy path in the woods. Rathan ceased with a sigh when they were barely out of sight of Mistledale's sunlight.
The green dimness of the woods was all about them now. Shandril leaned over to Narm and asked in a low voice, "How far away is Myth Drannor?" They traded sober glances, and Jhessail turned in her saddle and said, "Due east of us, several days distant. The river Ashaba lies between us and Myth Drannor at all times, this trip. That gate The Shadowsil took you through in the ruined city took you across half the Dalelands to the dracolich's lair."
The couple's involuntary shared sigh of relief was cut short by Torm's dry, sharp voice saying from where he rode watchfully behind them, "Ah, yes. We can head that way if you'd like. I hear one can have a devil of a time there, heh-heh…"
He smiled benignly at the chorus of dirty looks flung his way. Someone has to provide entertainment, after all.
It was late. The golden light of approaching sunset glinted on leaves ahead of and above them. Vet the knights pressed on. Riding beside each other except where trees in the trail forced them into single file, Narm and Shandril clasped hands reassuringly. Whatever happened, they were together. When it grew suddenly much darker, Jhessail and Merith conjured glowing motes of light that drifted along in midair with them, bobbing and floating about, occasionally darting to one side to illuminate this or that tangle of brush or dark thicket.
They rode on slowly amid the giant trees and smaller saplings alike, the soft singing of crickets all about them. The chorus would die away in front of them and begin again behind them. Off to one side or the other, particularly to the right, eerie gray-green and blue radiances-small and scattered glows that did not move-could be seen occasionally.
"What's that?" Narm asked, pointing. "Is it witchfire?"
Merith nodded. "Glow moss, witchfire, and the other fungi of the forest that shine at night. The elven name for all of them is, in Common, 'nightshine'." The elf lounged in his saddle, helm hung from its horn, very much at his ease. Of course, Shandril thought, feeling suddenly less awed and much safer, to Merith this endless wood is home. She relaxed, and very soon sank low in her saddle.
Jhessail saw her, and quietly worked a spell of sleep upon her and upon Narm, who rode, nodding himself, beside her. Merith took charge of the mules as his lady cast another floating disc. Torm chuckled softly as he boosted the sleepers from saddle to disc, and then yawned himself.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Jhessail warned him. "Get back on your mule."
Torm spread his hands in injured and very feigned innocence. "Why you think all these terrible things of me I don't know-I am grievously wronged, indeed, and-"
He staggered forward a step under the unexpected impact of a solid nudge in the back from his mule, and his friends burst into laughter all around him.