The spirits of dead Untaris and Alpirs had filled them in on the general details of the fight at the Desai encampment-and it had indeed been a fight, one that this child, this little girl named Ruqiah, had clearly dominated.
Soon after, Lady Avelyere and her charges had witnessed a taste of that same magic that had destroyed the two Netherese agents, when first they had managed to actually locate Ruqiah in a scrying pool. That image, and the sky to the east of their position, had flashed brilliantly in the discharge of a summoned burst of lightning.
“She does not fear the lightning,” Eerika had noted, “because she summons it to her bidding!”
“Druidic magic,” agreed a third woman, Rhyalle, like Eerika barely more than a teenager. “Like her shapechanging.”
Lady Avelyere, meticulous as ever, had absorbed it all, trying to make some sense of this unusual child. Lord Ulfbinder, her dear friend Parise, had not exaggerated, she knew in that moment, and she could certainly understand his interest! She was a teacher most of all, and her students exclusively female, like Eerika and Rhyalle and the other three she had brought to the plains of Netheril. She wondered what Lord Parise’s intentions for this one might be; wouldn’t it be grand for her to add this marvelous little Ruqiah to her house of magic?
Another lightning bolt flashed, and a growling rumble of thunder shook the ground beneath their feet.
“When this child waters her garden, beware!” the lighthearted Rhyalle remarked with a laugh, and the others join;}span.bigI stopped oned in-all except for Lady Avelyere, who intently watched the girl and her dance through the magic of the scrying pool, wondering what she could teach her, and wondering even more so what she might learn from the child.
But first, of course, she would have to catch her.
The Year of Splendors Burning (1469 DR) Netheril
Some months later, Catti-brie drifted on the hot updrafts in the guise of a great hawk, far above the dark brown sands of Netheril. The day was bright and clear and the world spread wide below her. She saw the snake of a river, glistening silvery in the sunlight as it wound its way to a small lake far in the northwest.
Straighter north, she saw the distant outline of Shade Enclave, with its dark towers and high walls, an entire city hovering above the plain on an inverted floating mountain of rock. Of all the sights Catti-brie had ever known, from the mysterious tapestry of Menzoberranzan to the spires of Silverymoon, none quite matched the one in the distance before her. The place didn’t appeal to her sensibilities, but certainly Shade Enclave intrigued her, evoking both curiosity and a sense of unnerving displacement. As magnificent and incredible as the sight might be, Catti-brie didn’t dwell on it.
The tents of the Desai shone white below her to the west-she could imagine the tribesmen going about their day. She thought of her parents, and reminded herself that she was due to meet with them again in just a tenday. She looked forward to it; Kavita was teaching her several potent spells to manipulate and create fire …
The thought couldn’t hold. Not up here, free on the updrafts, gliding around as a hawk. The world looked so different to her from this vantage, and with her new insights. She looked at the river again, then off to the west, where dark clouds had gathered. She could even see the lowering darkness of heavy rain falling. The perfection of nature’s design overwhelmed her, for the simple clockwork of the world was truly a beautiful thing. The rain would fall, the rivers would run, and the rising heat would lift again the moisture into the air, cleansing it that it might fall and nurture the plants and the creatures once more.
The whole of Mielikki’s cycle flowed through her thoughts as her feathered wings spread wide to lift her on the winds. Life, death, the continuum of time and space. The cycle, and within it, the great wheel of civilization, rolling forward so slowly.
She could appreciate more clearly the life she had lived, the roles she had played, the gains she and her powerful companions had made for those goodly folk around them.
CHAPTER 10
The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Citadel Felbarr
The overhead chop came as predicted, painfully predictable to the sensibilities of the seasoned warrior.
Bruenor found himself disgusted with how pedestrian his opponent proved to be. This was the top student of Bruenor’s training group.
But still, Bruenor’s feint had been obvious, and the idea that the dwarfling had swallowed it so fully …
Bruenor easily turned aside to avoid the downward strike, sliding one hand up to the middle of his fighting stick-straight poles this day-and thrusting his arm out behind him, driving the weapon hilt into the ribs of the stumbling dwarfling. Bruenor’s continuing turn put him directly behind the gasping youth-and he in the general direction, then paBo her father remembered that it was, after all, just a child here, and that thought almost slowed his next merciless strike.
Almost.
His two-handed slash cracked his weapon across the dwarfling’s head and sent him flying to the side and to the floor, where he abandoned his weapon and grabbed at his head with both hands, tears flowing and cries of pain echoing.
Gasps came from all around the room, along with a call from Master Muttonchops Stonehammer to two other dwarflings.
Bruenor sighed and turned around to meet the charge of not one, but two students this time.
Fist and Fury, they were called, the powerful Fellhammer sisters, considered among the top students of the training class above Bruenor’s level. And Bruenor had to admit that by the way they were coming in at him, their coordination appeared sophisticated and correct.
He settled himself calmly, feet widespread, and easily defeated the twin thrusts with a sudden down-and-over, leftward sweep of his fighting stick, at the same time hopping out to the left to further exaggerate the miss.
The nearest of the twins, though, extracted herself almost immediately and with a quick two-step, launched herself at Bruenor, swinging with one hand, punching with the other.
He dived down low, shouldering her just above the knee and launching her into a somersault past him, to thump down hard on her back on the dirt floor of the chamber. The collision staggered Bruenor a bit, but he never lost his balance, and was already into his next move, sweeping a tremendous uppercut that froze the second sister in her tracks, and just barely missed taking the tip from her nose.
She charged in right behind the uppercut with a roar.
Bruenor had known that he would miss with his wild swing; the point of the attack was to give him just an eye-blink of time to reset his footing and to get his momentum going. As his stick lifted, he veered that momentum and threw himself into a rolling back flip over the stabbing stick of the female and over her arms, as well, landing only a step back to the right, but directly in front of her.
She was just a child, a girl child, he reminded himself. But with a growl, he slammed his forehead into her face anyway, and as she staggered backward under the blow, he leaped up, flattened out, and double-kicked her in the torso.
He landed on his side, bounced right back up and parried the incoming attack from the first of the sisters.
“Bungo’s Roll,” Emerus Warcrown said to Muttonchops at the side of the room, correctly naming the maneuver Bruenor had used on the second charging teenager. “When did ye start teachin’ the dwarflings to dance such a move as that?”
“Haven’t,” Muttonchops said with a shake of his head.
Emerus Warcrown turned his attention back to the fight, just in time to see one of the sisters go flipping head-over-heels to the right and to see the second cringe in pain as Little Arr Arr, working her hands, her weapon, and her attention up high, stomped down on her foot.