“I know you haven’t traveled long with Midnight and her friends,” Lord Deverell continued, resuming his seat. “If you wish to stay here, my offer is serious. I can always use men with keen wits.”
“You flatter me,” Sneakabout said, astonished. Humans rarely offered positions of authority to halflings.
Midnight bit her lip. If Sneakabout took the offer, she would have to congratulate him and appear happy.
“I’d like to accept,” the halfling replied, looking into Deverell’s blurry eyes. “But my path runs with Midnight’s for a while yet.”
Midnight breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, thinking Lord Deverell deserved further explanation, Sneakabout added, “I’ve certain unfinished business with a Zhentilar band pursuing them.”
“Black Oaks,” said Pell Beresford, pushing aside his empty bowl.
Sneakabout nodded. “How did you know?”
“Before dawn, forty of your people passed this way. They were trailing a troop of Zhentilar that one of our patrols chased off during the night.”
“No doubt the same Zhentilar that chased you into our company,” Lord Deverell observed.
“I must leave at once!” Sneakabout exclaimed, hopping out of his chair. “Where did they go?”
“Patience,” said Lord Deverell. “They undoubtedly fled to the west, and those lands belong to the Zhentilar—if they belong to anybody. You’ll never find the ones you seek, though plenty of evil will find you. It would be wiser to forego your vengeance and accept my offer.”
“If it were only a matter of vengeance, I would,” Sneakabout sighed. He meant what he said. As much as he ached to repay the men who destroyed Black Oaks, he knew that no good would come of trailing them into the Tun Plain.
But Sneakabout had no choice. When the Zhentilar had attacked his village, they had stolen his sword. Now, as evil as it was, he had to steal it back. The thing had a will of its own—a will that had long dominated Sneakabout, forcing him to murder indiscriminately and often. If the red blade’s absence had not been driving him insane, Sneakabout would have been happy to be rid of the thing.
But an irrational desire to recover the sword dominated all of his thoughts and he had not slept an hour since losing it. Sneakabout knew his symptoms would get worse. The sword’s previous owner had turned into a raving lunatic—before dying in a poorly planned attempt to recover the weapon.
The lord commander, misinterpreting the desperation in Sneakabout’s eyes as resolve, said, “Do as your honor dictates. No matter how great my need, I can’t command you to stay.”
Sneakabout bowed to Deverell. “My thanks for your hospitality.” He turned to Midnight. “Please say good-bye to Kelemvor and Adon for me.”
“Where are you going?” Midnight demanded, rising to her feet.
“To track down the Zhentilar who destroyed my village,” the halfling answered, glancing at the door anxiously. “As I remember, you wanted to avoid them.”
Midnight ignored his barbed comment. “You’re going to catch your people and join the war party?” she probed.
“You know they won’t have me,” Sneakabout replied testily.
“If you go alone, the odds are twenty-to-one,” Deverell said. He shook his head in disbelief.
“Are you mad?” Midnight added, grabbing the halfling’s shoulder.
Noticing that the Cormyrian officers were listening to the exchange, Sneakabout hesitated before replying. Midnight did not know about the sword’s curse. Nobody did, and he thought it wise to keep it that way. Finally, the halfling pulled away from the magic-user and snapped, “I’ve slipped into better guarded camps.”
“And then what?” Midnight demanded. “Will you slit twenty throats as the Zhentilar sleep?”
Just one, the halfling thought. He’d done that often enough. But all he said was, “I must go.”
“You’ll be killed!” Midnight cried. She clenched her fists, angry at the little man’s stubbornness.
“Perhaps not,” Lord Deverell noted, turning to halfling. “We often send heavy patrols into the Tun Plain. It’s time for another. If you rode with it, you’d be safe until you caught the Zhentilar who raided your village.”
Before Sneakabout could reply, Deverell turned to Midnight. “The patrol could also escort your company as far as Yellow Snake Pass, if you’re going that way.”
Several officers arched their brows, thankful they had been permanently assigned to garrison duty.
“We’d certainly welcome that,” Midnight said. She and her companions had not yet discussed their new route to Waterdeep, but she knew both Adon and Kelemvor would agree. They’d been driven so far north that risking the Tun Plain and Yellow Snake Pass would be much easier than going south to join a caravan.
“Good,” Deverell said wearily. “I’ll have the quartermaster assemble a few supplies. You’ll need mountain ponies, cold weather gear, spare weapons, rope, a map.…”
Cyric sat huddled behind a boulder, a wet cloak drawn over his shoulders. To all sides, white-streaked peaks eclipsed the horizon, scraping their jagged snouts against the sky’s gray belly. Cyric’s men were camped on the only flat space visible for miles, a field of man-sized rocks at the base of a towering cliff. The field ended atop another cliff that overlooked the road from High Horn.
A gentle, cold breeze washed down the valley, carrying with it the sour odor of skunkweed. Though a few scrappy bushes grew in sheltered pockets, there wasn’t a tree or plant taller than a dwarf in sight.
Dalzhel stood next to Cyric, having just relayed what he thought was a reasonable request from the men.
“They can’t build fires,” Cyric replied, not that he could see where anybody would find the wood to start one. After a night of icy drizzle, an insect eye had risen in the sun’s place. Though the eye had cast a green light over the mountains, its rays had lacked warmth, causing more grumbling among Cyric’s already disheartened men. Mercifully, clouds had finally moved in at midday and concealed the eye. At least the day now looked like it should be cold.
The chill did not trouble Cyric. Though the water in his canteen was frozen solid, he could not have been warmer if he had been sitting before a roaring fire. Although the thief did not fully understand the reason for his warmth, he suspected the red sword had something to do with it.
“We’re ill prepared for mountain travel,” Dalzhel grumbled, his nose and ears white from the cold. He looked toward the west, where eighteen of Cyric’s company sat huddled in the rock field. “The men are frozen and hungry.”
One of the Zhentish soldiers let out an agonized wail, as he had every few minutes since dawn. The howls unsettled the horses and put Cyric’s nerves on edge.
“No fires,” the hawk-nosed thief repeated. Though his men were freezing, there could be no fires, for fires created smoke, and smoke was visible for miles. “When our spies sight Midnight and we start moving, the men will warm up.”
“That’s little comfort,” Dalzhel replied, rubbing his hands together. “Half the men will be frozen corpses by then.”
“Think!” Cyric snapped. He touched the tip of his sword to a nearby rock. “This is us.” The thief moved the tip of his sword a few inches to the east. “And here is High Horn. The Cormyrians are over five hundred strong, with patrols crawling all over.”
Dalzhel winced at the mention of High Horn. Last night, they had camped a mile from the fortress. A patrol of fifty Cormyrians had surprised them. After losing quite a few of his men, Cyric had been forced to flee into the mountains.