Outside the inn, two Zhentilar sentries lay dead with short spears protruding from their chests. Another sentry had fallen in the doorway. Thirty halflings lay scattered throughout the clearing, black arrows in their breasts. A handful of the small warriors had reached the inn and hacked eight window shutters off their hinges. Beneath three sills, bloodstains darkened the stone walls, and halfling bodies lay beneath two more windows.
With a sad heart, Midnight realized that she had stumbled across the men from Black Oaks, Sneakabout’s village.
Sleeping only four hours a day, the halflings had marched straight through Yellow Snake Pass. Two nights ago, they had slipped past Adon and Kelemvor, finally catching up to their prey the previous evening. The war party had attacked just before dawn, surprising the sentries with a vicious volley of woomera-launched spears.
If they had stopped there, the halflings might have returned to Black Oaks with their pride and their bodies intact. But they had foolishly rushed the stone building. The Zhentilar inside, well trained and disciplined, had awakened the instant the sentries screamed. The soldiers had fired several volleys of arrows out the windows. Most of the short fighters had fallen before reaching the inn.
Midnight found herself curiously angry at the halflings. Over thirty of them had died, and they had gained nothing. The foolhardy attack against the inn had wiped out their company, and the survivors would have been no match for the strength of full-sized men in hand-to-hand combat.
Though it was clear the halflings had lost the battle, Midnight realized that there might be survivors. If so, the mage had to aid them. Part of her conviction was due to guilty feelings about Sneakabout’s death, but the magic- user was also a compassionate woman who despised needless suffering. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of leaving any halflings in merciless Zhentish hands.
Midnight also wanted to sneak down to the inn for another reason. She had long suspected Cyric’s Zhentilar were the ones who had raided Sneakabout’s village, and the halfling’s crazed attack on the thief had gone a long way toward confirming that suspicion. If so, then Cyric would be at the inn, and his presence would mean that he had violated his promise not to follow her. The magic-user had to see if her suspicions were true.
Midnight crawled away from the shagbark tree and retreated to the gully where her pony was tied. As the raven-haired magic-user approached, the pony stomped its hooves and snorted.
“What do you want?” Midnight asked. “We left Hill’s Edge an hour ago. You can’t be hungry again.”
Of course, the pony said nothing. Midnight shook her head and sighed heavily, feeling silly for addressing a dumb animal as if it could respond. The magic-user had grown so lonely she thought of the beast in human terms. Midnight missed Adon and, especially, Kelemvor. Sneaking out of camp, she had felt no special need to make amends with her friends. Now, she ached to take back the anger between them.
But it was too late. The magic-user had a mission to accomplish, and she knew that it would be better to forget Kelemvor and Adon for now. Perhaps that was why she had begun thinking of the pony as a companion.
At least this newfound empathy had served Midnight well. Twice, the pony had smelled something that frightened it. If the magic-user had not been attuned to her mount’s moods, she would have missed the pony’s skittishness and pressed forward into disaster. The first time, Midnight would have stumbled into a goblin patrol. Though it might have been easy to escape using her magic, Midnight was just as glad she had not needed to try.
The second time, the pony had smelled something that frightened it badly. When the mage had investigated, she found one of the few patrols Darkhold had kept in Yellow Snake Pass. Midnight’s magic might have handled the Zhentilar, too, but the patrol had been escorting a humanoid stone statue standing ten feet tail. As soon as she had looked into its vacant eyes and had seen it walking under its own power, Midnight had recognized the statue as a stone golem and hurried away. By their very natures, stone golems were almost immune to magic.
Other than that, her journey down Yellow Snake Pass had been uneventful. Last night, she had stayed in a small hostel in Hill’s Edge. Though most residents of the town had been cold and distant, the innkeeper was a warm man not averse to offering good advice to his customers. When Midnight had asked where she could discreetly buy a fast horse, he had suggested the livery before which the mage now stood. Fortunately, Midnight had approached it cautiously, for Hill’s Edge had been crawling with Zhentilar, and she had correctly suspected there might be more at the stable.
The pony nuzzled Midnight under the arm, looking for something to eat. The mage ignored it and took the saddlebags off its back. Without Adon and Kelemvor to help guard the tablet, she didn’t want to leave the saddlebag containing the artifact unattended.
She started to pick her way down the slope, being careful to stay well hidden in the heavy brush and not to kick loose rocks or snap twigs. When the mage reached the bottom of the bluff, a cold drizzle began. The rain smelled foul and rotten, as though something in the clouds had died. The inn remained dark and still.
Midnight paused to search for signs of a sentry. Then she heard a faint chorus of deep laughter behind the inn. A high-pitched voice cried, “Not again, I beg—aaaaghh!”
Taking care to remain concealed in the brush, the magic-user circled around to the southern side of the building. The high-pitched voice screamed again, then fell silent. A few seconds later, the foul drizzle changed to a shower, and Midnight reached the edge of the clearing. She stopped a hundred feet away from the building, where she had a clear view of the area between the inn and the river.
Standing up to their chests in water, four Zhentilar held a ten-foot long log in place against the current. They had carved a deep groove in the center of the wood, and in this groove rested the joint of two long poles lashed together at right angles. The Zhentilar had tied a halfling to the far end of each pole, leaving his arms free so that he could swim and hold himself above water.
The diabolic result of this construction was that a prisoner could not hold himself above the surface without forcing his comrade at the other end beneath the water. Two wet halflings already lay on shore, one dead, the other coughing weakly.
Four more Zhentish soldiers stood at the river’s edge, chuckling quietly and betting on which prisoner would survive. Another man stood apart from them, evidently uninterested in the cruel sport. He was a large man with black braided hair, a bushy beard, and gleaming blue-black chain mail.
A cloak-shrouded figure left the four wagering Zhentilar and walked toward the lone black-haired man, pulling his cape tight over his shoulders. Midnight immediately recognized Cyric.
“Come on, Dalzhel, join the fun!” the hawk-nosed thief cried.
“You’re wasting time, sir.”
Cyric looked back to the water torture. “Nonsense. The men are enjoying themselves.” He did not add that he found the diversion entertaining, too.
“What of the woman? We should ride after her.”
“There’s no need,” Cyric said confidently. “The spies in Hill’s Edge spotted her and tell me that she’s alone.” He paused and smiled. “She’ll come to us.”
A roar went up from the Zhentilar, and Midnight saw that one prisoner had broken the surface of the river, plunging his companion beneath the waves.
“Another plan, milord?” Dalzhel asked, ignoring the cheering spectators.
Cyric nodded, then looked back at the struggling halflings and chuckled. “She’s going to ride right into our arms,” he said absently.
Midnight licked her lips and tasted an angry sweat. She had nearly done just that. In fact, she might yet be captured.