Elminster Enraged

This is none too safe a road, what with brigands lurking along it-this is where the notorious Broadshield’s Beasts roam, mind-and dragons lairing hereabouts. We’d rather not have a pitched battle on our hands, if it’s all the same to you!”

“Ho-ho!” Arclath exclaimed in delight, “a pitched battle! Did you hear that, Rune? They’re going to lay on a pitched battle for us! I’ve waited years to see a-”

Something-no, a lot of somethings-suddenly hummed out of the air in front of them, bringing the air all around to a brief thrumming everyone could feel as well as hear.

Then the cause of the thrumming reached them, and Dragons started to reel in their saddles or be smashed right out of them, as arrow after arrow crashed onto them, shivered into splinters against the soldier’s heavy armor, or speeding on past.

Arclath swung his horse in front of Rune’s to try to shield her, at the same time as the Dragon riding beside her caught hold of her mount’s bridle, to try to drag it toward the side of the road. The result was a confusing tangle of plunging, bucking horses, neighing amid all the arrows.

“A hail of arrows!” Arclath shouted in delighted tones. “A veritable hail of arrows! Is this part of the usual castle defenses, or are you trying to make us feel especially welcome by laying on a special salute? Or-”

The Dragon beside him finally lost patience and swung his mace, but Rune had already kicked Arclath’s mount in the ribs, and it bolted forward just in time. The mace struck nothing, and the force of its untrammeled swing sent its wielder toppling from his saddle.

“Ride!” a Dragon bellowed, behind them. “Ride hard! On, past this!”

All around, the warriors of the king spurred their horses and ducked low in their saddles. Rune did the same, Arclath reached over to try to shield her, and their horses galloped with the rest. They went hard around a bend, to fully face the wooded hillock all the arrows had come from, a little hill that the road curved right around. Then their racing horses reared and shied back.

Someone had freshly felled half a dozen trees across the road, great pines and shadowtops. These forest giants lay with their great boughs more or less intact, forming a barrier of tangled branches and leaves as high as a big cottage and as long as the palace stables back in Suzail. The uppermost branches of the felled trees had crashed down amid the standing trees on the far side of the road. No horse that couldn’t fly would be getting past the wall of fallen wood.

Another arrow whipped out of the trees and took a Purple Dragon out of his saddle by the throat, his head lolling at a sickening angle even before he crashed down into the road.

Then came another arrow, slicing past a Crown soldier’s shoulder close enough to make armor shriek.

“Back!” a Dragon shouted. “Back, back around the bend-and ride hard!”

In the neighing, kicking confusion, Amarune flung both her arms around her horse’s neck just to stay mounted, her saddle bouncing bruisingly beneath her. All around her, Dragons tried to wrestle their horses around, draw swords, and clap their visors down or their helms on their heads, all at once. A few of them managed it. She saw others take arrows through their bare heads or through the open fronts of their helms-and then with plunging hooves everywhere she was slipping, slipping …

Arclath’s strong arm caught Rune and hauled back upright, then slammed her low onto the shoulders of her surging mount. They were headed back the way they’d come at a hard gallop. Ahead she could see men leaping out of the forest, some of them sprinting across the road trailing ropes that were soon pulled taut, a flimsy barrier she was bearing down on.

Around her, Dragons were cursing in bitter, snarling earnest; “Farruking Broadshield’s Beasts!” seemed to be a popular phrase.

Their attackers-foresters who’d stolen bits and pieces of armor to wear, by the looks of them-were out in the road now, running everywhere, many in pairs carrying felled trees that they moved to bar the ways of the hard- galloping horses. There was rearing and screaming from the horses as riders spilled from saddles-and the ring and clang of swords hacking and being parried rose all around. Rune’s own mount reared, and she sprang clear when it seemed it might go right over on its back. A moment later Arclath was beside her, down off his own horse and standing guard over her with a loop of his chains gathered in his hand.

“This way,” he panted, jerking his head, and Rune ran with him, for the trees. Almost immediately, a Dragon somewhere behind them shouted, “The prisoners! The prisoners are escaping!”

Grinning foresters-the notorious outlaws known as Broadshield’s Beasts, Rune supposed-ran toward them, too, swords and daggers drawn. They were everywhere, some waiting in the trees they were sprinting for … there was no escape, nowhere to run …

A grinning bearded face loomed up in front of her, telling her gleefully, “You’re mine now, little maid!” Dirty hands reached out-

Air erupted behind the Beasts with a roar and a puff of smoke, and out of it raced bright and snarling bolts of lightning, dozens of them. One stabbed the man reaching for Rune, and he fell on his face without another word.

All around, outlaws staggered, screamed-and fell. Lightning leaped to race and crackle around an armored Dragon, fighting in the midst of three Beasts-and he shuddered, danced a few agonized and spasming steps, then crashed to the ground, smoldering.

Then, just as swiftly as they’d come, the lightning was gone, leaving nothing but the drifting smoke that had birthed it.

Off to Amarune’s right, sudden vivid emerald flame blossomed around a running outlaw-and consumed him.

“Magic!” one of the Beasts roared. “Men, the wizards are come!”

A ragged cheer arose. Rune was astonished to see that it was coming from both the Purple Dragons and their foes.

“Come on!” Arclath hissed, pulling at her and starting to run.

Right in front of them, the world erupted in emerald flames.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE UNSEEN FOE

S-sune’s … brazen … charms!” Arclath cursed, hurling himself back in a twisting leap that brought him around Amarune in a curling embrace. The blast flung them both away together, in a hurtling ball that bounced bruisingly, twice, before they skidded to a stop against the body of a fallen outlaw whose leather-clad bulk was solid but … soft.

Grimacing at the smell of death and blood, Rune rolled away from the dead man, clawing her way up and out of Arclath’s arms in a rattle of chains.

“I’ve-” she panted angrily, “some strength and … agility of my own, you know! You don’t have to shield me like some child!”

“Rune,” the heir of House Delcastle panted, looking hurt, “you’re my lady! I’m sworn to defend you! ’Tis only right! The decent thing to do!”

Their ears were ringing from the blast, ribbons of smoke drifted everywhere across the road, and fresh bursts of emerald flame whooshed into being, here and there, usually hurling blazing-limbed outlaws aside in doing so.

A short, burly outlaw came striding through that wrack of smoke, dead and dying men, and fleeing, frightened horses. He peered into the trees, then turned and bellowed in the loudest voice Rune had ever heard bar heralds’ proclamations amplified by magic: “Hah! At last! Use the dread arrows! Dread arrows, all!”

By the ragged shouts of reply, those words seemed to have been a command, which could only mean-if these were the Beasts-that this short, stout, loud-voiced man must be the outlaw Broadshield himself.

With a frown, Arclath shook his chains out into a loop he could use to strangle a man, and strode toward the