“Naed! Hrasting bitch, ” the man cursed, staring at her over his fired crossbow. “How the tluin did you step aside from that? ”
Pennae wasted no breath in a reply, but hurried toward him, hefting the dagger in her right hand. The man cursed again and flung the crossbow full in her face to buy himself time to drag out a rather rusty short sword.
Pennae launched herself up the wall, caught hold of a stone window-sill under a crudely boarded-over back window, and swung hard, boots first, catching the man in the throat at about the same time as he got his sword free.
He went over in a heap, arms twitching in spasms, and Pennae landed hard, heels first, on his ribs.
Just who was chasing her now was A crossbow bolt sang past her ear with the high, thrumming whine that meant it had only just missed her, and Pennae snarled and darted into the alley.
A moment later, she came out of it again-sobbing as she flew helplessly back through the air, snatched off her feet and spinning in midair, with a crossbow bolt right through her shattered shoulder.
Myrmeen Lhal looked up from the stack of decrees and dispensations she was rather wearily signing. That was the third alarm gong.
Three patrols called in as reinforcements? What by all the Nine Hells was going on?
Boots thundered in the passage, and she called out, “Asgarth? What’s all the tumult?”
“Those stlar-ahem, those Swords adventurers! Men’re firing crossbows all over Palaceside!” the lionar shouted, adding in his next breath, “Beg pardon, Lady Lord!”
“Granted,” Myrmeen called, deep and loud. And shook her head in wry amusement. She’d expected the Swords of Eveningstar to get up to something after this day’s gentle tonguelashing, but this quickly? And three patrols-worth of trouble?
“Gods Above, Azoun,” she muttered, “you certainly can pick them.”
Myrmeen turned back to the piles of papers. Her war was here, on this desk. As usual. Now where-? Oh, yes, the third request for an escort to Candlekeep…
Yet if that gong rang again, the Dragons would discover the Lady Lord of Arabel charging out of here at the head of the answering patrol. Oh, yes.
Myrmeen glanced down the desk at her helm, currently serving paperweight duty on the ‘not yet seen’ pile.
The look she gave it was a longing look.
Weeping freely- gods, it hurt, and she felt weak and sick inside, and kept falling, oblivion lurking like eager dark shadows to claim her-Pennae stumbled on.
Perhaps her foe had given up on cudgeling her brains from the outside, and was now riding the minds of this small army of men with crossbows who kept walking stlarned-near into her, acquiring looks of recognition on their faces though she knew she’d never seen them before, and firing at her.
If they’d been better shots, she’d have a belly bristling with bolts by now, or a hole through her middle large enough even for clumsy Purple Dragons to thrust their helmed heads through.
Instead, Pennae just felt like she had a hole like that in her, at about shoulder level. She’d spewed her guts out all over the cobbles twice now, and had nothing left inside her to heave.
Another stride… another…
Pennae wanted so much to lie down on her face on the cobbles and just rest-but that would mean swift death for her, with Agannor, Bey, and at least two myserious foemen in leathers now following her.
She was leaving a bloody trail as she trudged, and probably a solid line of tears, too. She’d given up clinging spiderlike to walls, because she’d kept falling from her perches aloft, tumbling helplessly back to the cobbles.
Yes, she was beginning to hate cobbles. Very solid things, cobbles… keep walking, Pennae.
“Hoy!” The face belonged to a bristle-mustached Purple Dragon, with a watch badge pinned to the baldric across his breast. Others, similarly garbed, were gaping at her from behind him.
“Evening, lads,” Pennae gasped. “Never seen a lass with a crossbow bolt through her before?”
Strong hands caught her as she stumbled, and the Dragon attached to them growled, “So, maid, what befell ye, exactly? How came you to have a-”
“Florin!” someone distant called; it sounded like Islif.
“Hey, Florin!” someone-Semoor, for a handful of gold-even more distant chimed in.
“Pennae!” That nearby shout rang out like a war horn, cutting through a sudden hubbub of Purple Dragons calling “Ho!” to each other.
Sinking into the darkness that had been clawing at her for so long, now-the warm, welcoming darkness- Pennae smiled.
Florin Falconhand had come for her at last.
Horaundoon shook his head in weary exasperation. So many minds, fighting his.
He wiped his sweat-slick brow with a hand that trembled, sighed, and sat back. He dared not to stay linked- not with the very real risk that someone whose mind he was in would die, violently.
No, he’d dismiss the two Swords warriors as lost, and just watch things unfold through the orb. At the very least, it should be a good show.
“Lathander loves thee,” Semoor’s voice intoned, through the gurgling waterfall of cool, blessed release that was sweeping through her.
Pennae blinked, tried to cough-and gentle fingers stroked her throat as tenderly as any lover, quelling her gagging.
“Tymora loves you, too,” Doust added, from above those fingers. “And-hrast it-I do too.”
“And Florin really does,” Semoor said slyly.
“ Thank you, Stoop,” Florin said firmly, from somewhere above them. “That’s two potions, now?”
“We holy prefer to call them ‘healing quaffs,’ forester,” Semoor said haughtily, and then grunted in startled pain.
“Ah,” Islif said pleasantly, “just as we unwashed prefer to call that ‘the toe of my boot, put right where it will do a pompous holynose the most good.’ Clumsum, d’you think your healing spell worked?”
“Shrug,” Doust said aloud, and there were several chuckles from above Pennae.
“Purple Dragons stand all around us, Pennae,” Florin said, his voice drawing nearer. Pennae blinked through what seemed to be tears, and could make out that he’d hunkered down on his haunches to lean over her. “They want to know what befell you. So do we.”
“Martess,” Pennae gasped. “Murdered. By Agannor and Bey. Chased me here. Other men with crossbows… also chasing. Beware someone-wizard? — attacking you, inside your head. Made me… fall over.”
“Blood of Alathan!” Doust gasped, at about the same time as Islif snarled, “Caztul!”
Then Florin said, “Swordcaptain, I must ask you to turn a blind eye to what we may do next. I am enraged, and am like to do my own murdering in your streets.”
“Man,” a gruff and unfamiliar voice replied, “three good men are down with bolts through them. An’ that’s just my Dragons; I hear there’re shopkeepers dead, an’ a little lad who was out playing in the wrong alley, too. Go do your murders!”
Departing boots thundered, and a surprised voice-Doust’s-asked, “Jhessail?”
“Let her go,” Semoor murmured. “As if you or I or anyone could stop her.”
“Help-help me up,” Pennae gasped. “I’m going, too.”
“You, lass, are staying right here,” the swordcaptain growled. “There’s blood all over you, your leathers’re sliced half off you, an’-”
“And my task stands unfinished,” Pennae hissed, clawing her way up the man’s arm until she could stand. “ My task. I’m a Sword of Eveningstar, Swordcaptain. Mayhap you’ve heard of us.”
“Trumpet fanfare,” Doust announced helpfully. There was a moment of tense silence before Purple Dragons started to guffaw, all around them. When the swordcaptain she was clinging to started to shake with laughter, Pennae almost fell over again.
Chapter 24
