“Lathalance blundered,” Sarhthor reported, “and it cost us the mageling Neldrar, who had showed some small promise.”
Manshoon, Lord of the Zhentarim, turned from lighting the last of the tall bedside candles to smile sardonically. “Lathalance’s blunders are part of his charm. Make his death serve us some useful purpose.”
Sarhthor nodded. “I’ve ordered him to Halfhap.”
“And in that flourishing metropolis he’ll prove useful to us how?”
“The adventurers who were just given the Pendant of Ashaba by the Blackstaff will reach there on the morrow, on their ride to Shadowdale.”
“I quite see. This may prove amusing. Leave us now.”
Sarhthor bowed, turned, and went to the door. When he opened it, he found himself gazing into the darkly beautiful face of Symgharyl Maruel, The Shadowsil, Manshoon’s current favorite. It was a face widely feared among the Zhentarim-in particular when it was wearing the little catlike smile adorning it now.
The Shadowsil lifted an eyebrow in unspoken challenge as their eyes met. Sarhthor carefully kept a faint, polite smile on his own face, and his eyes on hers. Her black robe was hanging open, and she was bare beneath it.
In smooth silence he bowed and stood back to wave her in through the door. The Shadowsil slipped off her robe, handed it to Sarhthor, and strode into Manshoon’s bedchamber, clad only in high black boots.
“At least the sarking rain has stopped,” Semoor muttered, peering up at the bright moon riding high above them, in a sky full of stars and a few tattered clouds.
“Hush!” Jhessail hissed, from beside him. “The gods will hear! And we’ll have hailstorms, or worse!”
“I’d like a rain of gold coins,” Pennae said, looking up into the sky. “Of respectable mintings, slightly worn from use, that no treasury’s missing.” She waited, hands outspread, but nothing happened.
“ I think the gods believe they’ve rewarded you more than enough,” Islif grunted, “coming through that fray without a scratch-leaving the dead heaped in your wake.”
“That,” Pennae replied flatly, “was my doing, not any achievement of the gods.”
Doust and Semoor cleared their throats in unison, and she turned and laid a finger to her lips in a “be quiet” admonition. Semoor used one of his fingers to make another sort of gesture in reply.
The Knights were trotting their horses cautiously along the moonlit Mountain Ride, heading north-northeast out of Arabel. They were making good time, and talking in low tones about all that had unfolded.
“How will we even find Shadowdale?” Jhessail murmured, looking at the dark forest, and the soaring mountains beyond.
“This road leads there,” Doust told her, “so if we don’t stray off it in Tilverton or elsewhere…”
Pennae turned in her saddle, teeth flashing in a grin, to unbuckle the saddlebag behind her left leg. Flipping it open, she plucked something forth with a flourish. A map, splendidly drawn-as they could all see by the magical glow that awakened across its drawn surface, the moment she unfurled it.
Doust blinked. “Where’d you get that? ” Without pause for breath he added gloomily, “As if I didn’t know.”
“Stolen,” she replied cheerfully. “Speaking of which-”
With a more elaborate flourish, Pennae flipped aside her half-cloak and drew forth something from behind her back.
It caught the moonlight as she reversed it in her hand: a well-used, splendidly made sword. She handed it to Florin, who hefted it appreciatively. Before he could ask, she said, “Now Officer Dauntless has a place to store his blinding temper. Inside his empty sword-scabbard.”
Florin groaned. Semoor whistled in appreciation. Jhessail snapped, “You didn’t! ” Doust and Islif turned in their saddles to look back at the road behind them, for signs of pursuit.
Pennae shrugged. “I did. And War Wizard Laspeera saw me, and said not a word. She was too busy winking, I guess.”
In the darker streets of Arabel, it was not unusual to see the few folk of wealth and importance who walked around by night inside a protective ring of bodyguards.
In this particular street, this night, a drunken merchant came reeling out of an alley-mouth to stumble against the foremost bodyguards in one such ring. One bodyguard roughly slapped the drunkard aside-and then stiffened, whirled around, and took a swift step to clutch at his master, walking in the center of the ring; a wizard of the Zhentarim.
Who in turn stiffened, even as the other guards wrestled their fellow bullyblade back from him.
They saw the wizard’s eyes glow eerily. “Release him,” he ordered them curtly. “No harm was done.”
The bodyguards stared at their master suspiciously, for both the attitude and the manner of speech were unusual for him, but his wave to continue on was emphatic, even angry. They obeyed, leaving the drunken merchant slumped on the cobbles in their wake.
A few steps farther on, the wizard suddenly crumpled.
Bodyguards snarled curses and reached for him. Their curses turned to shouts of fear and horror when they felt the light weight in their arms-and saw they were holding little more than bones shrouded in skin. They let the lifeless husk fall to the cobbles and fled in all directions.
None of them saw the cloud gathering in the darkness above the nigh-skeletal wizard. It thickened, whirling, as Horaundoon mentally pawed through the memories he’d just ripped out of the wizard’s mind.
None of the bodyguards were left to hear him murmur, “So Lathalance is out on the Moonsea Ride… for a very little while longer. Ah, Lathalance, you’ll be first! ”
“True, Horaundoon,” Old Ghost muttered, arrowing through the moonlit night, high above the Mountain Ride. “But you won’t be the one to claim him. When you arrive, you’ll find me.”
He began the plunge that would end in Lathalance’s unsuspecting body. The Zhentarim was galloping hard along the road ahead, not caring what he was doing to his horse. He had no intention of slowing until he caught sight of the Knights, whereupon he’d begin trailing them more stealthily, to Halfhap.
Duthgarl Lathalance was as cruel and capable as he was handsome, a Zhent swordsman and mage who obeyed his masters with unhesitating efficiency, coolly slaying scores at their behest. His magics shielded him against arrows and the like, and would even protect him if his hard-racing steed fell and hurled him down. He was crouching low and enjoying the ride.
Until something hurtled down out of the sky into him, causing him to arch his back and gasp.
Lathalance swayed in the saddle, eyes glowing red… then gold… blue… then returned to their normal brown.
Slowly his worried frown faded, and he smiled a wolfish smile.
Dauntless hadn’t been back at his desk long enough to feel truly dry-and they had to bring him this.
He glowered in the lamplight at a darkly handsome young lad, perhaps fourteen summers old, that he was certain he’d never laid eyes on before-who beamed back at him, despite standing clamped in the none-too-gentle grip of two hairy, burly Purple Dragons.
“Sword-brawls, wizards blown to spatters, what next? ” Dauntless snarled. “Well?”
“Says his name’s Rathgar,” one of the Dragons said laconically. “Says he was expected, by whoever dwells inside the window we caught him climbing through.”
“Oh?” The ornrion’s voice fell into soft tones that dripped sarcasm. “Does he carry it around with him, this window, or was it part of a building I might know?”
“The widow Tarathkule’s house, on the Stroll.”
Ornrion Dahauntul stared at the boy, who gave him a merry wink and said brightly, “She’s insatiable! Worth coming all this way for!”
“Lad,” Dauntless said heavily, “she’s seen ninety-odd winters, walks with two canes, is as deaf as yon wall, and looks about as handsome as this desk. Try again. ”
“Ah. Well…” The lad who gave his name as Rathgar looked at the Purple Dragons on either side of him, one after the other, and then peered past Dauntless as if seeking spies in the gloom beyond the desk. He tried to lean forward, but the Dragons hauled him firmly back, so he settled for lowering his voice into a confidential whisper. “I got lost on the way to my tryst with the princess. I said the Tarathkule tale, first, as, well, ah, one doesn’t like to stain a lady’s hon-”
“You got lost — stay! Which princess?”
