and vaulted over the now-screaming man to the far side of the unseen door.
The second Zhentilar came through in a rush, with the third just behind him, both men veering sharply aside, in different directions, as they burst into the darkened room. Which meant one ran right onto the ornrion’s waiting blade, and Dauntless was able to swing the impaled man around as a shield against the other. The man whirled at the sound of his comrade’s sobbing gasp, charged toward the sound, stumbled over the Zhentilar Dauntless had already felled, and came blundering into his impaled fellow, whom he hacked and stabbed enthusiastically from behind. Dauntless waited until a deep slash left the man’s sword stuck deep in the ribs of his dying fellow, and then stepped nimbly around to drive his dagger into the man’s neck.
The man groaned loudly, as the last Zhentilar-unless there were more beyond those Dauntless had seen in the room-hurled a blazing leather glove through the illusory wall, and followed it with lit lantern in one hand and sword gleaming in the other. This let Dauntless see him well enough to act before the man caught sight of Dauntless behind the dying Zhentilar-or the two Zhentish swords Dauntless had just thrown at him.
The Zhentilar struck one blade aside with his lantern, but the second one broke it, plunging the cellar into darkness for the space of a breath or two, ere the warrior of the Brotherhood started to burn. Spitting curses, the Zhentilar staggered back, wildly waving one blazing, doused-in-lamp-oil arm in a vain attempt to extinguish the licking flames.
Dauntless devoted himself to plucking up and throwing every weapon he could find, a storm of tumbling steel that the raging Zhentilar struck aside with his own sword, roaring as the pain went on clawing at him, until he turned to stagger back through the hidden door, clawing at the fastenings of his own leathers.
Whereupon Dauntless bent, picked up the last sword, and brutally swept the Zhentilar’s ankles out from under him, hurling the man head-first onto the cellar floor. The ornrion pounced and stabbed. He cut away a big piece of leather, laying bare the dying man’s shuddering back and giving himself a torch of burning-edged leather cloaking the tip of his borrowed blade.
He retrieved his own sword from the Zhentilar he’d left it buried in and strode grimly around the room. Dare he try the stairs? Or should he seek another way out of these cellars? He gave the stairs a teeth-bared glare, then peered around at all the bodies and the There! Hanging from the back of the stairs! A lantern… two lanterns. Well-made, almost new candle-lanterns with sliding shutters and hot-hoods, the candles as thick as his wrists and shielded on three sides with bright-polished steel. Dauntless lit them both from the burning scrap of leather and thankfully let it fall to the stone floor.
Well, these made him a target, but bought him the chance to explore down here. And he’d best be about it. He hung one lantern from a ceiling-hook to light up the room, adjusted the other to shine a directional beam, and started past all the bodies, shaking his head at all the dead war wizards. Vangerdahast would blast this place clear over the Thunder Peaks when he found out.
Unless he didn’t find out in time, and this end of Cormyr was all Zhentarim territory by then.
Which, again, meant one Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul had to get out of here and report back to Arabel. “ This Ornrion Dahauntul,” he muttered aloud. “There is no other.”
He stalked past body after body, never noticing the lone eye watching him from under the sprawled and gory Yassandra Durstable, heading for whatever else awaited behind the stairs, besides lanterns.
There came a sound from overhead, of something heavy being dragged aside, and heavy footfalls. At the top of the cellar stairs.
Dauntless set down his lantern carefully, turned and raced back to the one he’d hung up, hooded and shuttered it but left it hanging, and raced back to the lantern on the floor. More bumps from overhead, as things were flung aside.
He shuttered the second lantern and hunkered down just behind it amid the bodies, shielding his face with one forearm and hefting his sword before letting it rest ready in his lap. Hopefully he looked dead.
If not… well, he’d die fighting a breath or two from now.
Whatever had covered the stairs was flung back, and light flared, floating down the stair in eerie silence. Dauntless peered over his arm.
A glowing ball of light-bright-glowing air, not flames-floated down into the cellar as silently as a falling feather, flying off into a far corner of the room, as boots struck the stairs. Lots of boots, belonging to dozens of Zhentilar warriors in full black battle armor, drawn swords and axes gleaming in their hands and one-no, three- Zhentarim wizards striding in their midst.
Gods bedamned above. Wizards!
He was going to die here. He was going to die now, or a breath from now. Well then, gods, Dauntless thought, see that you save Cormyr.
Chapter 14
Call up your mightiest spells, archmages,
For I would see stern high castles riven
Great dragons fall in flames from the sky
And dead wizards dancing.
The cellars end here,” Jhessail said, running one slender hand along a dark, damp stone wall. “So unless you know a way to blast through solid stone…”
“This is it,” Florin agreed. “We fight and die right here.” Abruptly he put an arm around her, swept her against his chest, and kissed her cheek.
Startled, Jhessail looked up at him, heart quickening. She lifted her face to offer her lips for a real kiss, but he gave her a fond smile instead, let go of her, and murmured, “Come. Our holynoses need our aid. They’re hurt worse than I’d thought.”
Frowning, Jhessail did as he bade, silently turning to join Islif in binding torn strips of Doust’s formerly grand tunic around the worst wounds Zhentish blades had dealt Semoor and Doust.
The two priests lay pale-faced and silent on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling. Above them, Islif dripped blood on their chests from a wound of her own, but shook Florin’s hand off impatiently when he reached for her. She’d stripped off her armor-coat so as to be able to move quietly, and her under-leathers were dark with welling blood.
“We,” Doust husked, from beneath their working hands, “are a mess.”
“A valiant mess,” Semoor corrected him, faintly.
“ Next time,” Islif said grimly, “we go not chasing cellar routes so swiftly as to leave our healing potions up in our rooms.”
“Next time, she says.” Doust coughed, closing his eyes and shuddering as Islif’s probing fingers found a broken rib in the gore all down his side. “Is Pennae still alive, d’you think?”
“That lass could steal the gods’ undergarb right off their loins and get away clean,” Islif said. “Worry not a whit about her.”
Then she lifted her head sharply, listened, and hissed, “Not a sound! Someone’s coming!”
The Knights were lying or kneeling in the dimness behind and below the golden heap of Dragonfire treasure with its ring of guardian swords, where the cellar floor fell away in two broad, descending steps, to end in a dark and mildew-reeking recess.
They fell tensely silent, hands stealing to weapons, as a lot of someones stealthily approached the heaped treasure from the other side. Someones that brought their own steady, unwavering light with them.
