take it things have quieted down out there, in the rest of the cellars?”
Pennae grinned mirthlessly. “You could say that.”
In the seemingly deserted common room of the Oldcoats Inn, Old Ghost and Horaundoon floated lazily in the shadows of the rail at the top of the cellar stairs, waiting for their next prey.
Not that they had long to tarry idle. Eleven wild-eyed Zhentilar warriors charged up the stairs, waving swords and axes and thinking of nothing more than getting away from whatever strangeness had just slain so many of their fellows-and three rather capable Zhentarim wizards to boot.
Old Ghost and Horaundoon slid into the foremost pair of Zhents as they gained the top step, made them smile at each other in grim satisfaction, and then compelled them to turn and strike at their fellows.
Amid shouts of fear and anger, battle broke out on the stairs. Zhentilar frantically hewed fellow Zhentilar, to avoid being penned into the cellars, and Old Ghost and Horaundoon darted into one warrior after another whenever anyone shouted for calm and “down swords!” Three Zhents died before the fray boiled up into the common room and across it, chairs and tables suffering greatly.
In the midst of all the shouting, screaming, and clashings of steel on steel, Ondal Maelrin and one of his maids came dashing down the stairs from the floors above, their arms full of steel vials, and raced across the common room, dodging furiously fighting Zhentilar.
“Our potions!” Pennae hissed, from her cautious vantage point partway up the cellar stair. “That thieving boar-pizzle of an innkeeper is stealing our potions!” She sprang up the stair, drawing her sword to keep company with the dagger in her other hand. Florin frowned, flourished his own sword, and charged up the steps after her.
Pennae went around and-with the aid of a handy table and a deft leap-over the black-armored Zhentilar, but Florin found himself under attack almost immediately. He struck his attacker’s blade aside, kicked an inn chair up into the man’s face, followed it with a hard punch to the cods that drove all the breath out of the man and lifted him back to a hard seat-first arrival on an inn table, and then struck the man’s neck with a deft backslash. Then he was past, outrunning another Zhentilar to follow Pennae through a doorway on the far side of the common room into a room hung with tapestries, that held the shimmering blue fire of a magical portal.
In front of which the hastening innkeeper and maid had just come to an abrupt halt because someone was stepping through it, toward them.
Someone female, wounded, and alone, whose limp was unfamiliar to the Knights, but whose face was not.
Laspeera of the war wizards looked bleakly at Maelrin and the maid, and then past them at Florin and Pennae. Her face was as white as bone.
The coach rattled through the streets of Halfhap like a whirlwind. Its white-faced, shaking coachman whipped his galloping horses to go ever faster, despite merchants and shoppers diving and stumbling back out of the way, and the shouts and screams that soon had Purple Dragon patrols bellowing and waving at the coachman to stop.
The whip came down again, the trembling coachman now weeping in fear, as the coach smashed its way along the front of a fresh greens shop, baskets splintering and produce flying-and its burly proprietor made a furious grab for the hand-bars, to swing himself aboard.
The hard-faced man riding beside the coachman snatched a wand from his belt and coolly blasted the shopkeeper’s red face to flying shards of bloody bone. Then he served two Purple Dragons, who were clawing at the bridles of the horses, the same way.
As their bodies tumbled under the racing hooves of the horses, the hard-faced man stood up, aimed carefully, and immolated the rest of the Purple Dragon patrol, one by one-as the coach raced on, heading for the Oldcoats Inn.
Inside the speeding coach, Zhentarim were being slammed from side to side, crashing into each other bruisingly.
The eldest wizard watched one of his younger fellows bite his own tongue-the third one to do so-and shook his head wearily. He had long since hooked one arm around a wall-rack to keep himself in one place, and was repeatedly using his feet to kick those about to slam into him away. As the curses and moans around him reached deafening heights, he snarled, “Oh, get down on the floor, all of you! Why the Brotherhood tolerates dolts such as you I don’t know!”
The potion had been divided carefully between Doust and Semoor, who had both promptly gone to sleep, but gained color, looking more like living men lying on their backs and less like sprawled corpses. Jhessail had stopped frowning down at them and was now studying the glowing Dragonfire treasure and murmuring tentative incantations.
Islif watched her darkly, sword drawn, and murmured only one thing: “Just don’t set those swords to striking at us.”
Now, as Jhessail sat back with a weary sigh, shaking her head, Islif caught sight of movement on the far side of the glow, and fell into a crouch, sword drawn back to strike.
There came the sound of a lantern being unhooded, and then its light, moving slowly to where they could see it, well back out of sword-reach.
The lantern was lowered until they could see the grim face of Dauntless above it.
“Truce,” he greeted the Knights. “I come in peace.”
“Well,” Islif replied warily, lowering her sword a trifle, “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Laspeera took two slow steps forward-and toppled like a felled tree, falling right on her face.
The innkeeper juggled vials for a moment so as to draw his dagger, hefted it flashing in his hand to turn it for stabbing, and bent down to slay this unexpected guest.
Then Ondal Maelrin made a wet, surprised sound as Pennae’s dagger opened his throat from behind. He kept right on bending, down into his own face-first meeting with the floor.
Vials bounced and rolled as the maid threw up her hands and started to scream. Florin snatched one up and forced it into Laspeera with brutal haste, rolling her over and away from the innkeeper’s spreading blood.
Pennae backhanded the maid across the face, ending her screams but sending her running wildly and clumsily to a tapestry, and through it and a banging door beyond. As the thief-Knight started scooping up potions, Laspeera started to cough and shudder under Florin’s hands-and the pulsing blue portal flared brightly as more men in leathers, with swords and daggers in their hands, stepped through it.
“Gods, guts, and garters,” Pennae cursed, “is there no end to them?”
Florin lowered Laspeera’s head gently to the floor and sprang to meet these new foes-who were already trotting forward with unpleasant grins on their faces and swords reaching for the Knights. Six-no, seven… eight of them.
Pennae kicked the empty potion vial under the boots of the foremost bullyblade, who started to slip and flail his arms-and weapons-wildly, almost striking the man right behind him, who arched back and away with a curse. So when Pennae sprang at them both and then ducked down to strike their ankles in a swift and hard roll, they both toppled helplessly, entangling a third bullyblade and causing him to fall too. The fourth and fifth onrushing men crashed right into their fellows, with loud and startled curses, as Florin stabbed downed men as swiftly as he knew how, slashing those trying to scramble away across the foreheads to try to blind them with their own blood.
A breath later he was forced to leave off killing to deal with the sixth and seventh bullyblades, who’d rushed around the tangle to come charging at him from either side. The ranger ran at the one on his left, using his longer reach in a vicious slash that struck the man’s parrying blade and spun him half-around-to where he tripped over a crawling Laspeera, and toppled helplessly into bouncing and rolling potion vials, as Florin launched himself back at the seventh man.
The man knew how to use his blades, and almost slew Florin thrice in the first few frantic instants of sword- strife. The ranger was only dimly aware of Pennae stabbing the eighth bullyblade in the stomach and then turning to slice open the throat of the only entangled man Florin hadn’t dealt with, who’d struggled half-upright from under the bodies of his fellows. Then Pennae hurled her dagger at Florin’s foe. It struck the man’s neck hilt-first and bounced away without doing damage, but startled the man into an awkward sidestep. He turned his ankle, staggered-and ended that stagger staring and spitting blood, impaled on the point of Florin’s sword.
Laspeera finished downing her second potion. Wiping her mouth, she looked up at the two Knights and murmured, “The queen chose well. You Knights are capable indeed. In a sword-brawl, at least.”
