best.' She would have said more, but a sudden shudder set her to coughing, and this time, as she'd feared, she couldn't stop.
Every hacking explosion gouted forth flame, and she had to turn her head hastily to avoid scorching gear. There was too much cargo for sudden rushes anywhere, or she'd have run out the door regardless of arrows or waiting spells and spewed fire into the night, but…
Outside, someone snarled, 'At last! I thought they'd never-'
A man's voice she'd heard before on the run. Well, no great surprise there.
Shandril threw back her head, teeth clenched. Her knees, elbows, and breasts were starting to ache now. If she didn't rid herself of the fire she'd swallowed soon, someone was going to get a great surprise. She hoped it wouldn't be Narm, deafened by a mighty blast and suddenly wearing a wetness that had been his Shandril a moment earlier.
No, she dare not stay in here a moment longer. Trusting to spellfire to keep her safe, she crawled unsteadily to the front of the wagon, flames crackling from her hands as she went. She hoped Narm would have sense enough to get out fast, whatever happened next. This wagon would probably go up with a roar, very soon.
Calling on spellfire, she flew, bursting out through the doorway on her side and arrowing up sharply into the sky.. 'Hah!'
Mhegras of the Zhentarim was standing below, a look of triumph on his face and his fingers already weaving a spell. Shandril vomited fire at him and out of the heart of its spectacular flood blasted him with spellfire, an angry white shaft of force that ate into the ground in an instant, leaving nothing in its wake but a pair of empty, slightly smoking wizard's boots.
When Narm burst out of the wagon with a yell, daggers in both hands, his lady was just landing after an angry (and futile) foe-seeking flight around the wagon and going to her knees to suck flames from its underside. The look on Arauntar's face as he came running up, sword in hand, was priceless.
So, Narm suspected, was his own.
Sabran let fall the wagonflap and shook his head in the suddenly lonely darkness.
'Not so special after all,' he remarked to the empty air. 'Just like all the others.'
He took a few restless but sure-footed steps in the lightless wagon, and asked the unheeding cargo around him softly, 'Manshoon, when will you see Lord Fzoul's way is right? Belief and training and obedience-not ambitious hunger for great power, without delay!'
He stopped, wondering again if the Dread Lord of the Zhentarim had really whispered in the ears of Mhegras, ordering the attack that had just failed. Oh, someone in the caravan had, someone who'd come from the blandreth-dealer's wagon. But who had it been, really?
He whirled and strode back to the wagonflap, then stopped and shook his head. If it hadn't been Manshoon, it didn't matter now who it had been. If it was Manshoon, there was no need to go looking. The Dark Master of the Brotherhood would quite soon find him.
'Sabran.' The cold voice came from just beyond the wagonflap. Quite soon, indeed.
The priest caught his breath, and leaned forward to murmur, 'Yes, Lord?'
The bowgun-bolt that took him in the face wasn't large- but then, it didn't have to be.
It only had to be small enough to be readily hidden amid blandreths.
'So who d'you think'twas?'
'A wizard,' Arauntar growled angrily, V course. Just which jolly merchant that mage was I won't know until we go looking an' counting, come morn-I'm not doing it now. The lad'n' lass are safe, the wagon floor is charred but should hold if we lash a few beams under it, an' blast me if they didn't wait until I was bedded down, with you lot about forty strides off, an' race in to do their butchery. Beshaba damn them!'
'Huh. Well, Shandril undoubtedly did,' Beldimarr said dryly, pointing at the men shuffling uneasily around the fire he'd told them to stay by. 'Well, you've seen our new blades. Impressed as much as I am?'
'As they all seem to be able to walk without falling over an' wear swords as if they know how to use 'em, I'd say about half of them'll be Thayan snakes under orders from the Red Wizard Thavaun,' Arauntar grunted. 'But we expected that. I distinctly remember you telling me we'd be up half the night talking over how to mount guards with so few blades, an' not a new one we can trust. What's really gnawing you?' Beldimarr cast a wary glance over his shoulder, and then muttered, 'Voldovan. He looked at me like he didn't recognize me for a moment, and when he talks his words are stiff an' somehow careful… something's not quite right.'
'Was he out of your sight at all?'
'For a few breaths when a Harper I've never seen before signaled me and gave me a message for Twilight Hall; 'Soon the Three Laws will apply in every city.' Mean anything to you?'
Arauntar shook his head. 'No doubt 'twill-in time to come, an' too late to save us any trouble.'
He sighed, and shook his head again. 'Gods above- Voldovan, too?'
Beldimarr scratched at some private itches. 'You expected this life we've chosen to be easy?'
'No,' Arauntar grunted, 'but I was hoping the gods would serve up the worst entertainments no more'n three disasters at a time, if y'know what I mean. I'm not getting any younger.'
Beldimarr shrugged. 'If we don't handle this just right, my friend, we'll neither of us be getting any older, either.'
'Marlel,' said the cold, calm voice out of empty air in front of him, 'your patience impresses me.'
The Dark Blade of Doom stood very still as icy terror gripped him, but he managed to keep his own voice soft and steady. 'And so?'
'And so I believe I can use you in this little matter of spellfire, rather than destroying you right now. Sit down and pour yourself some of that vile thrusk you're carrying. We must talk.'
Marlel was neither a foolish man nor a slow one. He sat down.
Her breath had barely slowed from facing down the shadow-wraith when she heard it again.
Not slowing her quiet, steady walk, Sharantyr felt her little gem-pouch with her fingertips until she'd trapped a particular stone. Drawing it out, she broke it in the approved manner and let its gentle tingling wash over her.
When the gentle feathery feeling was done, the ranger swung her backpack off her shoulder and spun around under the uncaring stars.
A particular bush trembled just a bit more than it should have.
'Come out, whoever you are,' she told it wearily. 'You've been following me for a long time, and I'm growing tired of your clumsy rustlings.'
Silence was her reply.
Sharantyr let it stretch, then sighed and added flatly, 'Come out or I'll blast you.'
More silence.
Keeping her eyes on the bush, she raised one hand to counterfeit the gestures of a spell, wiggled her fingers just so, and a crossbow bolt whipped out of the night-right into her!
Ironguard or no ironguard, a battle-hardened ranger moves when death comes reaching out of the air. She twisted away with lightning speed-too slow by far-and the war-quarrel flashed through her, biting through her belt right beside Lhaeo's gift and catching in the leather baldric down her back. If she'd been whole, it would have torn right through her. As it was, it certainly looked like it was stuck through her.
Sharantyr scowled at it and snapped, 'Get out here, or I'll blast the whole hillside!'
The bush trembled reluctantly, and a man slowly rose into view, lifting his empty hands tentatively. It was Tornar the Eye.
Sharantyr nodded, her lips thin. 'I thought so. Sent by the Master of Shadows to slay me because I Know Too Much, aye?' It was Tornar's turn to nod.
'My patience for being followed is at an end,' Sharantyr told him, showing no signs of pain from his crossbow bolt, though it protruded boldly enough from her belt. 'Turn around and go home, or I'll slay you.'
'But… but…'
Sharantyr drew a tiny bone knife from inside the cuff of her left boot, and slashed off a lock of her hair. Her next slash, as she kept her eyes steadily on Tornar, was across the back of her own hand. She licked her little fang clean and put it away again, then held the hair in the blood welling out of the wound she'd made.
His eyes widened, then narrowed. Sharantyr strode straight to him, and held out the bloody lock of hair.
