'I suspect I'm the most capable survivor of Voldovan's caravan who might be induced to work with… you of Thay. I was personally known to one of your mages here in Triel, from, let us say, 'earlier escapades.' Coin has changed hands, and I fear I've clean forgotten whatever former reason or alliance I may have had for accompanying this particular string of wagons and suddenly come to the conclusion that, for the good of all Faerun, no less a capable mage than a Red Wizard should command spellfire.'
'Commendable,' the Highest commented. 'How, in your incisive, professional view, should we of Thay come to possess spellfire?'
'By using me to strike at the right time and in the right manner,' Marlel replied, lowering his voice and leaning forward over the table. Most of the other men seated there did the same, eager to hear whatever secrets he was obviously about to unfold. 'And,' he said, opening his hand, 'there's this.'
Something small and gemlike gleamed in his palm-for the instant before Marlel's smile widened, and he flung the small something right into the flame, hurling himself and his chair over backward in the same motion.
The room exploded in streamers of white fire, and the man called the Dark Blade of Doom rolled away from the table and up to his feet with a wand in his hand while headless bodies were still reeling at the table and other men were screaming and clutching at sightless eyes.
Coolly he used the wand to blast faces and hands wherever he saw them, ridding the room of foes who could do him harm. Patiently he waited for the smoke and the afterimages still dancing before his own eyes to clear.
The flame above the table was gone, and if his little secret had worked as it was supposed to, the Red Wizard Hulrivior, wherever his smoking body might now be, was 'Highest' no more.
Marlel smiled softly down at the last two Thayans still living, as they writhed on the floor, staring first at the smoking stumps where their hands had been, then at the man who'd dealt them such maiming.
As their curses faded into weary groans, he announced, 'I did forget to warn you of one little matter: I'd already met with a Red Wizard, one who pays rather better than Highest. Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding, and the mess. I confess I care little about acting so boldly or being seen as treacherous, but coins guide the Dark Blade of Doom. As I don't expect to live very long to enjoy them, I seek to please myself, day by day. Slaying a room full of rivals and cruel mages… now that pleases me.'
He aimed the wand at his wounded audience and triggered it again.
'Well, now!' Korthauvar Hammantle said, as the scrying magic faded and he sat back to grin at his fellow Zhentarim.
'This is rich!'
'Yes,' Hlael agreed, shaking his head, 'but how did Marlel get yon magic? And stay alive to make an agreement with anyone!'
'Ah,' said a soft voice from the shadows behind them.
'That would be my doing.'
Korthauvar and Hlael froze, suddenly ice-cold and dry-mouthed. They knew that voice even before the old man in the dusty maroon robes and the long-pointed shoes shuffled forward into the light: Hesperdan!
Korthauvar was still trying to swallow as the old wizard smiled and added, 'Now, I think, it's time for you to stop watching and to go and fetch me spellfire. There's no need to farspeak Drauthtar or delay any longer. Just go and do it.' He raised a bony, green-veined hand in which a strange scepter glowed and flickered, and whispered, 'Now.'
It was bright and cloudless as they left Triel, but the Trade Way seemed deserted. As the creaking, groaning wagons rolled on, Voldovan eyed every bush and nearby crag suspiciously-as Narm and Shandril knew all too well, for they sat on the perch beside him, guiding the beasts of his wagon. As the hours passed without incident, the caravan master grew more tense and wary rather than less so. When they stopped to water the beasts and refill skins at a roadside stream, he was almost dancing with tension.
Yet no crossbow quarrels came humming out of the Blackrocks, and no beasts pounced, called, or even showed themselves on the heights. Once a merchant thought he saw the tiny shape of a dragon aloft, flying very high, but when he shouted and pointed, no one else caught sight of it. 'Dragons,' Orthil Voldovan growled, caressing the already glassy-smooth bone hilt of his handy belt-dagger with white-knuckled hands. 'That's all I need!'
Just after the sun had started its long descent, they passed another caravan heading the other way-a fast- moving group of uniform wagons guarded by hard-eyed men in chainmail, all in matching hats and surcoats. Voldovan raised a hand in salute as they thundered past and growled, 'Costers!' into the dust-cloud they left in their wake, as if it was the dirtiest oath imaginable.
The dust got into everything. Shandril's hair felt like the gnarled roots of some dead, dried-out plant. It left everyone coughing and spitting, but when they rumbled clear of it the road was as deserted as before, and Arauntar blew a horn-call announcing his intention to pick up the pace. Voldovan merely nodded, and slowly, wagon after wagon, drovers using their whips, reins, and voices got their beasts up to a near-gallop.
Once more they bounced and thundered along, rocking dangerously, until Shandril shouted to the caravan master, 'Is this prudent? You remember what happened last time!'
'If we're attacked, lass, 'twon't matter how fast we're going… might even make a few brigands think twice about daring to dispute with us,' was the reply.
As the day wore on, the wheels turned, no misfortune fell, and it seemed as if Arauntar had been wise… for as the shadows grew long and the sun glimmered low behind distant crags, the veteran guard blew another, triumphant horn-blast, signaling all to slow, and turned his wagon up a side-trail onto a large, tilted plateau.
'This'll be where that coster run broke camp, this morn,' Voldovan growled in satisfaction. 'We've made good time!'
Narm and Shandril exchanged glances and smiles-wry grins that told each other wordlessly that they were both expecting more trouble in the night to come. The wagons' around them seemed to hold an endless supply of bold men seeking spellfire. '
Voldovan evidently thought so too. His first words as he swung down from the perch to see to the horses, before Narm could rise to help him or Shandril slip out the other side to chock the wheels, was 'Try to stay out o' trouble this night, the pair of ye, hmm? I'll be sleeping first watch, and would appreciate yer keeping the slap'n'tickle and hurling of spells and cooking folk alive with spellfire to a minimum, hey?'
Narm and Shandril traded more glances, in which eyes were rolled expressively.
The dust cloud ahead was coming her way, fast.
Sharantyr watched it with narrowed eyes, then sighed, hurried down into the deepest part of the ditch, and flattened herself against the ground in the lee of a large rock. A coster caravan, coming fast. They'd ride her down with barely a shrug or put a quarrel through her at first sight for fear she might be some brigand lure.
The cloud grew, and with it a rumble that swiftly grew louder, shaking the ground her cheek was pressed against. She closed her eyes against the dust and waited for the din to simply pass over and leave her-in the dust, of course. She'd be choking on it for some time, as she walked in the wake of the hard-driven wagons.
'Shan, Shan,' she asked the stone in front of her wryly, 'couldn't you just have settled down in Shadowdale and endangered us all there?'
Then the Knight of Myth Drannor shut her mouth tight, for the storm was upon her. Close by her head plunging hooves and wheel after wheel thundered, the tumbling dust so thick that it stung her skin, the rattling of loose cargo and wagon-chains briefly deafening. The tumult lessened as it left her behind, roaring on south toward Triel.
She'd almost caught up to Voldovan there but she'd had to get water and walk far enough beyond Triel that the inevitable lurking outlaws wouldn't decide she'd be easy prey while she slept. When at last Sharantyr found bare rock to leave the road on and cover beyond, she simply had to sleep. She was still weary now, but she was no longer staggering and finding her eyes drooping shut at every third stride. It would be so easy to just lie here, and sleep…
Aye, and be dined upon by the first night-prowling beast that followed her scent along the road.
With another sigh the ranger rolled over and up-and found herself staring at the still-quivering wreckage of a freshly crashed wagon. A wounded horse was thrashing in the road, others were trying to kick their way clear of their harness and away from the bodies of their dead fellows, and the brigands who'd wrought this were darting
