forward, barely avoiding a knife thrust that would have relieved him of a portion of his beautiful, well-combed hair, as well as his scalp. Adon clubbed that attacker, too.
Adon heard movement behind him. He turned and saw a filthy man running toward him with a short sword aimed at his heart. Before the cleric even had time to react, the body of another of the brigands crashed into the man with the short sword, knocking him to the ground. Adon looked up and saw Midnight engaged in a hand-to- hand duel with a burly fighter. The man brought his knee up into Midnight's stomach and clasped his steel-gloved hands together as he brought them high over his head, preparing to crack open the skull of the magic-user with his mighty fists.
Adon remembered his long hours of study, got a running start, and delivered a blow to the small of the man's back that shattered his spine instantly. The brigand fell back, eyes wide, and Adon stepped out of the way. He helped Midnight to her feet, and she stared at him in disbelief.
'A follower of Sune must be trained to protect the gifts his goddess gave so freely!' Adon said and smiled.
Midnight almost laughed, then shoved the cleric out of the way as she released a spell that caused a new assailant to stop dead in his tracks, dropping his weapons. He shook as if something horrible were growing within him, then his eyes rolled back in his head as his flesh darkened and became stone. A single tear ran from his eye.
Midnight froze. It was a child she had struck down, no more than fifteen summers in age. She had only meant to erect a shield to ward off the blow he was about to deliver. How could she have turned him to stone?
The statue exploded, sending bits of dark stone in every direction.
Close enough to hear the explosion, Cyric fell away from the wild-eyed girl as she thrust at him again and again. He felt a warm flow of blood dripping down to his legs from the wound at his side, and the pain became worse as he moved. He fell over the corpse of the swordsman, the soft blue ruffled shirt now stained a bright crimson. The girl's slashes moved closer to his chest, so Cyric took his chance and grabbed the girl's wrist with one hand, her throat with the other.
Only a child, the thief thought, and her free hand raked across his unprotected face, her nails biting into his flesh. Cyric twisted the hand with the dagger until he heard the sound of bones snapping, and pushed the girl away, forcing her against the hard ground. Her skull made a high, cracking sound, and her eyes suddenly glazed over as the fight went out of them. A tiny trickle of blood swam from her mouth, cascading down the length of her neck until it touched the top of her breast.
She was dead.
Something dark and horrible within Cyric rejoiced at the knowledge, but a brighter part of his soul pushed the thoughts away.
Cyric heard a noise beside him and turned. The pain from his wound suddenly flared, and the thief tumbled to the ground, falling upon the corpse of the girl. Although he could not move, he saw Midnight and Adon as they challenged the remaining two members of the band of brigands.
There were less than forty summers in age between the two remaining attackers, so it wasn't surprising when they turned and ran to the other side of the overturned wagon. They barked out commands for their supposedly injured mounts to rise as they pulled the gently laid debris from the flanks of the beasts.
Cyric watched as Midnight scanned the area, her gaze suddenly locking on him. He reached out as Midnight and Adon rushed to his side. A moment later he was staring up at Midnight's face. His head was in her lap, and her hand was gently caressing his chest. The thief's head fell back in relief, and Midnight's hand caressed his brow. Then her expression changed.
'Kel,' she said softly, and Cyric realized she was staring toward the road. He turned his head in the direction of the road and watched as Kelemvor was besieged by a small band of archers. Midnight called to Adon, and the cleric took Cyric as the magic-user stood and started to run toward the road.
'Midnight, wait!' Adon shouted. 'You'll only get yourself killed!'
Midnight hesitated. She knew Adon was right. Kelemvor was too far away. Even if she had been by his side, her daggers would be useless against arrows. The only way she could save the fighter was with her magic. She thought of the child she had inadvertently slain, images of the exploding stone body etched in her mind.
When Mystra's gifts had crumbled into dust, Midnight had taken a small pouch of diamonds that had been reduced to powder. Reciting the spell to create a wall of force, Midnight reached into the bag and took a pinch of the diamond dust between her fingers. She released the dust at the correct moment, and there was a blinding flash of blue-white light. Midnight was thrown from her feet as a complex pattern of light formed in the air where she had stood. Feeling as if a part of her soul had been wrenched from her, Midnight looked to the road as the pattern of light vanished.
The wall had not appeared.
Midnight threw her head back in frustration. She was just about to loose a scream of rage when something appeared in the sky.
It was a huge rift in the air, a swirling mass, with lights of every color of the spectrum visible within it. The rift appeared in the form of a coin set on its end and thrust at the sky, and as the rift grew, it began to block out the sun.
By the road, Kelemvor stood his ground as the archers closed in. There was a roar in his ears, but he assumed it was an effect of the wounds he had sustained. Two arrows had already gotten past his defenses, but Kelemvor turned a blind eye to the pain that surged up from his right calf and his left arm.
The archers were advancing, ready to finish the fighter off, when suddenly they stopped.
Kelemvor wondered if the brigands had finally run out of shafts as they backed away, pointing at the sky. Two of the archers dropped their weapons just as Kelemvor noticed that his shadow seemed to be deepening. Then a vast, dark veil fell upon the earth, and the archers screamed in a language Kelemvor did not understand and ran in the direction of Arabel.
Kelemvor looked up. The archers, all else, was instantly forgotten. The rift was growing larger now, and Kelemvor stumbled back as something that appeared to be an incredibly huge eye looked out of the vast hole in the sky, then vanished.
Kelemvor turned and looked across the battlefield for Midnight, Cyric, and Adon. Their shapes were hard to distinguish because of the darkness that fell over the entire area, but the fighter could see that two figures were still on their feet. They seemed to be carrying someone.
Adon, Kelemvor thought. The thieves murdered poor, defenseless Adon!
Despite the blood he had lost and the pain he had suffered, Kelemvor ran to the figures in the distance.
Across the field, Cyric, too, had seen the eye. His head had lolled back as Midnight and Adon carried him to the relative safety of the overturned wagon, then set him down.
The earth shuddered.
'Don't leave me,' Cyric said.
Midnight looked down at him, confused. She caressed the side of his face. 'No,' she said simply.
Then, just before he lost consciousness, he saw a figure approaching from the road through the blinding whirlwinds of sand and dust.
Midnight ran toward the fighter as he struggled across the sand, and with her help, Kelemvor reached the overturned wagon. Just then, a huge part of it was sheared off by the wind. The oak planks creaked horribly, then snapped and sailed off into the air. 'We've got to get out of here!' the fighter screamed, but he was barely able to hear his own voice of the whine of the wind.
'Cyric's been wounded. We can't leave him,' Midnight cried.
'Cyric!' Kelemvor yelled in surprise, and a wall of dust rushed toward him. The fighter turned his face away from the winds. 'Can he be moved?'
'No!' Midnight shouted. 'Adon is tending to his wounds as best he can!'
There was a slight hiss as the ground beside the couple turned into vapor. The air beside them crackled with a rim of tiny white stars, and a hole the size of a man tore through the air just as Midnight raised her hands and prepared to release another spell.
An old man exited from the portal, a large staff in his left hand. His face, although lined with wrinkles, held a sharpness that spoke volumes on his barely contained annoyance. Beneath his frown, the man's pure white beard reached down to play against his chest. The man wore a large hat and a simple gray cloak. He looked to
