trained with a war hammer and a flail, but sharp-edged weapons were frowned upon by his order. All the weapons that remained were edged.
'Take something and carry it for us,' Kelemvor said at last, his patience reaching its end. The heroes quickly left the end of the bridge and entered the forest. After a few minutes, Kelemvor had led his companions to the spot where the huntsmen had secured their mounts. The horses were gone.
'Are you sure this is the right place?' Adon asked as he looked around.
'The evidence is all about you, cleric. Open your eyes!' Kelemvor snapped. Adon shrank away from the fighter, and Midnight frowned. Kelemvor cleared his throat. 'What I mean to say is that you can see the tracks that the horses, and whoever took them, left behind — the broken branches and the footprints.' The fighter pounded his fist against a tree and swore. 'It was probably Yarbro. Now he's got the gold that Mourngrym paid me, and we'll have to walk to Scardale.'
Adon was struggling with two heavy swords he had found as the heroes prepared to leave the forest. Concern crossed Midnight's features. 'Adon, where did you leave my spellbook and the items Lhaeo gave us?'
The cleric dropped the swords and the shield and backed away in terror. 'I… I left them on the bridge,' he gasped.
'Sorry…'
Kelemvor's shoulders drooped, and he opened his mouth to spew out a tirade of angry condemnations. When he saw the cleric's frightened, childlike expression, he fought back his anger. 'Go get them,' Kelemvor said softly, his deep voice trembling with barely controlled rage.
As Adon ran back toward the bridge, the fighter set his bow down beside the swords that Adon had dropped and walked back to the bridge with Midnight. 'He is trying, you know,' the mage purred as she put her arms around Kelemvor's waist.
'No doubt,' Kelemvor grumbled and tried not to smile.
'And you're trying, too,' Midnight said. 'I appreciate that.'
The fighter and the mage broke from the forest and saw Adon near the middle of the bridge, crouching over the canvas sack he had rescued from the river. He seemed to be rifling through the sack, checking its contents.
Standing near the north entrance to the bridge, the fighter called out to Adon. 'Come on, cleric! We don't have all day!' Midnight started slightly at Kelemvor's sudden outburst.
On the bridge, Adon suddenly stood up, the bag firmly in his hand. The cleric stared at the eastern horizon, pointing toward the sky. The sun was behind the cleric, so he could dearly see the three figures floating in the eastern sky, becoming larger as they approached.
'Riders!' Adon exclaimed. 'Riders to the east!'
At the northern end of the bridge, Kelemvor shook his head. 'What is he — '
Then the fighter saw what had captured Adon's attention. Three darkly clad soldiers were flying toward the bridge. They were following the course of the river and riding huge ebon horses that struck a trail of fire as they galloped across the sky.
On the bridge, Adon stood rooted to the spot. As the riders drew close, he was able to see them even more clearly. The armor of the riders was completely black and lined with razor-sharp ridges. Spikes the size of daggers jutted out from various parts of the armor. The riders' faces were hidden by helmets. Far more frightening than the terrible armor the mysterious riders wore were the mounts they rode. The creatures that carried them across the sky were nightmares — powerful and deadly monster horses from another plane.
As they came even closer, the heroes could see the weapons each of the riders carried. One was armed with a huge scythe, which he tested in the air as he approached Blackfeather Bridge. Another favored bolos, with a cutting silver wire laced between the heavy spheres. But the man in the lead, an imposing specimen who seemed best-suited for his horrible mount, carried a heavy, two-handed broadsword that was stained black and charged with blood-red runes.
From the north entrance to the bridge, Midnight cried out. 'Run, Adon! Get off the bridge!'
Kelemvor grabbed the mage and dragged her a few steps toward the woods. 'We have to take to the forest,' the fighter growled. 'They might not have seen us yet.'
The magic-user dug her heels into the dirt and pulled away from Kelemvor. 'They've seen Adon!' Midnight snapped. 'We can't leave him.'
'It's stupid to sacrifice ourselves, too. Let Adon come to us, to safety, instead of our running into danger with him,' Kelemvor snapped. The fighter knew that they faced a trio of deadly foes. His enhanced vision — one of the only positive effects of his curse — had already revealed the crimson stains of the symbol of Bane over the hearts of the riders. 'You haven't changed at all, have you?' Midnight screamed as she ran from Kelemvor and stepped onto the bridge. 'All you care about is yourself!'
The riders were no more than fifty feet from Adon and closing fast. Midnight approached from the north end of the bridge, yelling for Adon to move. The scarred cleric stood motionless, the bag containing the amber sphere from Elminster's tower and Midnight's spellbook clutched in his hands. All expression had drained from his face, and Adon stood as if he were a statue in the center of the bridge.
Before Midnight could reach Adon's side, the riders swooped in. The rider in the lead, the swordsman, aimed his nightmare directly at the cleric and held his sword thrust out before him. Seconds before the sword would rip through Adon's body, the rider drew up suddenly, and his mount veered up and over Adon's head as the other two riders sailed around the cleric on either side. The wind buffeted Adon, but he stood his ground. As the rider flew past, though, the canvas bag fell from Adon's hands, and the young cleric grabbed one of the hind legs of the monstrous horse.
'Adon, no!' Midnight cried, but it was too late to stop him. The cleric's body was yanked into the air above the bridge, twisting as he flew off into the sky.
The nightmare that Adon had grabbed let out an ear-piercing shriek and tried to shake the cleric off its leg. Flames from the creature's hooves danced around Adon's hands, singeing them, but still the cleric didn't let go.
At the north end of the bridge, Kelemvor stood alone, struck dumb by Adon's unexpected actions. The fighter watched as the cleric not only held on to the monstrous beast, but also began to climb upward, ignoring the horse's wildly flailing legs and flaming hooves.
The fetid smell of the nightmare's hide had almost caused Adon to release his hold on the mount when he first became airborne, but he had ignored the stench and settled his attention on more important matters, such as helping his friends — and perhaps redeeming himself in their eyes. He started to climb toward the rider, in the hope of deposing the assassin and taking control of the mount.
In the air, Varro, the assassin with the scythe, laughed at the spectacle. 'Shake him loose, Durrock!' Varro cried. 'His life is of no consequence as long as we capture the woman!'
The other assassin reigned his nightmare in and dashed past his scythe-wielding friend. 'Leave him to his sport, Varro!' Sejanus said as he stopped swinging his bolos. 'Besides, Durrock may want to keep the scarred one alive. They have something in common!'
Riding the mount that Adon was holding desperately to, Durrock ignored the comments of his fellow assassins. He had no need to gloat; his unexpected passenger was completely at his mercy. And if the reports that the Zhentarim spies had sent to him as he flew toward Blackfeather Bridge were correct, the cleric had already handed the assassins the day. Guiding his mount in an arc that would take him back to the bridge, Durrock marveled at the simplicity of the task ahead of him.
Finding the mage and her companions had been child's play. The path the travelers were taking was known. All the assassins had to do was follow the Ashaba until they spotted their prey. Better still, the heroes were not hiding along the river's edge, but standing on a bridge, in the open, when Durrock and his partners spotted them. It was as simple as shooting arrows at a prisoner in a pit.
On the ground, Kelemvor rushed to Midnight's side, but not for any altruistic reason. The assassins would never let him live if they captured or killed Midnight and Adon. The fighter was simply protecting his own life. As he considered his options, the fighter cursed. They might have stood a fighting chance against the assassins under cover of the woods, but Adon and Midnight had taken that option from him, and now Kelemvor was sure that they would all be as dead as the dalesmen very soon.
Next to Kelemvor, Midnight was lost in the spell that she was about to cast. As the riders drew near,
