The shielding crackled and collapsed rather than fading-telling her that it had been under assault from a spell probe.
The smile found its way onto her face after all, though it was just as crooked as she'd thought it would be. It was his, of course.
So the second-most-powerful Wizard of War in the Forest Kingdom lifted her head and said softly to the empty air, 'Fair evening, Lord Vangerdahasr. Master.'
Then she wenr to the door to throw its bolts and begin her ascent to the room of scrying spheres.
She knew she'd find a certain Royal Magician waiting there.
'What are they fighting?'
Klarn was, it seemed, one of those men who cannot abide not having his curiosity assuaged.
'We'll soon see,' Boarblade said in tones intended as a clear and emphatic 'Silence, dolt!' warning.
Klarn, it also seemed, was a man deaf to tonal warnings. 'It sounds gods-murdering big! How in all these trees did they find it?' 'It found them.' 'Huh?'
He left Klarn's astonished grunt unanswered and stalked ahead, crouching low and moving as quietly as possible.
Klarn came after him, thudding heavily through the forest like the oaf he was. Thorm and Darratur followed him like silent shadows. Boarblade couldn't see Glays bringing up the rear, but he had every confidence that the man was there, moving through the night as softly as a ghost.
Not that it seemed necessary any longer. Trees were being shattered, their rendings loud and violent, and the ettin was screaming. Nothing else could scream with two mouths like that, except a much larger two-headed giant, and Boarblade had seen nothing looming taller than the trees.
There was a lot of crashing and thrashing going on and men and women shouting. He skulked nearer, smiling openly now.
The smile went away in an instant when he saw the blue flash.
A man stood in front of him. He hadn't been there a moment ago. A man he knew. A man in armor who was snatching out his sword and throwing out his gauntleted hand to dash aside Florin's dagger.
The ranger stepped smoothly back, seeing the ettin peering their way and blinking. It wasn't too badly hurt to turn in a flash when it needed to, and both of its heads were thrust fotward, low and menacing, in the direction of the now-vanished flash.
'Dauntless,' Florin said, 'look out behind you. We've got larger problems than each other.'
'I'm a friend, not a foe!' the ornrion said, then risked a fleeting look back over his shoulder.
Dauntless, Florin, and the ettin were all in time to see the second flash.
Drathar frowned. Some sort of showy teleport spell. Bringing an individual here, not whisking anyone away. But who'd wotked it?
Not that little flamehaired Knight, that was for sure and certain, unless Mystra or Azuth had arrived personally to work the spell for her.
Then came the second flash-and by its light the Zhent wizard saw something that took him far beyond frowning.
Telgarth Boarblade was coming toward him. He'd know that fluid, gliding walk anywhere, though his fellow Zhent-fellow rival, though just one of many-was using some sott of magic to disguise himself. There was at least one man with Boarblade, and likely more.
Drathat stepped hastily behind a tree, turned until his shoulders were against it, then worked a swift invisibility spell.
Thus hidden-as much as anyone could be hidden in a night full of flashing magic and roaring, tree-smashing ettins-he sat down against the tree trunk to keep quiet and watch what unfolded.
With the Knights of Myth Drannor, the ettin, Boarblade and his blades, and rhe Watching Gods alone knew who'd magically arrived all converging here, what unfolded promised to be good.
Or at least entertaining.
'Sorry,' Islif panted, boosting Pennae to her feet.
The thief grinned. 'Well, I'd rather be in your arms than embracing an ettin. Still have your blade?'
Islif waved it. Neither of them could see it in the dark, but they both heard the dull ring of its encounter with a sapling.
Pennae's grin widened. 'I kept hold of mine, too. Let's both of us be after its hamstrings again. It's going for Florin, see?'
'Those flashes,' Islif murmured. 'Semoor? Doust? I can't believe it!'
'Nor I,' Pennae agreed. 'Looked like-'
She peered as a faint glow blossomed on one of the ettin's faces, and added, 'That's Semoor's magic.' Then she peered harder at what that tadiance could let her see down in front of the ettin.
Frowning, she cursed.
'What?' Islif snapped as they both trotted forward.
'Tluining Dauntless, stlarn it!' Pennae spat. 'Someone-Vangey the Royal Meddling Magician, for a wager! — must be watching us and has teleported him in here! Gods stlarn it!'
'Dauntless?' Islif gasped, astonished.
The ettin lurched forward in obvious pain, moving along the base of the gravel slope from left to right in front of them. Its dis-comfott was feeding a growing fury, and it was flailing the air with its morningstars as it sought to reach its foes: the ornrion Dauntless, Florin, and… that Harper from the Palace! Dalonder Ree, that was his name.
Pennae looked back over her shoulder, her fierce grin back. 'Hamstring time! Both of us!'
She raced for the ettin so swiftly that Islif had to put her head down and sprint to catch up.
It was long past time for stealth. The ettin was cursing loudly and rending trees again-and Dauntless, at least, had decided to cling to tradition enough to snarl a war cry.
'For the Purple Dragon! Cormyr forever!'
Swords flashed, and morningstars swung-and struck. Smashed up and off his feet, Dauntless grunted in pain as the armor shielding his ribs crumpled and some of those ribs crumpled with it.
Dalonder Ree fended off the other morningstar with a precisely angled sword as he raced along under the ettin's swing. The ettin roared in triumph as he saw the ornrion's body go flying-and Pennae reached the ettin's far leg, leaving the nearer one for Islif, sprang as high as she could, and put all the strength in both of her shapely arms behind a keen slash of her dagger.
The blade bit into stinking flesh a moment before the Harper's sword sank into the ettin's crotch.
The two-headed giant stiffened, drew breath-and proved to every ear between Halfhap and Tilver's Gap that it really knew how to scream.
Islif reached its other leg, swinging her long sword as hard as she could.
The ettin screamed again, reeled, and toppled, felling several trees in its crash.
Dalonder Ree and Florin swarmed over its faces and necks, stabbing down into eyes and laying open throats.
The ettin convulsed with a wild, heaving violence that sent the men flying to join Dauntless in groaning, huddled heaps on the gravel slope. It fell silent and still.
'See?' Semoor observed from the ledge. 'Lathander did that! All praise be unto the Morninglord!'
'Tempus defend me!' Islif snarled in exasperation, glaring up at the ledge.
'I wonder whar the penance is for strangling a priest with his own tongue,' Pennae said beside her. 'I believe I've stolen just about enough to pay it, by now-and if not, I'd cheerfully enslave myself to the nearest orc- pandering festhall for a month or two to make up the difference!'
'Festhalls! That's it! That's how we'll make coin enough to do Lathandet's great works for him!' Semoor called delightedly. 'Pennae, I could kiss you!'
'And holynoses can fly, with about as much success,' Pennae said under her breath. Then she brightened.
