'Unless I take you up atop yon cliff to start learning how, right now.'
'Come!' Boarblade whispered fiercely, right in Klarn's face. 'Tell all the others! We attack now, before they've settled themselves again! Swords out and slay!'
Klarn gaped at him, then turned and tan-blundering right into Darratur and receiving a firm shove rhat sent him aside into a tree.
The moment Boarblade saw Glay's face, he waved at them all to accompany him, turned back toward the Knights, drew his sword, and ran.
He could hear the four charging after him.
Good. Let them burst out to confront the Knights. He'd tty to gut the ranger or the fighting lass as he ran past-and then keep right on running, past the fray and into the trees, to plunge back into hiding.
Where he'd hide and lurk, awaiting his best chance to find that Pendant.
If the four dolts he'd been saddled with butchered a good share of Knights, well and good. He'd have that much less work left. Not that he was counting on it.
With Pennae and Islif helping him, Dauntless sat up, wincing.
'Ate you sure you didn't bring this beast with you?' he growled, waving a hand at the sprawled, dead ettin. 'Or let it loose from somewhere in your pryings and thievings?'
'Of course we did,' Pennae snapped. 'We have scores of pets like this one-and worse! — and as we cavort across Faerun, we let them all loose to frolic through the trees and try to kill us! Gods above, how stupid can Purple Dragons be? You do know which end of a sword is which, I hope?'
'Oh, aye.' Dauntless showed his teeth in a grin that wasn't pleasant at all. 'I do know that-and so will your shapely backside in a breath or two, saucy lass!'
Pennae sneered. 'Lick my sauce? Do my hair? Announce me to the queen?'
'Identify your head when I place it before her on a platter, more likely,' Dauntless said. 'With all the rest.'
Pennae sighed loudly and gave the ornrion a shove that toppled him over, groaning in pain on his side in the gravel again.
'Pennae,' Islif said reproachfully.
The thief shrugged. 'My hand slipped,' she said. 'It does that. A lot.'
'I've noticed,' the ornrion said. 'Lucky you are that my orders have changed.'
'Oh?' Pennae said. 'They've commanded you to be fair and reasonable, now? Is this is some special occasion?'
'When I can get up again,' Dauntless said, 'it certainly will be.'
Boarblade raced along, heart pounding. It really didn't matter whether he had false Knights beside him- Ruldroun's four, or some of them, with their hargaunt disguises-or the real ones. Neithet could be trusted, but perhaps the real ones would be the better companions in a fight.
Well, he was about to see, wasn't he?
The stump was more or less as he remembered it. A little damp, with wet dead leaves plastered to it because rain had fallen in this stretch of the forest several times over rhe last few days, but he cared nothing for the fate of this tattered, dirty crone's dress anyhail.
He settled himself on the stump, facing down the familiar little clearing so he'd see in an instant if any war wizard arrived. Nigh every last Wizard of War knew rhis lush little glade. It was one of the pteferred 'waystops' or 'jump spots' for jaunts to Tilverton or the northeastern bolder wilds of the realm.
Hopefully, if one appeared, he'd not readily recognize Onsler Ruldroun behind rhe pocked and wrinkled crone's face the hargaunt had spun.
The scrying spell would be a little harder to explain away, but if he was given a chance to speak, Ruldroun knew enough of the catch-phrases to seem to be one of Those Who Harp for a few breaths.
And a few bteaths would be all he would need to triumph, tele-port away, or die.
So he sat on his stump, looking down the glade-which coinci-dentally was also facing in the direction of the battling Knights, who were not all that far off through the forest-and watched the battle through his scrying eye.
All he needed was a little more patience against the surging excitement that rose again and again within him. It was the roiling energy of the three men he'd slain that was making him so restless, he knew, but he could master this now. Enough of the wild, fevetish exhilaration was over and past. He was now always aware of what was really happening to him. When he kept away from exciting tastes and smells-good food-he could thrust aside the floods of emotion and tell himself calmly: You are awaiting the best time to step forward and seize the Pendant of Ashaba. Yes. The best time.
If Glays and the rest wete dead by then… well, there were other men who could impersonate Knights and who would welcome the backlands life of Shadowdale.
Deltalon arrived a little farther from the glowstones than the Harper.
If you appeared right beside the Knights, you found yourself in the same peril that was afflicting them-and could well taste theit own blades and spells before you had time to name yourself.
Which was the very reason he was bound for his favorite waystop glade in the heart of that part of the forest just north off the Moonsea Ride known as Hawkvale. No one dwelt there, and no eye that he knew had ever managed to discern a 'vale' among all those tangled trees.
The clearing, not far from Tilverton, served the same purpose as his chosen destination. Appearing in the blink of an eye in the midst of a tavern or even just outside the walls of Tilverton warned everyone of your mastery of Art, no matter how skilled your acting to the contrary might be.
And despite what everyone remembered about the bad wat wizards, good Wizards of War always ttied to be deft and subtle.
'If you skulk out in the trees this night,' the wizard Ruldroun half-murmured and half-sang. He stared at the glowing images of his conjured scrying dancing silently in midair before him. Boarblade was just beginning his charge.
Then he blinked. A man had appeared at the far end of the glade. A war wizard he knew! Lorbryn Deltalon, one of Vangerdahast's most trustedOnsler Ruldroun stood, his scrying forgotten, and whispered the strongest spell he knew.
He'd been saving that fire-gem for a long time, and it had cost him dearly, but what was that price against his very life?
The gem flashed and was gone-and the huge gout of flame blossomed from it and roared away down the clearing, fire that should sear flesh and bone alike, feeding on Art as well as mundane fuel.
Which should mean that if Deltalon was shielded in the usual ways against fire, he was doomed.
Yes, this was the place. Lush and damp and familiar. Dark now, in the depths of night, of course, but there was a spell-glow coming from the far end of the glade, andLorbryn Deltalon had just time for one final thought as Faerun exploded in blinding, white flame all around him:
So this is what it feels like to die.
Chapter 23
All the nine hells break loose Oh, aye, I tell you I'll be there When all the Nine Hells break loose Wizards burn, heroes fall, And the gods come tumbling after.
