The flames howled on, toppling trees and setting them aflame. Silhouetted against that bright raging stood all that was left of Lotbryn Deltalon.
A column of gray ash shaped like a wizard who'd turned his head in astonishment faced Ruldroun with one hand half-raised. Then it slumped down and swirled away, gone forever. Beyond it, the fire snarled.
Ruldroun hastened out of the glade on the far side from the fire, seeking-and finding-a tree with two trunks and a saddle between them large enough for him to stand in.
Leaning back against one trunk, eyes on the dying flames in the distance, he swiftly cast a spell many a Wizard of War had found useful when away from the cities of the realm.
The magic made his fingertips and ears tingle briefly as it took hold. Now, and for most of the time until dawn, he would be made aware of all minds approaching him, and their direction and distance.
It might well be imperative for the continued life of Onsler Ruldroun to see who-and what-the blaze lured near.
Fire roared into being off to his left, too suddenly and violently to be anything but a spell.
Brorn Hallomond smiled, held up his bone-coated hands to more clearly see how skeletal they looked, admired them in the dancing firelight for a moment, then turned off the road into the trees, heading for the blaze.
'From beyond the grave, I come for thee,' he murmured the old saying and flexed his hands again.
Even if the fire-makers didn't happen to be the Knights of Myth Drannor, he certainly felt like killing someone.
'A gray render, too? You have been busy!'
The only answer Florin gave to Dalonder Ree was a shrug, but the Hatper didn't have to look at the ranger's face to know his words had left Falconhand rather pleased.
He was just turning to begin a look all around, seeking any signs of other predators watching from the trees, when a great gout of flame blossomed out of nowhere with a roar, some way off in the forest, but racing toward them with frightening speed.
Off to Ree's left, Dauntless cursed at the sight, but even as he did the Harper could see the conflagration was small. It would die down long before getting anywhere near them.
Still, burning trees were toppling, sparks were wafting up into the night, and-what was that?
Dalonder whirled to his left, sword flashing up, and saw Florin and Dauntless doing the same.
Dark figures were racing at them, bursting out of the darkness, plunging out from between trees with swords and daggers flashing in theit hands.
' 'Ware all!' Dauntless roared. 'We're under attack!'
By then, swords were clanging against swords in hasty parries, men were grunting as they tried to slash right through the swords and strength of foes, and someone was screaming as the tip of Dalonder Ree's sword slid through his hand, sending the dagger in it spinning away.
'Klarn!' the wounded man called desperately. 'Klarn, aid!'
Steel clanged on steel. Dalonder Ree ducked one way and then hurled himself in another direction. The wounded man ctied out in fear as his sword missed the dodging Harper entirely. Klarn didn't come-and the wounded man was falling, life-blood gurgling out of his opened throat.
Florin and Dauntless were hacking at three men, Klarn presumably one of them, and another had burst past the fray to come racing along the base of the gravel slope.
Pennae ran after him, dagger in hand. The last thing the Knights of Myth Drannor needed just now was a foe lurking in the night to fell them from behind, one by one.
It was a man, a little taller and stronger than she was but agile father than hulking. There was something… not right about his head, as if something had shifted there, moving somehow since her first glimpse of him. A disguise slipping, perhaps.
The man came to a boulder among the scree. He dodged out and around it, which meant she had just enough time toPennae threw the dagger in her hand, straight and hard. The man stiffened, arching back and grabbing at his shoulder; reflected firelight glinted off her little jutting fang there, just for a moment.
Pennae smiled a tight little smile and hurled her second dagger.
The man cried out as her dagger wobbled in rhe back of his upper left arm. Again he clutched at it. This time, her weapon fell out just before his clawing fingers got to it.
He ran on, stumbling, and Pennae bent at the full run and plucked up that second dagger, dark and wet with his blood.
By then, he was desperately climbing the cliff, stones bouncing down into her face with the clumsy haste of his climb.
Pennae's smile widened.
Drathar peered out through the trees at the battle and shook his head. Dark figures seemed to be leaping on all sides, firelight flashing back reflections on swords and daggers here, there, and fleetingly everywhere. He couldn't tell one combatant from another, stlarn it!
No-wait-there! That was Florin Falconhand, and the man beside him must be an ally, being as they'd both had chances to thrust steel into each other and hadn't. It was someone he'd seen before, someone' Sark it!' he said. 'Blast them both!'
Invisibility be htasted, he was going to hurl at least one foeblast!
There! He did the swift casting and flung out his arms in the usual triumphant flourish-and watched the night erupt in sudden green-gold flame, a burst embroidered by screaming bodies being flung into the air and away.
Heh-hah!
Right. Enough glee. Drathar crouched and went back to peering hard through the tangle of trees. In the eyeblinking aftermath of his spell, with the fire in the distant trees dying down, it was getting harder and harder to see. He doubted he'd slain Florin or the other man. His spell had struck just short, hurling them away rather than shattering them. Unless a helpful tree had done those shatterings for him when they'd been flung against it…
Not something he could trust in. He crouched, sinking into uncertainty again. Should he just blast away and so fell Boarblade and his men along with the Knights? Or save his spells to defend himself and leave Boarblade's men be, to help him do his work for him?
Would they help him? Or was he watching himself trade the Knights for new and stronger foes, who'd have the Pendant of Ashaba and be just as determined to defend it?
Drathar shook his head again. And some folk thought Zhentarim spent all their days preening and flogging slaves and spellhurling…
Holy Fist, when was the last time he'd flogged a slave?
In his fearful determination to get out of her reach, the man she'd wounded hadn't chosen an easy way up the cliff. Pennae knew the face she'd just climbed, and she was unhurt to boot. She swarmed up the weathered stones, tasting the iron tang of her foe's blood in her mouth as she bore the dagger between her clenched teeth. She was certain she'd passed him during her ascent, with quite some time to spare.
More than time enough to plant that dagger in the turf, pluck up two rocks of the right size from among the many strewn about atop the cliff, move to just the right spot, and wait.
Still and silent in the night, she hid in the darkness beyond the fading firelight splashing leaping teflections off the cliff face. The man never saw her until the first stone, flung full in his face, broke his jaw and left him stunned, just clinging to the weathered stone and fighting to try to think.
'B-Boaiblade,' he mumbled, aftet a moment, remembering his own name with some difficulty as he stared up into the merciless smile of the beautiful woman who'd crouched down to face him.
Then her second stone slammed into his nose, shattering it; the ruptured hargaunt hissed wildly in pain and erupted in oily, foul-smelling liquid all over his face-and Telgarth Boarblade lost his hold.
His despairing cry was very short. It wasn't a particularly tall cliff. But with nothing but very hard rocks awaiting him at the bottom, and his head reaching them first, it didn't have to be.
