Elminster had hurt with magic missiles was still on his feet, moving with less pain than before. Six Wolves came on with murder in their eyes, the Oversword bringing up the rear with a sudden, snarling charge.
The armored forms closed in around the old man, and despite herself Sharantyr screamed. The sound brought a warrior around to face her. With desperate savagery, Sharantyr flailed away at him with her blade, hammering him so hard and fast that he had no time to do anything except fend her off.
Beyond, Wolves roared and swords clashed. Sharantyr murmured a prayer to Tempus to aid the Old Mage as her own sword slid in under the edge of her opponent's helm and came back dark and wet.
The man fell heavily, and Sharantyr sprang aside, peering desperately to try to learn Elminster's fate. Another Wolf was already running toward her. Despite that approaching danger, the lady ranger stood for an instant in amazement.
Elminster was still on his feet amid all those armored giants. Steel flashed in his hand, and he was laughing. She shook her head, struck aside the blade reaching for her, and stared again.
For a moment the image of the gaunt, sharp-tongued old man in tattered robes seemed to fall away, and she saw the impish, snake-quick youth he had been many long years ago.
His eyes blazed. He dodged, lunged, and ducked under a reaching blade with the easy agility of youth. He laughed.
Sharantyr watched him in amazement, while almost without thought or effort her blade found the throat of the Wolf who had charged her. She no longer saw the Old Mage, but a man strong and supple, with the defiant pride of youth. A man of power delighting in the fray, the Laughing Hero of the North spoken of in legends, greatest of the carefree blades in the alleys of Waterdeep, slayer of fell things, prankster-and fearless fighter, even when alone against a host.
Elminster, half-naked and scrawny, whirled and leapt among the blades. Around him, the black-armored Wolves coughed or cried out and fell in their blood. Always there came that low laughter, except when Elminster rose up to bury his blade in the face of the Oversword of the guard and cried, 'For the dale! Let there be freedom again for the High Dale!'
When the last man fell, there was no sound from the watching men and women. Most of the village folk seemed to have emptied out of the huts and shanties beyond the keep. A score or more had gathered to watch, and in a few hands Sharantyr saw axes, pitchforks, and clubs. She looked down at the huddled black hulks, shook her head again, and walked toward the Old Mage.
Elminster stood leaning on his blade, looking suddenly old again. He was panting, great shuddering breaths that shook his body, but none of the blood on him was his own. He looked at her with two eyes that were very blue, and managed a smile.
'M-my robes, Shar,' he gasped. 'Old bones feel the cold an' all.' Sharantyr embraced him, rubbed his shoulders briskly, and hurried to snatch up his robes from where they lay.
The Old Mage dressed, throwing down the sword as if it were something diseased and foul. He shook his head.
'That draws deep,' he said, eyes distant. 'It gets… harder every time.'
Sharantyr put an arm around his shoulders. 'I'm still amazed,' she said softly, 'but shouldn't we be going? With all that noise, they must have been alerted at the keep.'
The folk of Eastkeep stood watching them, not speaking. Sharantyr saw awe in their eyes, and leaping hope, and a little fear. Elminster did not seem to see them at all as he adjusted his belt and shrugged his shoulders several times to settle his robes comfortably.
In the stillness, they heard the faint sounds of weeping from the hut.
Sharantyr looked at Elminster. 'The wizard,' she asked. 'Did you-?'
The Old Mage shook his head and silently motioned her to follow him. Together they went to the hut, and the Old Mage drew the door curtain aside.
Within was the stink of fear and sweat and death. A sobbing woman, cold gray manacles still about her wrists and ankles, swung a jewelled whip to rain blows down on a bloody, huddled form. The manacles and a wild look were all she wore. The chains that had held her dangled empty from a beam overhead.
She looked up, saw Elminster, and managed a savage smile of gratitude. Then, deliberately, she turned and brought the whip hissing down again with all the strength of a blood-spattered arm, though it was clear that the meat she struck could no longer feel it.
'Fly now, lady,' Elminster bid her gently. 'Flee before other wizards come to slay ye. Out, among the people, and throw both whip and keys into one of the streams as soon as ye can. Take nothing else or they'll know ye.' Her dirty bare shoulders shrugged in reply, and he added, 'Ye want to live, to see them all dead, don't ye?'
The woman listened to that, still panting out her fury in great sobbing breaths. She abruptly turned and snatched up a ring of keys from the mage's now-empty chair. Her eyes met Elminster's in fierce, silent gratitude, then she was gone into the morning.
Elminster turned eyes that had grown old again on Sharantyr. 'I bade him good morning and snatched up that scepter you saw me use. He sprang up to stop me, so I tossed it where he'd try to catch it, tripped him as he bent, and emptied a bowl of his wash water over his head. I got his keys and freed her before he could be up and hurling spells.' He smiled faintly. 'She snatched up the whip before I'd even freed her ankles. I nearly lost a finger to it, plucking the wand out of his belt before he could.'
Sharantyr looked at him and then at what was left of a man on the floor. She shivered for just a moment, then asked steadily, 'The wand? What sort is this one?'
Elminster sighed. 'Well, it can make things larger or smaller. If we had a tenday or two to spare searching this place, the keep, and any other haunts this mala-spell may have had, I suspect we'd find all manner of missing coins, gems, and other finery made very small. We might also find argumentative or very beautiful folk that the guard stopped, shrunk to the size of thy smallest finger.'
Sharantyr stared at him, eyes large and round. 'What a monster!' she hissed, looking around the hut as if every drawer and corner held coiled snakes waiting to leap out at her with hungry fangs.
Elminster shrugged. 'Ever wonder why there are more evil mages than good ones?' he asked. As he turned to go, he added quietly, 'It's because power like that makes it so hideously easy to rule all about ye. Remember always, there is no such thing as a mage that is not dangerous.'
With a grunt of satisfaction, he took a handful of dusty, well-stoppered glass vials from an earthen jar by the door. 'Healing quaffs,' he said. 'The only thing I dare spare the time to take. Let's be off, lass, before thy feared counterblow comes from the keep.'
He stepped out through the curtain and paused.
'Ye might pick up all the food ye can find-and wine, for that matter.' He looked out, seemed satisfied, and added, 'Never forget the food. Coins, now, are hard on the digestion and don't seem to restore a man like simple bread and cheese do.'
'Women,' his companion told him dryly, 'are no different. And my name's Sharantyr, 'lad.' ' She met his eyes challengingly.
Elminster laughed and replied, 'My apologies, Sharantyr. Now hurry, will ye? I'll be giving this wand to one of the folk here, to hide away and use to free shrunken friends later.'
A few hurried breaths later, they vanished back into the woods, Sharantyr's belt heavier by eleven daggers she'd stripped from the fallen Wolves.
It seemed they'd left these trees very long ago, but up the road, the fat Sembian merchant in newly slit-into- rags clothing could still be seen, sweating pounds off his rotund frame as he fretted, clambered, and pleaded to get his wine-wagons safely away before more guards arrived looking for someone to blame for the fate of their comrades lying sprawled bloodily in the dust of the road. Sharantyr cast a last look around, found herself grinning, and followed the Old Mage into the concealing green depths of the woods.
Belaerus shook his head. 'Who'd a' thought it?' he said, staring at the bodies sprawled all around. 'Just one old man.'
Durvin the cellarer slid the wand he'd just been given into his boot and looked at his friend sharply. 'I saw only a young man, a man with a long beard, braver than we. Young enough and brave enough to fight an entire guard of Wolves for the dale. To win back our homes for us.'
Belaerus nodded hastily. 'Aye, brave enough.'
