There were grunts, curses, and heavy thuds as bodies bounced on the floorboards, followed by another deep rumbling as the innkeeper sent a second barrel into the fray. 'Well done!' Belkram called back as the barrel crashed into a pillar, pinning a column of flickering darkness there for a dazed moment. Belkram's blade slashed into it, thrice, and it toppled, leaving only one column of darkness, which promptly fled, racing down a back passage.
'After him!' Itharr yelled excitedly. The old man shook his head as the two Harpers rushed off, muttering, 'I'm young enough to fight but too old for a lot of charging about,' as he retrieved his axe. Going from one darkness-shrouded form to another, he let his axe fall where their heads must be. Then he walked up to the writhing man with the crossbow, shook him, and growled, 'How many guards are there here?'
'I–I daren't tell-' the wounded man began. The innkeeper punched his injured shoulder firmly, and when he repeated the question, the shrieking Zhentilar found sudden courage to dare an answer.
'Ondarr! Ondarr! We're being attacked!' the fleeing jailer shouted as he pounded down the passage. Belkram and Itharr sprinted after him in the dimness, bouncing painfully off the corners of stacked crates and the projecting ends of barrow handles. 'Ondarr!'
They were running into the heart of the mill, where rumbling wheels ground endlessly. Passing through a succession of crowded chambers, they abruptly came out into a lamplit room where a sleepy-looking Wolf in chain mail was rising from a couch as darkness frantically tugged at his arm.
The Wolf's eyes widened as he saw the two Harpers bearing down on him. 'Ondarr, I presume?' Belkram asked pleasantly. The Wolf got his blade out just in time to parry Belkram's thrust, leaving his left arm raised and underarm exposed to Itharr's blade.
Itharr of Athkatla ended his charge in a leap that brought him onto the bed, feet up. His blade burst through the Wolf's shoulder an instant before his feet slammed the man against the back of the couch, which broke off with a splintering crash, twisting the unfortunate Zhentilar onto the floor with Itharr atop him. The Harper's dagger made short work of the guard, and Itharr looked up to see Belkram slamming the last darkness-shrouded jailer against a pillar. The man collapsed, and Belkram thrust his hands into the blackness, groping.
'Lost something?' Itharr asked lightly. 'Or is this some new thrill?'
Belkram made a face at him. 'I'm looking for keys, Great One. If the high constable's here, he must be in some sort of cell-'
'Or right there,' Itharr said, pointing. Belkram looked up and stared. The great wheels had ground to a halt because the man chained to the lever that drove them had stopped walking and was standing glaring at them with eyes that shone in the dimness like two flames.
'Irreph Mulmar?' Itharr asked.
'Aye,' the man snarled, bunching his chains with a menacing rattle. 'Who are you?'
'Harpers,' Itharr said simply. 'Itharr, once of Athkatla, and this is my blade-brother Belkram, from Baldur's Gate. We mean to drive the Zhents from your dale.'
'But first,' Belkram said, rising from the unseen body, 'we have to find the keys to your shackles.'
'Don't bother,' the naked man in the chains said in a deep voice. 'Just thrust yon spike into the spindle stop over there.'
Itharr did as the man directed, and with a rattle of chains the man shoved at the lever. It shuddered but did not move. The man nodded in satisfaction, ducked under the lever-a wooden bar as thick as his arm, worn smooth by the hours his hands had grasped it-and braced himself against it, shoving in the opposite direction from the way he'd been pushing it for so long.
The lever groaned, and the man pitted against it snarled, veins standing out like ropes on his neck. His body quivering like a bent bow, he took a slow, deliberate step forward-and the great lever groaned and shivered and… broke.
And Irreph Mulmar, former high constable of the High Dale, stood tall amid the wreckage, tearing his shackles loose from the splintered wood, and said in a voice of iron, 'No more.'
'Well met,' Belkram said calmly. Irreph gave him a terrible smile and gathered his chains into a bunch in his right hand. 'My thanks, both of you. I've a mage to slay-and I must learn what has befallen my daughter-as soon as I'm free of this stinking mill cellar.'
Suddenly, out of the darkness above, the pointed, rusting fang of a halberd stabbed down at him. Irreph twisted aside, flung a loop of chain over the weapon as it bobbed and reached again, and hauled hard.
Cursing darkness came helplessly down atop him. Irreph lashed it with his chains until its groans and shrieks had died into silence. Then he swarmed up the spindle in angry haste. Belkram and Itharr exchanged looks and followed.
Darkness fled from him along a gallery. Irreph followed, bounding along on legs stiff from not stretching for so long. Chained to the wood, there'd been nowhere to run. He laughed exultantly as he caught up with the darkness- just another man wearing a ring that cloaked him in concealing magic-and flung a loop of chain around the unseen throat from behind. A dagger clattered to the floor. Limbs flailed against him frantically and gasping sounds began… and then died away in slow agony.
Irreph strode on to the stairs. Somewhere ahead was the sun, and the men who'd stolen his wits and dale from him. They must die, all of them. Soon.
Ylyndaera hurried down the stairs like a ragged wraith, clinging to railings from time to time to peer ahead. Doors slammed here and there, men shouted and ran, their booted feet thundering on the old, uneven wooden boards, and from below came dull crashings, thumps, and an occasional short scream. What was happening?
Daera reached the ground floor of the mill, a huge room always piled high with full sacks-or, in winter, drifting snow-where stairs went up and down in all directions. Sunlight spilled in through the open door, and there were men running and fighting everywhere. She saw Yoster, the old innkeeper, hacking with a huge old axe at a Wolf as if he were chopping at a tree that wouldn't fall. There was blood all over the axe.
Beyond the two struggling men she could see others, more Wolves slashing and hacking at two men she'd never seen before. Where was Father?
There was no rumbling. The wheels had stopped! Was he dead? Free? Daera swallowed and had to duck aside as a man reeled out of the darkness, cursing, and almost fell over her. He charged on into the fray, clutching at his shoulder, trailing dark drops as he went.
This was no place for her. Carefully, Ylyndaera peered around a pile of sacks toward the light, just in time to see one of the guards fleeing her way.
She didn't have time to do anything but crouch in fear. He struck her with a crash, one very hard shin smashing into her side with bruising force. With a fearful curse he pitched over her and crashed to the floorboards, sword bouncing away. Winded, Daera rolled helplessly over against a pile of sacks. She did not even have breath left to moan.
A dark form strode past, not even seeing her. It savagely swung something long and heavy and metal- chains! — at the scrambling guard. Metal thudded down with a horrible, heavy, wet sound. Daera heard a sob, a groan, cracking noises, and more thudding. Then silence.
She lay still, struggling for breath. Booted feet rushed past her, and she saw the flash of a sword. It clashed and slid against chain, and Daera saw the black-armored swordsman flung back against a pile of sacks only to regain his balance and charge again.
The terrible chains swung again, and Daera heard the man's helm crumple. The sword spun from his hand, and he crashed heavily to the floor.
Father stalked toward her, gathering bloody chains in one hand as he came. Except for long matted hair, he was naked. Ylyndaera could not even speak as he strode past, not seeing her. But-gods be praised! — his eyes weren't the dull, unseeing things that had wandered over her as he howled in the darkness, but the sharp, clear eyes of the ranger of old, the aroused and angry high constable of the High Dale.
He was gone, out into the sun. The two strangers rushed out after him, swords in their hands, and old Yoster with his axe followed, stumbling in weariness or perhaps because he'd been hurt. On her knees, fighting for breath, she could not tell.
Daera gasped for air, wishing she was at her father's side this instant to watch him smite down soldier after soldier of the tyrants. To see these black-armored Wolves fall…
Gods watch over us-their bows! He'll be slain, sure!
A terrified Daera, still doubled over in pain, staggered out into the light. She saw much blood, and men in
