In the fray, Itharr thrust a Wolf through the throat and turned to Belkram, ignoring the spray of blood that drenched him. 'That is Elminster, isn't it?'
Belkram nodded, teeth shining in a sudden smile. 'Definitely.'
Itharr wrenched a shield from the Wolf he'd just unhorsed and slain. 'Let's go, then. After him!'
Belkram looked about. They'd cleared a little space around them, Wolves falling back warily before the blades of the two madmen in leather. He smiled at them and advanced.
Uneasily they gave way, and he moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Itharr, who'd taken up the shield. Crouched together behind its angled protection, the Harpers hastened up the road to the castle.
Bolts thudded into the shield. Some snarled across the curving metal and were turned aside. Others stuck fast, dealing numbing blows to the arms beneath the shield. One pierced through, but its gleaming tip stopped a handwidth short of the two sweating Harpers. They traded rueful glances and hurried on.
Belkram kept a wary eye behind, blade ready, but the Wolves were too busy staying alive, as they fell back toward the castle, to chase two men already halfway up the road to the gates.
'Storm did promise us adventure,' Itharr said dryly. A quarrel struck the shield sharply, jarring them both, and glanced away.
'I didn't think just catching up with a hundreds-of-years-old wizard would be this exciting,' Belkram replied, 'whether he was a trouble-gatherer or no. Well, I've been wrong before.'
They were laughing together at that like crazed men as they came to the gates and found the high constable of the dale flailing away with blood-smeared chains manacled to his wrists, holding three battered Wolves at bay as the lady ranger Sharantyr fenced with them. A trail of blood and trampled, moaning guardsmen led from the gates to the courtyard beyond, where a riderless horse was rearing and screaming, lashing out with its hooves at the Wolves who tried to calm it. Elminster was, as usual, nowhere to be seen.
14
Elminster of Shadowdale, once an archmage of Myth Drannor and now and forever one of Mystra's Chosen, clung to the reins as the horse moved powerfully under him, its neck strong and warm in front of his nose, its mane whipping at his face. He had time to wonder what in Mystra's name he was doing here, with quarrels whipping and humming like angry wasps through the air all around him. He also found time to shrug and grin; this was not a new thought.
A breath later, as the horse carried him away from the clash of steel and the cries of men, he found time to answer himself. He was here simply because he was who he was. This was the way he took life, making of it what best pleased him: a tapestry as rich and deep and colorful as he could manage, much longer than most ever have the chance to weave. His tapestry, whose great weight of years all too often hung by a single thread. Because he dared it so and would not have it otherwise.
As it hung right now. Elminster crouched low as a quarrel flashed by very close on his right, and saw the set, grim faces of angry guards growing rapidly larger ahead. Thinking on his recent conclusions about life, he told himself aloud, 'My, aren't we high and mighty today, hmmm?'
Another quarrel hummed past close by his ear, and Elminster realized suddenly that he very much wanted to go on living, even if all magic was lost to him forever.
There was so much still to see, to read, to write, to do… and what a great way he was going about trying to cling to life, plunging himself into the thick of a battle between Zhentarim and desperate dalefolk-and, without his spells, advancing alone on a castle held against him!
He laughed so hard at that thought, he lost his grip on one rein and had to grab almost blindly for the horse's mane. Just then the hooves of his galloping mount struck a pocket of loose stones and slid, just a little. The horse bobbed and leapt on, straight at the guards, and the old man in tattered robes on its back made a hurried, ungraceful journey to the trodden turf beside the road.
The landing drove the breath from Elminster's lungs. He had only enough strength left to turn the violence of his fall into a roll, forward and to the right, down slope. He kept on rolling, hoping no sword would come seeking him before he could stand.
As the world turned over and over, Elminster felt for the wand that hurled magic missiles. From somewhere above, he heard the ringing protest of a horse, heavy hooves striking metal. After a short, broken-off cry, the dull thudding became the beat of hooves at speed, moving onward into the castle.
Well, at least his horse had attacked the castle.
Elminster came to his feet slowly, gulping air and holding the wand ready. The gates were still open-he could see the raised log portcullis from where he stood-and his horse had vanished within.
Guards still stood there, aye, but fewer than before. To his left as he'd ridden up, they'd been facing Sharantyr and the naked giant with the chains, engaged but keeping them at bay, standing as a human wall across the open entrance to the High Castle. These experienced, trained Zhentilar, cold-eyed and wary, were surprised at seeing war brought to them and ragtag dalefolk doing well against their sword brothers, but they weren't in any panic, or hurt or weary. In their own minds, the Zhentilar were easily a match for a woman with a sword and a naked man swinging his slave chains.
Now two Wolves at least were down, and the survivors were fighting in earnest to hold the gate. As Elminster climbed back up through the grass as fast as he could, a Wolf slowly went down, flailing chains beating a bell-like chorus on his battered helm. An arm hung useless-broken, no doubt-and blood made a sightless mask of the face as it turned, aware of nothing but darkening pain.
Elminster spoke gently over his wand. The sinking Wolf jerked rapidly and collapsed. One of his fellows turned, saw Elminster, and raised his blade with a yell, only to stiffen as Sharantyr's blade flashed like a striking snake into his neck from the side.
It swung on to parry another blow, before the incredulous Wolf spat blood at the climbing mage and started to fall.
Elminster watched him topple and wondered briefly why it is that men find it necessary to spill each other's blood so often and for so many reasons. More than a thousand years after he'd first asked himself that question, he asked it now and found no new answer.
An old conclusion still seemed the only answer he could see: It was, and is, the nature of the beast.
He glanced back at the marketplace, with its turmoil of jostling men, swinging weapons, and sprawled bodies, and then at the castle, where men in armor were hurrying to positions, scrambling to bring more horse- lances to serve as a bristling wall against attack. Aye, the nature of the beast. He shivered for a moment, sickened by all the butchery. Then he shrugged, looked around again, and tried to grin. Oh, well. Once committed, one must see it all through to the end.
Or, to quote an even older saying that was undoubtedly closer to the truth, he told himself as he darted over bodies of fallen gate guards into the High Castle, 'Once a fool, always a fool.'
He grinned ruefully at that, even as his feet (beginning to ache, now; was he finally becoming too old for this? A fine time to realize that) carried him across smooth-worn flagstones puddled with old rainwater, into a forecourt. Ahead, at the other end of this open space, a line of Wolves was beginning to form across the archway that led into the main courtyard of the castle. They were battling his rearing, terrified mount in a confused, shouting mass of men, but there were plenty of weapons out and no safe way through them for one old man with a little magic.
To his left and right, railless flights of stone steps climbed the inside of the castle's outer wall, leading to battlements above. The Old Mage looked around, saw no ready crossbows, and without hesitation mounted the stair on his right.
He strode up as if he belonged in this place, calm and even arrogant of tread, only his tattered robes making him look any different from a hundred other haughty wizards in the Realms. No doubt a few such Zhentarim magelings held sway here. He'd face spellwork of real power before the day was out.
Elminster had almost reached the battlements, where men were looking anxiously down into the marketplace
