and cranking their windlasses with whirring speed to reload the heavy crossbows propped or cradled in arms everywhere, when a great commotion arose from below.
Everyone ran or craned necks to look, in time to see Irreph Mulmar fell the last staggering gate guard with a brutal, crushing sweep of his chains.
Wolves shouted and ran to aim their crossbows down into the forecourt. The heavy weapons had to be supported on the stone parapet to fire steadily, and when so placed could not be tilted down steeply enough to menace the high constable below. One overenthusiastic Wolf lost his weapon trying to aim straight down the wall. The crossbow slid off the stone, eluding his grab, and pitched to the courtyard below, its shattering a crashing chord amid the shouting and running feet.
A moment later some Wolves reached the stairs. Cradling their bows on their knees, standing bent over, they fired. Bows jerked and quarrels shot wildly down. Sharantyr sprinted in through their fire and spun hard to the right, to race up the same stairs Elminster had taken. She found herself looking up into the eyes of two Wolves hurriedly reloading their bows at the top of the stair.
Elminster had gained the battlements moments before Irreph's dramatic entry and stood haughtily among Wolves who from long practice did not look directly at a wizard; the Zhentarim were quick indeed to take offense. He glided up behind the guards at the head of the stair, waited until they were in the frantic midst of reloading, then kicked hard at the backs of their knees.
They fell in a clatter of armor and a riot of startled curses. Sharantyr boiled up the last few steps, and her blade found their throats before they could rise.
Men on the battlements all around them shouted in astonished fury. Elminster turned to face them, wand in hand, wondering just whom to strike at first in the forest of angry Wolves. Many of the more distant warriors hadn't seen or heard the struggle on the stairs at all and were still leaning down into the forecourt, crossbows ready now, as Irreph mounted the stairs on the far side of the entry gate.
Bows thrummed and spat. A rain of quarrels found the high constable before he'd taken four bounding strides. One ran through his upper arm and came out across his chest. Another pierced deep into his thigh, where it stood quivering. Irreph struggled on for two strides more, shuddering in pain, then fell onto the stairs, cursing.
Elminster cast a glance over the walls and saw perhaps seven Wolves, no more, fleeing up the road to the gates, hotly pursued by a bleeding, pitchfork-waving rabble-all that was left of the folk of the dale.
'Shar!' the Old Mage cried, as the lady ranger reached him and coolly ran her blade through the body of the nearest Wolf. The Zhentilar was still cursing, juggling a loaded bow and trying to draw steel, as he went down. 'Clear this height if ye can. Throw their bows away, or stamp on them, or kick them down! They'll be the death of us if we don't!'
Suiting action to his words, Elminster snatched up a nearby crossbow, triggered it-the quarrel ran into the flagstones a handspan in front of an onrushing Wolf, causing him to stumble and fall heavily with a startled oath-and tipped it over the battlements to be lost below.
Sharantyr overwhelmed the Wolf beside her with three quick slashes. The man reeled against the crenellations, clutching at his cut face and arm. Sharantyr snatched up his bow and fired it along the battlements into the chest of a guard who was just raising his own weapon. That crossbow in turn went off into the back of another Wolf, who screamed, staggered against the parapet, and was gone an instant later, leaving only a fading scream behind. The lady ranger flung her bow out over the parapet without looking and caught up her blade again to leap at the next Wolf.
'Use your dagger, Old Mage!' she snarled over her shoulder. Elminster looked at her and then down at the dagger at his belt. Drawing it forth with some distaste, he buried it in the still-writhing warrior Sharantyr had slashed. The Wolf stiffened, groaned, and went on moaning and clutching his wounds. Hmmm. Not so good.
Elminster looked behind him. There were few Wolves on this side of the gate. Below the walls, the ground fell away steeply in a tumble of rocks and scrub trees where no ragged band of farmers and merchants would mount an attack. Only two guards were running along the battlements toward him.
Elminster used his wand again on the foremost one, then turned back to the still-writhing Wolf. As he struggled to heave the blindly flailing man over the parapet, the Wolf's scabbarded sword bobbed and waved under his nose.
Elminster looked at the weapon, shrugged, and drew it out. He turned. The first rushing Wolf had slowed to a stagger, but the second was shouldering past the first to charge. Elminster fired the wand of magic missiles into the man's face. As the Zhent cried out and clutched at his eyes, Elminster leapt toward him and drove the point of his blade into the man's throat.
It slid in with such hideous ease. He'd forgotten that. Elminster looked down in disgust at the blade he held, feeling ill. He remembered to look up, though, in time to meet the other Wolf's charge.
Steel met steel. The man was strong, and in a fury of pain, and very good. Elminster managed two frantic parries before firing the wand into the man's open, snarling mouth.
Blood spattered the Old Mage's hair and beard. Sickened, he turned away from what was left of the Wolf, a headless body still jerking its blade about in a grotesque dance, and strode back to the one he'd taken the sword from. The man was twitching more feebly now. Elminster sighed, caught hold of his legs, and tipped him up and over the battlements.
Then he looked along the wall anxiously. Sharantyr was only one lass in leather armor, and he'd left her to fight alone for far too long.
His jaw dropped. Dead Wolves lay sprawled everywhere, heaped on the parapet walk. More were draped along the parapets themselves. Far around the curve of the ramparts, Sharantyr was fencing with two frightened- looking Wolves. Behind them, another pair of Zhents were hastily working their windlasses to ready quarrels for her death.
Elminster used his wand on them from afar, cast a look to his right-there were no bowmen atop the inner wall or anywhere else that he could see, and judging by the sounds from below, the dalefolk had reached the forecourt-and started running along the wall, swinging his sword to gain speed.
Sharantyr twisted aside too slowly and took a cut across the back of her raised left arm above the elbow. Elminster heard her sob and then snarl, and fired his wand at the man attacking Shar.
Sharantyr was tiring and in pain. Her long hair spun wildly about her as she panted and danced, the heavy ringing of steel loud in her ears as she traded blows with a Wolf who would not fall. They had no shields. Each blow and counterblow was taken on their blades with leaden, numbing force. Sharantyr reeled back, fighting for breath, and her opponent pressed forward, daring to grin for the first time.
Elminster's wand spat magic again, stars leaping to strike two Wolves. The man fighting Shar staggered, and behind him, one of the Wolves with bows fell heavily onto his face and lay still.
Sharantyr lunged wearily in to slash the face of the staggering Wolf, then shoved him aside. He fell into the forecourt with a strangled cry of protest, waving his blade as if it could catch hold of something and save him. It could not.
The lady ranger reached the last bowman. Desperately he brought up his heavy, half-winched weapon to block a thrust at his throat, then dropped it and ran.
Sharantyr took two running steps after him, then shook her head and collapsed against a crenellation, gasping for breath. Elminster watched the man cast a look back to see that he was not pursued. The Wolf went to a nook in the wall where another stair descended. The Old Mage's eyes narrowed. He was doing something in there… loading another crossbow?
Elminster fished under the body of the bowman he'd felled with his wand, dragged out the loaded, ready bow, and struggled to raise it. He was still puffing and staggering when Sharantyr's hand touched his shoulder.
'El,' she panted, 'what are you-oh.' She dragged the bow out of his hands, staggered for a moment under its weight, and fired at the nook just as the Wolf cast an anxious look back at them.
Blood blossomed in the man's face. His head grew larger for an instant, then disappeared from sight. Sharantyr went to an embrasure in the parapet and shoved the bow out into space.
She turned back to Elminster, breast heaving, covered with blood and sweat, and said, 'Next time… if you live… to pull a next time on me… choose someplace to go for a walk… that doesn't… have any gates… hey?'
Elminster chuckled and kissed her cheek tenderly. Then, his arm around her, he wiped the sweat from her brow with his sleeve and fumbled under his robes.
Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. Elminster pushed at her shoulder impatiently. 'Sit ye down a moment,' he
