Elminster looked again at the now-unconscious man, head bouncing and lolling from the force of blows he was taking from behind as impatient warriors tried to force their way into the room. He sighed, drew up his robes in both hands for faster climbing, and made for the stairs. Sharantyr glided just behind him, sword ready, watching their rear as they ascended. It was turning into a very long day.
17
'Is the high constable still alive?' Sharantyr asked as they came cautiously out of the turret and looked around. A quiet had fallen over the High Castle as the afternoon sun lit up its every nook and crevice. In the courtyard below, a few dalefolk could be seen cautiously probing bodies and piles of rubble and tumbled gear. Doors were closed, and turret windows shuttered. Save for a thin wisp of smoke rising from the castle kitchens, the fortress seemed deserted, as if no one lurked within, plotting victory and gathering swords and magic.
Elminster spread empty hands. 'Mulmar? I barely recognized him, ye know, with the chains an' all. He headed for the battlements by one stair while we ascended by the other. I lost sight of him after that. I seem to recall hearing him cry out when they were firing all those quarrels at us.' He winced. 'If he fell there, in the forecourt, I may have sent him to the gods myself a little later when I hit the Zhent's globes.'
At the memory, he drew the wand from his belt, looked at it quizzically, and sighed. 'I can't remember what Art is left in this. It's gone wild so many times now, who can tell?' He shrugged. 'Let us seek Irreph, whate'er befalls now. Thy thought is a good one.'
Sharantyr smiled at him. 'Of course. They always are.' She handed her sword to him. 'Here, hold this.'
'The eternal saying of a woman to a man,' Elminster observed wryly. 'But why to me, and now?'
Sharantyr grunted under the dead, dangling weight of the corpse she'd picked up. 'Because I need both hands… for this.' She staggered back along the walk, the dead man on her shoulders, and dumped the carrion through the turret window.
'Drag a few over here, will you?' she called. 'Before we look for the high constable, we'd best guard our rear.'
Elminster dragged obediently. The lady ranger tossed the bodies down the stairs, Haragh first.
'They'll carve or crush their way past the one you trapped down there soon enough,' Sharantyr said. 'If they have to get past all of these to come after us-well, at least they'll be slowed down. Or if they use magic to shift them, we'll be warned.' She puffed, heaved, and sweated until cold, heavy bodies choked the stair and covered the turret room floor. Then she squinted at Elminster, pulling hair out of her eyes, and said, 'I'll be glad when this day's done, Old Mage. I'm beginning to feel old.'
Elminster raised an eyebrow. 'A thousand and more years old am I, and d'ye hear me groaning and limping and feebly protesting my age? Surely ye can manage the weight of a mere twenty-odd winters, lass!'
He grinned at her expression and added innocently, 'Or is it thirty-odd?'
The Old Mage of Shadowdale then demonstrated the light weight of his years for all the Realms to see by running off as fast and nimbly as any naughty child at play. Sharantyr aided him by amply demonstrating his immediate need to do so.
'He lives,' Elminster said tersely, kneeling by the sprawled, blackened body on the stair. Quarrels stood out from it like needles in a chatelaine's pincushion. The high constable lay in his blood amid a litter of chains, fallen Wolves, and odd weapons. 'He'll want healing, even to see the moon this night.'
'Then give it to him,' said Sharantyr in a voice that trembled with fresh rage. 'While I do what he was trying to.'
Elminster turned. 'And that is?' he asked mildly.
Sharantyr's face was bleak. 'Destroy every Zhent still in this dale.' Zhents had done this to a brave man who still wore their chains, just as Zhents had chained her, too, and… She thrust away those memories with a shudder, letting her rage build into the fire she'd need to slay as ruthlessly as she'd need to. As ruthlessly as they always did.
She found she was trembling, and that Elminster had noticed it and had begun to frown, so she drew in a deep breath and tried to assume a nonchalant manner. Hefting her long sword, she surveyed the notches and scrapes in its steel critically and added, 'One of them owes me a new sword, too.'
'Still feeling old and worn out?' Elminster asked her pointedly, slipping the ring of regeneration onto one of Irreph Mulmar's fingers and closing the limp, hairy hand of the high constable over it.
Sharantyr laughed harshly. 'No. Not anymore.' She turned away, whipped her sword through the air thrice, stretched like a great cat, and turned back to him. 'Wish me luck, Old Mage,' she said in a voice like silk falling onto waiting steel. 'I've Wolves to hunt.'
Elminster smiled. 'All of Tymora's luck upon thee, and more. Take with thee all that Mystra and I have no need for.' He rose hastily, smile fading, and reached out his hand to her. Wondering, Sharantyr laid her hand in his.
The Old Mage gently drew her to him. His lips were soft on her cheek.
'Take care, lass,' he said roughly, 'for I find more and more that I do not want to lose thee.'
Sharantyr stared at him for a moment, openmouthed, then whirled about and raced away across the forecourt.
Elminster watched her go, shook his head slightly, and sat down on the step above Irreph, wand in hand, to guard the high constable of the High Dale. There are less steady jobs.
Sharantyr ran past the astonished women of the dale, who were clutching a variety of weapons and looking nervously at shuttered windows high above them, dark arrow-slit windows uncomfortably nearer, and closed doors. She gave them one hawklike, searching glance and ran on without breaking stride, drawn sword gleaming.
Ylyndaera stared after her and said urgently, 'All of you, follow her! Come!'
Sharantyr ran hard, hair streaming, across the muddy courtyard toward a shadow in a back corner where the men had been earlier… men who were not there now. They must have found a way in. She would find it too.
Behind straw heaped up for the horses, Sharantyr found a pile of fresh stones. Then she saw the hole their removal had opened in the wall. Here the others had gone in. Here, guarded or not, she would follow.
She halted, breathing heavily from her run, and looked all around warily. Seeing no foe, she crouched to peer into the gloom, extended her blade, and followed it into darkness.
Her throat was suddenly very dry. She'd climbed into unknown dark places a time or six, aye, but always in the company of others-usually the merry, mighty Knights of Myth Drannor. With them, as they hewed down dragons and wizards alike while trading jests and insults, it was all too easy to feel invulnerable. But now… She crept onward, hoping no enemy archer or mage waited at the other end of this tunnel.
The strong smell of deep, damp earth rose around her with a faint, clinging odor of decay. Thankfully, there were no charnel or beast smells. This was no lair or bone pit, and the way ahead was short.
The tunnel opened out into a small, round room. Smooth-sided chutes-smaller, tubelike tunnels-opened into it on all sides and from above. The higher they went, the narrower they became. This was familiar, somehow. It resembled something she'd-of course! This was a privy pit, and the tunnels above-disused, by the lack of strong smell or dung underfoot-led to garderobes or cruder jakes in the castle above. But where had those dalesmen gone?
Two tunnels looked large enough to comfortably crawl in. The one to the left must lead toward the turret and the room they'd heard Stormcloak elect himself lord in. The one to the right went to the kitchens, great hall, guest rooms, and audience chambers.
Near the great hall, there'd probably be too many people about, and it would be too large to furnish easy cover against a crossbow. Moreover, there were-or at least recently had been-Wolves in the other direction. Lots of them. She peered down both tunnels but could find nothing distinctive about either, and no marks to show which way the men had gone.
