down to tousle her hair. They were alone in their bedchamber in the Tower of Ashaba, hiding Mourngrym's wounds from the wagging tongues of rumor. He didn't want half of Shadowdale fleeing because they'd heard he was dead.
It had been a very near thing. Without Elminster, Storm, or Sylune to hand, with the temples already crammed to the rafters with wounded, and with Lhaeo busy ransacking the heavily trapped cellars of Elminster's Tower in search of healing potions and weapons, there were few people left in the dale who could deal with wounds caused by poisoned blades. A white-faced Shaerl had spent a long evening cutting open her lord, tears and his blood mingling together on her face as she brushed errant locks of hair out of her eyes and bent repeatedly to her grisly task.
Mourngrym winced as she forced a sideplate over the quilted undertunic on his ribs, which bulged where they shouldn't because of the bandages beneath. 'Sorry, Mourn,' she muttered, feeling his muscles tighten under her hands.
The lord of Shadowdale let out a sigh. 'Don't be. Without you I'd be dead right now, and the dale fallen.'
Shaerl made a rude noise. 'Such dramatics! Do you think I'd flee or put a dagger in my heart if you died, when your killers and those who sent them will come marching into my reach in a few days?'
Mourngrym smiled and put out a hand-the one without the gauntlet-to the side of her face, tilting her jaw up so that he could kiss her.
His wife, the fiery temper of her noble Rowanmantle upbringing lurking not far behind her eyes, kissed him with ardent passion, locking her fingers in his hair to ensure that this wouldn't be a brief brush of lips.
'Try not to get carved up this time,' she chided him when she released him at last. 'I don't want to spend another night like yestereve.'
'As the dancer said to the high priest,' Mourngrym murmured. Shaerl sighed at this, her lord's habit of lame Waterdhavian humor, and handed him his helm, sword, and remaining gauntlet.
Nodding in acknowledgment, the lord of Shadowdale said, 'Now I really must get to horse.' He strode away- but before he'd taken three paces, she'd slipped around to bar his path, a slim but imperious hand slapped hard against the Amcathra arms emblazoned on his breastplate.
'Sword and gauntlet on and in place before you go out that door-and the helm before you set foot outside the tower. I don't want to be married to a headless man. They're not quite talkative enough.'
Mourngrym sighed, smiled, and did as he was bid. It was easiest to comply, as always, and his sharp- tongued mate was right-as always. Who was to say a Zhent agent, or merely someone in need of the coins they'd pay, wasn't lurking a bowshot away from the tower, or in a balcony above the courtyard, awaiting his chance?
These past two rides Zhent raiders had kept Shadowdale's defenders busy fighting off several attempts to burn the dale's smithy and granaries. There had also been the setting of several fires along the roads into the dale, no doubt to widen them and rob defenders of any cover; the attempt to taint the River Ashaba upstream by dumping carrion into it; and the poison dumped into the well of the Old Skull Inn-which had forced Lhaeo to call on the Simbul and endure her acidic lecture on placing a guard over basic necessities. The problem was that Mourngrym had too few competent guards to do that, let alone hold Shadowdale against thousands of well- equipped Zhentilar troops led by gods-knew-how-many Zhent priests and mages.
'Wouldn't it be nice,' he asked Shaerl as he settled the sword on his hip and she surveyed the result critically, 'if some mad god or other would just crush Zhentil Keep to rubble for us?'
'I'll see to it,' she told him briskly, 'but I'd take it more kindly if they'd settle for simply crushing the hosts on their way here to slaughter us… and if I knew where Elminster was just now.'
'Boo!' breathed an all-too-familiar voice on the back of her neck.
Shaerl shrieked as she leapt forward into Mourngrym's arms. The lord of Shadowdale began to laugh helplessly, shaking his lady-and she broke free and spun like a dancer on one small bare foot to confront the Old Mage, her eyes snapping with anger.
'Must you always creep up on folks invisibly and then try to startle them with grand entrances?'
'Everyone needs a hobby, look ye,' Elminster said, regarding her with eyes that sparkled in amusement, 'and that's one of mine.'
'Well, find another! Gods! My heart's still-feel it! It's-'
'No, love,' Mourngrym said hastily as the gleam in Elminster's eye grew brighter, 'you don't want to make that sort of offer! Not with Elminster!'
Shaerl turned on him. 'And you! Laughing at my discomfort, like a boy playing in the street! You ought to be-'
'Somewhere quieter,' Mourngrym said sarcastically, striding past her, 'like the heart of a battle with the entire Zhent army!'
Shaerl made a gesture in his direction. Mourngrym waggled one steel-clad finger at her in mock admonishment, and went out.
The lady of Shadowdale sighed away her exasperation and turned back to Elminster. 'Be welcome, Old Mage,' she said softly. 'I'd appreciate a chance to talk about what lies ahead for us, if you've the time.'
''Tis why I came,' Elminster rumbled, 'now that my work at the Standing Stone is done: three arrow swarms, and a little something extra.' He went straight to Mourngrym's most comfortable chair and sat down with a grunt of pleasure, swinging his feet up over one of its massive arms.
Shaerl smiled at that and started toward the sideboard where the decanters of wine awaited-but she'd taken only a few steps before a full goblet of her favorite vintage came gliding up to hang in the air in front of her. She took it, turned, and saw Elminster raising an identical drink in salute. 'To a lady who does not take serious contributions from idiots,' he announced.
Shaerl grinned, shook her head slightly, and returned his toast. 'To a wizard who takes more delight in misbehaving than does a small child-and is all the more welcome here for it.'
They both drank. Shaerl discovered the bottom of her glass, shrugged, and continued to the sideboard to take up the decanter. She had a feeling she was going to want a lot more of this before they were done… The Standing Stone, the Dales, Flamerule 16
'Dusk comes swiftly,' Swordlord Amglar told the two wizards, pointing at the red sun glimmering low in the west.
'We press on,' Nentor Thuldoum told him coldly. 'If we try to camp at the Standing Stone, we'll be in the trees or strung out along three roads-and we can be attacked along each one.'
'So much is common knowledge,' Amglar agreed calmly. 'I merely wish to point out that if we press on to Mistledale, it'll be dark by the time we ride out of the trees-ideal conditions for our foes to ambush us.'
The spellmaster turned on him with menacing slowness. 'Are you trying to tell me what to do?'
'Yes,' Amglar said evenly, locking eyes with him. 'That's exactly what I'm trying to do. Manshoon does expect you to take orders from me; his description of you, as I recall, was 'a fool, but a biddable fool.' Shall I report to him that he was wrong?'
Thuldoum held his eyes for a long, cold moment as their saddles creaked under them. Myarvuk, riding just ahead, hummed a tune, trying to pretend he could hear nothing of this. Thuldoum said softly, 'I'm watching you, Swordlord. Watching and waiting for the slightest slip, the smallest excuse… be careful. Be very, very careful.'
Amglar raised his eyebrows, but his face remained expressionless. 'I always am,' he said, and the spellmaster could have sworn that the warrior's eyes held a glint of mocking laughter.
Then they were slowing to round the turn onto the Moonsea Ride under the watchful bulk of the ancient Standing Stone. There was a brief confusion as mounted Zhentilar armsmen looked back expecting orders to halt, heard nothing, and rather tentatively continued, heading west toward Mistledale.
The rings on the spellmaster's hands winked with sudden radiance, and the air all around was filled with humming arrows. Shafts leapt from the trees on their left, hissing into startled men and their mounts alike, easily piercing black Zhentilar armor.
'We're under attack!' someone bellowed.
'Dismount! Into the trees there-charge!' Amglar shouted, pointing with his sword. 'In at them!'
His orders made Spellmaster Thuldoum turn to him, and Amglar saw that the wizard was staring down at his rings in astonishment. As they looked at each other, the rings flashed again-and another volley of arrows came hissing out of the trees on the other side of the road.
