What was left of the Sword of the South stood along the east bank of Swords Creek, still more than enough armsmen to crush the few who resisted them. Their hireswords and booty brothers were among the fallen; those who remained were veteran Zhent blackhelms. In fearful, sullen silence, they eyed the field of death before them, but orders were shouted, and officers ran about brandishing maces… and reluctantly, the soldiers of Zhentit Keep began to advance.
'It must be now,' Sharantyr heard Sylune say quietly.
In the distance, there came a sudden burst of radiance as the Witch of Shadowdale appeared in the heart of the Zhents… in the small space between Swordlord Amglar and Spellmaster Nentor Thuldoum. The men broke off their arguing to gape in unison at the beautiful woman who stood between them, the glow of her magic fading around her.
'Well met indeed, gentlesirs,' Sylune told them softly, raising her lithe arms in glee.
The magic missiles that streamed out of her riddled both men, even before the fireballs and bolts of lightning leapt forth in their wake.
Amglar and Nentor of the Zhentarim died screaming.
Sylune sang a terrible, wordless song of rage and sorrow for the body she was losing, and her slim-hipped form blazed white with the fury of the magic coursing through her.
Zhentilar stared at the dancing, burning figure in their midst, and then perished in the whirlwind of unleashed spells that sprayed death in all directions from the woman.
Florin swallowed what might have been a sob as he watched bright flames gout from Sylune's eyes and mouth, streaming across scorched turf to immolate shouting Zhentilar, whose vainly hurled spears vanished in that inferno.
There came a quickening of the spell fury, and Sylune's head was gone, blown away with the awesome energies pouring from her. The headless body turned as if it could see, and raised its hands to burn fleeing Zhent horsemen from their distant saddles. Flames streamed from her neck and hands… and before she turned away, her hands were gone, and spells were now leaping from the stumps of her arms.
Someone was rallying the Zhentilar as the stream of spells flickered, and then ceased… and men in ebon armor charged across the smoking ground, blades raised to slay the swaying, disintegrating Witch of Shadowdale.
'No!' Belkram roared, waving his own blade in sudden fury. 'For Mistledale! For Sylune!' He rushed across the strewn bones, his sword held high. Itharr and Florin raced to catch up to him. Sharantyr was moving before she thought about it, following her companions into a band of scattered, dazed-looking Zhent blackhelms still several hundred strong.
Beside her, Shar saw flashing legs and a bouncing bosom, and turned to see Jhessail sprinting along, weaponless, with Illistyl running at her heels and Merith moving with fluid grace and drawn sword.
'Wait!' Rathan puffed, behind them. 'Save some Zhents for me!'
They were almost at the stream and the grim-faced foremost Zhents who stood there when what was left of the Witch of Shadowdale vanished in a burst of snarling flames that threw men headlong or sent them fleeing wildly back toward the trees.
Then Belkram, Itharr, and Florin splashed across the stream, roaring out their grief together. They fell upon the Zhents like three maddened reapers mowing wheat. It was the last such harvest that their foes needed to see: the shattered Sword of the South broke and fled, an army no more.
Belkram ran on toward the dying flames that had been Sylune, and Itharr and Florin paced him, swording the few blackhelms foolish enough to get in their way. Sharantyr tried to catch up, but her lungs were burning; she'd never seen men run so fast before.
By the time she reached the spot where Belkram knelt, the Harper was on his knees amid the smoldering ashes, weeping.
The stone cradled so gently in his gauntlets had cracked in the heat. 'Lady,' Belkram sobbed despairingly, 'leave us not!'
But there came no reply but the creak of cooling stone. The Harper raised a face that streamed tears and cried to Florin, 'Do something!'
The Knight smiled down at him and undid the last buckle of his chest armor. As it fell open, he drew forth something he wore on a chain. A lump of stone. All of the gathered adventurers saw a streak of ghostly radiance arc from the shattered stone to the good one.
The stone winked once with its stored fire, reassuringly. Florin took off the chain and handed it to Belkram. 'Yours, I think,' the Shield of Shadowdale said quietly. 'I think she's grown tired of Torm's tricks.'
Belkram's eyes shone. He was still struggling to speak when the Riders of Mistledale swept past with lowered lances, ruthlessly riding down fleeing Zhents. 'For Baergil!' they bellowed as they went. 'For Baergil!'
Kuthe was in the foremost saddle, swaying and pale, blood all down his front from a deep wound in his shoulder. 'Kuthe!' Jhessail called as he spurred his mount past. 'Have done! They're beaten!'
He rode in a wide circle back to her, face set, and said, 'The field may be ours, Lady, but Mistledale is my home. Every Zhent who can still walk by sunset is a sword that can strike from darkness when we sleep! I'll not rest until they're all dead and done!'
Fflarast Blackriver and the old Harper who'd seen the sky rain wizards for the first time yesterday lay side by side under the very hooves of Kuthe's mount as he snarled those words, but they did not hear him. Dust lay on their staring eyes and still faces, and the darkening blood spilled under them both was the same hue: one could not tell which was the Harper's, and which belonged to the Zhentilar.
The leader of the Riders spurred away, the weary hooves of his mount trampling both bodies. Florin watched him go. 'Where is the captain of the Riders?' he asked quietly.
'Who?' Rathan asked. 'That lady paladin?'
'Aye,' Florin replied, 'I've known her a long time.'
'Oho,' Torm spoke up, 'an old lady friend, eh? May-'
His crowing words ended in a sharp gasp as Illistyl thrust a sharp hand into his gut. 'Someday, clever tongue,' she warned him, 'you'll say just one word too many…'
'Uhhh,' Torm agreed, doubled over.
'Indubitably,' Rathan translated, looking at the breathless thief with interest.
Florin, ignoring them all, was striding across the field and looking for Captain Nelyssa.
He caught sight of her at last, hard by the trees on the southern edge of the dale, well behind the last standard the defenders of the dale had rallied around. A mound of Zhentilar lay heaped about her and the sprawled bulk of her horse. A band of blackhelms had tried to outflank the fray-and paid for their cunning with their lives. There'd been over thirty of them, though, and it seemed the veteran Zhentilar armsmen were the measure of one paladin of Chauntea.
In a small lake of blood at the heart of the heaped dead lay the hacked and twisted form of Nelyssa, captain of the Riders of Mistledale, her armor torn open down the bloody mess of her front, and her notched and broken blade still clutched in her hand. Even as Florin broke into a run and shouted, lifting the heads of Harpers and farmers who knelt by the still form, he knew he was too late.
Nelyssa's face was unmarked, but bone-white; she looked very like the young lass Florin had known so long ago… but her eyes were dark and sightless. The ranger stared into them as he sank down beside her and let out a long, shuddering sigh of grief. Was this madness of strife going to claim all the best hearts and minds before it was done?
'I need your sword, noble Falconhand,' said a voice as rough and sharp as the skin of its owner. Margrueth of the Harpers laid her hand on Florin's own. The ranger looked up at her, finding it suddenly hard to drag his eyes away from Nelyssa's frozen face.
When he did, he was shocked at what he saw. The fire of life had gone out of the Harper sorceress, too. She was gray to the lips, and her skin was sunken and shriveled so that it seemed a skull thinly draped with flesh. Only the eyes told him the feisty Margrueth still lived, eyes dancing like two lively dark flames. 'You will aid me in this, Knight. I must have your oath on it.'
'My oath?' Weary and sad as he was, Florin still found that he could be startled. He looked around at the wondering farmers and the grim-faced Harpers, leaving him alone with the living woman and the dead one. They looked back at him. His oath. Whatever for?
