Prophet of Moonshae

to greet him as he reached the bottom of the bluff, though they regarded him suspiciously, with upraised axes. A circle of hounds gathered around the knight, growling and holding the men-at-arms away.

A helmeted warrior, clad in armor similar to Hanrald's, approached. Hanrald recognized his brother Gwyeth.

'What are you doing here?' demanded the latter as his men opened their ring to their leader. Gwyeth stopped twenty feet from Hanrald and scowled through his opened visor, planting his hands firmly on his hips.

'I come to send you away,' Hanrald retorted, 'and to let nature take the course that she will.'

Gwyeth laughed sharply. 'You would disobey our father?'

'Only because he-and you-show treason to our king!'

The older man glowered even more darkly. The men-at-arms looked among themselves-treason to the High Crown was not something lightly contemplated or loosely charged.

'It's fit that we find you in the company of curs. You're a lying dog and a disgrace to the family!' snarled Gwyeth, his hands on the hilt of his broadsword.

'A family I would as soon be rid of,' retorted Hanrald, his voice calm but his own hands ready to loose his weapon. 'For it has lost all sense of honor in its undying quest for gold!'

Warlock growled and stepped before the knight, but Hanrald called him back. 'This battle is mine, friend.'

Gwyeth, however, stared at the dog. 'That's Warlock!' he exclaimed. 'The dog who fled the manor on the night of Currag's death! And these others-all the hounds of Blackstone!'

'Aye, Brother, and they are here because of the offense you give to the earth!'

'Enough!' Gwyeth's rage took hold of him, and his sword burst from its scabbard to gleam in his hands. 'Steel can silence your treasonous tongue.'

Hanrald barely had time to draw his own weapon and meet his brother's assault with a clash of sharp steel. The two knights bashed at each other again, then circled warily. Once more they closed in, exchanging blows from the right and left, high and low, but each time one sword met the other, and the ringing notes of the conflict echoed through the vale.

Some of the men-at-arms fidgeted with their own weapons, as if they would help their lord, but they found themselves confronted by slavering hounds, baring white fangs and standing in stiff-backed, bristling readiness.

The two knights chopped and parried, asking and giving no quarter. Their blades cut silvery arcs through the air, and the momentum of their attacks slowly carried them down the gentle slope toward the shore of the pool. The man tied to the stake watched them impassively, as did the ragged pilgrims around the fringe of the vale, while the men-at-arms stayed well back from the menacing hounds.

One man, however, did more than watch. Unseen by either of the combatants, Pryat Wentfeld, devout cleric of Helm, slowly withdrew something from his pouch. Carefully, surreptitiously, he prepared to cast a spell.

Musings of the Harpist

She is here, and alive, though just barely. I have seen an essence in my dreams these past nights, and I curse my old brain that it did not understand more quickly. But now I am certain.

The Earthmother has returned. A glimmering of her might was born in the Fairheight Moonwell, and now that fragment struggles for life, as a sapling struggles to raise its leaves to the sun.

She has floated through a long night, and her awakening is not yet assured. It remains to us to give her that chance.

18

A Focus of Might

As usual, dawn was an obscure moment in the dark, gray hours of early morning, yet Deirdre sensed it was just at that moment she awakened. She knew that somewhere, above the leaden clouds and beyond the icy, stinging rain, the sun had just crested the eastern horizon. Languorously she stretched, the events of the previous night coming back to her bit by exhilarating bit.

The oath of worship! The memory of that experience awed and moved her as much as had the ceremony itself. Now, as she met her first day following that pledging, she felt as though she had moved in a few hours from a child to some stage far beyond adulthood. The power pulsing within her animated Deirdre's body, compelling her to full alertness, tingling her nerves with suppressed tension.

And the oath had only been the first part, for then there had been Malawar. He had taken her to her bed, and for the first time, he had remained with her through the night.

She sat up in the bed and looked at the form beside her, covered by the heavy quilt. A smile played with her lips as she recalled the forbidden delight, the glorious culmination of their love. Now he still slumbered, and she cherished her private moment of joy.

Gently, tenderly, she reached out and pulled the coverlet away, longing for just a glimpse of his straw-colored hair, his fine-chiseled features. The quilt flipped away-and Deirdre gagged in shock.

Biting back her scream of terror, she threw herself from the bed, pulling the covers with her and wrapping them around her nakedness as she backed toward a corner of the room. The thing that had lain beside her stirred and then sat up-slowly, and stiffly, as befitted the wrinkled figure, withered and wizened with age.

Cold eyes, as dark as the Abyss, stared out at Deirdre from lined sockets. A bald pate of blotched skin covered the man's scalp, and his ears lay back against his skull as if they were too tired to support themselves. His mouth was almost lipless, his cheeks and chin creased with a multitude of lines.

It was a man, she knew, but a man who was extremely, impossibly old.

'Where is Malawar?' she demanded, finding her voice.

'My dear,' cackled the ancient shape through toothless gums. 'I'm disappointed you do not recognize me.'

'No!' Deirdre moaned, unaware that she slumped against the corner of her room and slowly sank to the floor. 'You-you're not! It's impossible!'

But even as she spoke, she knew that she lied to herself. How else had he come to sleep and awaken beside her?

The stooping figure rose stiffly from the bed and pulled Malawar's robe over his scrawny form. 'Must serve the needs of dignity,' he noted, with an obscene edge to his laugh.

Suddenly Deirdre's stomach heaved in revolt. She turned away from the grotesque form and vomited onto the floor, retching until she could barely breathe.

'I hope you're quite finished,' announced the now-hooded priest, his tone acid, 'because we have a lot of work to do.'

But Deirdre could not bring herself to rise. Instead, she turned toward the window, curling herself into a protective ball. The world swam around her, and then it felt as though she was swallowed up by blackness.

King Sythissal drove his finned legion with all the brutal authority of his command, yet he knew that the sahuagin could never match the pace of the flying dracolich. Still, the fish-men slipped through the sea a hundred feet below the surface to avoid the turbulence of the storm.

Yet by the time the Army of Kressilacc reached the coast of Alaron, the sea battle was over. The ravenous sahuagin discovered, much to their delight, the wreck of the Vulture. The bodies of her crew served as splendid sustenance in restoring the creatures' stamina.

Beyond this wreck loomed rainswept Alaron. Here Sythissal would not go. Too often in the past his warriors had ventured upon land, only to meet with gory disaster before they could reach the protective refuge of the sea.