of it. The span was farther than he remembered.
Dark shapes obscured the wall, moving between him and sanctuary. Low, squat, misshapen figures. Goblins and hobgoblins, apparently drawn toward the base of Demora Tower by the Wardlight's night-illuminating flash. They knew they had to stop anyone from emerging from the tower if their devious plan was to succeed. He saw only a few dozen, but that was a few dozen too many. Luckily, they were converging on the tower's main entrance- they still didn't know about the secret ladder.
The image of hundreds of tiny watercraft converging toward Sarshel from the east convinced him he needed to make a break for it. How much closer were the hobgoblins to launching their ambush in the time he'd taken to climb down?
Jotharam had no more time.
He dashed from the cleft, the black arrow raised high in his right hand. He ran into the night, toward the brutish silhouettes that paused as they saw him emerge from the tower's side.
Jotharam ran toward the sanctuary of the trench, toward Sarshel's glow. He ran toward the light, whose luster was the golden dawn of judgment, in which all things find their end.
When Imphras the Great ascended the throne over reunited Impiltur in 1097 DR, hundreds journeyed to Sarshel to see the Crown of Narfell placed upon the new king's brow. The ceremony was held in an open-air amphitheatre where all could see the king mount his throne.
During the ceremony, Imphras called the attention of all present to a great monument carved of black marble.
The plaque at the memorial's base read, 'Never forget these who gave their lives to save our city.'
The memorial depicted three people. In the background, a woman of gallant bearing wore the arms and armor of a Sarshel soldier. To her right a tall man in filigreed leather bent a mighty bow. A quiver filled with gold- fletched arrows hung at his belt.
In the foreground a young man stood in sculpted nobility. He also wore the arms and armor of the Sarshel militia. The medal on his chest identified him as a posthumous member of Imphras's personal elite guard.
The boy's right arm rose in a confident pose straight above his head. In his right hand, he clutched one black arrow.
TOO MANY PRINCES
The Year of the Striking Falcon (1333 DR)
Mirt gave them both the tight smile that told them he'd really rather be frowning. 'Our friend the vizier? He knows of this moot?'
With his severe black brows, rugged face, and walk-an alert, muscular gait, like a wild cat on the prowl-the burly sellsword Mirt the Merciless caught the eye. The angry blaze in his eyes did rather more than that.
Yet neither of the two Amnian merchants seemed unsettled as they slipped into the turret room to face him. Behind them, Turlos, his war-leathers bristling with the usual array of blades, softly closed the door and put his back to it, folding his arms across his chest and giving Mirt the 'no one lurking nearby' nod.
'Not from our telling,' the Lady Helora Roselarr said smoothly, her enormous gem-dangle earrings swaying.
Tall, large-eyed, and inscrutable, the young Amnian merchant heiress had been styled 'Lady' from her cradle because her adrip-with-gold family sought to be regarded as the equal of any nobility, anywhere. Knowing what he did of nobles, that wouldn't have been something Mirt would have striven for, but then he had rather less of a burdensome weight of coins under which to stagger through life. Wealth … did things to people.
'He's, ah,
The bald, heavyset man in expensive silk robes was the cruel and unscrupulous head of a merchant family that had risen very swiftly to its wealth. Which meant that Narbridle was as ruthless with himself, in controlling his drug-taking, as he was in selling various Calishite drugs and poisons to others. He looked like a grave and weary elder priest… but then, Mirt already knew just how clever an actor he was.
Both Amnians reached inside the breasts of their over-robes and drew forth little carved figurines that they kissed, murmured inaudible words over, and set on the table in front of Mirt.
The statuettes glowed briefly. Scrying shields of the most expensive sort, they would keep anyone outside the room from watching or overhearing what was said there.
'We shall be brief,' Roselarr said crisply. 'We dislike what we see unfolding here at Ombreir, and wish to depart. As swiftly as is discreetly possible. We want to get well away, out of Ongalor's reach, before our departure is discovered. We sense your uneasiness and believe we need your personal assistance to accomplish this.'
'We appreciate the difficult position this will place you in,' Narbridle added smoothly, 'and are prepared to compensate you accordingly. Gems up front, four trade-rubies each. Plus a bond redeemable for forty thousand Waterdhavian dragons of recent minting, which we'll give to you now but sign only when we're safely out of the Dauntir.'
The amount made Mirt blink and Turlos gape in astonishment. Forty thousand gold, and the same again when the escape was done!
If, of course, a certain Mirt the Merciless was still alive to accept it. Which might well not be the Amnians' intention.
'Well, now,' the mercenary captain said, 'the tapestries here at Ombreir aren't
Neither of the Amnians bothered to smile at his feeble jest. Mirt sighed and wondered what to say.
As the Year of the Striking Falcon warmed into full summer, war was raging anew, not merely in the Dauntir-the gently rolling, heavily farmed hills between the Trade Way, the River Esmel, and the mountains prosaically known as the Small Teeth-but all across Amn. Every ambitious merchant cabal that dared to enter the struggle was riding around with copious sellswords, trumpeting 'royal heirs' who had seemingly been found in closets, dropped from the clouds by the gods, or stitched together in graveyards.
This throne-strife had been raging for more than half a century, and Mirt held the same opinion as most war-weary folk of Amn: that any true heirs had been slain or died of old age years ago, and the fighting still going on was but the most grimly determined merchant families of the land trying once more to openly seize the throne. Mirt wondered why anyone would want to put on a crown to so splendidly mark himself a target for all, but then… power did strange things to many folk.
It had done strange things to the Araunvol family, formerly a capable and haughty force to be reckoned with in gilded Athkatla, but in the end reduced to a handful of embittered nobles who walled themselves away in Ombreir, their fortified country citadel halfway between Imnescar and the Esmel-for a rider galloping arrow-straight northeast-to await their doom.
Mirt's sword had delivered that doom, for many of them, and the army he rode with had readied the others for their graves. Wherefore the Araunvols were extinct, and the Rightful Hands of Prince Elashar held the walled mansion of Ombreir. They'd buried the last bodies that very morning, in the gardens.
Across the table, the Amnians waited in silence for his response.
They had to. There was no one else they could turn to.
One of the younger sellsword captains offering his battle skills in Waterdeep, Mirt had been hired by the Durinbolds and the Hawkwinters to ride sword with the Amnian army they sponsored: the Rightful Hands. For Waterdhavian nobles, the seemingly endless war in Amn was all about coin. Rival claimants were sponsored by the Gauntyls and Gralhunds, who had also come looking to buy the services of the mercenary newly risen in reputation for his sword work in the South.
What had decided things for Mirt between the two entreaties had been the Hawkwinters. In matters of war and guardianship, they were held in the highest regard in the City of Splendors. If he served them well, any blades
