“What’s through this door?” a man snapped. “Perhaps he went in here!”
Watching Gods Above! One of the Dragons was heading to the Veil!
Targrael swarmed up the last flight of stairs so swiftly she generated her own wind; its chill made Narbrace turn to face her as she reached the head of the stair. It was simplicity itself to thrust the tip of her sword through the open front of his helm-huh, he was the first of those she was hunting wise enough to wear a helm-and into his face.
Narbrace gurgled out his lifeblood as she stalked forward, twisting her sword and thrusting upward at the same time to make sure he died. That noise was enough to make Gauntur, who was on the far side of the half- open wizards’ armory door, call, “Narbrace? Is aught awry?”
Targrael smiled a brittle smile and moved to the wall beside the armory door, letting the dying Dragon slide off her gore-spattered sword.
Gauntur stuck his head out of the door at about the same time that the last Dragon-Hethel-emerged from the room with the Veil, saying, “There’s something in there that you’d best see, saer mage-”
The Dragon broke off to gape as he saw Gauntur staggering forward, clutching his slashed throat in a vain attempt to keep blood from spraying all over the stair he was about to topple down.
His tall, sleek slayer left his side, and stalked toward Hethel with a wide and gleeful smile on her face.
Her dead face.
The Purple Dragon backed away, starting to swear. Then he frowned in thought and glanced over his shoulder, obviously deciding it would be good to stand and defend the doorway of the room he’d just stepped out of, if he ducked back through it and Targrael gave him no more time to think of tactics or curses.
Thrust, parried, ducked low for a lunge that became a parry and forced the Dragon’s sword high, flung herself at his ankles in a roll, used the edge of her hand against the back of one knee as she pivoted around his ankle in a swift scuttling that left his sword biting only flagstones behind her, hacked up at his face and made him lose all balance in a wild parry, then tripped him over backward, over her.
He landed in a heavy, bouncing crash, and she pounced. Throat sliced open then up, up and sprinting for the Veil before he began his last choke.
I’m not betraying you, Master, I’m just carrying out my orders. Still busy killing the six you sent me after…
The Veil’s cold was like a welcoming caress. She was always cold, but this whispering left her skin tingling- alive, as she’d not felt in many a year-and her mind suddenly empty of Manshoon and all else.
Targrael shuddered, as if in the highest throes of lovemaking.
Free at last.
The magic crashed into Manshoon’s mind-and his waiting wards. He felt a shrieking, clawing instant of swirling chaos, of magic clawing vainly at magic, that for a moment gave him the feeling of an icy tingling, then swirling, veil-like darkness, and loss…
Manshoon blinked reflexively, unharmed and with an unwavering smile on his face, in the wake of what was Lord Relgadrar Loroun’s most powerful magic.
The old noble was retreating from him with reluctant defeat all over his face, letting fall the hand that bore hissing streamers of smoke where an ornate ring had been.
“That was the defense you were trusting in?” Manshoon asked incredulously. “Dear, dear.”
And he struck. Plunging through a pitiful excuse for a ward and into Loroun’s undefended mind, making it his with ruthless speed.
It was a dark and twisted mind, a place that felt almost welcoming. As with Crownrood-whom Loroun detested as a rival but measured as at least enough of a man to have the wits to be a rival-Manshoon was now master of a lord who plotted treason with eager gusto and fell intentions.
As his hold over Loroun deepened, he watched a slight smile to match his own slowly spread across the noble’s face.
A sudden storm broke over Marsember with an ear-splitting crash, the sky splitting in bright lightning that stabbed past the highest windows of the king’s tower. Then the rain came, hammering against the double-thick panes loudly enough to drown out anything less than a shout.
All of which suited Targrael just fine. The guards came down the stair from the roof in a drenched and cursing rush, charging right past the spattered blood without seeing it in the dark, lightning-shot wetness as their boots, cloaks, and scabbards all shed streams of rainwater.
Targrael stood still and silent behind the door that was only just ajar, listening to them pound past. The heavy trap door slammed down behind the last of them, two miserable men who spat water out of their mustaches to trade friendly insults and fervent desires to get “down below, to the fires” and warm themselves.
The death knight wished them every comfort, so long as they kept well away from these upper rooms until she was done searching them. The bodies of the six she’d been sent to slay were heaped against a back wall in the concealing darkness of the Veil, and unless any betraying ribbons of blood ran out from them to alert more diligent Dragons, or someone came along with a lantern and saw that some of the seas of water now adorning the tower flagstones were dark red, nothing looked amiss.
“I care not!” a man’s gruff voice floated up to her as a door banged open several floors below. “A far worse storm than this one will hit Suzail if we don’t keep vigilant, Swordcaptain! I want-”
Another door banged, taking whatever the Dragon officer wanted well beyond the reach of her ears.
Targrael smiled, willed the storm to rage on all night, and set about searching the rooms of the uppermost level. What she was seeking was old, dark, heavy, and decidedly unflattering. A one-piece warrior’s helm of oiled metal that bore no device or ornamentation, except a whimsical little etching of a wizard’s tall hat above the eyeslit.
A night helm. Or perhaps the Night Helm.
The tales said the legendary meddling mage Elminster had only given one to the Highknights of Cormyr. Perhaps he’d made the thing himself, though she’d never heard of him doing smithy work.
A “last defense” for an Obarskyr heir on the run, he’d termed it. The thing cloaked the mind of its wearer from all magic, so he-or she-couldn’t be magically found or influenced by wizards of war or anyone else.
Vangerdahast had hated the very idea, of course, and had tried to confiscate the thing and outlaw its possession or acquisition-but Caladnei had held a different view, and he had instead advocated making many night helms, to be held in secret, guarded storage until need arose.
Targrael knew not if any such helms had been made, but palace lore insisted Elminster’s gift had not been destroyed nor had any curse cast on it, but rather had been hidden away somewhere “well out of Suzail.” In Marsember, most rumors suggested. At the top of the king’s tower in the damp and often rebellious port, one whisper specified.
Targrael very much hoped that particular whisperer had been right, and the helm was here, so it could hide her from Manshoon henceforth. And of paramount importance, hide her from his scrying spells before he came looking for her.
She flung open a door and started searching. The gods smiled upon her thrice in this; first, the king’s tower was old and massive, made of stonework that did not hide new construction well, and hadn’t been built with hideaways in the first place. Secondly, Cormyrean armories, magical ones in particular, were strongholds where items were carefully crated, shielded from each other by stone half walls or even full walls with stout doors, and everything was tidy. Lastly, as a Highknight, she knew how most Cormyrean seneschals and garrison commanders liked to arrange things-and that they did not like to face nasty trap spells or alarms when snatching up arms in an emergency. Such spells would be found lower in the tower, commanding the stair up to the top levels, not on the upper levels themselves.
Unless, of course, even more idiocy than she’d thought had crept into the minds of the upper ranks of Cormyr’s wizards, soldiers, and her fellow Highknights in the long years when she’d been resting in that tomb.
The Night Helm was nowhere to be found in the first chamber or the second, though she did acquire a useful trio of daggers in forearm and ankle sheaths-but it was the first thing to strike her eye in the third room.
She peered around swiftly for traps, alarms, or paralyzing-bite spider guardians, saw none-and picked up
