came running in eager response to her clucking calls.
Algorind's eyes widened. At first glance, the woman was seemly enough, modestly clad in a simple linen shift draped with a long kirtle. But the color of her kirtle alerted and alarmed him. It was a deep, vivid purple, a color that was expensive and difficult to achieve, and a hue that no simple, decent goodwife would wear.
Her husband came out of the lean-to that served as a horse barn, and Algorind's hand went to his sword. Not a human at all, but an elf Algorind's practiced eye measured the elf's gait, his way of holding himself; the watchful readiness of his posture and his face. This was no mere farmer, but a well-trained wamOr.
The truth came to him then. The priest of Cyric had arranged his daughter's fosterage with evil subtlety. Who would suspect a simple farm family of harboring a Zhent's child? Who did not assume that the elves were goodly folk, best left to go about their business? These were no simple folk, happy in the gift of a child that the gods had not seen fit to send them, but hirelings of an evil priest. The deception kindled Algorind's wrath. He drew his sword and urged Icewind into a charge.
As he thundered down the hill, the woman shrieked and fled into the cottage. The forgotten grain cascaded among the squawking, scattering chickens. Algorind came at the elf with a mighty swing. The elf deftly dropped and rolled aside. He came up with a long knife in each hand and deadly intent in his catlike green eyes.
Algorind dismounted and strode forward. He met the elf's first darting blow, swept it easily aside, riposted. The elf met his thrusting attack just as easily. For several moments they stood nearly toe to toe, in a ringing exchange of blows delivered with nearly equal skill and passionate conviction.
In his training, Algorind had learned of many styles of sword play. This elf fought like a Sembian, a two- handed style of quick attack, a street-fighter's technique best suited for a short, decisive battle and a fast retreat.
'You fight well,' Algorind panted out between parries. 'But you are far from home.'
The elf hesitated, startled by this pronouncement. The sudden sharp pain in his inhuman eyes brought something rather like pity to Algorind's heart.
'It is a sad and evil world,' the paladin continued, 'when goodly men or even elves are drawn into the plans of evil men.'
Algorind barely dodged a vicious slash. 'It is the good men who sent me here!' the elf snarled, speaking for the first time. He advanced in a flurry of slashing, darting attacks. For many moments it took all the paladin's skill merely to hold him back.
'The tanar'ri Vladjick,' the elf said, his voice raw with exhaustion and bitter rage. 'Do you remember that story?'
The paladin did, and acknowledged it with a brief nod. A terrible demon, a tanar'ri, had been summoned by an evil man's ambition. Years before Algorind was born, knights of the Order of Samular had marched against the creature. The battle had been long and fierce, and the tanar'ri had fled into the forest north of Sembia. An elven community lay between the paladins and their evil foe. The elves had resisted the passage of the knights through their forest, thus allying themselves with the evil tanar'ri. Many good and noble knights had fallen in the fierce fighting. Ever since, some of the order had remained wary of elves and their unknowable, inhuman ways.
'I remember it,' the elf gritted out. 'I will always remember it! The knights slaughtered my family for no better reason than that we were elves, and we were in the way.'
Again he advanced, but this time emotion outbalanced control. Algorind caught one of the elf's flailing wrists in his left hand and stuck the elf's other hand aside with the hilt of his sword. The elf was slight, almost frail. It was a small matter to hurl him back, to advance with sword leading. A single, decisive thrust finished the battle and silenced the lying elf forever.
Breathing hard, Algorind went to the cottage. He hoped the woman would be more inclined to see reason.
The cottage was empty, the back window open. Algorind circled around, easily picked up and followed the tracks of the woman's feet into the small orchards beyond.
He followed her through the spring-flowering trees and cornered her against the high stone wall of a pig pen. She whirled, the child in her arms, and entreated him wordlessly, her face streaked with desperate tears.
For a moment Algorind hesitated, wondering if he had been tragically misinformed.. Woman and child were both slender, and both had brown hair decently plaited. But there the resemblance ended. The woman was human: the child, half-elf Surely this was not the daughter of Samular's bloodline!
'Don't hurt her,' the child said in a remarkably clear, bell-like voice. There was more anger than fear in her tip-tilted elven eyes.
'I have no wish to harm you or your mother, child,' he said gently.
'Foster mother,' corrected the child, showing a regard for truth worthy of a child of Samular.
'Woman, is this the child of Dag Zoreth, priest of Cyric?' Algorind demanded.
'She is mine! She has been mine since her birth! Go away, and leave us alone,' the woman pleaded. She set the child on the ground and pushed her behind her purple skirts, shielding the girl with her own body.
This put Algorind in a quandary. Surely this brave and selfless response was not the behavior of an evil hireling. He fell back a few paces, sword still ready in case of sudden treachery. His eyes remained on the purple- clad woman, but his focus drifted past her and his lips moved in prayer. The power that Tyr granted all paladins enveloped him. In the name of the God of Justice, Algormd weighed and measured the woman before him.
Pain struck him like tiny knives to the temples. An image came to him, that of a purple sunburst and a glowing black skull. Algorind drew in breath in a quick, pained gasp. Tyr had spoken: the woman was allied with evil-great evil. She followed the mad god Cyric.
But Tyr was also merciful, so Algorind drew himself back, away from the god-given insight. 'Woman, will you renounce Cyric and the evil bargain you have made? Give the child into my hands and live.'
Her eyes flamed, and she defiantly spat at the ground by Algorind's feet.
Algorind's way was clear, yet still he hesitated. Never had he killed a woman, much less one who was unarmed and untrained. And certainly never in the presence of a child.
'Run, child,' he advised kindly. 'This is not for your eyes.' But the girl was as stubborn as her foster mother, and she stayed where she was. All that was visible were her tiny hands, clutching at the woman's bold purple skirts. Algorind summoned a silent prayer to steady his resolve and to drown out his own protests against this terrible duty. He struck a single, merciful blow. The woman slumped to the ground. The child regarded him over the body of her foster mother, the purple skirts still fisted in her hands and her eyes wide with terror. Then, suddenly, she turned on her heals and ran like a rabbit.
Algorind sighed and put away his sword. His paladin's quest was growing more perplexing by the moment.
Bronwyn did not sleep well that night. In the room above the Curious Past, she tossed and twisted in her bed. Her dreams were filled with long-forgotten images, childhood memories awakened by Malchior's revelation. Her father's name was Hronulf. He had been a paladin of Tyr. He had expected something of her, something important. As a child, she had not understood what that was, and she could not piece together enough images to gain an understanding.
She awoke before dawn, determined to find answers. From what she'd heard of Tyr's followers, the early hour would be no deterrent. Quickly she dressed and slipped down to the shop.
Alice, her small brown face tight with motherly wrath, was already awake and waiting for her. She brandished her feather duster at Bronwyn with a gusto that would not have been out of place had she been wielding a flaming sword. 'And where do you think you're going at this hour?'
Bronwyn sighed and leaned against a green marble statue. she'd retrieved from Chult. 'I have business, Alice. A business, I might add, that employs you.'
The gnome snorted, not at all cowed by this reminder of her status. She shook a stubby brown finger at Bronwyn. 'Don't think I don't know what time you came in last night. You're up to something, and I want to know what. Let me help you where I can, child,' she said in a gentler voice.
'All right,' Bronwyn relented. 'I'm going to the Halls of Justice to talk to some of the paladins there. I might have found word of my father.'
The gnome sank down to sit on a carved chest. 'After all these years,' she said faintly. 'Who gave you this
