open but glassy. He no longer clutched at his terrible wound. Instead, he struggled with his quiver.
'Lord Archer, let me help you!' Jotharam grabbed the quiver from the man's shaking hands. 'Do you have a healing draught in your quiver? Is there another compartment?'
The man shook his head and said in an alarmingly breathy voice, 'I have none. I left them in the bunkhouse. No— Jotharam, listen to me, now! I have something very important to tell you.'
'Yes, what?'
'Reach into my quiver and pull out the black arrow.'
'Yes, very well... I have it.'
'Good, that's a good lad. Now, Jotharam, you must deliver that arrow to Imphras. He will know. . . what it means. When he sees this shaft, he will know the message comes directly from his lord archer. We worked out the signal years ago, but never had call to use it, till now. Emerald is west, scarlet south, silver north, and black... means the foe attacks from the west.'
'I can't just leave you—'
'You can, and you will!' interrupted the archer, his voice suddenly echoing with a portion of its original strength. 'Are you a sworn soldier of Sarshel? Then obey your commanding officer, a prerogative I claim now. Climb down the secret way and bring that arrow to Imphras as quick as your legs can carry you.'
Unable to speak for fear he would sob, Jotharam only nodded, then saluted. The lord archer returned his salute with a shaking hand.
Jotharam turned, scrubbing at his eyes with the palm of his free hand. In the other, he clutched the lord archer's message.
He held the arrow's smooth shaft in his teeth as he hung for a moment from the trapdoor opening, then dropped onto the narrow space below.
Before he put his hands to the rungs to begin the long descent, he transferred the arrow to his empty sheath—his sword remained behind on the floor next to the strangled goblin and the dying lord archer.
He shook his head and started down the ladder. He had a duty to perform. If he didn't get the message to Imphras, more than the tall man he left behind would die tonight.
His descent through the narrow, lightless shaft was easier than the ascent. He was used to the spacing, even if he couldn't see the rungs, and he moved in the direction his heavy armor wanted to drag him.
Jotharam's foot jarred a grunt from him when he reached the shaft's bottom sooner than he expected. In the darkness of the concealed niche, he carefully removed the arrow from his sheath and held it tightly.
He peered out through the crevice, and saw Sarshel's north wall, and the bunker that ran immediately in front 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.
Ed Greenwood
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'
