Realms of War

'What did you see?' Gerond asked.

'Nothing, as it turned out,' Dev said, 'a trick of my eyes, a shadow. If I could have bitten my tongue, my life might have turned out a little differently than it has.'

'I don't understand,' the priest said. Dev could hear the impatience in his voice. He shifted, and managed to roll onto his back so he could look the priest in the eyes.

'I was scared, see? I was young, and I didn't trust my instincts—that what was out there wasn't a threat to me or Morla. My heart was thumping like to leap out of my chest, and then my whole body started to shake. It had to be sure. It needed to see that there was nothing out there. They say that's what happens with sorcery, and those that can juggle it. The need overwhelms any common sense. Suddenly, a person can do things, things that no soldier of Amn has a right to do. Like send a shaft of light—bright as sunshine— across a city wall to pierce shadows that hold... nothing.'

Dev's head had started up a pounding again. He closed his eyes until the pain became bearable.

'So you touched the Weave, completely unaware, and the city—Morla—expelled you from the militia,' Gerond said. He almost sounded sympathetic. It made Dev's skin crawl. 'Was it then you became the charlatan?' the priest wanted to know. 'Or have you always been the deceiver, Torthil, and just didn't know it?'

'You've had enough of my stories,' Dev snapped. His eyes offered a challenge. 'Time for sleep.'

'As you wish,' Gerond said. 'No more deceptions, no more decoys.'

He moved forward, and Dev braced himself. Thank the gods the story of my life is a short tale, Dev thought, or poor Resch might have died in the middle.

'The problem is distraction, see?' Dev said, and gasping, sobbing, the dying warrior that had once been Resch the Silent, heaved his body up from the ground, using muscles, bones, and bowels that had ceased to obey him. But some­how, he got to his feet and slammed his body into the priest's back.

They hit the dirt hard, but Resch was already dead. His weight pinned the priest long enough for Dev to lunge onto his back.

Wrapping his bound hands around the priest's neck, Dev thrust back, clumsily, using his heels. The rope bit into fleshy folds and lodged somewhere beneath Gerond's chin. There it would stay, or Dev knew he would be as dead as Resch.

'No prayers, no thoughts.' Dev pushed down, grinding the priest's hands into the ground when he would have reached for his holy symbol. 'Hush, little pony, hush.'

Convulsions wracked the priest's body, but Dev kept his grip. He waited until the bloated body flopped once then lay still on the field. Only then did Dev roll away.

A dull thud sounded nearby. Dev snapped around, tense at the thought of more enemies, but it was only the horse. Freed from the Cyricist's hold, the beast crumpled in a heap of ungainly legs next to Resch's body.

Dev closed the scarred man's eyes, then went to find the priest's knife for his bonds. He tried to ignore the blood staining the blade.

* * * * *

Not quite the hero's grand tale. Me on my belly with an insane priest lopping off all my precious appendages. I was too damn scared to do anything, and all the while there's Resch, thrashing and bleeding out poison, trying to hold onto what was left of his body long enough to help me. I wouldn't have blamed him for rolling over and calling it done, but I didn't understand. I didn't realize how long he'd been waiting to get back at someone for the way he'd been violated. Death wasn't going to take precedence over revenge, not for Resch. Never underestimate the power of trauma to bring on clarity.

—From the memoirs of Devlen Torthil

'I read your account of what happened. You did well. More than well.'

Morla stood at the opening of the tent. She'd sent her guard away. They were alone. When she turned, finally, to look at Dev, her face was the color of brittle bone.

'By Lady Selыne, I swear I didn't know about Gerond.' Morla looked sick. 'How could I have known?'

'How could you?' Dev echoed. He thought she seemed small, somehow, without her guard and armor. An old warrior woman. Tired. 'You know I forgive you, Morla my light.' The words came out hollow, with none of the usual bluster.

'Do you?' Morla was watching him, with her keen vision that missed nothing. 'Do you know why I acted as I did?'

'You always do what you think is best for your people.'

'For Amn. Your home.'

Dev inclined his head. 'Your people, as I said.'

'Without stability, without trust, Devlen, everything falls apart. Amn will not—'

'Amn doesn't need to think of me as being more than a charlatan, Morla,' Dev interrupted. 'I see that now. Comes to it, I'd rather be the decoy.'

'You have the potential to be so much more.'

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. 'That was a long time ago. What do you want from me now, Morla? Absolution? I gave it. Your army? I carried out your mission. I'm finished now.'

'You can still serve Amn. You wanted to die a hero,' Morla said. 'I want you to live as one. My penance, if you want it that way.' Her hand shook minutely, though she still clutched her blade. 'Please consider it.'

A hero. That's the best bait to dangle, and Morla knew I'd wanted it bad. When I walked off Chieva's Sorrow that dawn, I had to leave Resch's body behind. Resch was a hero, but he'd had to die in agony for it, and the only thing folk would ever truly remember about him was that he'd lost a tongue in battle. At least he'd repaid one of the bastards in kind. So I walked off that field to become a war hero— better than dying, but somehow it didn't have the fire I expected. I was still a charlatan; that's what folk would always remember about me. A charlatan with a cap off his thumb. But I still played the best game in Amn. I was the trickster who could fool the monsters. Maybe they'll remember that too. Or maybe all of this is a load of piss, and I never did anything heroic. Maybe I just wrote that I did. That's the point, see? You never know when someone's playin' yer fiddle. You just never know.

—From the memoirs of Devlen Torthil

BONES AND STONES

R.A. Salvatore

The Year of the Tankard (1370 DR)

An uneasiness accompanied Thibbledorf Pwent out of Mithral Hall that late afternoon. With the hordes of King Obould pressing so closely on the west and north, Bruenor had declared that none could venture out to those reaches. Pragmatism and simple wisdom surely seemed to side with Bruenor.

It wasn't often that the battlerager, an officer of Bruenor's court, went against the edicts of his beloved King Bruenor. But this was an extraordinary circumstance, Pwent had told himself—though in language less filled with multisyllable words: 'Needs gettin' done.'

Still, there remained the weight of going against his beloved king, and the cognitive dissonance of that pressed on him. As if reflecting his pall, the gray sky hung low, thick, and ominous, promising rain.

Rain that would fall upon Gendray Hardhatter, and so every drop would ping painfully against Thibbledorf Pwent's heart.

It wasn't that Gendray had been killed in battle—oh no, not that! Such a fate was accepted, even expected by every member of the ferocious Gutbuster Brigade as willingly as it was by their leader, Thibbledorf Pwent. When Gendray had joined only a few short months before, Pwent had told his father, Honcklebart, a dear friend of many decades, that he most certainly could not guarantee the safety of Gendray.

'But me heart's knowin' that he'll die for a good reason,' Honcklebart had said to Pwent, both of them deep in