of the smoke. It had a clumsy, rocking-chair gait, but it moved quickly, too quickly for Dru who needed a few moments of recovery before he could kindle another spell. Galimer tried… and succeeded with a fiery streak that ringed the beast's neck without doing noticeable damage.
The wizards fell back at the last moment. Rozt'a took a swing at the creature's muscular neck as it charged past. Her sword bit deep; Tiep saw the blade disappear in flesh. She would have slain a horse or ox with that stroke, but the Weathercote beast shook her off without breaking stride. She landed on her back with the sword still firmly in her grasp. Tiep noted that the blade was clean-not a smear of blood anywhere along its length. Rozt'a noticed, too, and shouted a warning to Druhallen and Galimer 'It's sorcerous!'
Their replies were lost in another roar.
The creature was more agile than Tiep would have expected; something-perhaps-to do with having paws, not hooves. Druhallen pelted it with a different sort of fire as it turned. It circled wide and away from Tiep's tree. (Thank you, Great, Kind, and Good Tymora!) But the beast was riled now and wouldn't be driven off. When it had shaken off Dru's second spell as it had shaken off the first and Rozt'a's sword, it squatted back on its haunches and leapt at Rozt'a like the lion Dru had guessed it was.
She danced a retreat, placing herself between Galimer and Dru, keeping herself the primary target while they readied more magic. That was according to plan-when they all in danger, she was pure muscle-a bodyguard and no one's wife. What wasn't according to plan was the dog-faced goblin with his bright-silk garments and stone-tipped spear darting between Rozt'a and the beast.
While Rozt'a cursed louder than the beast's roars, Sheemzher launched himself and his spear into harm's way. If the goblin had been aiming at the beast's nose, then his aim had been perfect; and if he'd had the sense Great Ao had given an ant, he'd have let go of his precious spear when the creature began tossing its pierced head. But Great Ao hadn't spared sense for goblins and so the fool hung on, even when the beast sat down like a dog and brought its forepaws into play.
Rozt'a ran at it with her sword slashing. She got what should have been a tendon-severing slice across the paw it used to swat at Sheemzher but, as with her first stroke, she scored no lasting damage. In his tree, Tiep recalled that there were some creatures-some men, too-who simply couldn't be harmed by ordinary weapons. Rozt'a's sword bore a small enchantment that maintained its temper and kept it free from the ravages of rust, but it bore nothing that could split the hide of this nameless beast.
Dru shouted for both Rozt'a and Sheemzher to back off and leave him a clear line. Rozt'a obeyed; the dog- faced goblin stayed glued to his spear. As Tiep saw things, Druhallen should have gone ahead and kindled another fireball. If it roasted the goblin and the beast together, so much the better. But Dru tended toward the high road. Galimer saw the situation Tiep's way, but his spell failed either in his mind or against the beast's magical armor.
Rozt'a moved in to thwack the beast for the third time and grab Sheemzher as she retreated. The damned goblin put up a fight. She couldn't get him to abandon the spear, but their combined weight was enough to wrench it free, giving Dru the clear line he'd wanted. He got off one of his better fireballs-a huge sphere of yellow flame with heat that reached all the way to Tiep's perch. Tiep started counting; he reached twenty before the fire died.
The beast had risen to its four feet, angrier than ever.
Ominous thoughts rained through Tiep's mind: though none of them was hurt, they were in serious trouble.
Druhallen couldn't cast an endless series of fireball spells. Depending on what he expected to be up against on any particular day, he could cast three, maybe four, before his concentration gave out. Not that his fire was denting the monster. Galimer's magic wasn't as potent as Dru's, and Rozt'a's sword might have been a feather for all the damage it had caused. So far, the only lasting damage had come from Sheemzher's spear: the beast's nose leaked a steady trickle of steaming, black fluid.
Death by nosebleed… unlikely.
If the beast didn't get bored it would pick them off. Tiep was in favor of sacrificing the goblin, then beating a fast retreat to Parnast, but he couldn't make his opinion heard and, even if he'd been on the ground among them, he knew his adults well enough to know they wouldn't listen. Already, Dru and Galimer had closed ranks with Rozt'a. She'd managed to pass them her fighting knives and they were ready to stand as one to their deaths. According to plan, when they closed ranks like that, Tiep was supposed to try to escape.
Little as he liked the idea of dying, or watching them die, Tiep wouldn't-couldn't-run away. He had a knife, a little knife better suited to carving fruit than monsters, and the will to use it.
After whispering another prayer to Tymora, Tiep dropped out of the tree. The first thing he noticed once he'd picked himself up was Sheemzher backing away from the fight. The damned dog-face could run away-no one expected honor from a goblin-but he wasn't taking that spear with him.
The goblin must have heard Tiep sneaking up on him and guessed why. He tossed the spear away and with his eyes still on the beast, fell to his knees. Tiep headed for the spear which had landed perilously close to one of the fires Dru's spells had kindled in the leaves. As he retrieved it, Tiep heard the goblin whimpering 'Safe passage… Safe passage. Hear Sheemzher, good lady… great lady. Sheemzher on path! Help Sheemzher, help all, great lady, gracious lady.'
Pathetic, Tiep thought. Detestable and Not worth killing raced through his mind also, then he felt a tingling at the base of his neck-Magic, immanent magic on a scale Tiep had never felt before, not even that ill-fated night in Scornubel when he'd tried to rob a disguised Zhentarim lord. He looked up and saw nothing but branches and clear, blue sky. He looked to his right, toward the beast and the battle, and watched in disbelief as Dru's unbound hair fanned out from his scalp. Tiep's hair began to rise a heartbeat later. For an instant the air smelled bitter, then everything became dreamlike.
In Tiep's dream there was dazzling light and noise so loud he heard it in his stomach rather than his ears. A great hand circled his waist, lifting him up and tossing him backward. The dream ended when his shoulders struck the ground. He lay still a moment, wondering if he were awake… or dead.
'Tiep! Say something! Can you move at all?'
Rozt'a. Tiep recognized his foster-mother kneeling beside him. She had a cut on her forehead and a big, black smear across her cheek, but her hands were strong as she helped him sit.
'What hap-?'
An important part of the answer was obvious before he finished asking the question. The beast was dead- burnt to a smoldering crisp in the middle of a charred circle some ten paces wide. Galimer and Dru were examining the corpse, gleaning it the way magicians did. All wizards were scavengers at heart. The more magical or unfamiliar an object, the more samples they collected. The dog-faced goblin didn't approve. He tugged at their sleeves as they worked.
Rozt'a interrupted Tiep's curiosity with a hug. 'You fell out of your tree, that's what happened.'
Tiep knew better. He remembered dropping out of the tree and going after the goblin's spear, which was back in the goblin's possession. He remembered, too, that he hadn't collected the amber marker. If it was all right for wizards to indulge their curiosity, Tiep didn't see why he shouldn't put his knife to good use His knife.
It had been in his hand before he'd sailed backward; now it was missing. There was another in his boot cuff, but the missing blade had been Tiep's favorite. Considering where the spear had wound up, he suspected the goblin and vowed a reckoning.
With a shrug he freed himself from Rozt'a's embrace. She looked uncomfortable with her arms wrapped around her own waist and Tiep felt a little guilty, though he'd never been one for hugs. When he'd been younger, he'd endured them but now that he was older and thinking about women himself, he loved his foster-mother best at arm's length.
'What else happened?' he asked, hoping to blunt the silence.
'The Lady Wyndyfarh saved our hides. Druhallen calls it a 'bolt from the blue'-a one-ended bolt of lightning. I call it a miracle. Can you stand? The goblin says we've got to move quickly. He says reavers are the hounds of Weathercote and we'll have a pack on our trail until we reach his lady's glade.'
Tiep got to his feet. He was lightheaded, but the wooziness faded before he needed the arm Rozt'a offered. The idea that they owed their survival to a dog-faced goblin burnt his gut and the displeasure apparently showed on his face.
'Sheemzher saved us,' Rozt'a chided him. 'Maybe you couldn't see, but the three of us weren't getting the
