Cloak of Shadows

6

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

The rabbit stew that Storm had packed for them was all gone, and the fire out. Sharantyr and Itharr were licking their fingers for the last of the butter that had dripped from their hardbread, as Belkram scrubbed the pot clean with handfuls of sand. Elminster lay on his back, unlit pipe in mouth, and stared up at the circling stars overhead.

"Nnmm," Itharr said, licking his lips and wiping his hands on the turf beside him. "So how long are the gods likely to walk in the Realms and chaos reign?"

Elminster shrugged. "Too long." He lowered one elbow to peer past it at the young ranger. "If ye want a count of days, I know not."

"And we have to wander the wilderlands until then, playing nursem-ah, escorts-to a certain old wizard whom the shapeshifters regard as their Great Foe? Is this… prudent? Is this likely to end in anything else save disaster? Is-"

Shar put a playful hand on Itharr's chest and shoved him flat on the ground. "Stop sniveling, you thing you!" she said affectionately.

Itharr's reply was forestalled by Elminster's sharp warning: "No foolplay, ye two. We must be ready for them, always. Now is when they're most likely to attack!"

His words came too late. The Harper had tugged, twisted, and hauled all at once, and the helplessly overbalanced Sharantyr went over him, to her own landing. In the same movement he was atop her, tickling, as children tumble at play in muddy yards.

"Itharr!" Elminster roared over Sharantyr's breathless giggles and sobs of protest. The ranger turned a face of injured innocence to him.

"They'd have the good taste not to attack, surely," he asked, "when we are seriously engaged in wallowing in the heights of depravity?"

"They'll probably do exactly that," Elminster replied grimly, sitting up to give the Harper the full benefit of his forbidding glare.

"Wallowing in depravity?" Belkram asked in hurt tones, returning from the stream with the rinsed pot gleaming in his hands. "Without me?"

Elminster's snort awoke echoes from the stones around. "Truly the gods retain their curious ideas of humor," he observed, "giving me three jesters to ride around the Realms with."

Without hesitation, Belkram removed the lid and swept the upended pot deftly down over the Old Mage's head. Then he sprang back-just in time.

The pot shot up into the air, flashing end over end in the moonlight. It overtopped the stony needles of the ruined towers and fell again to earth, well clear of the flickering nimbus of light surrounding a furious old man who stood on air about four feet off the ground. "Enough!" the Old Mage roared. "Belkram, I'm astonished! Ye, of all here!"

Belkram spread unapologetic hands. "You can trust me to be loyal," he murmured, "but not predictable. Never predictable."

He'd said much the same thing to the Master of Twilight Hall almost ten years earlier, after Belkram had let a Zhent caravan crew swindle a few greedy and crooked local merchants in Elturel before attacking them. A furious Belhuar had demanded to know why. They had talked long into the night, and as dawn had come through the windows of that chamber, the stern old warrior who saw to the defense of Twilight Hall had clasped Belkram by the shoulder and said simply, "You'll do. You'll more than do."

Then a rare smile had split his face, and he'd added, "Mind you, madcap Harpers always seem to work better under Storm and Elminster, so I'll be sending you east for training under them, with your friend Itharr. I think all four of you'll deserve each other."

The gods had given Belkram Hardeth a merry spirit that was apt to rise up and seize hold of his tongue and his wits in times of danger, when other men grew grim and careful. This spirit had taken him across the Realms to the seas off the Sword Coast, where sailors valued such gusto. There he had made his living with his blade but stayed nowhere long, because he spoke plainly when masters gave foolish orders that cost lesser men their lives.

Foolish orders. He remembered stumbling along a wet night street in Athkatla, too much zzar riding heavily and uneasily in his stomach, when a haughty local merchant had sneered at him for being a good-for-nothing hiresword, loyal to no lord or company.

"Whereas you," Belkram had replied, "serve only your own purse-far higher and more noble a cause."

Grins had told him that the noble's bodyguard appreciated his sarcasm, but the white-faced merchant had curtly ordered his men to slay the outlander mercenary. A few anxious moments of slashing steel and swift shuffling in the street followed, and then six bodyguards lay senseless, dead, or dying as Belkram faced the now-terrified merchant alone.

The man took to his heels like a scared rabbit. Belkram had sprinted after him, catching up to say into his ear at full run, "You see? We hold the same values at heart. Each of us'd rather be a live coward than a dead hero!"

The merchant had fainted dead away, so a thoughtful Belkram had tossed him in a water butt to revive, and left the city that night.

He still believed that view made a swordsman more useful to the peace of Faerun than any other stance. The mistake too many folk made-even the senior Harpers at Twilight Hall-was thinking him a craven, unprincipled man. Belkram of Everlund would keep after his foes and his goals, trying one way and then another, patient and inexorable as the years passed, tirelessly probing here and then there for a chink in the armor of those who stood against him, ever seeking a way through.

Of course, for such an approach to succeed, one must survive as the years pass. That was the task he was having trouble with. Twice now he'd been dragged back from the great darkness by the spells of priests hired by friends. On the other hand, his merry loyalty had won him those friends.

"What's the matter?" he asked the raging mage in innocent tones, holding the lid of the pot in his hands. "Don't you like helms? Warriors at least have sense enough to wear them when they go into battle."

"No, I don't like helms," Elminster said sourly. "And wearing pots over my head pleases my fashion sense even less."

That was too much for Sharantyr and Itharr. Their full-throated laughter as they rolled apart brought them the Old Mage's undivided attention. "And just what, pray to all the gods, do ye both find so amusing?"

"The sight of a… potty old mage," Itharr choked out, through fresh howls of mirth.

Elminster's mouth crooked. "The lot of ye have been on the road for far too long. The gods have been touching wits around here."

"Is that a bad thing?" Belkram asked. "New plans and items must come from somewhere."

"Aye, and most of 'em could go back there with much profit," Elminster grunted. "Back to the bottoms of the tankards that spawned 'em."

"Do you really believe that, Sy-Old Mage?" Sharantyr asked, her laughter subsiding.

Elminster gave her a warning look for the slip and said, "Nay, lass. But all of ye-the Realms entire, it seems-expect me to play the role of a gruff old wizard who yearns for shining younger times. It's a cloak that suits me, I'll admit. Wearing it oft gets me my own way in things, y'see."

"Don't you get tired of always playing the pettish, sour old wit?" Itharr asked, serious in his turn.

"To look behind such masks," Belkram said quietly, "is-too often-to destroy the wearer."

" 'Destroy,' now that's a nice word!" a new voice rang out from above.

Four heads jerked up. A glowing figure was standing on air above the stone needle of one of the ruined towers, hands raised and moving. It was a man none of them had seen before… and a second man stood in emptiness beside him. As they watched, a third and fourth appeared, without herald's trumpet or flashing disturbance-just the starry sky one moment and a man standing in it the next.

Elminster's lips were moving. As the first bright and deadly bolt of magic flashed down into the ruins, it was met by a crawling net of light that rent it, sending angry lightnings sizzling and smoking in all directions… except down onto the scrambling companions below.

"Find cover!" the Old Mage roared, and took out his pipe. An instant later, the pipe flashed and he vanished.

The four lightning bolts that sought his life arrived too late, slashing through the darkening spell net in a shower of sparks to meet in a crash that sent riven stones spinning in all directions and toppled a section of wall. The structure leaned southward with slow grace, then fell apart in the air, spilling loose blocks of stone over a wide area of brambles and saplings.

Sharantyr ducked behind what was left of the tower, a frantic glance telling her there were now nine or more glowing mages aloft. A moment later she saw a purple oval of moaning light diving down into the ruin. As she watched, fumbling for the magic ring on its chain under her gorget, the spell-thing swooped through a gap in the walls and came around the corner, seeking her.

Shar cursed and sprinted back around the tower, catching one hand on the stones of the wall to wheel tightly and run close along the inside of the standing stonework. Then she put her head down and ran faster than she'd ever run before.

As the purple radiance howled after her, pulsing and gaining swiftly, the lady ranger caught at another stony edge and flung herself sideways through what had once been a window. Shar landed rolling as another lightning bolt crashed down nearby, its flash showing her Itharr's burly form in similar frantic flight. She sprang up to dodge behind a pile of rubble.

The radiance, whatever it was, tried to dart through the window, but didn't fit. The blast that followed took down most of that wall, showering the top of her rubble pile with stony fragments. Clutching her healing ring, Shar ran for the dark trees nearby as mocking laughter rang out overhead.

Balls of fire tore down into the forest to her right. Trees crashed to the ground, ablaze from top to bottom, and she heard a roar of pain. Belkram! She veered toward the blaze as fresh fire blossomed in the ruins behind her.

Then she heard screams from above, and something wet fell on her cheek. She wiped it away without slowing. Stickiness… blood! Reaching the trees, she saw another purple thing dodging among them, seeking Belkram. She flung herself flat on her back just in time.

This time, the spell blast showered her with jagged scraps of wood and hurled blazing cinders aloft. Watching them, she saw the glowing figures jerking and convulsing in a sky full of whirling blades that flashed and spun in the moonlight.

Some sort of blade barrier spell. It must be the work of Elminster!

Shar finally got her ring onto her finger and found her feet again. She was flung to her knees almost immediately as two explosions rocked some distant trees and a corner of the ruins quite close by. Itharr appeared, diving headlong through a window with his leathers ablaze, to roll and curse on the ground nearby. Staggering to her feet, Shar ran toward him as the ground rocked again, someone snarled, "Die!" high overhead, and a sudden amber light announced the fruition of another spell. Still at a dead run, Shar glanced up.

From out of that brilliant light swooped two gargoyles. Glistening, orange, and translucent, they seemed made of glass rather than stone-and were coming for her and Itharr fast, sharp talons extended.

Shar cursed, ran into Itharr-sending him sprawling-and then ran after him and rolled him hurriedly into the trees to give him some cover. Then she ducked aside with a shriek as one ice-cold talon laid open her leathers and shoulder together. As she sprinted away along the edge of the forest, Sharantyr heard the wind-whistle of the gargoyle wheeling in the air and then beating its wings, closing in on her.

At what she judged to be the last possible moment, she swerved into the trees and dropped.

A splintering crash told her the gargoyle had tried to follow her, and found a tree instead. She got up hurriedly and ran back the way she'd come, as a lightning bolt cracked across the ruins and lit up the night.

The brilliant light showed her the fallen, twisted form of one glowing… man? It seemed to have too many legs and something that might have been a wing. A Malaugrym? Strolling past it, out into the open heart of the ruins, was an unconcerned-looking Elminster, unlit pipe in his mouth and his hands empty.

A cone of shining white radiance leapt down out of the night at him, and an angry snarl came from the trees clear across the ruins, followed by a trio of glowing lances rushing right at the Old Mage with crackling lightnings dancing back and forth from one lance tip to the other.

A many-tentacled thing scuttled on spiderlike legs out of the trees behind Elminster, and a ring of scarlet balls of fire spun down out of the sky. Shar stared at them all, mouth suddenly dry.

No man-not even a thousand-year-old archmage- could stand against all this. And after Old Elminster was gone, she and the Harpers would surely die too. She drew a sword she knew was useless and thanked the gods she'd be dying with friends, and in battle, and that they'd shared a laugh or two this evening before death came for them all. "Lord of Battles," she breathed, watching death come for Elminster from all sides, "and Lady of the Forest, let us all die well-and not before we must!"

And then the Old Mage's pipe flashed again. An instant later everything crashed together, blinding her. The last thing she saw as the dazzlement overwhelmed her and the force of the blast flung her head over heels into the trees, was one of the ruined towers falling slowly, almost majestically, into the conflagration below.

"There's been no attempt to hide their trail, Lord," Brammur said, his old gray eyes grave.

"Yet only four, you say?" Like his men, the Lord of Daggerdale wore the leather armor of a forester and bore a sword covered with gum and soot to keep it from reflecting the light. And like his men, he spent his days sleeping in one of the caves they knew, and his nights out hunting Zhents, brigands, and other predators in his ravaged realm. Randal Morn sighed. "That means they're either confident as all the gods or trying to lure someone into attacking them…"

"Or just such fools that they don't know better." Thaern finished the sentence for him. His head archer looked as grim as Randal Morn felt.

"I don't like mysteries," the Lord of Daggerdale said shortly. "Fighting Zhents and orcs and such is bad enough. But we must know who they are and what they're about."

"Unless they're still riding through the night, Lord, it looks like they've holed up in Irythkeep," Brammur said through his gray-white moustache. "Shall we make haste, or walk wide to surround it?"

"The lure could be for us," Randal Morn mused. "We must go wide, quietly and with care. Bram — "

His next words were lost forever in a sudden flash that split the night. Then there were several flashes together, and the ground rocked under them. The last of Randal Morn's men exchanged glances, lifted eyebrows, and took tighter grips on their weapons.

"On the other hand," Randal Morn said lightly, "no one's likely to hear us if we go in bellowing drinking songs, through that." Another distant crash answered him, and a dead limb broke off a tree somewhere near and made its crashing way to the ground.

Irythkeep was outlined by amber radiance for a moment, and they heard shouting and saw glowing lights moving in the sky above its ruined towers. They watched the explosions, curling tongues of flame, and flashes of light for several awestruck breaths. Then the Lord of Daggerdale licked lips that had gone dry and said, his heart leaping with excitement within him, "That magic could slay us as swiftly and easily as the ones it's intended for. We must still use caution."

"I always do, lord," Thaern said, stone faced. Randal Morn punched him playfully on the shoulder and chuckled. "Right, blades!" he said to the others around him. "Onward! Follow the ever-cautious Thaern."

Daggerdale, Kythorn 16

Belkram came dazedly, painfully back to Faerun, sprawled on his back over several broken branches of a scorched tree. Smoke curled up the cracked and smoldering trees around him, and something winged and taloned and made of glass was slashing clumsily at him from where it hung wedged in a tangle of leaning, half-fallen trees.

Belkram gave it a sour look and rolled away until he fell off his bed of branches and found his feet amid trampled ferns. His leathern gloves were inside his breeches as always, the cuffs protruding above his belt right behind him; they were out and on in three tugs. The ranger took up a scorched sapling and hefted it once. He swung it up for greater force, and then down as hard as he could.

Glass shattered and tinkled off branches. He snarled and struck again, until not only the talons but most of the arm had been struck off. Then he strode away, seeking his friends.

They weren't hard to find. Elminster was scampering around the clearing, hurling slaying spells up into the night and dodging the same sent back his way. Shar lay draped limply over a branch ahead, arms dangling, blood on her face.

He lifted her off the tree limb as gently as he could, flinching as a swarm of fireballs drifted through the now-blackened stones of the keep and exploded together, sending fresh tongues of flame roaring into the trees. He turned her over.

She was breathing. In his arms she coughed weakly, spat blood-she'd bitten through her lip, Belkram saw- and murmured, not opening her eyes, "Tempus… have you come to take me?"

Touched, Belkram knelt amid the tangled and smashed trees and laid her on the ground. Finding her sword, he put it into her hand, kissed her forehead, and said, "It's me, Shar-Belkram the Bold! I'll be back for you, Lady Knight. Lie still here… I'll be back!"

"Belk… ram?" she breathed, head lolling back. The Harper glanced back at her once, sudden moisture in his eyes, as he ran out into the clearing. Something that looked like a griffon or a giant eagle-but had three long tentacles curling out from each shoulder instead of wings-was writhing around on the ground, obviously hurt. Beyond it, something like an owlbear with a snake's body was hugging Itharr and trying its best to bite his face off at the same time. Farther off still, amid the stones of the keep, several men were blinking in and out of existence, hurling spells from time to time at foes who didn't seem to be there. One of these men looked like Elminster.

Darting magic missiles and flickering, slow-drifting motes of light from some other spell were streaming around the clearing, around them all, like a swirling school of fish. Belkram shook his head as he sprinted toward Itharr.

A bolt flashed down to the ground in front of him, splitting a stone block twice his size with a crack that left his ears ringing. Belkram fell sideways, rolled, and found himself coming up face-to-face with a robed man who had long fangs, rich-looking robes, and flickering globes of radiance around both hands. The man's startled face twisted into a sneer, and he raised one hand threateningly-so Belkram thrust his blade through that mouth. A moment later he was hanging on through a squalling, bruising battering of blood and frantically shifting flesh. It melted away from his blade, ichor gushing out in all directions, and flowed around his legs, looking like the putty Belkram had once mixed to set glass in an Athkatlan window. Cold fear rose inside the Harper, and he stabbed down frantically with his blade, carving at the thick, unyielding, slowly tightening stuff.

The mutating flesh shuddered and spasmed suddenly, then undulated away from him in snakelike coils. Belkram snarled, snatched out his belt dagger, and went after it, slashing wildly with both his weapons.

He was still slashing and hewing ribbons of the stuff away in all directions when a bright swarm of magical bolts swam down into the clearing and raced at him.

Once, Belkram had taken a dagger through the palm of his hand. The attacking bolts felt like seven such daggers in swift succession. The pain smashed the breath out of him as the force of the striking magic missiles drove him back into an untidy heap on the ground. It was like being struck in the short ribs over and over again, Belkram thought, struggling to get his breath. Through swimming eyes he saw some of those glowing mages still standing on the air above the keep. Itharr… he'd been going to help Itharr…

Rage burned in Itharr Jathram all the time. Slow and buried deep, but there all the time, like coals glowing under turf for the night. Once in a while-not often, but eventually-that building rage rose and warmed and boiled up… and the burly, quiet Harper slew things.

He'd said as much to Storm, that first day at her farm, sitting on two stumps in the forest behind her house. "Lady," Itharr had told her softly, "you must know this. I'd not be the best citizen in a land at peace. From time to time, I find… I must kill."

Storm had merely nodded, sober eyed, and said as gently, "I can see it in you. Yet know this, Itharr. You are welcome in my house, now and to the end of your days."

And for that, Itharr would love her forever. Her face then, and her words, came back to him now as he stood struggling in a grip much stronger than his own and felt the white heat of his rage blinding him. Those jaws snapped just shy of his cheek once more, as he twisted his neck desperately aside and snarled his defiance. His arms-and the weapons he thought he still held, though numbness was creeping over him, and he could no longer be sure-were pinned to his sides in an ever-tighter rope of flowing flesh. These shapeshifters could kill merely by wrapping part of themselves around you and crushing!

He tried to throw himself sideways, but the Malaugrym held him, swaying like a tree in a high wind, and he knew he struggled in vain. "Tymora, aid me now," he hissed, ribs aching under the increasing pressure, and the shapeshifter laughed out loud. Eyes dark with fury, Itharr tried again to overbalance the thing and bring them both to the ground, but the Malaugrym held him upright with easy strength and tightened its grip still more.

He was fighting for breath now, a far-off and faint roaring rising in his ears. Soon it would overwhelm him, Itharr Jathram knew, and he'd go down, raging still, into the darkness that waited for everyone.

The pipe winked more slowly this time. Sylune wondered if it would work once more if need be. Well, she'd best make sure she didn't need it.

The Malaugrym were learning. Instead of hurling more than enough magic at their foe and having it all go to waste when the pipe teleported Old Elminster away, they'd split up-a few blade barriers had taught them the wisdom of that-and were sniping at him from here and there around the ruins now, hoping to force him to transport himself away from one attack and right into another.

It had almost worked twice now. Sylune took quick stock of the spells left in the various devices that festooned the body she'd taken to calling "Old Elminster"- not a hard task, as so little was left-and decided to use invisibility.

She ducked through an arch, making sure one of the shapeshifters saw her, became invisible-the nice thing about these rings was their speed and silence-and darted right back through the archway again. She saw the shapeshifter confidently weaving a spell that would hurl a swarm of fireballs through the archway, to burst on the other side of the wall, and grinned. Two other Malaugrym were creeping through the ruins and should arrive at the other side of the wall at just about the right time.

Now to find Shar's blade. Belkram had laid it in her hand; he'd need her healing ring, too.

It might have to serve both Belkram and Itharr, if she could get this body where it had to go in time. Sylune was sprinting across the clearing, slipping on the dew driven out of everything around by all the fire spells, when a beam of flame swept across her path, too close to miss.

Someone could see Old Elminster. That was it, then, she thought, as the body plunged into roaring flames with hands clasped over its eyes to try to keep some sight. Old Elminster staggered and almost went down; Sylune kept the shuddering limbs going, trailing smoke, toward the trees.

Doom would be on them all soon now. She heard fresh laughter and the delighted exclamations of newcomers overhead but did not bother to look up. Of course the more craven Malaugrym would wait until the kill was certain and then come to watch.

The body's eyes were still swimming with tears. She could not see whatever it was that burst nearby on her left, flinging Old Elminster to the right like a rag doll. The body struck something-flesh-and she realized that it must be Itharr and the shapeshifter, still straining together. She snatched at the belt the body wore, found the burning-hot dagger as the burnt leather crumbled away and fell into ashes, and slashed at the ropy flesh she could not see, again and again, cutting at one spot, trying to make it release its hold on the trapped Harper.

Then the ground came up and struck the body's forehead. Bouncing helplessly on the turf, Sylune saw a fading flash and knew that a ruthless Malaugrym mage had decided his kinsman was expendable, and struck them all with a corrosive bolt. Would this body's limbs hold together? At least she felt no pain and could drive the body to do things when injured that no living man could have managed-but was getting up and reaching that sword and ring one of them?