Crown of Fire

Eleven Too Little Time, Too Much Death

“Delg! Delg!” Shandril’s eyes spilled over as she ran, heedless, across the trampled grass.

The battle raged around her, Mirt grunting with effort amid the crashes of steel on steel. Unheeding, Shandril wept tears of fire and fell on her knees beside the dwarf.

Delg was reaching a trembling, clenched hand to her, eyes glittering in agony. “Sh-Shan …” he gasped faintly, blood on his lips. “For …” His eyes were still beseeching hers a breath later, when they went dark.

In his ears, Delg heard the soft crackling of flames. The Lady Sharindlar had come for him, and his time in Faerûn was done. Tears blurred his last sight of the human lass he’d given his life for, and he couldn’t even tell her of the love he’d come to feel for her …. Raging against the Zhentarim who had brought him death, Delg Ironstar went down into the everlasting darkness, waving his axe.

“No!” Shandril threw her arms around the hairy, sweat-soaked body, but the dwarf’s eyes stared past her, dull and unmoving. She knew they’d never see her—or anything else—again, and she clutched Delg tightly, her face pressed against his hard, strong-smelling chain mail. And she cried.

In the rocks high above, Mairara curled her lip in the darkness and gestured with both hands. The crippled gargoyle turned on broken wings to swoop down on the unguarded, weeping maiden.

Shandril cried uncontrollably, body shaking.

Mirt roared out as he ran for her. The Old Wolf finally reached her, shook her, and bellowed, “Shan! Shan! We need yer spellfire, now!”

Shandril stared up through a rain of tears that would not stop falling, and saw the gargoyle veer off for another pass.

Mirt shook her roughly. “No time, lass! We’ve—”

A spell raked them from the rocks above, bolts of crackling lightning that made Mirt grunt and bite his lip as they jolted him. Shuddering, his hand reached out and tightly grasped the haft of Delg’s axe.

Shandril was oblivious, her face buried in the old dwarf’s sweat-soaked leathers. She wept silently.

“Gods aid me now!” Mirt cursed. He hurled the sobbing girl away and spun around.

Just in time. A Zhentilar blade was already cutting the air toward his neck. Mirt raised his left hand, Delg’s notched axe in it, and blocked the attacking sword. The impact shook both men, and the old merchant’s own curving long saber was in the man’s throat and out again while they were both still shaking.

Another Zhent was hurrying at Mirt. The warrior held his blade low and deadly as he charged in, but was still steps away when flame rained down from above, cooking him and sending the old merchant staggering back, eyebrows smoldering.

Thank Tymora and Mystra both for that carelessly hurled spell, the Old Wolf thought, wondering just how many Zhent wizards were waiting in the darkness up there. He’d led his friends right into a waiting trap this time … all because he’d been foolish enough to think the wizards wouldn’t know about the gate here. He quickly retreated to Shandril, glancing back to make sure no new dangers threatened. Only then did he discover where that last gargoyle had gotten to.

There! High above in the night, the dark form of the gargoyle flapped in a tight turn, head leering down, preparing to dive ….

“Shandril!” Mirt growled, backhanding the weeping maid. “Aid me!”

The sobs broke off just as the gargoyle plummeted out of the night. With a curse, Mirt cast Delg’s axe at it and grabbed the magical dagger at his belt. Another Zhentilar warrior was trotting out of the darkness, shield and sword raised; the Old Wolf knew he couldn’t escape their blades forever.

Then the air beside him exploded with a roar. Mirt cried out, turning his head away from the bright flash. He didn’t see the gargoyle burst into dust and flying stones, or the screaming Zhentilar vanish into ashes and shifting smoke.

Shandril looked around at the ruin she had wrought. Smoke rose in wisps from the blackened turf. A man was crawling slowly through the scorched grass toward her; she raised a hand to destroy him. Then she recognized Narm’s head. A cold shiver ran through her as she realized just how close she’d come to slaying him. It could have been done in a moment; he would have been dead forever. It was all too frighteningly easy ….

“Now! Hit her now—before it’s too late!”

Without taking time to look, she hurled spellfire up at that shrill voice and was answered by more despairing screams—followed by a sharp cracking sound as rock shattered and began to slide.

The ground shook. Smoldering figures in dark armor bounced and rolled amid tumbling stones. The ledge above the meadow where the Zhents had been broke off and slid down toward her. One slim figure floated in the air for a moment, rising above the cascading stones, and then flew to another rocky height, robes rippling.

A Zhentarim! Shandril bared her teeth and hurled a gout of spellflame, blasting the rock where the dark-robed mage stood. Her foe rose above the shattered stone and hung in the air, mockingly. Arms raised, the Zhent began the gestures of spellcasting.

With a shriek of fury, Shandril dashed her hands towards the ground, hurling spellfire downward. A moment later, she rose on columns of spellfire that pummeled the rock and turf beneath her, and she raced through the air toward the Zhent. A startled face gaped at her. The Zhent was a woman!

Shandril charged right at her, eyes blazing fire.

Gathlarue knew real fear for the first time in a long, long while. It hurt even to meet the maid’s gaze—raw, burning pain that would have torn her apart if she’d not twisted free. Gathlarue turned in the air and fled, flying as fast as she could.

Spellfire tore the night apart above her.

Gathlarue found herself falling. Rocks rushed up to meet her. Her mind snatched desperately at spell phrases; she magically steadied her descent and came to rest on smoking grass. Her hands trembled as she wove a shield-shaped wall of magical force before her, curving it to meet the cliff at her back.

Spellfire struck Gathlarue’s shield an instant after she was done. It splashed on bare earth, ignited grass—and then clawed its way along the spell-shield. The flash of its strike left her eyes watering. She closed them hastily as a second attack came, striking with such fury that it shook the shield and Gathlarue beneath it.

Still flying, Shandril screamed with rage, but the magic defied her spellfire. She hurled fiery destruction a third time, feeling the deep ache that told her she had little energy left—and saw that bolt, too, lick harmlessly off the Zhentarim’s invisible shield.

Panting, Shandril landed on the smoking meadow, staring at the woman in dark robes. The sorceress turned her cruel, frightened face aside and would not meet her eyes. Breast heaving, Shandril stared at her enemy—and then her eyes narrowed, and she spread her hands over her head. She lashed out at the cliff behind the woman.

Rock cracked, shook, and fell in a gathering roar. Mighty boulders crashed and rolled, and the Zhentarim disappeared beneath them. Dust rose.

Shandril stood ready, eyes hard, until it cleared.

One of the mage’s hands protruded from the fallen rocks, straining vainly toward the open air and freedom she’d never reach.

Her fingers reached, twitched feebly, and then fell still.

Puffing, Mirt rose from atop a rocky knob, the blood of Zhents all over him. The meadow was empty of living enemies at last. He raised his eyebrows and spared breath enough to mutter, “So young … so much power …”

“Gods,” Mairara whispered to herself, crouching white-knuckled behind a rock in the heights above the meadow. Then her eyes widened in horror as the veteran Zhentilar beside her stood up and calmly hurled a dagger at the maid below, putting all the strength in his shoulder behind the smooth throw.

Steel spun through the night. The venomed blade had served Unthlar Highsword well over the years, slipping into many a rival’s back or unwary eye. Its touch meant death. Unthlar watched his deathfang hurtle toward Shandril’s slim, unprotected back, and he started to smile.

Too soon. Mirt saw the flicker of its flight. Groaning in his haste, he leapt between Shandril and the attack, throwing up both his own blades to knock the dagger aside.

At the same time, words of soft anger came out of the night beside the puffing merchant. The strongest spell Narm could hurl—one that always left him utterly drained of wits and strength—rent the night, exploding in the air right in front of Unthlar.

Mairara shut her eyes and flung her head to one side as wetness splattered the rocks around. She looked back in time to see Unthlar’s lower half—all that was left of him—stagger backward and fall heavily among the rocks beside her.

She heard curses and scrambling sounds from behind her as the few surviving Zhentilar fled in terror. Then Mairara looked down again—straight into the hard eyes of the maid who bore spellfire.

Shandril stood staring up at the Zhentarim sorceress. Her hair was moving about her shoulders with a life of its own, curling in slow menace.

“By Mystra’s mercy,” Mairara whispered, looking at Shandril with wide eyes, “make it quick.”

Shandril granted her that last wish. When the roaring had died away, all that was left was drifting smoke and the cracking of overheated rock.

White-faced, Shandril looked down at Delg’s still body, and then turned to look east. The tears that fell from her cheeks burned the ground they touched. “Right, then, Lord Manshoon,” she said, voice brittle and quavering. “I’ve done all the running I’m going to do. Now you will learn what it is to be hounded!”

A skull that floated unseen in the darkness near the top of Irondrake Rock looked down and chuckled, the teeth of its perpetual grin chattering hollowly.

“It’s not as though I’ve naught else to do, look ye,” Elminster said, spreading his hands. Released from his grasp, the pipe floated off by itself to hang ready in the air nearby.

Storm glanced up from the strings of her harp. “More important than spellfire?”

Elminster’s expression was sour. “Who’s to say what’s of more import—my giving a little boy a scroll to play with so he grows up to become an archmage—or passing on word of a foe to a nomad chieftain—or telling a Waterdhavian guildmaster of a plot against him? I’ve done all these in the last few days, and there’s always much more still to do—the untended garden grows weeds best.”

“Shandril needs help now,” Storm said quietly, her eyes dark and troubled. “I can feel it.”

“And she shall have it,” Elminster said, hands moving in the opening gestures of a spell. “Why d’ye think we rode out of the dale, if not to keep it safe against spells I might need to hurl—or the careless cruelty of those who might come looking to hurl spells at me? But know ye, timing is all-important in affairs of power—and her moment is not come.”

He cast a stern look at Storm’s harp, and she obediently stilled the strings and shifted it to her shoulder. “I spent much of the night scrying the Realms as ye slept, and saw—too much. Matters that must be dealt with now, I tell thee! The lass must find her own wings to fly with while I deal with Dzuntabbar of Thay—and the wizard Vlumn’s plans to create ice golems the size of mountains in the High Ice—and a little matter of twisting awry some poison-creating spells that certain Calimshite satraps are perfecting before they get the idea such deadly craziness might work.”

“All that, before highsun?”

“Aye, and more. Come!” The Old Mage squinted at the night sky and muttered, “With luck, we’ll have time to look in on Shandril by now tomorrow.”

“If she’s not dead by then,” Storm murmured in reply, just before Elminster’s spell swirled around them both.

Irondrake Rock trembled, melted, and slid down into liquid ruin. The stars around it wavered and fell, as Shandril looked away from the spire. She blinked, and fresh tears came. Again.

Mirt knelt beside her. “Thy lad’s okay,” he said roughly, as he awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. “But milord dwarf, here …”

Shandril nodded. She was crying freely now, tears raining into her empty hands.

Mirt looked at Delg’s body, shook his head sadly, and said, “We haven’t even time to bury him. Shan, will you take him to ashes? He’d prefer that to Zhentarim spell-pestering, I’m sure.”

Shandril nodded, trying to still her tears. “H-He was trying to give me something, when he died … in his hand ….”

Mirt looked at Delg’s fist, outthrust still in the agony of death. The broken ends of a fine golden chain hung from between the tightly clenched fingers. Mirt tried to pry them open, but he could as well have clawed at the fist of an iron statue. Pitting all his strength against the cooling hand, Mirt managed to ease the dwarf’s fingers apart. Saying a silent prayer to Moradin in apology for this desecration, he slid out what lay within.

It was a silver harp pendant: the badge of a Harper, torn from around the dwarf’s neck. Mirt stared at it, open-mouthed—and his vision blurred.

Shandril looked at the shaggy old warrior sharply. A thin, wheezing noise hissed from his bent head. She realized suddenly that the old merchant was weeping.

At her shoulder, Narm asked wonderingly, “Delg was a Harper, too?”

Shandril nodded slowly. Mirt abruptly thrust the harp pendant into her hand, rose, and said gruffly, “Burn him, will ye?”

Narm reached out a hand to him, and the two men embraced in the night like scared children.

Shandril stared at them for a moment. Then she carefully set down the pendant, raised her hands, and gave Delg a warrior’s funeral, engulfing the dwarf’s body in a pyre of spellfire lit by the red anger and grief that burned inside her. Flames roared up at the stars, even as the spellfire in Shandril’s hands faltered, sputtered, and died.

They watched the dwarf burn to ashes. When all was done, Mirt said grimly, “Now, we walk—before all the rest of the Zhentarim come down on our heads here. I carry a ward that shields us against magical mind-prying and scrying. With that and thy spellfire, we can win our way on, as long as we give them no more chances to gather against us.”

“No,” Shandril said softly.

“What then, lass?” Mirt asked, peering at her in the night.

“I’m done with running away,” Shandril said in a cold, resolute voice. “We stand—and fight.”

“Here? Shan, every outlaw and prowling beast in the Stonelands heard the battle—and saw the pillar of flame ye just raised, burning Delg. Yer spellfire’s gone for now, an’ all Narm’s spells—and without Delg, I’m too old and fat to wave swords enough to defend both of ye. We must be gone from this place!”

“Yes. Gone—to Zhentil Keep.”

“Lass, are ye crazy?”

“Probably,” Shandril said, her voice very steady. “Mirt, will you guide me there?”

“Before all the gods, why?”

“My days of running and skulking are done. I’m going to make Manshoon pay for—for Delg, if it’s the only thing I do before I die. Manshoon, any other Zhentarim wizards I can find … and anyone else in that city who stands in my way. I’ll probably have to kill everyone in the whole Brotherhood to make up for Delg’s death. They should pay in blood for those soldiers in Thundarlun, too.” The eyes that looked up into Mirt’s were like cold, dark iron. “Are you with me?”

The old merchant sighed. “Aye, Shan,” he growled. “I’ll stand with ye. But I’ll do it in the morning, mind—and if ye’re in such a whirling hurry to get to Zhentil Keep, I know where we can get a teleport there, instead of stamping across the Stonelands and Daggerdale for days upon days, fighting every beast of the wilds and Zhentilar patrol.”

“Where?” Shandril’s voice was quiet and calm.

Mirt fought back a shiver when he heard it. “In Eveningstar, south and west of here. In the spells of a good lady by the name of Tessaril.”

“Another old friend?” Narm sounded on the edge of tears, but managed a hint of the wry tone he usually adopted when sparring with the Old Wolf.

Mirt bowed his head. “Aye, and I am honored she calls me so. No jests now, lad—I’m busy trying to keep yer little one, here, from throwing her life away.”

For two long, cold breaths, Shandril stared at him thin-lipped, and then managed a smile, and turned to look west.

“Find Eveningstar for me, then, and Tessaril,” she said.

Mirt’s gusty sigh of relief echoed off the rocks around. Then they all looked back at the drifting ashes that had been Delg, and there were fresh tears.

Later that night, as Mirt led the way up a narrow cleft, heading west out of the still-smoldering meadow, the Old Wolf said, “Tell me, lass: if ye’ve any plan for this attack, or if we’re all going to rush headlong to our deaths.”

“We get there, you show me Manshoon, and I burn him,” Shandril said sweetly.

“That’s it? No battle plans at all?”

“You’re my battle plans, Old Wolf,” Shandril told him.

Mirt sighed and stumped onward. The comforting weight of Delg’s battered axe rode in his hands, and he stared ahead, looking for certain moonlit crags to guide him to the best way down into Cormyr again.

In his mind, Mirt saw Delg’s dead, staring face, and muttered to himself that he really was getting too old for adventuring.

When Mirt fell for the third time, the cold mists and the lightening gloom told them dawn was not far off. The Old Wolf announced wearily that he’d fall asleep walking if they went on. Narm and Shandril both murmured exhausted agreement, and a moment later they slumped together in a little dell, sitting on the turf. Wearily the old merchant wrestled Delg’s pack from his back and felt in it for a prickly handful of kindling.

“Is that wise?” Narm was yawning as he spoke.

Mirt managed a shrug in reply—and then stiffened. The other end of the chain Delg had broken must have somehow fallen into the pack. As the Old Wolf’s arm came out with kindling, the fine gold lay curving along it. Mirt stared. Dangling from the chain was a tiny four-pointed star fashioned of some white metal, set atop a tiny black anvil. Mirt touched it, shaking his head in wonder. “He was an Ironstar dwarf,” he murmured.

“What’s that?” Narm bent forward, his voice thick with sleepiness.

“The fabled lost clan of the dwarves,” Mirt said, his weary voice echoing with awe. “The mightiest, most noble dwarven house, driven into hiding long ago. They’re a legend among the Stout Folk—and among men who delve for metal, too.” Tears came into the old adventurer’s eyes. “Ah, Delg,” he growled and shook his head again.

Shandril began to cry—and in the same instant, Narm began to snore. Mirt looked over at them. The young mage was asleep where he sat, face gray and drawn with exhaustion, eyes open and unseeing, his mouth gaping. Shandril shook, huddled into a ball, beside him.

Long, still moments passed before Mirt went to lay a comforting hand on her head. Tears streamed down the face she lifted to him, and dripped silently from her chin. Shandril’s eyes were very gray as she bit her lip to keep from weeping loudly. She looked at Narm anxiously, not wanting to wake him.

Mirt put an awkward arm around her shoulders. They shook, and Shandril whimpered once, deep in her throat, before she thrust her face against his chest and began to sob. Mirt held her tightly and said nothing. He’d done this before in his life, more than once, but still did not know any words to give her that were both comforting and true. Perhaps there were none.

He stared into the little fire he’d kindled and saw places far away and faces from long ago. The Old Wolf barely noticed when the girl in his arms fell into an exhausted sleep. He was still sitting there when the last coals died away to gray ashes and the pale dawn came creeping over the crags.