Crown of Fire

Five Old Ale in an Older Cask

“Up, lass. I know you’re exhausted, but it’s walk exhausted or meet death right soon—so let’s see you up, lass!” The dwarf’s rough voice was close by her ear, one strong hand gentle on her shoulder.

Shandril was adrift in a horrific dream: burning all the friends she’d ever known with runaway spellfire. Writhing and arching in the flames, they melted away to blackened, bare skeletons—except for their heads, screaming at her in anger and agony. She heard the rough burr of Delg’s voice from somewhere near and reached out a lazy hand. Her fingers found bristling hair, trailed through it—and caught in a tangle.

“Aaargh! My beard!” The dwarf’s angry growl was almost drowned out by a shout of laughter from Narm.

Shandril came fully awake, opening her eyes to morning light in the woods and to the angry face of Delg inches from her own, dragged there by her grip on his beard. Horrified, she let go and brought a hand up to cover her mouth in confusion. A breath later, looking at Delg’s injured expression, she used that same hand to stifle giggles.

Delg let her laugh until she reached the helpless whooping stage, then sighed, reached out one hairy hand to the front of her tunic, and pulled.

Shandril was dragged bodily up from where she lay slumped against a tree, pillowed on clumps of moss Narm had torn up and arranged for her the night before. They had left the scorched ruin of battle behind and stumbled into the night—the morning, rather—for a good long time before collapsing in a damp hollow, somewhere very dark and near the ever-chuckling sound of running water.

Shandril was a little unsteady on her feet, and the morning—even here, in the dappled shade of the trees—seemed very bright. Delg was glaring up at her, his hand on her arm.

“Can you walk?” he demanded gruffly. “Speak, lass! I need to know you’ve still got all your wits after last night.”

“I—I think so,” she managed before Narm approached.

Her husband bowed, reached a hand toward her as a lord grandly leads his lady into a dance—and in his empty palm a dozen roses appeared.

Shandril gasped in surprise, and he put them in her arms with an air of triumph. Their sweet fragrance swirled around her, and she smiled as she felt the magic that formed them surging into her, making spellfire waken and flow. The roses glowed for a moment—and then, with the sound of many tiny bells, faded away and were gone.

Shandril stared at her empty arms a little sadly. “My only regret, love, is that they’re gone if I drain them,” she said, eyes brimming.

Narm shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to go on studying that spell until I get it right.”

“Get it right?” Delg’s voice was rough with derision. “Gods, but now I know how wizards get all the lasses ….” he muttered in a low aside that could be heard at least a hundred trees away.

“Yes,” Narm replied with a smile. “I managed the ‘no thorns’ bit, but the color …”

The dwarf squinted at him. “They were red!”

Narm smiled. “I was trying for blue.” Shandril laughed delightedly, and drew his face down to hers. His arms were strong and eager, his mouth sweet—and as they embraced, Shandril heard a loud, hawking sound. Delg, standing just behind them, spat far off into the trees in disgust, startling something small into scuttling flight through the fallen forest leaves.

“There’ll be time enough for that sort o’ thing later, when we’re well away from here,” the dwarf growled. “One Zhent band found us, and others may know we’re here now, but they’re all sure to find us if we stay here, right at the end of the trail we left crashing through things in the dark last night—while the two of you cuddle and kiss and whisper sweet secrets. Come on!”

Narm lifted his head. “Sorry, Delg. We’re—we’re with you.” And they stepped out amid ferns and tree roots to begin another long march through the dim depths of the endless wood.

“We’ve got to move far today,” the dwarf said, “and not be found by anyone or anything. With no spellfire and your best spells gone, lad, we can’t risk any fights. Since your lady’s got such a dainty stomach of mornings, I suggest we do without eating until around highsun … but drink deep at this stream and fill all our skins while I keep watch.”

Narm and Shandril drank, washed, filled their skins, and went off into the bushes. The dwarf meanwhile kept alert, axe in hand as he trotted around, peering suspiciously into the trees.

Shandril took off the spare robe Narm had lent her last night. A few blackened scraps—all that was left of her own clothes—still clung to her here and there. She brushed them off, sighing, and rummaged in her ever-lighter pack.

When she swung the pack onto her shoulder, she was wearing her last intact clothes, inherited when she joined the Company of the Bright Spear—the much-patched homespun tunic and breeches of a down-on-his-luck thief. That bold first step into adventure seemed a long time ago now.

“Why so tense?” Narm asked, coming up beside Delg. “I haven’t seen any Zhents about—and I’ve looked as far off as I can, too.”

“Eyes, lad,” the dwarf growled up at him. “I can feel them, every moment. We’re being watched, again.”

“Should I tell Shan?” Narm asked quietly.

“Not just after she’s been off in the bushes, lad,” the dwarf said, looking critically at the blemishes along the edge of his axe-blade. That Zhent idiot had certainly managed to bring it down on a lot of stones last night. “But soon; I don’t want her walking carefree.”

Shandril ran despairing fingers through her hair as she came toward them. “Oh, for a bath! I stink!”

“We all do, lass,” the dwarf told her gravely. “All the easier for dogs to find us, if they’ve got any more with them.”

“Gods,” Shandril said, face paling, “don’t remind me.”

“No, no,” Narm said, with feeling. “Don’t remind me. I can still feel those teeth.”

Shandril remembered all too vividly, retched, and turned hastily away. They watched her shoulders shake for a moment, and Narm turned to Delg with a sigh.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he said.

“Nay, lad—yon’s your handiwork. Grab her, now, and let’s be on our way. We haven’t time for foolishness.”

“Foolishness?” Shandril’s voice was weak but indignant, her face the color of old bone as she rose from her knees.

The dwarf glared at her. “Aye, foolishness. You’ve several days’ march of woods to be sick in—you don’t have to stop each time you feel ill. On!”

She glared back at him, took a deep breath, wiped her mouth clean, and went on.

“What was that?”

“The sound of your own big feet, Othrogh,” the Zhent swordmaster muttered. “Quiet, now—the maid could be the other side of that next tree.”

The half-orc sniffed the air, then shook his head with an emphatic grunt. “No. I’d smell her.”

Around him, the other members of the patrol rolled their eyes, made various faces, and sighed. Swordmaster Cleuvus looked at Othrogh sourly and said, “Just keep your lips shut for awhile, hey? They gave us all the same orders—and you heard ’em as well as I did.” He looked up. “The rest of you,” he added shortly, “spread out—now! She hurls fire, remember? If you all crowd together under the same tree like that, how could she miss?”

There were various grumbles and dark looks; he knew they’d only gathered to hear him berate Othrogh—and they knew he knew. Cleuvus grinned. Ah, well, swordmasters were never loved. Except when they went to town with coins enough to hire—

He was still thinking such vivid, pleasant thoughts when the tree beside him grew a stout arm with a mace at the end of it and rudely crushed the back of his head in. Cleuvus fell on his face like a thrown stone, thinking of love forever.

“Skulk through the forest, would ye? Wear dark armor that offends mine eyes, would ye? Oh, the crimes! The crimes!” The voice rose in mock anguish amongst the startled gasps of the Zhents, and its owner lumbered into their midst—and bowed.

“Rathan Thentraver, Knight of Myth Drannor, at thy service. Looking for little girls in the forest, are we? Well, if ye find any, be so good as t—”

“Get him!” The eldest Zhent snarled, and swords flashed in a sudden rush of dark armor.

A man dropped heavily, cursed—and then gurgled and fell silent. The object he’d tripped over rose, dusted himself off, and then calmly glided forward to bury his bloodied dagger in the back,of another warrior.

Torm of the Knights grinned at his comrade Rathan across the tumult of clashing weapons, then said, “Now is that nice? You could’ve waited for me to get some blood. You could have let Torm—much thinner, handsomer, and younger than a certain priest of Tymora—strike first! You could have busied yourself at some ritual or other; the one where you wear ladies’ underthings and pretend to be a paladin, perhaps—but oh, no! The clarion call of battle was too strong. The—”

He broke off to duck frantically aside as two Zhent blades crossed in the space where the knight’s face had been a moment earlier.

Puffing, Rathan smashed his way through another Zhent’s guard, shattering the sword raised against him. As the man fell, spraying blood from his crushed face all over the knight’s knees, Rathan said, “Oh, aye—let ye strike first and grab all the glory. Betray the commandments of Lady Luck to dare all and leave my life to chance. Let a clever-tongued thief go ahead of a respected, dignified—nay, even rotund—pillar of whatever community I’m currently passing through. Not by the Lady’s laughter! When the bards sing ballads of this day, when two knights went up against almost a dozen Zhent sword-swingers in the forest, ’tis Rathan whose deeds will awe. Rathan who’ll get the beauteous maiden as his reward. Rathan who’ll—”

“Take his usual pratfall,” Torm put in, his blade finding the throat of the Zhent whose frantic swing had made Rathan stumble back hastily. The fat priest tripped over a tree root and sat down heavily. “Oww!” he complained as the ground shook.

For their next few breaths, the knights were too busy slaying the last few Zhentilar to notice that the tree whose root had felled Rathan shook now in soundless laughter. Two golden eyes high on its trunk watched the last blood spilled, and then closed, just as Torm leaned against the bark below them, breathing hard, and said, “Well, still no sign of what we seek—how many Zhents is that, now?”

“Thirty-three,” Rathan’s voice came back gloomily to him from the other side of the tree. “Why do they always come along just when I need to relieve myself? Tymora, if ye’re listening—tell me that!”

The day passed in continuous plodding travel—one weary stride after another, slipping and ducking and scrambling through, around, and over trees—fallen trees, leaning trees, and gnarled, tangled, growing-in-all-directions trees, damp leaf-mold slippery under their feet. Here and there pale brown mushrooms the size of halflings’ heads rose up in clumps, and rotting stumps held lush green cushions of moss.

Shandril hadn’t thought she could ever tire of trees—but then, she’d never thought she’d see so many trees in her life, let alone in one day. These weren’t the beautiful giants of the Elven Court; Hullack Forest was dark and dense and damp, its trees grown thick together.

The three travelers felt like unwelcome intruders; none of them had wanted to stop at highsun to eat. They’d hastened on, instead, searching for higher ground and a clearing where they could camp.

The sun had sunk low by the time the ground began rising again. Here and there, rocks showed through the moss and the fungi-cloaked wreckage of fallen trees. Ravines and gullies appeared more often, and the black pools of standing water were smaller and fewer. As the sun slipped to a last, low red ribbon under the trees, the weary travelers’ hearts rose. They were climbing sharply at last.

“Delg,” Narm said excitedly from behind the dwarf as they slipped and clambered upward, Shandril between them, “some of these rocks have been cut and dressed. Look: straight edges on this one—this must be some sort of ruin.”

“You don’t say,” the dwarf said softly. “It wouldn’t surprise you overmuch, I suppose, if I told you I’d noticed a thing or two about these rocks myself ….”

The dwarf’s voice died away in wonder as they came out into a height of crumbling stone arches, walls, and broken stairs. Shattered pillars reached like jagged fingers up at the twilight sky. Selûne shone faintly just above the horizon as night came down on them.

“Well, here we are for the night, whatever your likings,” Delg said, peering all around with keen interest. “This is old, old indeed—and not dwarven nor yet elven, either. I’ll have a look at this in morning light …. I can tell the age of the stonework better then.”

“For now,” Narm put in firmly, looking at the dark trees behind them, “we’d better find a corner of this we can defend, or we may not live to see the morn.”

Delg sighed. “Shandril,” he said plaintively, “you had a thousand thousand dalesmen to choose from after—after the company fell. Did you have to choose a whiner and a worrier?”

Shandril sighed right back. “Delg,” she said mildly, “I love this man. Give him at least the respect you’d give a dwarf of his age, will you?”

“I am, Lady. I am,” Delg replied, and they saw his grinning teeth flash in the growing moonlight. He lurched over to Narm and clapped him low on the back, hard enough to send the young wizard stumbling ahead helplessly.

“Forgive my manner, lad. I don’t mean most of it—much. Your lady can tell you how it was in the company. We were swordmates together—and, mind you, she survived it, then. Ferostil was nastier than ever I was, and Rymel more the prankster, too. If mere words are enough to hurt you, lad, grow some armor speedily; it doesn’t get any easier on the ears as you get older.”

“My thanks, Delg,” Narm said shortly, “but I’d be happier if you could tell me what that is.”

“What, lad?” Delg’s axe glinted in the moonlight.

“That thing, there!” Narm said fiercely, pointing. Far away across tumbled arches and broken rubble, something dark and winged seemed to both fly and to flow over the stone beneath it, like some sort of giant black snake. A snake with batlike wings, eyes like glimmering rubies, and a cruel snout. It was coming toward them, not hurrying, as though dinner seldom escaped it.

“Shandril!” Narm said commandingly. “Hold still, and I’ll cast my light spell.” He lowered his voice, and added, “It’s my last—to feed your spellfire ….Ready?”

Shandril nodded, and Narm hurried through the gestures of casting the spell as the dwarf advanced to stand as foreguard, hefting his axe. “Battle again, is it?” he muttered. “Then let it come! Clanggedin be with me and guide my axe.”

Narm’s casting ended as the winged thing rose up into the air before them, passing over Delg’s reaching axe. No magical radiance appeared beneath Narm’s hands, which rested on Shandril’s neck. She had willed the light into her, drawing the tingling energy in through the bare skin of her neck. Flames danced briefly in her eyes as she waved him away, then looked up to face the winged horror directly.

It loomed above her. Dark and terrible, its leathery wings beat in eerie silence, its bony jaws spread wide, its red glowing eyes met hers. “Turn back,” Shandril said, “and we will not harm you. Turn back!”

Above the glowing crystal ball, a light feminine voice chuckled. “They do talk a lot, these fools. Always threatening and declaiming grandly—when they’re not pleading, that is.”

“True, Mairara,” came an older female voice in answer. “Yet I fear this servant creature will fail us as all the others have done.”

Gathlarue set her goblet down on the tabletop and stared into the crystal ball that had risen to float just above it. In its curved depths they both beheld the scene in the ruins. Both stared so intently into the globe that neither noticed as one leg of their table grew a silent, bearded smile for an instant, ere a quiet wisp of a shadow rose from it and slipped away.

In deadly silence, the dark horror folded its wings and plunged down on Shandril. Narm cried out and drew his dagger, and Delg’s axe rose as he raced in to swing at the flank of the descending menace. But there was a sudden flash and rolling roar of flame.

While backing toward a fallen stone wall, Shandril had hurled fire into the beast’s open mouth.

The man and the dwarf both staggered hastily back from the rush of flame as the monster, covered with it, perished in writhing tatters of smoking flesh. It gave off a horrible smell. With mixed awe and satisfaction, Narm and Delg watched for a moment while it shriveled and burned. Then they heard a queer choking sound from behind the ruined wall.

In three bounds Narm was around the corner, heart in his mouth. His wife knelt on the stones. Shandril shook her head, waving him feebly away. She was being thoroughly and wretchedly sick. “The smell,” she gasped. “Gods, how vile!”

“Vile, indeed,” said a new voice from beyond her. “Were I younger and less—’hem—stout of stomach, I’d be doing that too. Which should serve ye as a warning, girl, not to be hurling flames about at just everything that moves. Ye’ll burn up something ye value, one o’ these days. Phew! Come away, come away, all of ye—that thing smells as if it did nothing but roll in dung and eat dead things.”

“Who,” Delg and Narm demanded together, “are you?”

The stout, dark figure beyond Shandril drew something from its belt—a dagger whose blade glowed with blue fire in the night. Narm stepped quickly in front of Shandril, raising his own dagger, but the man shook his head and brandished the glowing blade to serve as a light.

Its radiance shone down on him, illuminating the grizzled, scarred, and yet somehow good-natured face of a burly man clad in flopping, food-stained leather armor. Fierce brows and mustaches gleamed gray-white on his large and weather-stained face. Huge swash-boots flapped beneath an ample paunch as he stepped forward, handed the glowing dagger to Narm—who juggled it gingerly—then swept around the young mage and grandly offered his hand to Shandril to help her rise.

Warily she avoided it, coming to her feet in a crouch, facing him. “Yes,” she said, fire winking in her eyes, “who are you, sir?”

The battered, leonine face wagged sadly from side to side. “An’ here I thought I was famous at last, over at least the lands of all the North. Ah, well.”

He drew back from Shandril, plucked his dagger deftly from Narm’s grasp, and struck a heroic pose, holding the dagger forth as though it were a great battle-sword. “I am Mirt, called the Moneylender, of Waterdeep. Men once called me—’hem—Mirt the Merciless. Some folk call me the Old Wolf.”

Delg eyed the stout man sourly. “I am Delg, of the dwarves.” It was a gentle dwarven insult, implying that the speaker did not trust the one he addressed enough to furnish his last name.

Mirt bowed in reply, and made a quick, complex sign with one hand.

Delg’s eyes widened. “So,” he said with new respect, “you have known others of my race as friends, before. Well met, stout one. What brings you here—to the depths of this forest, and alone?”

“Well met, short one,” Mirt replied easily. “I like to pick mushrooms this time of year, and Hullack Forest seemed a nice enough place—quiet an’ all, until spellfire started roaring about all over the place, and—well, ne’er mind. Come back to my camp, all of ye, and we can swap stories for a bit. Until dawn, say …”

“A moment,” Narm said quietly. “Delg’s question is a fair one, sir. Before we follow you into gods know what, tell us how you come to be here. We are—suspicious folk, these days. Everyone and everything in Faerûn seems eager to kill us.”

“Ye, too?” Mirt replied mildly, raising his brows. “’Tis a plague, it seems. They’re always trying to kill me, too.”

Narm waited. A breath of silence passed, and Shandril quite deliberately climbed up a ragged edge of stone wall to stand above them. She glanced quickly all around, and then stood facing the man who called himself Mirt, one hand raised. Fire licked along her fingers for a moment.

The stout man watched her, nodded as if in acknowledgment of power, and then turned back to the young mage and smiled winningly. “Well, Narm Tamaraith, ye’re right.”

Narm frowned. How did this man know his name?

He opened his mouth to ask just that, but the stout man waved him to silence, saying, “Aye, it’s rude of me not to congratulate ye on your wise marriage to Shandril Shessair right off, and set ye three at ease.”

Mirt smiled up at Shandril and added, “The bride is as beautiful as I’ve been told, and no mistake. Well met, all of ye.” He bowed again, various daggers and scabbards about his belt jangling and ringing, and smoothed his mustaches with broad, hairy fingers.

“I’ve awaited ye here, in these long-desolate ruins of Tethgard—there’s a tale I’ll have to tell ye some time—because a friend told me ye’d be along, soon, and probably in need of aid. When young folk go blundering about the countryside …”

Delg rolled his eyes. “All right,” he broke in, “we may as well be finding your camp. I can see there’re some good tales to be heard. You wouldn’t know a certain mage called Elminster, would you?”

“Or a lady named Storm?” Shandril asked softly.

Mirt chuckled and stepped forward to hand her lightly down from her rocky height. “As it happens, both those names belong to friends of mine,” he rumbled. “Convenient, aye?” He passed his dagger to Narm again. “Here, lad—ye hold the light; then perhaps ye can stop looking so suspiciously at me, like I’m aching to put it in yer lady’s breast the moment yer back is turned. There is something I was given to show ye ….”

He pulled off a worn leather gauntlet. They saw a brass ring around one of the man’s fingers and a fine chain encircling his thick, hairy wrist. Something small gleamed as it dangled from the chain: a silver harp. Then it all vanished again beneath the dirty leather; its owner winked and turned with a rolling gait to lead the way past a pile of tumbled stones and into the night.

“You know we have enemies?” Shandril asked him. “Some, I must tell you, are powerful indeed. Their magic—”

Mirt chuckled. “Aye, aye, make me tremble in my boots, girl. Ye’ve run into those Zhentarim snakes, as do all in the North sooner or later, and some of the crazed-wits that every land in Faerûn is home to; the Cult of the Dragon, in yer case. Worry not. The worst they can do is kill ye.” He shrugged. “Besides, their arts cannot spy on us or find us while ye stay close to me. I’ve magic of my own—a little—that I got from a grateful mage long, long ago. It cloaks me, she said, from scrying and probings of the mind, and suchlike. So we can all sing songs and have too much to drink well into the morning.”

“Stout one,” Delg murmured, “if you keep on like this, it will be morning.”

Mirt rolled his eyes in silent reply and waved at them to accompany him. They followed the stout, wheezing old adventurer down into a little gully in the rocks, where several dark doorways opened out of crumbling walls—the cellars of now-vanished buildings. Mirt shambled toward one opening.

Shandril yawned, stumbled, and almost fell. Narm rushed to hold her up and found her swaying with weariness, almost asleep on her feet.

Mirt wheezed up close to them, peered into Shandril’s sleepy face, and sighed. “The problem with ladies, lad,” he remarked to Narm, “is that they take all the fun out o’ things. After, that is, they’ve put most of the fun into things, I grant.”

He lurched on into the darkness. “Mind yer step, now. The best adventures begin when yer boots step proper and sure along some path or other to glory ….”

When Shandril opened her heavy, sleep-encrusted eyes again, the light told her that it was late afternoon. She sat up with a start, fearing that something had gone very wrong. They should have been up and away from here at the first light of morning. Narm’s cloak fell from her; underneath it, she wore only her breeches.

Narm smiled reassuringly at her from nearby, where he sat in the arch of an old, ruined stone window, his spellbook on his lap.

“What happened?” she demanded to know, pulling on her boots and getting up. Where was her tunic?

“You needed sleep—sleep you didn’t get enough of, after all your fire-hurling. So we let you sleep. Delg’s been fishing most of the day in some pools at the other end of the ruins.”

Shandril strode to him. “Fishing?”

“Aye—he said he wanted to be done before you were ready to bathe in the same water.” Narm grinned—and then ducked aside to get his spellbook out of the way of her friendly fists.

She pummeled him playfully, until he caught her wrists. They rolled over, chuckling and straining to slap and tickle each other—until their struggles took them over the sill of the window, to a hard and graceless landing on the turf below.

Delg stumped toward them in dripping triumph, gleaming fish gasping and flapping in both hands. He raised an eloquent eyebrow.

Shandril met his gaze, blushed, and said, “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, no,” Mirt said in jolly derision, from behind the dwarf. “Of course not …”

Shandril scrambled to her feet. “Well, it’s not,” she said indignantly and marched back to where she’d lain. She turned, a dangerous look in her eye, and stood with hands on hips to glare at them all. “What have you done with my tunic?”

Then she met Mirt’s appraising eyes, blushed, and covered herself with her arms. Delg kept his eyes carefully on hers, and said, “It’s drying, on the rocks yonder. It took me awhile to find the right plants to scrub your smell out of it with.”

“My smell?” Shandril sighed; she just didn’t have any more energy left to be indignant. She turned to snatch up Narm’s cloak—but stopped, staring.

“Look,” she said in tones of wonder, then reached out a hand.

“Don’t!” Delg flung his fish down and shoved her roughly aside. “In strange places, girl, don’t reach for things barehanded.”

Fast as the dwarf was, Mirt was faster. The fat merchant strode around them both, boots flapping, and plucked up what had caught Shandril’s eye. It had lain among the stones beside where her head had been the night through. They all saw it then—a teardrop-shaped gem, smooth and hard and iridescent, like the still-wet scales of the fish Delg had dropped in his haste to stop Shandril. It winked and sparkled in Mirt’s hand.

As he turned it, the colors in the heart of the gem mirrored the rainbow and seemed to flash and swirl like liquid in a glass goblet. “My, but it’s a beautiful thing,” the fat man said softly. “The gods must have left it here for ye to find, lass.”

He held it out toward her; Delg gave a hoarse exclamation and grabbed it from him. “Look!” One stubby finger pointed at a tiny, exquisite engraving on the curving flank of the stone: a harp between the points of a crescent moon, with four stars spaced around. “The sign of the Harpers!”

Shandril reached for it, and he laid it gently in her cupped hands.

“Aye, keep it, lass—it cannot be a bad thing.” The dwarf turned to rake Mirt with a keen look. “D’you know what sort of gem it is?”

The fat man nodded. “Aye. A rogue stone.”

The dwarf nodded, eyeing him suspiciously. “I wonder how it came to be here?” he asked.

Mirt shrugged, smiled slightly, and looked up at the sky. “The gods work in strange ways, their wisdom hidden from us ’til after they’re done,” he quoted, in the manner of a pompous priest.

Narm thought Delg would bristle at that hoary old saying, but the dwarf only smiled and said, “Keep that stone safe, lass—and not worn openly, for all to see. You’d best leave it with your lad while you wash—if you go down with him now, we’ll have these fish ready when you’re done.”

Shandril smiled happily and did as she was bid.

The fire crackled, dying to hot red-glowing coals. Delg poked at it, and then went to his pack, which lay among the rocks. Well back from the coals, Narm sat beside a small candle-lamp, intent on his spellbook. Mirt stood watch somewhere off in the darkness.

Shandril, comfortable for the first time in what seemed like days, lay at ease in the warmth of the fire. No spellfire roiled or tingled within her; she was at peace with the world. She looked up as Delg bent over her—and sighed at his intent expression. She could hardly believe she’d once been hungry for adventure; now it seemed as if it would never let her alone.

“Lass,” the dwarf said in low tones, unwrapping dark cloth from something he’d dredged out of his pack. “We need you to have spellfire. Touch this.”

Wondering, Shandril peered at what he held. It was long, massive, and black—a dwarven war hammer. It looked ancient, made for brutal killing. From the deep cracks running across it and the bands of beaten metal that held it together, it looked to have seen use in some mighty battles. Awed, Shandril laid a finger on it to trace a curving crack—and felt the tingling of magic.

She looked up at Delg. “Oh, no. Delg, I couldn’t.” He looked back at her, his intent expression unchanged. “It must be old, and precious to you,” Shandril added softly. “I’ve never seen it, not in all the days since you first came to the inn with the company.”

“It’s a lump of forged metal, lass—my friends are far more precious to me than things I can make, and make again.”

“You made this?”

“No—’tis ancient, lass; a war hammer of the Ironstar clan. It’s about the only magic I have left.”

Shandril looked at him, shocked. “I can’t, Delg! Not your only magic—it must have cost you dearly.”

Delg put a hand on hers. “Do you … are you my friend, Shan?” He seemed to find the words difficult.

Shandril reached out a hand to stroke his bearded jaw. “Of course, Delg. You know that.” Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed his grizzled cheek.

The dwarf harrumphed and shifted on his haunches. “Then, please, Shan—take the magic out o’ this old thing … I’ve a bad feeling that we’ll all be needing it, right soon now. Please?”

Reluctantly, staring into his beseeching eyes, Shandril grasped the cold, heavy head of the war hammer and pulled at its magic with her will, feeling the tingling flow begin.

At that moment, a twig snapped in the woods, not far away. Narm’s head jerked up, and he threw down his spellbook to peer into the trees.

Delg closed Shandril’s hands firmly around the war hammer and told her, “Keep on at it, lass!” Then he rose, took two rapid, gliding steps to where his axe was propped against a rock, and swung it up to the ready.

The attackers came in a rush once they saw the camp alert: a score or so of Zhentilar warriors, nets and clubs in their hands.

Delg looked around and cursed bitterly. Their fat, wheezing host was nowhere to be seen.

“So I let my guard drop for once. Just once!” he snarled as the Zhents rushed down upon them. “Get your back against a rock, lad! Over here, where my axe can guard you!”

Narm had no time to rush across to him, even if he’d wanted to; a Zhent swung a club at his face in the next instant. The young mage ducked coolly, and two pulses of light burst from his hand into the face of the Zhent, who staggered, roared, and clutched at unseeing eyes. An instant later, Narm’s dagger was in his throat.

As the Zhent toppled, Narm sprang away—right into the folds of a weighted net, backed up by a flurry of clubs. He went down without a sound.

Delg had time for no more than a glance at the young mage. His axe flashed as fast as his strong shoulders could swing it, but height made it hard for him to cut the nets—nets that were settling over him from above by twos and threes. He was soon entangled. Then the net-hurlers drew the net ropes taut with their own great weight and reach. The dwarf was dragged down.

Shandril dropped the crumbling war hammer—it had been old, its enchantments all that still held it together—and rose from behind where Delg was struggling. Flames leapt and raged in her eyes.

The men who hauled on the nets that held Delg down were only two paces away. Without a word she flung herself into them, letting spellfire rage from her hands and mouth. She crashed bruisingly against armor, heard men snarl and then shriek amid the rising, roaring flames—and then they fell silent.

Shandril drew the flames back into herself, and looked down at the blackened, smoking corpses. Beside her, Delg was fighting his way free of the scorched remnants of webbing as the next wave of Zhentilar rushed at them.

Shandril hurled spellfire again—ragged and faltering fire. She swallowed grimly and threw out one hand. Fire streaked from it to lash the Zhents bending over Narm. They staggered and fell, shouting hoarsely amid raging flames. Shandril raised her other hand to burn the warriors charging at her from the edge of the clearing. A moment later, however, they laughed in triumph as her spellfire rushed outward, then sputtered and died away in their faces.

She saw the cause: it came out of the night in front of the warriors, a band of utter darkness like a fence or an impossibly wide shield—a black band floating before them as they came. Just behind the warriors trotted a man in robes—a Zhentarim wizard!—with triumph shining in his dark eyes.

Shandril snarled and lashed out at their feet with spellfire, aiming below the dark band. The wizard hastily lowered his creation—but he was too slow to save the feet of one running Zhentilar. Spellfire blasted, and the man’s boots vanished. With a shriek of agony, the charging warrior toppled forward into the darkness and was gone, his cry cut off suddenly. As the wall of darkness advanced, Shandril could see the remains of the man, twitching on the ground—two trunkless, footless legs.

Shandril gasped in horror—and then let her hands fall to her sides as the band of darkness came to a halt an arm’s stretch away, right above the still-struggling form of Delg.

“On your knees, wench—or he dies!” The Zhentarim’s voice was coldly triumphant.

Shandril looked both ways along the band. It fenced her in against the rocky remnant of an ancient wall, and from only feet away, a dozen or more Zhentilar warriors grinned at her, clubs raised.

She sank down, bitter despair flooding her mouth. The wizard snapped his fingers, and hurled clubs were suddenly crashing in on her from all sides, even before the magical darkness winked out and was gone …